Dances With Books

Wow, it has been six weeks or so since I last posted here. It has not been for a lack of the bizarre and ridiculous. There have been a lot of changes and much turmoil here at Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U. We have a couple of new cast members, and we lost at least one. And don't forget, Ms. Hit-and-Runs is leaving us soon as well. So, as soon as I can find some time to type and catch my breath, I will bring you folks up to date.

In the meantime, I am still commenting over at the library mofo  blog.

Catch y'all on the flipside.

This line should be a mantra for librarians in academia everywhere when dealing with students who basically left stuff due to be done at the last minute: 

"A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine." 

We have a policy here at Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U. Library that you CANNOT put some foreign paper into our printers. The reason for this is that we have had kids put in their resume paper, jam the machines, and then not only ruin the job they were trying to do, they also bring down the machine, depriving everyone behind them.

This has been the policy for a while, but every semester, around the time when finals are coming, we get a few panicked procrastinators who want to put in their fancy paper into the printer. Their usual whine is "my professor needs me to put this in fancy paper." The reality, after asking a professor or two, is that the professor says "be creative with your handout," and the students interpret it as "put it on fancy paper" (as if that would make a difference).

So, today, I get some senior lady (as in old, not her year in college) get in my face asking for an exception because her paper (allegedly) is the same weight as the regular paper. I told her no once. I explained the policy once. She whined some more. I told her the only option is the campus copy center. Sadly, the copy center assholes only keep business hours, and we get the mofos in the evening. Having said all that, I lack sympathy because the kiddies all knew about their projects months ago. And there is a little place called Kinko's. Actually, in our case, Kinko's is cheaper than the campus copy place mofos, which is short staffed, and they do charge high prices to keep clients away. Yes, I know, it is ironic. But that is another story.

(Crossposted to library_mofo )

As those who stop by this journal know, things have not been looking up here at old Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U. One of the big events on campus is the Annual Staff Love Bash Weekapalooza. This event is basically a week when the Staff Cabal, with the blessing of Dr. Campus Prez and the Command Team, put together a series of silly activities for the staff to, allegedly, take a break from their slave labor and for the administrators to show how much they love the peons. The Presidential Edict regarding the Annual Staff Love Bash Weekapalooza just came in. And I could not help but share some of the highlights because, well hey, this is BRB U. There is something ridiculous in the air every day here. So, from the edict, with my commentary: 

• Dr. Campus Prez opens the edict by telling us how happy he is that we make the university such a great place to be for our workers and the students. Thus, we hold the Annual Staff Love Bash Weekapalooza every spring, thrown together by the Staff Cabal. This event is described as "a fun-filled week of activities" for everybody. 
• The theme? "Freshen, revivify, and reanimate." Ok, I will admit that I used a thesaurus, but if you do too, you will see the three words they actually used, which by the way, were all synonyms. Whoever came up with the theme this year was clearly not very literate since they basically repeated the same three basic words around the notions of renewing, hoping to get some regeneration, so everyone could revitalize after the Southern Campus Re-Affirmation Process (SCRAP) hysteria and the lack of resources among other things.By the way, the SCRAP hysteria is not over; it is still very much alive and well.
  
•  Dr. Campus Prez goes on to write: "I find this theme so relevant in these economic times.  While we recognize that we’ve all had to look at making changes in the way we do things, I do feel it important to continue the Annual Staff Love Bash Weekapalooza tradition." Furthermore, he adds, "We do need to freshen, revivify, and reanimate and stay connected as coworkers and friends (oh, so he is my friend now, huh?).  We do not want everyone to be so consumed with our responsibilities that we neglect to show our appreciation to you, our loyal and very hard working employees. " 

Let us look at how much appreciation and love the administration, especially Dr. Campus Prez and the Command Team, have shown the rest of us peons: 

• The Lightbulb Edict. 
• The Heater and Fan Removal Edict.
• The clusterfuck that led to us having to hire Ms. Local Clueless as one of our new librarians. (That is just one link. If you go to the post, you can get the links to the older posts and the rest of that saga).
• Other cuts here.
• And we could go on, but I am trying to play (somewhat) fair here.

So when Dr. Campus Prez decides to pat himself on the back, light the cigars, and pour the cognac, well I have to just say a thing or two. But don't take my word for it. The memo for the Annual Staff Love Bash Weekapalooza gets better: 

• They basically planned a bunch of little activities for the week. Some examples include: bowling (I have no idea where, probably one of the local bowling alleys), putt-putt (at the local rundown chain putt putt location), and movies (do they mean we get a movie gift certificate, or do they mean they run some old movie out of a 35mm projector on a canvas screen? Guess which one I am betting on). 
• Of course, this is not just free for all. There are rules. First rule, and I am quoting directly: "Please remember that all offices must remain open during the week and participation in any activity requires the approval of your supervisor and coordination with others in your area to minimize service disruption." So, don't you dare go play putt-putt or take a toss at the dunking tank (yes, there is going to be one) without running it by your boss and hoping you can actually take some time from your busy work schedule to go goof off.
• And another rule. Again, quoting directly: "All benefits-eligible employees may participate in up to two activities Monday through Thursday in addition to lunch and the afternoon activities on Friday." The underlining and bolding in the quote was part of the quote. Yes, you can't just do whatever the fuck you want. You have to sign up (sign-up sheet forthcoming. No, I am not making that up), you better not participate in a third activity. Because we appreciate you, just not enough to actually trust you to decide how to have a good time in the activities the Staff Cabal threw together for you. Got it? 
• And Dr. Campus Prez ends by saying, "Please plan to come out, and have a great time." Yea, I am sure I will come out (with adequate supervisor approval) after I look over my busy schedule (and I really do have a pretty busy schedule), and decide which two activities I want to play (as if).

I will be working as usual that week. For one, anyone who works in a library knows April is a busy month (National Poetry Month, National Library Week, so on), and we are actually holding events during April that I get to coordinate and implement, even if most of the other librarians don't give a rat's ass (that would be another post for another day). But at the end of the day, my issue is the fact that they want to express "appreciation" after screwing us over and then telling us we need permission to be appreciated.

Good luck with that, you pompous motherfucker.

Ok, maybe I am not suicidal yet, but Boss With a Fist just barged into my office first thing in the morning with yet another crisis in the assessments for Southern Campus Re-Affirmation Process (SCRAP). Some nonsense now about walking around the library with floor plans so we can make ticks on it to mark floor space usage. Because we need more evidence the library is being used. And while I am all for assessment and making a case, doing it in a hysterical manner for one, and two in a way that just takes a lot more time from librarians and workers, who can be doing other more constructive things, for a dubious document (this stuff will likely end up in a binder), is not the way to go. You are driving me nuts. Get a grip.

More to come, because the madness here does not seem to end. And the day is not even started all the way.

So on the principle of "the more uncomfortable you are, the more money we save," the administration here at Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U. just sent out its latest Energy Cutback News, part of the latest Five Year Plan for the Campus Economy. As my few readers will know, we have had a lightbulb edict and another edict to take away heaters and fans because heaven forbid we seek a little comfort while we work. So now, the powers that be have sent the latest update. Here are the highlights with quotes from the document and my comment. As usual, names changed to protect the not-so-innocent: 

• "Thank you for your patience with us as we work to dial in to a new temperature range on campus." Namely, thank you for not rioting while we basically turn off all temperature regulation so it's fucking freezing when it's cold, and it is hotter than a day at the Atacama when it's hot. Like we ever had a choice. We don't have temperature controls in our buildings. When students complain to us of temperature issues, we can only shrug because the controls are off in some central facility, and you already told them to shut it down. 
• "You will be glad to hear that the changes we are making are already resulting in significant savings." How significant you ask. No idea because the memo never tells us how much we have saved. Kind of like a five year plan. You know you are fulfilling your goal, just don't know by how much or how much longer it will take to get you there.
• "As the weather warms up, the potential for savings increases.....but, of course, so does the potential for slightly higher levels of discomfort and variances among areas of the campus." Sure, we will rake in more savings, allegedly (since they also cut back on travel and other actual necessities), but it means you guys will be sweating like pigs. We are turning off the AC in the middle of a hot summer in a part of the country that pretty much heats up like a blast furnace in the summer, so much so it makes furnaces from U.S. Steel look like space heaters. But hey, we are saving money.
• "Therefore, we would like to announce that we will be moving to a more relaxed standard of dress earlier this year than usual." Our campus has a dress code of sorts. It is not quite posted or written, but pretty much in the range of semi-casual to business casual. The deal is, since we live in a very red part of the red states, during the summer, there is the concern that if a woman wears a skirt that is too short (namely a bit above the knee), then she is probably a strumpet. No, I am not making that up, which is why the BRB campus does their annual Spring edict about moving to the summer dress code, meaning you can wear short sleeves. Since it is getting hot as fuck earlier, we get the "generosity" of being able to dress with less layering. Thank you massa.
• However, according to the memo, we are having VIPs on campus the first week of April: "our [new big system Poobah] and some high-level donors -  and it would be appreciated if we all made an effort to put the university in the best possible light those days." In other words, dammit, we better not see any short sleeves. Men better be wearing suits and ties and women better be wearing dresses and jackets. Yes, they actually have to send memos to get people to dress up when some big honcho shows up. How fucking ridiculous and paternalistic do you have to be? 

So, there you have it. We are saving a lot of money. I don't how much. I do know I may lose some wait from the sweating I will be doing this summer. And I will keep the small fan I have in my office no matter what. Yes, I do have a little one in the desktop for when I need to move the hot air around before I pass out in my windowless closet office (yes, my office was literally carved out of a larger storage closet in our library). Sensei Girl says she will get a battery-operated one to hook up on her desk. I may try that, add some rechargeable batteries, and you are set. Either way, I am certainly doing my best to subvert things, not because I am anti-environmental or against some money saved from utilities, but because I am still a human being who deserves some comfort and dignity.

What are they going to do? Fire me? Let's be honest, things are so bad here with the Southern Campus Re-Affirmation Process (SCRAP) accreditation, that they can't afford to fire anyone, or have anyone leaving. True story. Word came down  yesterday that the administration wants to make sure we have the requisite number of librarians in place by June, which apparently is when SCRAP will come around to look around and make sure we do have enough librarians. Sensei Girl was joking we had to make sure we timed out our walkout for the end of May, hehe.

Maybe what these people need to do is switch to Geico, and stop squeezing their workers for change because I am sure Dr. Campus Prez will still be pretty comfortable in his ivory office.

I always say that one of these days I will write a book. Most people who say they will write a book say they will do it on retirement, but since I probably will never be able to afford retirement, I have to say then "one of these days." Anyhow, I find reassurance that I may not be able to afford retirement, but I will be able to get a discount into the local Blessed Arbor Country Club. No, I am not making this up. Here is the actual memo that Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) University folks just got  from the HR honchos last week. Names were changed to protect the not-so-innocent elitist mofos, plus some slight rewriting to keep the pseudonimity:

These are things that I wish I was making up, but I am not. This is actually true. The announcement came in on the campus bulletin board. The names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent; text slightly changed for better readability, but otherwise it is as it came:

The saga of our hiring spree continues. While we did hire some people for the librarian positions, the saga does not end there. Then again, you folks who stop by my wigwam need to remember that nothing is ever simple here at Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U. You can read some of the details here. So, here we go. Try to hang on to your hats and feathers for this is complicated.

• For openers, the first person we offered one of the entry level jobs to turned us down. That is Ms. Hit-and-Runs, which I discussed in my previous post. Ms. Hit-and-Runs starts at the beginning of next month. She will have reference desk rotation, and she is supposed to be helping out Sensei Girl with some online resource development. Ms. Hit-and-Runs will not have any departmental assignment, so no subject specialist work for her. By the way, did I mention she is not working full-time, but she is still getting paid as if she were? She leaves sometime in July if memory serves me right. But at least we got one librarian in the books by March as Southern Campus Re-Affirmation Process (SCRAP) wanted. She won't be in the books after July, but I am wondering if by then, it won't make a difference. No one seems to worried about the fact we are hiring a temp to cover some bases. 
• Next, we did hire someone to start this summer. This one candidate is actually pretty good, a young lady out of library school with some experience in reference and instruction. She seems pretty sharp, and as soon as she gets started, we shall endow her with a name here at the journal. As noted, she does not start until the summer, so in a way, we are not really gaining. We are simply breaking even since Ms. Hit-and-Runs leaves us in the summer for an ivory tower in the north lands.
• Third, if you have been following the saga, and if not I do urge you follow the link to catch up, do people remember that local candidate who was protected from on high? She is the one who is now known as Ms. Local Clueless. I will give folks one guess who we hired. Yes, we ended up hiring her. Though Ms. Local Clueless is not very prepared in terms of her librarianship skills, nor does she seem to know a whole lot about how a library operates, since she has the protection of every other campus poobah, probably even from the Prince of Darkness himself, the job was offered. I was there for her interview segment. If people have arguments against doing an MLS totally online, Ms. Local Clueless would be the poster girl because one has to wonder what exactly they are teaching in those online classes. She has a minimal sense (as in next to none) of what a reference interview is, and she pretty much has no idea what information literacy is. Those who attended her teaching demonstration say she pretty much has no idea how to teach a library session.  And while I am sure that as a departmental secretary (her previous job), she does have a decent service ethic, it does not automatically follow she can be an academic librarian. This woman will basically need a lot of work, training and coaching (to put it mildly). Sure, the position is entry level, but it does not mean we just take someone off the street to do the job. And by the way, guess who gets to do the extra work, training, and coaching to get her up to some semblance of speed. Yes, that would be me. And it's not like my other duties will lessen because of it.

So at the end of the day, we were hiring for three positions, and we got about one and a half. This does mean that we are still one position short, which will likely be hiring for sometime after Ms. Hit-and-Runs leaves for greener pastures. And it will be a third librarian. We were, or rather Boss With a Fist was, hoping we could get a library administrator. However, given that the salary is pretty much a joke (I am not making that up. The last candidate we brought to campus for that, who seemed decent actually, was making almost as much as Boss With a Fist), the position will go unfilled and thus turned into that third entry level librairan job.

Why does it feel like instead of taking two steps forward, we are taking one step forward and three or four steps back? 

Kind of makes me feel like this guy: 

"Screw her! How many times have I fixed the outside of this succubus? And what changes on the inside? huh? Nothing. You know the definition of madness? When you do the same thing over and over again expecting different results." 
--Dr. Christian Troy, from the series Nip/Tuck.

Just when I think that things may settle down, another motherfucking faculty member who thinks he is a special snowflake (and rules don't apply to him) crawls out of the woodwork like a cockroach. I have been trying to cool off for a while after this, but I just have to let it out someplace because the gall in this sorry asshole's excuse for a conscience is simply outrageous. If I don't let out some steam I may well end up calling him to give him a piece of my mind. In such a case I may end up having to offer my resignation, but I would do so gladly just to call him out on the fact he is a bold-faced liar and a self-entitled backstabber full of shit. Allow me to expand on the matter.

Dr. Mythos Psycho has made a return to the scene. I talked about him previously here (my readers may want to read that post to get some context on the weeding issue). He basically send out an e-mail, one to me as his departmental librarian with copy to Boss With A Fist. Since I have been out of the office most of the day (interviewing yet another candidate for the reference librarian posts we are hiring. If you have read this journal, you know what is happening here in Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U.). Anyhow, during a break, I checked my e-mail, and Dr. Mythos Psycho's note was there. Here is most of the text, with some changes to protect chickenshit mofos who can't be dignified to take some personal responsibility: 

From: Dr. Mythos Psycho,

 I would like to get a list with call numbers of the replacement media the library has bought to replace the psychology videotapes which were thrown away in December. I would also like to say that I feel the decision to throw away videotapes which were valuable and painstakingly built up over many years, was a very harmful decision. It has hurt my department's teaching efforts and mine in particular. I was able to rescue some tapes, after I found out about the throwaway by accident, but many others have been lost. I particularly miss the tapes on (specific psychology topics, ommitted here to protect the not so innocent), that I used for my (specific rarely taught) class. It has made me feel that I can't trust the library with anything of value.
      I would appreciate any help that you can give me.
                 Signed, Dr. Mythos Psycho, Unique Faculty Snowflake


I did add the highlighting to that one line, and I changed some wording, but the rest is as it came. Now, let us address the motherfucker's "issues:"

1. There are no call numbers of replacement media. First, as you know (and so does the rest of the university), there is no specific funding for purchases. You may want to go up the food chain to Dr. Provosto Grande and see if he can give us some funding. In other words, no, we did not buy any replacements.
2. We have a severe space crunch, which was one of the reasons we did the weeding. Again, have your colleagues go up the food chain and complain so we can get a bigger library. You are also well aware of this. Maybe instead of building some new recreation center for the students, you can help us get a library that adequately meets your needs as well as the needs of your students.
3. You did not find out by "accident." I specifically sent you, and the rest of your department, an exact list of items that were slated to be weeded out. You and your cronies had ample opportunity to look over the list (about a month and a half) and then claim any items you did not want discarded for yourselves. Yes, we were removing them from our system, but they were yours for the asking. You pretty much chose to ignore the message, which I sent more than once.
4. The VHS items in question were 20 years old or more. We ran full circulation reports, and for most of the items weeded, they had not circulated even once. Those that did circulate maybe did so once in a range of five to ten years. In other words, your line of "we used them to teach our classes" is full of shit because we can tell if you checked them out or not. You nor your cronies checked the items out. In essence, you are just puffing your chest all of a sudden in order to posture.
5. We even went so far to ask you and your cronies to give us a list of items you wanted to order on DVD. While you know our funding is tight, when we do get money (usually at the end of the fiscal year, in the summer), we order what we can. If we have a list, I can order things for you even if you yourself are not on campus (because, after all, it is summer, and you and your cronies take off to the four winds to go bungee jumping or to meditate in fucking Tibet and can't be bothered with something as small as providing input for library purchases).
6. "Videotapes which were valuable and painstakingly built up over many years" is another line of bullshit. This is for the simple reason that, first I did weed stuff that was over 20 years old. I was in high school when some of that stuff came out. Second, you people have not requested anything in recent memory. You can't painstakingly assemble a collection by osmosis. In other words, you have not done your work. I have done much of it for you, even keeping you informed to make sure you had a chance to give input along the way, and you chose to ignore and then bitch. In other words, if you did not do shit when you had the chance, you don't get to bitch about it now. Or if you do bitch like the little sissy you are acting now, you lose any credibility. See the above.
7. Sending a message about lack of trust in the library to the director is just in bad form. We trusted  you to do your part. Do I get to send an e-mail to your dean and tell them I have a total lack of trust in your department or you personally to support the library? Your little missive is just a fine example of passive aggressiveness because you lack the balls to admit that you did not pay attention when you should have.
8. And by the way, and this is more to your colleagues, asking me when you see me at some event if we kept X or Y VHS is getting annoying. No, I did not memorize the list I sent you. If you did not claim it back then, it probably is gone. And no, I am not a magician to make it reappear. Grow up already, and next time when I ask you to pay attention to a part of the library collection you claim to have a stake in, maybe take some time to open your e-mail and read it.

So, there is the evidence. The bottom line is you had a chance, and you fucking blew it. You ain't getting any sympathy from me. And Boss With a Fist, who will be crafting a response to your message, will certainly be a lot more restrained in her reply. Because if it was me, I would be sending you the unsanitized version of the list. Just because you have three little letters for someone who earned a Piled Higher and Deeper degree does not make you special or above having some common manners and decency.

No love here.

"Now I can read lips, and the name of the defendant is Motherfucker." 

--Lewis Black, from The Daily Show.


(Crossposted from to the mofo blog, because this one needs to be shared)

Once in a blue moon, I actually read the literature of the profession. One has to keep up, or so the library change gurus like to proclaim. So, I finally got around to reading the environmental scan document (it be a PDF, so be warned) that was prepared for ARL's Strategic Plan Review Task Force. Actually, for such a document, it was a pretty easy read. At the risk of sounding flippant, it is pretty much a statement of the obvious. Anyone paying attention to what is happening to academic libraries, and libraries at large, as well as in education, can tell you this (it just may not have the imprimatur of the ARL):

• the economy is bad. Said economy then threatens libraries' sustainability.
• new paradigms in scholarly publication are coming. However, faculty are still pretty much tied down to the usual tenure line and publish or perish model. In large measure, those faculty could be doing more reform if they had the will to do it.
• library collections in print will likely suffer and shrink.
• digital collections are good, and more are desired. Pretty much digital initiatives and anything you can put online or in electronic form is the wave of the future, and we need to get in on it pronto.
• more collaboration between faculty and librarians is needed.
• libraries need to position themselves for rapid change, even if such change may be threatened by lack of funding.

If you wish, you can pretty much skip reading the 20 pages or so in the report now. As I said, at the risk of sounding flippant. But the thing for me is that there is nothing here that is terribly new. Any librarian in the field worth their salt could tell you this. Then again, we should keep in mind this is applicable to the large ARL Libraries (of which Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U. is not a member). Now there were some things from the scan that caught my eye:

• "Radical reconfiguration of research library organizations and services is needed coupled with an increasingly diverse and talented staff to provide needed leadership and technical skills to respond to the rapidly changing environment" (6). This is a challenge given that, for one, hiring freezes are the coming wave. Our state system has already called for and put in a place a "flexible" hiring freeze. One possibility on the leadership front may be to grow your own leadership. It is easier to bring in some entry level librarian, for instance, than it may be to bring in some library administrator when the budgets are tight. If there is a time to consider grooming someone already in place to eventually be able to take more leadership roles, this may be the time. Of course, this idea is pretty much out of the question. We want an outsider with close to a decade in administrative experience to come work in some backwater rural town at very minimal pay. The last candidate we interviewed for that administrative job we have advertised makes at his current job about as much as our library director. No, I am not making that up. And Dr. Provosto Grande pretty much said we are not increasing the pay rate on that position. So, we are not moving toward a more diverse staff any time soon.
• "Budget reductions will have substantial impact on library collecting, at least in the nearer term of the planning cycle. These will present opportunities as well as threats" (7). This is pretty much business as usual (in other words, all together now: "DUH!").  We already know that as journal subscriptions continue to rise at obscene rates other parts of the collections will suffer or be further reduced. In our case, add the fact that Dr. Campus Prez  has pretty much said he is not interested in funding anything for the library that involves books, and you get an idea of the emerging picture.
• "Libraries will collaborate with faculty in developing new models" (8). That is if you can get the faculty to even listen to you. In our case, faculty here is notorious, along with the administration, to implement all sorts of measures without any library input. It is common for us to learn of have that affect us going into place way after the fact. In fact, this was something that as of this morning Boss With a Fist was commenting on. Because many departments here may be going for their accreditation, for instance, but it never occurs to them to check if the library has to be able to meet their needs as well until the agency literally busts them for having a library that is not funded or equipped to handle certain needs. Example: why do you think we are on a hiring spree? We got busted for being understaffed, and money suddenly appeared for hiring. Well, some money appeared.
• Collaboration with campus units is certainly something important and something I would agree on. However, the poaching of library space for other campus departments, because they think we are not using it, is not right. And sadly, it is a trend ARL sees as coming: "Main library buildings may come under increased pressure to accept new tenants and services ('space wars'). Libraries will need to counter with strategies to demonstrate a capacity for supporting research, teaching, and learning, at times in partnership with library-preferred tenants whose service to students and faculty complements their own" (17). I find that term, "library-preferred tenants," to be particularly cute. Here, I would say that about half of the library building is poached by a few tenants, some of which are tangetially related to the library. And with some recent campus construction, we even have at least one big shot VP who moved her offices here, making us lose two classrooms (not that it matters, since we did not control the classrooms anyways, but still). Even with the construction getting done eventually, odds of the ones who came in "temporarily" leaving are next to non-existent. I give myself better odds of winning the Powerball than seeing those folks leave. And the ones who were already here are pretty much staying put. Here at old BRB U., the space wars are pretty much trench warfare. And yes, Boss With a Fist does have various plans of space utilization, in case anybody out there wants to say that I am just complaining. Yes I am, and  yes, we have plans in place. If only those poachers would leave, say, to those new spaces in the new construction they claim they are making for better administrative offices and meeting spaces? Would be nice.
• But the big lesson is to indeed have a plan. It is also crucial to document everything. Do you have crowded computer labs and students standing in line waiting for long periods of time? Take photos and jot down dates. Are you books pretty much falling apart? Same thing, and get the students and faculty to be the ones to gripe about it. Administration will not listen to the library, but rile up some faculty about the library not having the materials they need for their precious research, or worse, the threat of accreditation, and shit hits the fan. On the one hand, I hate the idea of having to basically work to accumulate ammunition, so to speak, but one does what one has to do.
• The sad thing is that libraries are seen as logical learning spaces on campuses, and yet, in our case at least, that is not quite the case. Sure, students want more learning spaces; they tell us on surveys and in person. But it is not a high priority to the administration. They do want books, but we suffer the embarassment of having to show them books that are 50 years old or more in many subject areas. The exception, to an extent, are some programs which recently got their accreditation, since we diverted funding from the rest of the library for them. But overall, we are still fairly short. And while we do have a pretty good array of databases, there are some basics still lacking. In essence, there is a significant dissonance between what the students want and need and what the administration is willing and able to fund( mostly a matter of will). While money may be tight, possibilities are open; they are just not taken.

And that is that for now. I don't necessarily enjoy being snarky. Ok, actually I do, but it saddens me to realize that a lot of these reports are pretty much meaningless exercises. They are meaningless  because at the end of the day a lot of the needed changes to make things better are a matter of will. And a lot of administrators simply lack the will or the insight or both to do what is right by their students and academic communities.

And so it goes.

The continuing saga of the done deal hiring moves along here at Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U. I detailed our woes with hiring some librarians at gunpoint, so to speak here. We found a couple of librariant candidates who are semi-decent, and we offered the jobs. Well, Boss With a Fist did the offering; the rest of us are pretty much along for the ride. However, we have pretty bad rejection rate and out of 5 offers, we got one acceptance. The young lady will be joining the cast of our library wigwam next June. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, things are not getting better. We still have to hire two more positions, and the outlook is grim.

First, the first candidate we offered the job to, who is a local, turned us down. She is a wandering scholar, you know the part-timers the campus hires when they don't want to hire an actual tenure line professor. She happens to have her library degree, and she actually did pretty well when she came to interview. However, after the offer, I found out from Boss With a Fist that the young lady got a big, big scholarship to go pursue a doctorate up someplace out of state, and she was not taking the job. So you would think we would move on and go down the list to keep interviewing to fill the job, right? Well, yes and no.

We need to have a new librarian "in the books" by the first of March come hell or high water. It's what SCRAP (Southern Campus Re-Affirmation Process) apparently has decreed, and Dr. Provosto Grande has made it clear we better have somebody. So, what new shady arrangement are we making? Simple, we are hiring that wandering scholar, let's call her Ms. Hit and Runs, on a temporary basis. Allow me to break this down for you because I am barely figuring it out myself. Ms. Hit and Runs, since she does have a library degree, will be hired to work from the start of March until July or so, when she leaves for the hallowed halls of some other ivory tower (which by the way is way more prestigious than BRB U. can ever hope for). Ms. Hit and Runs will only work about 20 hours or so in the library, since she is still teaching her regular class loads. Therefore, all she can really do is do reference desk work, and maybe some BI work. No work with academic departments since she won't have time to develop such work. But we do get a librarian "in the books" in case SCRAP comes back asking. In other words, no one is thinking about what may work best for us, but on covering their asses. Oh, and by the way, Ms. Hit and Runs's academic department, which was paying for 3 classes, now only has to pay for one because we are picking up the rest of her tab, so to speak, by hiring her. So, not only are we paying her in full to work part-time, we are also paying her to work in a different department of BRB U. Did you folks get all that? 

I do hope you folks managed to figure Ms. Hit and Runs's story because we have to move on to the next mess. Second, if you look back at the link to my previous post, I mentioned a lady who blew her phone interview. Let us call her Ms. Local Clueless since she is a campus secretary (or works on some campus administrative office) who got her library degree online. Ms. Local Clueless lack of preparation and sense of being informed revealed during her phone interview pretty much reinforced every negative image we all have of online library degrees: they give no practical experience, no contact with peers or professors, and questionable content of variable quality. After her phone session, we were left wondering just what the fuck they taught her in whatever library school she did her online degree in since she could not even define a basic philosophy of reference service. Now, usually when you have a poor candidate in a phone interview, most workplaces simply remove said poor candidate from their hiring list and move on to the next candidate down the list. That is what normal reasonable people do. What are we doing here at old BRB U.? We are actually giving her a campus interview/library visit, and from the looks of it, unless she suddenly snaps and begins to snort cocaine during her presentation (which might actually enhance her poor skills), she will likely get hired. Now, allow me to expand on this form of nepotism because the more one thinks about it, the less it makes sense to reasonable people out there.

Ms. Local Clueless is pretty much protected from on high. The princes of darkness, so to speak, watch out for her. Dr. Provosto Grande and Dr. Campus Prez (if I recall, she works in his office, but I think she just works for some other VP) seem to think the woman can literally turn water into wine and raise the dead. That is the actual language Boss With a Fist used when Boss With a Fist came to my office early in the morning a few days ago to deliver the bad news. Now, when your boss shows up in your office early in the morning, closes the door behind the boss, and then says to you, "I am the Boss, and I am doing this" without telling you right away what "this" is, you figure either you are getting fired or laid off, or the boss is going to ask you do something you may not like, which may or not border on barely legal or tangentially ethical or borderline moral. It turns out it's door number two. Because it turns out that the big poobahs pretty much laid down the smackdown on Boss With a Fist regarding Ms. Local Clueless. Ms. Local Clueless is so wonderful, and she does such good work for us, and blah blah, that we just could not see it during the phone interview. Therefore, give her a full interview, and damn it, hire her already before we smite thee. That is pretty much what Boss With a Fist was told, and Boss With a Fist was now passing it on to us, actually going one librarian at a time. What could I say? I knew this did not come from Boss With a Fist. In a way, boss's hands are just as tied as mine, if not more so; Boss With a Fist has to put up with the poobah clowns. I just work here. So Ms. Local Clueless will be coming over to do an in-person interview. I will have to go have lunch with her along with Sensei Girl and Boss With a Fist (since the positions we are hiring are primary in public services, I get to meet all the candidates and spend some extra time with them). And I will have to smile and be polite and, in the words of Boss With a Fist, "try to keep an open mind." This is the kind of shit that, if the economy was not so bad, I would consider resigning over and trying to find some place with a little more ethics. But we shall see. Anyhow, she is already scheduled in. Stay tuned, this is not ending just yet.

Oh, and did I mention that those new positions get a starting salary higher than mine, and higher than a couple other librarians? Yep, not only are we hiring questionable people, but we are paying them more than the actual people who work here. Not to mention that, in my case at least, I had some serious competition when I was hired. But the salary thing, slightly offensive as it may be, is not the big point for me. It is not bad enough to simply say, "raise my wages now or I am out the door." I will actually write on that later. What really drives the point home is something that the Relic Huntress said in a small meeting we had after we interviewed the last candidate for last week. She said, "hiring someone like that (referring to another poor candidate) would be offensive to some people in this room given we are paying them more." While Relic Huntress was being a bit of a drama queen as she can often be, this time she did make a point, albeit a sore one; the administration is basically saying that the quality of librarians here does not matter since they are willing to just put anyone in the position plus pay them more than those who have earned their stripes and actually have some qualifications. In my case at least, I can proudly put up my CV next to anyone's, and my references will certainly speak for me. Hey, if you need a good instruction librarian, let me know. I may send my CV and cover letter your way. You won't know it's me per se (I am not mentioning this journal lol), but you will get a good hard working librarian. Seriously though, this basically does not pass the smell test. And the sad thing is, it is not over yet because even if we do hire Ms. Local Clueless, we still have one more position open (our administrator search never panned out, which is another post), plus when Ms. Hit and Runs leaves, her position is open two, leaving us just about where we started needing two positions.

Sisyphus had it easy. He just had to deal with a boulder. Stay tuned folks. More to come.

This is another update on the economic situation here at Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U. The light bulb decree has now come from on high. The building maintenance dudes just got their marching orders to remove half of all light bulbs. No, they are not cutting light bulbs in half (though I would not put that skill past them). Basically, for all hallways and various public areas, bulb number will be removed by half. They actually came to talk to Boss With a Fist about it, and guess what, we are already done. This is because replacing bulbs as it is has been a dicey proposition at best. We have various fluorescent lamps with only one out of two bulbs. In other words, we have been compliant with the new decree for a while. You'd think this is good news, but alas it is not. They are going to continue removing EVERY OTHER light bulb from the lamps and fixtures, except for offices. And that may be dicey. Meeting rooms will get the 1/2 a bulb special too. I may need to start bringing candles to my office, or some battery operated small lamp, like this one. I think with a pair of them I should be able to get things rolling, and if I get rechargeable D batteries, so much the better. I would have to recharge the batteries at home every night and then bring them in the next morning, but hey, we all have to make sacrifices.

At the rate things are going, we may have to change a few other procedures around here: 

Like many campuses around the nation, we at Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U. have been read the riot act by the administration in terms of making sure we economize and save resources. Last Friday, around 4p, Dr. Moneypincher, the sub-honcho in charge of campus finance and business stuff, sent the grim letter that we all have to tighten our belts since the legislature of Big Red State is not giving us (or any other campus) any additional funding. So, this means: no travel, cutting off the hot water (except in labs and the food service area), cutting off the heat in winter and the air conditioning in the summer, and if you have a small mini fridge in your office or cubicle, you can kiss it good-bye. Things are so drastic that Boss With a Fist sent out a memo. I have changed the names to protect the not-so innocent (even though they don't deserve it), but this is the gist of the missive:


Yep, bring in your blankies to work. It is going to get cold. We better all prepare for the impending doom that's coming. Allow me to propose that maybe the peons like me may want to get this blanket (warning, there is some language, in case that offends you):
'




Things are not going to get better any time soon around here.

A feather tip to the YesButNoButYes blog.

Previously, I wrote about our woes with hiring at SCRAP's (Southern Campus Re-Affirmation Process ) gunpoint. Well, things by now are pretty much a done deal, and we are pretty much going through the motions. On the positive, I suppose I should be happy that the process will be over, but since, as I previously wrote, we are pretty much getting what we can get, I am not necessarily too happy. However, the decision is pretty much out of my hands. After all the librarians did the rankings and turned them in to Boss With a Fist, Boss With a Fist pretty much picked out the ones liked by Boss With a Fist, and we went from there. We have done four phone interviews for our entry level positions. We all sat in on the phone interviews (amazing our schedules somehow managed that. I did miss one), and except for the first candidate who bombed, it seems the other three are liked. One of them is actually a local candidate who is a wandering teacher (I think they call those adjuncts). She is probably qualified; I have nothing against her on that regard. What I dislike is that the decision is pretty much made on that basis. Even Dr. Provosto Grande put in his big spoon and told Boss With a Fist to go ahead and hire her. Just like that, and Boss With a Fist already said that unless local candidate bombs in person, she will pretty much offer the job at the end of the day. Local candidate pretty much has the job already. Since we are under the pressure to hire pronto so SCRAP will be happy, that's how it goes. That Dr. Provosto Grande is prodding certainly does not help either.

As for the other two, they are already invited for campus visits. One is coming next week, day after the local one comes in. The other comes in week after next. Practically for me this means mostly lost days where work won't get done because I have to schmooze with the new candidates. Now, before anyone gets riled up, keep in mind these are done deals already. The powers that be already decided these people will be hired unless they somehow fuck up royally, and by fucking up royally I mean something like being on the FBI's Top Wanted List right next to Osama Bin Laden. And even then I think that would be forgiven if we can somehow disguise them a bit. The deals are done. Even though Boss With a Fist solicited the other librarians' input, it is clear it was just a token gesture. In which case, I wish Boss With a Fist had not wasted our time. 

As for the new folks, I can only hope they turn out halfway decent, or at least close to what they appear to be on paper. And the reason we will have a third candidate is because we are just not finding anyone for that library administrator job we were trying to fill. Pay is lousy for one, and two, getting anyone with half a brain to move in to Backwater Rural County is next to impossible. Our first candidate turned us down precisely for that reason: she did not want to move into some remote outland (that's pretty much a paraphrase of how she said it according to Boss With a Fist). So, Boss With a Fist said we'll convert that to a third librarian. Though we do have a second administrator candidate lined up to do a campus visit, the betting pool says he will turn us down as well, and we are already anticipating the third librarian hire. If that is the case, why are we bothering to invite that other guy and incurring the costs of his campus visit? Oh yea, we have to go through the motions.

This is probably the fastest academic library in the history of our profession, and it is an example of what happens when lack of advanced planning, panic, and rushing combine like a perfect storm. In the words of Sensei Girl, "I just hope they are not lazy or crazy." We have had plenty of lazy and crazy folks here at Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U.

I did not think this would happen so soon, but we have another winner of the prestigious (in this journal) Ted Stevens Technoclueless Tubular Award. And the winner comes all the way from South Carolina, another backwater much like my residence here in Backwater Rural County.

State Senator Robert Ford, apparently ignorant of things like the First Amendment and, more importantly, how the Internet actually works, has introduced legislation that could make it illegal to post things like the f-word and some other salty language on the web (or orally, or in writing), making it a felony (details of the legislation here). Good thing I don't live in that wasteland. I would love to see them even try to enforce such a thing. Are they now going to emulate the Chinese in South Carolina? I can see that the intention of the legislation falls under the ever popular, but often misguided, "to protect the children" rubric. While I am all for minimizing exposure to certain things for  young ones, I am not one to try to cover the sky with a hand. And I certainly know you can't just do parenting via legislation. And I certainly know that the first "w" in "www" stands for "world," as in the Internet is something that functions around the world (you know, more than just South Carolina). I am willing to bet this snafu does not pass and become law, but the fact that Senator Ford even came up with the idea is simply shameful.

Thus, on this day, let it be known that South Carolina State Senator Robert Ford is awarded the Ted Stevens Technoclueless Tubular Award.

A tip of the feather to Pharyngula.

I just came out of one of those meetings where you have to wonder "what the fuck was that all about?" Of course, then you realize it has to do with some campus politics, and it all makes sense in its own twisted way. Allow me to elaborate.

Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) University is on a hiring spree. You read that right. It's not a freeze. It's a spree given we have three positions open. They are all new positions: one is for a library administrator, and two for entry level librarians. Well, the positions are advertised as entry level. Here is where things get interesting. Our fine campus is facing the impending doom of the Southern Campus Re-Affirmation Process (SCRAP). Among the findings from SCRAP, it turns out our library is a little understaffed given the size and population of BRB U. We are not hiring because the economy suddenly improved. We are hiring because we have the SCRAP breathing down our necks, and we better hire some people, or else the SCRAP people might get further concerns which may or not jeopardize the Re-affirmation process. Capish paisan? As often the case, nothing can ever be simple: 

• For the administrator, which is to be a sort of assistant for Boss With A Fist, we are apparently not offering enough in terms of salary. So the candidate pool looks a little shallow. Boss With a Fist, being the practical boss that Boss With a Fist is, suggested that, since we have another staff member (a paraprofessional) retiring, that maybe we could use some of the salary savings from that to bump up the salary offering for the staff position. We would likely hire a new paraprofessional, but the retiring person has been here for years, and accrued a pretty high salary level (it would not surprise me if that person made more than I do, but I digress). A new person would be entry level, thus less money to pay, thus savings. Brilliant, you say. Not so fast. Dr. Provosto Grande said you can't do that. It's against the rules (arbitrary as they can be). He does not want anyone messing with existing positions or eliminating them, let alone shifting money around. So much for the idea. The rub is that, given Backwater Rural County is not exactly the most progressive of places, you may have to pay people to move here.
• For the entry level positions, since we have SCRAP breathing down our throats, Dr. Provosto Grande, channeling Dr. Campus Prez (winner of the prestigious Ted Stevens Tubular Award), said that we should strive to get librarians with experience in graduate university programs. This is because BRB U recently added a few doctoral programs, and we want people who know how to handle graduate student needs. Apparently, the skills the average entry level librarian has may not be good enough. In other words, they want librarians with some experience, but of course, they do not want to pay for that experience. So, and I am not making this up, they want to find ways to justify the hiring such as: 
  
  • did the candidate do his degree at a large research type university? Mind you, we are not a research campus by any stretch. Those doctoral additions, by the way, are all professionally oriented. Anyhow the assumption is if they did their MLS (or equivalent degree, another thorn, but hang on) at a place like Main Red State Mothership University (MRS MU), then that counts as "experience" even if they may not have worked at the campus library, but (with luck) worked for the local public library.
  • maybe the candidate did other graduate work. Apparently we have a couple of applicants who have their JD (you know, they are lawyers). So, that's close enough. After all, the damn thing is a doctorate (juris doctor), right? I am not denigrating the law degree. I am using to illustrate how the actual thinking is going around here.
  • Apparently some of the applicants have public library, but not academic library experience (as in they worked at a public library, or maybe just did their track in public librarianship), and Dr. Provosto Grande says that could be a concern. How would we justify hiring them if they have no academic library experience? 
  • And the one that personally bothers me: We have a local applicant. Local applicant does not have a library degree apparently. The person has worked in higher education, but the person has never worked in a library. The person is described as being "very nice." Boss With a Fist says boss would like to interview the person, and apparently, the person is also liked (read possible protege) of Dr. Provosto Grande. Since the job ad says "MLS or equivalent degree," they think they can get away with it. By the way, the "equivalent degree" concept is to allow for things like an MIS, or the degree that the Relic Huntress has (not an MLS, but it is an ALA accredited degree as she is an archivist). It is not for any wahoo with a masters who has never even stepped into a library. What bothers me is that we probably have plenty of applicants, a lot from out of state, who probably have the appropriate degree and experience, but may end up stepped over so we can make time for Little Miss Local who is liked by the upper level administrator. Did I mention that nepotism is alive and well here at BRB U? Personally I think the whole idea demeans our hiring for one, and it is a lack of respect for people who actually got the degree and worked for the position. But I don't get a say in the matter.

And there you have it in a nutshell: hiring at gunpoint. And by the way, these positions are slated for start dates this semester. Stay tuned for we may be adding cast members to this journal.

Two days before the Turkey Day break, and things are falling apart here at old Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U. We've had problems the Easy Poxy. We've had problems with part of the Ebony Proscenium course manager. And now apparently I have a couple of prima donna faculty members in one of my subject areas pissed (or at least posturing) because he found out the library is weeding. So, here is the story as it stands: 

Antiquarian Babe gets call at the reference desk that apparently Dr. Mythos Psycho got wind of the fact we are weeding our A/V section. We are talking here about removing from the collection casettes (yes, those kind of audio casettes) and VHS. Why are we doing it? Well, mostly due to space issues. Even though there are no funds for materials, we are more than happy to go on a hiring spree, or rather the university is, after getting threatened by SCRAP-Southern Campus Re-Affirmation Process, suddenly coughing up money to hire more librarians (there is a story there, but it will have to wait). So, one reason is we need to build office spaces like yesterday. Two, is that a lot of that material is out of date. I mean, some of it is so out of date that if I was a student, and some professor showed one of those VHS tapes in my class to illustrate some lesson, I would walk straight to the Bursar to get my money back. It's embarrassing, but usually that is the story of our collections here, as I have detailed in other journal entries.

So Dr. Mythos Psycho is now peeved because I weeded out some obscure items. Keep in mind we ran full circulation reports. The Dissemination Matron spent hours struggling with the records to get the circulation record (how many times did something check out and when was the last time). Pretty much if it was not checked out in the last ten years, it went out. If it was checked out within the last five, even once, I usually tended to keep it, even if I had my professional doubts. Anyhow, my guess is something Dr. Mythos Psycho liked (but had not checked out in years) went the way of the do-do bird, and now he is bitching because there is a "communication problem" as in I did not notify them I was weeding. While I did not have to notify him or his department, I have previously notified them of other things only to get no reply at all. Therefore, if there is a problem it's on their end for not paying attention. Two, the items I discarded fell within the weeding criteria we established, which is consistent with most professional practice. Therefore, when I get the inevitable e-mail note from the guy trying to chew me out (because he needs to demonstrate his peacock tail is bigger than mine), I will gently try to pat down his wounded (self-inflicted) ego. However, I am not planning on being too sympathetic. Those folks had plenty of time to use the materials as did their students. If they did not, and they suddenly remembered that some filmstrip (yes, we do have another guy who used filmstrips to this day. I don't call this campus Backwater Rural just for kicks) existed, that's too bad. Join the 21st century with the rest of us, you self-entitled prima donna mofo.

Just because you have a Ph.D. (Piled Higher and Deeper) does not mean I am scared of you. I did my professional duty, and I am more than happy to request any replacements on DVD if available (and if you actually order them). 

So stay tuned. Because Antiquarian Babe already told Boss With a Fist about Dr. Mythos Psycho's whining, and Boss with a Fist already called me on the phone about it. While Boss With a Fist was mostly supportive of me (a definite improvement. In the olden days, The Don would have hung me out to the vultures), I will still have to reply to Dr. Mythos when he deigns to call me or e-mail (or actually show up in the library, though I am not holding my breath on that. I have not seen a member of his department set foot in the library since I have been here). We'll see.

And so it goes. If I can make it to Wednesday in one piece, and with most of my sanity intact, I will consider it a small victory.

And in the words of John Spartan, to Dr. Mythos Psycho I say, "Thanks a lot you shit-brained, fuck-faced, ball breaking, duck fucking pain in the ass." (From the film Demolition Man).

Rough? Not a bit considering the guy is ruining my day over stuff he probably would have never remembered if someone had not pointed it out to him. We call that a mofo.

These days I don't bother with responding too much to those bloggers in the librarian ghettosphere. But a few of the overeager beavers make it a habit to post about the "obstacles" libraries place (usually on non-affiliated users) to full services, and then making it sound like we are bad librarians for doing so. Usually, there are reasons for some of the restrictions, some very valid. So I don't particularly appreciate those librarians, often people who have not been in a service desk for years (or work in some cushier job like an LIS school or a special library), start preaching about service to those of us who actually work for a living. The latest culprit I came across was the Krafty Librarian with a post on "Barriers to library resources." He is not the only one who does this; there is a certain blogger out there who makes it point to post photos of library signage (to an almost fetishistic point) usually to point at how "bad" such signs can be.

Allow me to clarify a few things: 
 

• On the public patron being required to "use 'general public" computers and she could not download a PDF to a USB drive." We have our public computers locked down here at Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U. No USBs are allowed. We used to do the same thing as well back at ol' Bootstrap Metro U. We don't do it to be mean or bad librarians, but it is a significant security issue where people can run programs off the USB drive to the detriment of our systems. The most notorious of these was the one guy who would come in, run a Torrent-like program from the USB to download porn via our computers. No matter how we locked them down, the guy would simply put something else on his USB drive to disable our security, and off he went. We eventually had to disable the USB ports. Now, if that strikes someone as mean, well too bad. Come work here for a few days instead of just pontificating about how poor public patron (who is not affiliated to your campus anyways) can't download to their USB drive. 
• Here, they may not use their USBs, but they can certainly print out articles. Printing costs do apply, as paper does cost money. Students have to pay for their printing as well; it just gets taken out from their fees and put into their quota for their print control. So the public patron is not really being deprived.
• We do not provide Office software on public terminals. I can hear Krafty and his ilk already rolling their eyes. Problem in this case was one patron too many trying to run their businesses from our computers. In one case, we had some old church lady basically producing their church bulletins and sales flyers on the computer, then expecting to get free printing for hundreds of copies. Literally led to verbal fights due to her self-entitlement. So, again, a case of abuse mean tightening of procedures. An obstacle? Maybe, but I say to those people come walk a mile in my shoes before you judge me from your lofty perch.
• When it comes to an academic library, we operate differently than a public library. We are here to serve students, faculty, and staff. That is our mission. We serve the public as our resources (which are severely limited) allow. We do not provide off-campus access to database because licensing agreements (no matter how well negotiated) do not allow it. You show me a vendor who actually says "let anyone who accesses your library online use EBSCO or Web of Science regardless of affiliation." We'll talk then. It's not that we take what the vendor gives without question (lord knows the university system lawyers take forever to look over an agreement). Otherwise, they can come on campus to use our resources in the library, or go to their public library. That's life. Again, does not mean we are bad librarians bent on making things harder on people. It's the realities of the world. Deal and chill.
• Parking. Actually, on that, we are fairly relaxed considering we have pretty limited parking. With upcoming construction that will likely knock out two full parking lots, things may change, but visitors here have it pretty good when they can find a parking spot (i.e., they don't have to pay extra to park if they find a spot).

At the end of the day, bloggers like that are mostly out of touch with how things work in an active library, whether public or academic. It's very easy to point and say, "look, they put up barriers. Make everything free." But in this world, not everything can be free. As Heinlein put it so well, TANSTAAFL. Everything has a cost, and someone has to pay that cost. Whether the cost be monetary, security, or just plain peace and civility, the cost does have to be paid. It does not vanish with wishful utopian thinking. If I come as an outsider to the libraries of a lot of those bloggers, I bet I will find a restriction or two. That's life.

So please, find something else to make an issue out of (lord knows there are plenty of issues in our profession that really deserve attention), and stop labeling some librarians are less than professional because they actually have to enforce some rules, rules that have valid rationales and are not there on whims.

Now I have to get back to work. Here endeth the rant.

Here at Backwater Rural Branch (BRB) U. we want to make sure we are all happy and compliant state employees; I think in some places this call this "sheep," but I digress. Once again, I have to take the mandatory (do it or else) compliance training. It's basically a review of all sorts of state regulations on all sorts of things that really do not apply to me, or maybe apply to me tangentially. We are 2.0 here at BRB U, so I get to do my compliance training via an online module. By the way, I did this as a new employee last year, and the post I wrote back then applies here as well. Some of you may find it interesting to go back and read it as well.

Anyhow,  this high tech, bleeding edge technology consists of going through a semi-pain in the ass log-in, the viewing some powerpoints on such enticing topics as: 

• What to do when the media comes knocking on the door? And what about when some government person, or worse, an investigator shows up? Or, make sure you call the campus information officer before you talk to those scary press people. In fact, just don't talk to them, period. We would not want anything embarrassing to be printed anywhere. In case of doubt, call the campus legal folk too.
  
  • For example, there is this little nugget: "You should be aware that BRB U. will cooperate with any governmental investigation of BRB U or a BRB U employee, with due consideration given to the legal rights of BRB U and its employees." 
  • In plain English: we will defend the university against any legal action. You, on the other hand, we'll be happy to hang you out to dry if anything were to happen. You are on your own kid.
  • An interesting item from the quiz for this section: "As a BRB U. employee, you are responsible to present BRB U. in a positive way to the media. True or False?" If you chose "True," you got it wrong. However, the materials in the powerpoint do not mention positive or negative information giving. And yet, the prevailing culture, including here at the library, is that you have to portray the institution in a positive light. In other words, doublethink is perfectly acceptable at this point.
• The infamous sexual harrassment annual training? In other words, the "don't be a bonehead: don't make sexual jokes at work, don't put up any images that may be offensive anywhere, and overall, try to keep your mouth shut as much as possible when it comes to anything remotely sexual." 
  
  • By the way, this module also includes the stuff on no drugs at work. Because we all know those drugs could lead to sex, which could lead to regrets, then, well, you get the idea. Now, some reader out there might think I am making light of sexual harassment. Well, I am to an extent. I don't make light of the issue itself: it should not be tolerated at work. Having said that, if by now you don't know that harassing people in such a way is unprofessional, not to mention just plain rude and wrong, you deserve to be fired for being a dumbass. Fuck, if you don't know by now to simply not mess with a coworker, your boss, your subordinates, or anyone applying for work at your place of work, you deserve to be fired. I will add that some common sense might be in order as well since the PC police can often run rampant too. It's a matter of balance people.
  • By the way, for all the joking, the sexual harassment part of the module is pretty minimal: it's bad; don't do it; contact the appropriate authorities if it happens. That was the gist of the module.
  • And, from the drug free segment of the module: "It is perfectly OK to do ANYTHING I want to do in my own time as long as it is not on BRB U. property. True or false?" If you guessed "true," wrong again. Because the nanny state will be most displeased if you do anything on your time that is none of their business. They base this on the argument of whether it affects your work performance or not. Hello? You are off work. You are not performing work, yoo hoo? Was anyone home when they phrased that? I think people by now know better than to get drunk right after work while wearing their BRB U. nametag or badge. Actually, that is exactly the fear of the campus: you might be identified as one of their drones at 5 'o clock on Friday while having a couple of beers two counties over (because Backwater Rural County is dry, btw; yes we have restaurants with "private memberships" though, so I guess if you have a beer with dinner at TGI Friday's, and you got your BRB U. badge on, it could be a problem).
• The module for fraud and other related bad behaviors. This is the one where the administration let's us know we are all assumed to be thieves-in-waiting, after all, workers are "tempted by fraud due to financial crisis, family problems, gambling/drugs/drinking, or just living beyond their means." Somehow this seems a bit more relevant with the economy, hmm. Apparently a little crisis makes a thief out of anyone. Heaven forbid they display a little integrity.
  
  • Warning sign of fraud: An employee does not take a vacation. Yep, I am definitely a crook. I have not taken my vacation yet. Let me see, for one I have not had the time to do so. In fact, I often work hours of overtime (for which I am not compensated, since I am "exempt," and it ends up as comp. time). So remember dudes: don't be like me, take your vacation lest you are labeled a thief.
  • Another warning sign: "one worker does it all." Hmm, let me see. I am the only one dealing with the public relations of the library (I think library people call that "outreach.") I spend long hours doing various parts of that work from promotion to writing to implementing the events. And then we wonder why I can't take vacation easily. Damn, that would make me the the one "doing it all." Holy crap: I am a crook.
• A note on the EEO module: the campus's discrimination language does not include sexual orientation. So, gays,  you are out of luck. Then again, given we live in Big Ol' Red State (BORedS; actually, this will be the new designation for my state in this journal.), that would not be surprising. Being progressive is not a priority. Just make sure you are not a thief (oh wait, you pretty much are anyways). By the way, this is the module where they tell you not to ask about race, sex, age, religious beliefs, handicaps, military history, nationality, or convictions of a job candidate. So, in other words, when they ask "if you have any family," if you are female, they really want to know if you have any children so as to assess your productivity and/or likelihood you will take maternity leave in the near future. I know that is a pretty crass example, but it happens, and no one says a thing (since proving such allegations is next to impossible).
• The ever popular module on computer use and the Internet. In a nutshell: don't give out your passwords for the system and don't look at porn at work. By the way, those are two things students do all the time here: they come in with girlfriend from another campus, or mom, or younger brother, and they happily share the password so they can use more than one computer (which we prohibit here, and if we catch them, we warn them not to do it. They do it again, we call security. Key is catching them). As for the porn, not as much, but goofing off is pretty much a given (and I am sure  not just "incidental" use of the Internet).
• The module on contracts and agreements and purchases.
  
  • Simple for me: I am not authorized, therefore I cannot purchase or agree to anything. Sometimes being a peon has its benefits.
  • Oh, and by the way, I am not allowed to seek any outside grants unless the big poobahs on campus approve. So, that cute little grant for libraries that might be helpful for a reading program, "no can do" unless I go through the red tape. And then people wonder why we can't get extra funding where we need it (like, oh, I don't know, books?).
• I even have to take the intro to the module system, even though I did it last year (and the modules are exactly the same).
• And of course, not set of compliance modules is complete without the one about political activities and (not) taking money from anyone else; you know, gifts, etc. Bottom line, do your politics on your own time and dime (damn, that could make a good slogan), and don't take anything that may even have a whiff of bribery or favors. See? Simple.

This is just the sampling of the 13 topics I had to go through. Took me about two hours to get through the whole thing in a seating, allowing for interruptions while at work. Unfortunately, there is no way to "test out" of the stuff. You have to sit through and go through the slides (even if you just scan them). So now we are done, at least until next year.

For the October BAM Challenge, with the topic of haunting, I chose to read the graphic novel Batman: The Long Halloween (link to WorldCat record). Not only did it seem very appropriate, but also with Halloween coming up, the timing was simply to perfect not to read this excellent graphic novel. Actually, for me, I am rereading it since I read it once before. However, it was great to go back and reread it.

In brief, the novel takes place within the context of Batman's first year. There is a serial killer who comes to be known as Holiday killing people during holidays, starting with Halloween. His spree then goes on throughout the year with a killing on other holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, so on, lasting a full year. In the meantime, a young police captain, Jim Gordon, and a young idealistic DA, Harvey Dent, vow to bring down the city's biggest crime boss. The book raises a lot of questions, and it will keep readers riveted as it is basically an excellent "whodunnit" with great action and suspense. The art style is great with a strong noir element. And I won't spoil it, but the ending will certainly haunt you after you have read it. As I said, I reread this time, and the ending still haunted me. So it definitely fits with the challenge, and I highly recommend it.