I would like to publish something, but I am not sure what. I think I may try to get Brick House done on cafepress. That may be a cheap way to do it. Maybe.

Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Steelers. I was pulling for the old AFC West team, the Seattle Seahawks. I thought it would have been a great matchup between them and the Denver Broncos, as they both were once in the same division. But oh well.

Maelin managed to cut her forehead open during the game, so it was interrupted by a run to the Emergency Room. She's fine now. Head is super-glued shut, so all is well. It can't feel that great though.

The girls did not sleep well last night. I got maybe 3-4 hours scattered over the night hours. So I know I will be dragging today. I wish I had something interesting to say here. zzzzzz.....

I put a shortcut to my blog on my work pc's desktop. Maybe that will prompt me to blog regularly. We'll see. Or I guess I will see. I am not sure anyone else reads this. So who I am writing to, myself?? Sad business there, mister.

Well, what to write about? I am at work way too early. I need sleep. Hey, Pastor Dodd covered Jehovah Jireh in the sermon yesterday. That's something. Alright. I should get to work.

I finally got all of my web pages that were on Geocities moved over to Angelfire, so my links should all work now.

I hope to volunteer at the Omaha Film Festival in March. That should prove to be fun. I have a cold, again...which may be the flu, but don't tell anyone!

I was reading some other library-related blogs, and thought, I should make an entry in my non-blog. So here it is. I guess I have always been horrible at journaling, so my lack of blogging should be no surprise to me. I guess I have not fully transitioned to a virtual lifestyle. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing. I think too many people have become virtual people and have lost some sense of reality. Just my opinion. Well, I am nearly done with my practicum for library school. I am so ready to graduate and be done with school. Of course, then I don't know what will happen. I am trying for various jobs, but nothing has born fruit yet. I guess stay tuned. Well, if you really want to stay tuned, email me. I may not update this blog for awhile. We'll see.

Alright, my well-intentioned foray into blogging is a complete failure. It has been a year now, and I have written nothing. I guess being busy has that effect. Well, I will keep it up and maybe get it rolling. I don't know that I have enough important contacts to make this blog all that newsworthy. And my life is not THAT interesting. So there you go. I guess I could keep the world up to date on what new materials I have handled in the library. Oh yeah, that will make the AP newswire!

Change is always something that can be feared or embraced. And I think that most people will do both, depending on what the change is. The library that I work for is undergoing some massive restructuring, and there is a great deal of uncertainty, nervousness, and fear going around. Certainly, some of the rumored changes are embraceable, and exciting. I think the single most important thing to do during change is communicate. Keep the lines open, so that the level of fear can at least be managed. However, the single most difficult thing to do during change is communicate meaningful information while protecting individual personnel's privacy and trying to grasp just what the end-result will be from the changes upon which are being embarked. So I guess this is less a lesson on how to do change than a rant, or a venting, at the current state of change. And this venting seems to be a necessary aspect of communication as well. Unfortunately, most persons in administrative positions would be threatened by such communication. Sadly, most persons in positions of leadership are not quality leaders themselves. They may think they are leadership material, but those being led would disagree.

So who does determine leadership? The leader or the led? I suppose there are instances when one or the other should define leadership. Those resistant to necessary change may see the leader in a much different light than those who are embracing the inevitable. So too, a myopic manager who thinks he or she is a leader will not see the problems that he or she creates.

I offer no answers. I only rant. This seems to be the most comforting thing for me during this change.

I would like to point attention to the very useful reference resource found in WorldCat. I had a customer looking for novels written in a particular city that he would be visiting soon. In the Advanced Search mode of WorldCat, I was able to search for the Geographic Place as Subject and narrow that search to the Genre of Fiction. Had I not been a Cataloger, it would not have occurred to me to use this source. Granted there are other resources out there that provide listings by narrow fields of subjects, but at the time, these were unavailable to me. So hurrah for WorldCat, and the catalogers who build it!

Some thoughts on libraries and the censored minority
I recently encountered a publication by a group that stands against the mainstream media (publishers, booksellers, and libraries among them). This group believes that the most important and interesting works of literature are never published and remain unread. How would you know, if they have never been read? More importantly, this group, which is the proponent for the minority viewpoint and unpublished authors, refuses to accept submissions for printing in their periodical. Does this not seem hypocritical? Granted, being of the library world, my viewpoint is supposedly both mainstream and therefore at odds with this particular organization's beliefs (which are stated in their manifesto).

A cynic would denounce the group as a bunch of rejected authors who are now grousing over their collective bad luck and passing these sour grapes on through their self-published organ. But that is what free speech is about. Everyone is entitled to speak their piece. Being in a capitalistic, market society, the trouble is getting that message heard by more than those in the same room with you. Again, this is seen as one the imperialist evils keeping them down. The Internet has become to many a means of equalizing things and allowing a fairly equal voice to all. Of course, with the growing commercialization of search engines, this may be of decreasing value as, once again, only those users with your particular URL can find your site.

Sadly, minority rights and free speech often are eclipsed by another one of the great American institutions, majority rule by election. Though debacles such as the 2000 presidential election may cause us all to doubt the veracity of that as well.

I recall something taught in a class on collection development. As a rule, a selector of information (be it physical or electronic) should always strive to choose at least 20% of these resources from a point of view that you totally disagree with or are very uncomfortable with. By doing so, a collection of information will hopefully not be overly skewed toward one viewpoint or another. It is a starting place for making the library a place of well-represented viewpoints.

However, there are increasing pressures to make libraries customer-demand driven. How else will the library compete with bookstores and the Internet, is the argument. As this is becoming more and more the norm for library service, those minority voices will again be lost in the clamor for the latest popular novel. A librarian must serve their customers, no question about it. But the librarian must also work to impact their customers and broadening their horizons. Readers' advisory is one service in demand that can provide a means for introducing the minority voice into the mainstream.

So to this group of underground writers and poets and essayists, I say that libraries can be a part of their support group. They must speak as loud as they can in order to be heard over the dominant demands being placed upon libraries today. But the library can be the place where their voice is heard by more than their fellow oppressed comrades. Over time, a minority can become a majority. Look at how "alternative" music became the popular demand in rock music. To everything, there is a season.