End of the semester relief.

Who was that?

I watched a rental movie last night and they referred to a woman whose name sort of rang a bell... but I couldn't remember exactly who she was or what she did for sure. That kind of thing can keep bugging me so I decided to find out more about her and why they dropped her name in this movie.

I turned to Google. I know some of you think Google is a bad word in Libraries but that's not really true. Google is sometimes the best place to start if you really don't know enough to search somewhere else. It helped me get the spelling of her name right and gave me a quick connect to a few starter bits of information. That was great!

Reading the snippets about her reminded me of how interesting the lady was. I decided that I wanted to know more so my search turned another direction. For that (since I was here on campus by then) I turned to one of our Biographical sets in the Reference section, Women in world history: a biographical encyclopedia, and got some pretty good information about what she had done.

I understand, now that I have the basics filled in a little bit more, what the movie was talking about and why they dropped her name. Actually, it's great that in this time of information abundance, we can fill in the blanks fairly easily. As a matter of fact, I think maybe I will look for a book about her in the catalog and request it through interlibrary loan over break.

Change of focus.

We all tend to focus on the differences that lie between us. We notice if someone dresses differently, has an accent, holds his fork differently than we do, or. . . you get the drift. They look so different from us that they must be different in every other way too. We may even go so far as to feel threatened because of those differences. Think how attitude altering it might be if we focused on the sameness instead.

I was sitting in a Perkins waiting for my waffle and strawberries with my husband, his sister and her husband, their daughter (our niece) and one squirming 4 year old granddaughter. We were talking work, politics, shopping, and weather. We were trying to keep the 4 year old entertained with pen and placemat. Our relaxed conversation was one of family joviality and a holiday outing.

About that time I watched a family group come in. All of them were dressed in clothing that was either black or blue. The men all had long, well kempt beards and flat brimmed hats. The women all wore ankle length skirts and small, crisp, white skullcaps over their bound hair. The little girl pulled slightly against the woman's hand. Many of the people in the restaurant watched as they came to sit near to us and continued to keep 'one eye on them' the entire time they ate.

They all ordered and sat back to wait for their food to come before I started to really catch the mirror images. The older lady sat smiling and watching her husband, his probable sister and her husband, their daughter (their niece) and one squirming 4 year old granddaughter. I could hear as they talked work, politics, shopping, and weather. They were trying to keep the 4 year old entertained with pen and placemat. Their relaxed conversation was one of family joviality and a holiday outing.

I realized with some degree of embarrassment that I had been watching them as well. My action sprang from curiosity and ignorance but translated as rudeness just the same. I was reminded that we are all basically the same. True, one may wear an Aeropostale hoodie and another may wear a blue pinafore or a Burka or a Sari --but we are more similar than we like to admit.

Instead of focusing on the differences that lie between us; instead of assuming that because they look different from us that they must be different in every other way too; instead of feeling threatened because of those differences -- Think how attitude altering it might be if we focused on the sameness instead.

Black Friday shopping

So, how many of you camped outside of Best Buy or some other big box to get the new, best version of the whatever at the phenomenal price?

I have done that, but not this year. This year I would love a B.I.G. screen TV but I am not educated enough yet to go lay down a thousand or two without all of the facts. Besides, I can justify waiting because I have a working TV (so it's not a need but a want) and I have a vacation to warmer climates coming in January (between semesters) so I need to hang on to my tiny nest egg for now.

That leaves me the time to do a little more research before I buy. Where to go first? I already have started to ask friends who have them or know somebody who does. One told me that the large Plasmas start to loose pixels and that there was still a pretty real danger of images burning into the screen. Another told me that they haven't worked the bugs out for the money. Others have told me that rumors say the NEW thing is coming and this will all get really cheap. That would always be true, I'm afraid.

OK, so I'm leaning toward LCD after the burned-in images comment. But what about the fact that I can't see the image on my laptop from the side? I was sure I didn't want to get this toy home and find out that everybody has to be straight on to watch so I went to find out more about the technology at http://www.howstuffworks.com/. It filled me in on the performance realities of LCD, HDTV, and PLASMA. Did you know that the LCD used in laptops are intentionally set up to keep eavesdropping from the side - like on a plane? I didn't. TVs wouldn't be restricted like that so I need not worry anymore.

When I get closer to buy time, I will turn to current sources who tend to be fairly objective and detail oriented like Consumer Reports. We subscribe to that right here in the library and it really helped me buy a fridge last year.

Before I start getting excited about sales flyers in my local newspaper I will probably also do a little online price checking with comparative sites like http://shopper.cnet.com/ and http://www.epinions.com/. These, and others like them, can give me a feel for how they should be priced . . . and I'll be ready.

I know, it won't be as fun as camping out at 4am and racing for the TVs like the Oklahoma Land Rush, but I will go into the whole ordeal a more informed and come out a whole lot more at ease with my decision.

What should it be?

I have come to the conclusion that I am going about this 'professional blog' a little wrong so this is the heads up for a slight morph. Change is part of the learning process, after all.

Sure, it is supposed to be a workplace communication tool, but the bottom line is that it's pretty hard to avoid revealing the author's (my) opinions and writing style. Hopefully, this isn't a bad thing - just something to be aware of. Careful, this blog may test your critical thinking skills.

As the author of the blog I will readily admit that I am somewhere between old and young, conservative and liberal, fuddie and geekie, and several other dichotomies you could name. I love learning something new E.V.E.R.Y single day. I love libraries. I love working in a library. Libraries are a wonderful mix of social center, information hub, book repository and comfort zone.

Libraries shouldn't be expected to house every book and every magazine written. That would be ridiculous. . . and expensive . . .and huge! Library staff shouldn't be expected to know everything about everything. That would be unrealistic.

What can and should be expected is that your library, more specifically the staff, should know where to find and help you get the books, articles, weird bit of trivia, list of places or whatever you need, better than most other people. What you need may be in this library or in a library in Seattle, Washington. The article on behavior patterns of fruit flies may be in one of our periodicals. . . or it may be online . . . or it may be sitting in a library in south Florida where an interlibrary loan staff person there will Xerox it for you and mail it to you.

I will continue to point to things that I discover inside the library, announcements from the staff, and reasons that I love the library. Maybe I can show you how connected your library can be to your life - and how that, is an OK thing.

Events on the calendar.

Midterms...Fall Break...the Great Chili Cook-off...Halloween...
We race along through the school semester and we see events written on our calendars, but how often do we stop and think about the story, the details, or the people behind the event?

Tomorrow is November 11th. We see it is written on the calendar as Veteran’s Day. In Canada and the United Kingdom they call it Remembrance Day. Some folks call it Armistice Day.

Schools close - government offices close – so what actually is Armistice Day?

World War I, known at the time as “The Great War”, officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. But the fighting had actually stopped seven months earlier when an armistice (temporary truce) between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of that war.

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…"

On June 1, 1954, the 83rd Congress (at the urging of the veterans service organizations) changed the word "Armistice" to the word "Veterans." and November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.