LSSI: Library Services That Suck Immensely

Just in case it isn't clear: yeah, LSSI, I'm talking 'bout you. These are fightin' words.

I don't do a lot of blogging about my profession. Possibly this stems from a desire to not sound too boring, or maybe it's just because I want to leave work at work. But this is something I feel very passionately about, and I want to do my bit to fight it, so there.

Outsourcing is a library issue, too. No, we don't send our libraries to India, but a lot of libraries are starting to outsource their services and management to outside agencies. One of the big ones is LSSI, Library Systems and Services, Inc., but that is really misleading, and I think LSSI is more accurately represented as Library Services that Suck Immensely.

See, here's the thing: a lot of libraries (or counties, or cities) end up contracting with LSSI because it saves them money. And in these days when tax dollars are as grudgingly given as an honest statement from a politician, money talks. But here's the really obvious thing: YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. And when you're paying less, you are going to get shitty services. I will concede that maybe there's some good to them, but I haven't heard a lot of it. I will also concede that maybe I'm only hearing the evil side, and that it is not entirely accurate, but what I can tell is that collection development is taken away from the local libraries, that they pay their employees disgraceful wages, and that many of the employees they hire to fill the librarian duties are not degreed librarians. This is dangerous to the new generation of librarians coming out of grad school--those of us who have invested thousands of dollars in our educations might find 10 years down the road that our degrees are rendered irrelevant, make us too expensive, and that there might no longer be a place for us. This is dangerous to our profession, because the people that are filling the roles of librarians are not, will not be degreed librarians, and the library services that these staff provide will not be equal to those that librarians offer. Remember, taxpayers and government officials, you get what you pay for. If you want to do something smart with the tax money you have, invest it wisely--don't throw it away on an outsourcing agency that will provide library sources that suck immensely, and that will undermine the vital and important role that libraries continue to play in society.
According to LSSI's website, they claim that the ALA conducted research and concluded that "….the evidence supports the conclusion that outsourcing has been an effective managerial tool, and when used carefully and judiciously it has resulted in enhanced library services and improved library management."

This disturbs me for mainly one reason: it's the ALA who has been crying for librarians for the past ten years, begging young college graduates to get a Master's in Library Science and join a thriving profession. And yet if LSSI's portrayal is accurate, the ALA is signing its name to something that will be the death warrant of degreed librarians, and that means tells me that either the ALA is trying to play every side to serve itself, or that they are duping us. Which do you think?

Any librarians out there who might be reading this blog (there might be what? 2 of you?) please respond here. Give me feedback. Educate me, inform me, say what you think about LSSI and outsourcing. Start talking!

It Is What It Is...

Another year has passed.

Today was the 2-year mark. Today, 2 years ago, the man I thought would one day be my husband broke my heart in a very public place. In the middle of the Student Union, I fell apart and watched, helplessly, as my boyfriend took a sledgehammer to all that I had worked for, hoped for. Of course, in hindsight I can see that both he and I had been sledge-hammering the relationship for a good long while, but I was blind to it at the time.

So, it was 2 ygpears ago today. 2 years ago, I watched Michael get up and start to leave the student union. I got up, too.

"Where are you going?" he asked me.

"I'm going to follow you," I answered.

"Why?"

"Because that's what I've always done."

And indeed, I followed him out of the student union, down the street, stumbling along, not really seeing. He was on his way to the apartment complex where all his friends lived. Outside the apartment, he turned to me. "You can't come in."

"Why not?"

"You're not welcome there."

Cruel words, but perhaps I needed to hear them. Perhaps it took cruelty to penetrate my shocked brain and make me realize that it was over.

That was 2 years ago today. And then I stumbled home and spent the next 12 hours on the futon, waiting for Michael to come home. He never did. Instead, everyone who loved me called me, tried to help me. Finally, my friend Eric simply came over and took me to his home.

It would be nice if, during moments of awfulness and angst and over-blown despair, when we are suicidal and numb with misery, we could look forward and see a future day in our lives, in which the present pain has simply become a bad memory, and not the crippling entity that it is at that moment. It would have been nice to have a vision of the future, to see me two years down the road (now), house-sitting for friends, living in Southern California, working at a job that I love, planning to move to Palm Springs, having the courage to love again. It would be so nice if I could have had that vision to comfort me as I sat there in Indiana and truly believed that my life was over.

Every heartbreak seems to be the worst, the most wretched. And when we recover, we remember the pain, but in a muted way, much like childbirth, and think we can handle it again in the future. And then when the next heartache comes, you forget for a while how resiliant and brave you can be.

Well, now I am in between heartbreaks. But I remember the last one, I remember Indiana and the life I had there, and I look around at the life I have built here, and I remind myself:

It is possible to rejoice in where you are in your life, but mourn how you got there.

Is There a Name for This Kind of Phobia?

I will be the first to admit it. I'm superstitious.

Last month, my City threw a big ol' Christmas Winter Holiday dinner. I brought Arash along for it, and donned a lovely red dress. I got a lot of compliments on it--and my response?

"Thank you. But stay away from it. It's cursed."

Each time, the person to whom I was speaking would give me a querying look, an uneasy smile, before inching away from that whacky weird new reference librarian. One did ask why, but my answer, I'm sure, left much to the imagination: "The last time I wore this to a work dinner party, my life went to crap shortly thereafter."

So stay away, folks, that dress is cursed.

The work dinner party of which I spoke? The Wooden and McLaughlin Law Firm Christmas Dinner, in December of 2005. I scoured stores during Thanksgiving break, looking for just the right gown to set the tone for the first of many, many Christmas parties with these people. And I found it, a lovely gown, flared and swishing from the hips down, a beautiful holly red that just slipped onto my body and conformed to my curves in the best possible way. So I bought it, and some silver strappy heels, and wore it to the Christmas dinner. It was bitterly cold in Indianapolis that night, but I didn't care. The chill just made my heart race all the more excitedly, in anticipation of the many cold, cozy winters in store for Michael and me.

On the way home, we drove down Meridian Street, past all the grand old mansions, down to the Circle, where the war monument was all lit up against the black, vast Midwestern sky. I was literally bouncing in my seat with excitement, with glee. So many happy years ahead, prosperous years to be spent there in Indiana.

And then? 6 weeks later, at the end of January, I met up with Michael in the Student Union one Friday afternoon; I wanted his help finding some computer software at the bookstore. When we met up, he suggested we take a stroll through the Union. He paused outside the Burger King. "You want anything?"

I said no, and figured we would resume our walk, but to my surprise, Michael sat down there, right outside the Burger King. "We need to talk about something."

And that was the afternoon all my dreams turned to ashes. Cry cry wah blah cry cry, the end. Or the beginning. Or both.

So? Beware of that dress, it's cursed.

And now, almost two years later, I am feeling a little nervous. For I am beset with a sinus infection, just like I had in the weeks coming up to that horrible January afternoon. I am remembering our Caribbean trip that we went on just three weeks before. These little similarities (so minor!) are making me very superstitious and nervous. It's just the time of the year...I am coming up on the two year mark, and completely aside from "Holy shit! How has it been two years?" there's not a lot I can say about it. The trauma is still there, yes. When I remember that time too often, or for too long, I have the very strong urge to hide under the bed. Real mature. Unresolved trauma, perhaps?

Really, there's very little to say other than this: Men, please, DO NOT dump your girls in a public area. That's just not cool.

And women, if they do dump you in the Student Union, it's okay not to forgive them. It's nice if you can, but not mandatory. Just don't hide under the bed.

Freaky Friday

So, the most interesting thing happened at work today. The Internets died.

No kidding! I've often wondered what would happen if the Internets broke down while I was at work--in fact, earlier this week I was talking to the personnel director about it, and then, whoops! No Internets. I'm not sure we'll have it tomorrow, either.

And did the earth stop spinning? Did we all huddle into a corner and beg for Mommy? Were there mass riots? Did we become completely incompetent reference librarians? The answer to all of this is, of course, no. Some patrons got a little grumpy when they realized that they could not get their internet fix, but that was all. Thank goodness, our workflows program was still working, so we could at least look up books in our collection for the patrons, so we were not completely crippled. Honestly, though, I'm a little ambivalent. I LOVE the Internet, and cell phones, and technology, but it really scares me how deeply dependent we are on technology. I always ask the reference librarians with whom I work, "Okay, if you had gotten such-and-such a question fifteen years ago, how would you have answered it? What sources would you have consulted?" I envy my colleagues the years of reference experience they had without being able to rely on the Internet; I envy them the resourcefulness and knowledge they cultivated that I suspect that I, and most other librarians of my generation, completely lack. So a part of me actually rejoiced (very quietly) when the Internets went away. It was a great excuse for me to be thrown back on my own resources and print-knowledge. Of course, I had a lot of things working in my favor: our workflows program was still running, I was working with a seasoned and very good-natured librarian, and business slowed down A LOT once people realized the Internet gnomes were striking, and so there weren't a lot of demands or pressures.

But who knows? Tomorrow's another day, and the Internets might still be down. Either way, it's all good...but then, the patrons might not see it like that. Maybe I should don a kevlar vest, just in case!

Last Night I Dreamt I Went to Manderly Again...

Okay, maybe not Manderley. More like Indiana-ley. It was a sad dream; in it I was still living in Indiana, as I was in 2006, and I was packing up to leave for California. It was one of those weirdo dreams when things were very complicated--I didn't have a job in California, in my dream, but I was moving there anyway. And then it occurred to me: Why the hell would I want to move to California? Doing that would be a very bad idea.

I was basically re-living the reluctance, the dread, the unhappiness that I experienced before I moved out here in June of '06. That was a move I absolutely did not want to make, and I think a part of me tried to delay it as much as possible. A part of me was immersed in misery, when I prepared for that move. It was a time filled with partings, and it was a time that I don't like to think on too much. I loved my time in Indianapolis--I had my dream life there after all, if only for three or four weeks--but it was clouded by California looming overhead. I don't like remembering it--so why the heck did I have to dream about it? Sometimes dreams are more vivid than memories, and more painful too.

Listening to a Prophet

The first time I heard of Kahlil Gibran and The Prophet, I was eighteen years old. I was flirting with this boy, Tommy. Tommy Gibran was his name, although his birth name was Kahlil Gibran. My father read The Prophet, Tommy said, he read The Prophet and it changed his life. So he changed his name to Kahlil Gibran and named me, his son, the same. But I go by Tommy.

I nodded, and briefly wondered what The Prophet was about, that it could be so life-changing. And then I focused on Tommy again, and flirting. In hindsight, I wish I spent less time flirting--Tommy ended up being an AWFUL kisser--and more time grilling hiim on this Prophet thing. But then, I am not sure Tommy would have known much more about it. He was a punk, Tommy was, and I am fairly sure he was involved in some insurance scam.

Anyway. The Prophet.

I have encountered that author and that title more, now that I have entered my educated, librarian years. So I finally checked it out yesterday, and have begun to read it. I'm not sure what to expect; I think maybe on some level I am looking for some sort of life-altering experience. But I am older now, and I think with maturity comes a certain unflappability, a certain stability that prevents you from being easily swayed by persuasive arguments. Maybe common sense, experience, and maturity are what settle us, make us more sedate, less fired up. But I still want to be open to at least the possibility of life-altering experiences...let's see what The Prophet can do for me. It's got to be more life-altering than Tommy's kissing style!

Greetings to the New Year! It's Going to Be Fabulous!

As always, a day late and a dollar short. But better late than never.

Bring it on, 2008! I will MAKE you be an awesome year. I shall beat you into submitting to my goals, plans, ambitions, and wishes. Because I have a Plan. And yes, we all know that life is what happens when you make plans, but nevertheless...

I do have a few New Years' resolutions, sure, but I think that those are a little tricky. They are vague and nebulous, and can always be put off until by the end of the year, you're like, "well, shit, another year over, a new one just begun, no filled resolutions and I am a lame-o." So, I am thinking...New Month Resolutions! I am going to attempt to set goals for each month, kind of like an action plan. Plus, it means I get to make a list, and we all know that making a list is elixir and inspiration for the soul. At least for my twisted, neurotic soul. I think if I were told I were dying, my first reaction would be to make a list. But I am not dying, hurrah! although lists are still here, waiting to be made.

So! January resolutions.

1.) I am going to try to jog three times a week

2.) I am going to purchase a wall calendar, record important birthdays, and try to remember to send cards. (My mom's birthday is today--whoops!)

3.) I am going to cook at least one new meal a week. Bonus points for being heart-healthy.

4.) I am going to get a Palm Springs Library card and check out/read the following books: Change Your Home, Change Your Life and Making Peace With the Things In Your Life.

5.) I am going to write a personal vision statement.

6.) I am going to purchase a fabulous outfit for my January Literary Lunch Booktalk.

7.) I am going to check out and watch some Yoga videos from the library.

8.) I am going to have a cleaning plan for my home--every day, I will perform a few cleaning tasks.

(This one in particular is important. I am weird: I feel like I cannot do anything until I have the perfect setting, and let's face it, things at Chez Ghetto are rarely perfect. But it's ridiculous to try to hold off on life until everything is perfect. I know so many women, myself included, who do not want to learn anything because they want to be perfect at it right away. I am the same. And in particular, I feel like my surroundings need to be perfect. Bah. I want to be fabulous, but I don't want to be less than perfect at it, and so I put it off by saying "I can't do this or that because the house is a mess!" That's right, folks, I am putting off fabulousness because of dirty dishes. The least I can do is to make routine cleanliness a not-too-time-consuming habit, and let that be part of the fabulousness, but not the goal, and not the thing that prevents me from attaining it.

So, happy 2008! Let our cups overfloweth with fabulousness!