Crossroads

Once again I find myself at a major crossroads. No car, no job, still in grad school... but i hate it. I applied to do a second undergraduate degree in Japanese and ESL, but i haven't heard back from the school year (Eastern is bad with paperwork it seems). Obviously the biggest problem is simply my lack of a job. I still have an apartment to pay for (they don’t let you break the lease here unless you basically want to pay half what they’re going to get anywhere for the rest of your lease ^^;;) so I DO need a job, but… it’s not quite that simple. I left my last job without putting in my two weeks notice because I was so frustrated and could no longer commute due to my migraines. So that basically screws me whenever a job wants to run a background check (which is always). The first number they call they’re going to get a bad review. Although I did fine work there and probably would have eventually been able to switch to a less stressful job… it wasn’t going to be anytime in the immediate future. Sadly now I have to somehow get two jobs to pay for my apartment – way too many bills. Before I didn’t have enough energy to get a second job… now, since my first job (whatever that will be) very doubtfully will be the same as what I was making in my last job, I really need to have two. Only, my feet have been seriously killing me: I think I might have a bone spur. How I’m supposed to stay on my feet for two jobs straight isn’t very clear. Or, even, how I’m supposed to get those jobs.

Right now it seems that a lot of businesses are having a hiring freeze. Pretty much any retail job and half the restaurants. I do have skills, but Michigan’s economy has been rotting away year after year and with the current economic crises, it’s somehow amazingly even worse. I tried to do this canvassing job last week but… I guess the rules dictate that you raise $110 in donations every night for the whole year… and I made zero dollars. The catch is, if you want to keep your jobs you become trained as a “director” and then you have other obligations that keep you employed, except I can’t really be shifted from state to state as a director would be. I’m still in school, and I have a lease on this apartment. The only other job I’ve been offered so far is Vector Marketing (basically selling knives in people’s homes), which is also impossible to make money at. I’m guessing before too long I’m going to be evicted. Even if I can get another loan for next year there’s no way it would pay for this

apartment.

This all adds up to basically to me losing my mind and probably is the reason for all my migraines. I’m not 100% sure of course, but it’s a safe bet. Migraines… make it hard to get a job (you have to be able to go outside when sun’s shining), and even harder to concentrate at work (note: this is why I lost my last job). I guess a lot of people don’t have it quite this bad, and others have it worse… but unfortunately I don’t have a spouse to turn to. My parents won’t bail me out, and even if they did, I would have an even harder time finding work way out in the country. I guess I need to get a better attitude and put things in perspective and all that. So… how does one do that?

Very Odd

The other day i was shocked to discover i had to explain to my mother what narcolepsy is. she'd never heard of it. Even though she's been alive 33 years longer than I have. it was the first time in as far back as i could remember that i had to do explain something for her (that wasn't technology related). She is like a scrabble and trivia champion, it always blows my mind when I catch her on some bit of minutiae.

I guess it's not that important in the grand scheme of things if my mother knows about narcolepsy or not... But somehow i had always thought of her as this rock-solid reliable source of information (putting our religious and political differences aside). To have my paradigm cracked in this way is extremely disquieting. I guess in the end, nobody's perfect.

Stuck in the Shoals

Last night I had a date. At least, I want to believe it was. Of course nothing happened, and for that I have no one to blame but myself. I need to seriously ponder if I've matured at all since high school. I still make a far better supportive female friend than an interested male date. I know I've accumulated more street knowledge, and am slowly coming to terms with how to tell a joke or two, but in terms of actual social development it feels like I'm standing on the shore of a great sea of doubt and watching the waves of failure continually crash against me.

I don't think it's my appearance, though admittedly I still wear glasses. I try to exude an air of cool and hip, but appearances are only meaningful to the pathetically shallow. Maybe I am shallow... how would I know?

I brought her a dozen cute roses. She didn't give a shit. An obligation to put them in water. No need to display them somewhere. Perhaps this is a tradition that died decades before I was born and no one told me? Yet another example of having absolutely zero experience with these things. What did I seriously do in college? Aren't you supposed to learn how to be a real person in college?

I made it a case to take off my shirt to show her my tattoo. Nothing. I felt like a girl switching dresses with her friend. And the really sad part? I would love to do that. If I really do make a better girl, than what do I do with that? Certainly I have no lesbian waiting for me, as I lack the needed accouterments. Physically I'm short, but I need about ten more years of yoga before I can pass as female. And why would I seriously want that? Supposedly my friend Janine became a woman because she wanted to experience lesbian sex. I want to be a woman so I can, what? Fit in? What an oxymoron.

What is needed to be a successful man? Power, wealth, abuse of women, some other awful stereotype I'm not capable of? If I were to trace my history of masculinity back, I can't find the divergence. As soon as my brother was in middle school he was attracting the opposite sex. I was, what? Being awkward and inadequate. Both of my brothers are now happily married (mostly). There has to have been some critical stage in male development I never was presented with. Some test of manhood which decides if you sink or swim as a guy, and I got lost and never found the proctor.

This all of course negatively effects my self-image. If I thought I was god's gift to women, I probably would be. Instead I find myself on the road to loneliness and too many cats in my mid-twenties. WTF. Is there really anything that can be done at this point to feel comfortable in my own skin? For years I couldn't even look at myself, spare to shave. If I do so now it's as one might look disgusted upon Buffalo Bill.

I make for a dutiful son, but what does that say? I'm sure I would make for just as dutiful a daughter.

Sometimes I think it would be easier if we've never developed sentience. If I didn't ever have to look at myself in the mirror. Maybe I'd be one of the jackles who waits in the wings for his time to pounce. Psychology doesn't work like that. If I don't take it upon myself to be interesting, witty, fun, drunk with life, sexy, miskept, whatever else there is that makes men attractive to women, how can I ever know what success feels like? I don't want to go my entire life hoping the right woman will come along. I'd rather know NOW that I'm a complete failure and should become a Buddhist monk.

"Special Libraries Association does have a Read or Die sound to it"

Above quote is courtesy AndersH from #lililicious

I've decided to change internally to Library Science from Young Adult Library work (which ended up requiring far more energy and creativity than i am capable on any given day) to Asian Library work. I know, I know... it requires knowledge of 3-4 Asian languages and often a European Language as well. I'll pull it off somehow... or die trying?

"Angry avatars have taken virtual action."

That's right: the title is a quote. Although i wish i could take credit for such a cleverly devised statement, this time the cynicism is not my own.

As reported in American Libraries Direct (the digital monthly version of the not-so-digital monthly for-library publication), the Latimes has recently reported on the backsliding of "real world" commerce in Second Life in their article, "Virtual marketers have second thoughts about Second Life" (i apologize but viewing the essay requires registration by Latimes.com. But don't worry, you can always make up bogus demographics and give them a fake email addy).

Of particular note in this essay, "Ludlow (University of Toronto philosophy professor Peter Ludlow that is) isn't impressed. He said most firms were more interested in the publicity they received from their ties with Second Life than in the digital world itself. "It was a way to brand themselves as being leading-edge," he said." i have a real problem with this: namely, it isn't commerce--it's advertising. This reminds one clandestinely of bumper stickers of companies sponsoring a motorcyclist in some obscure off-road competition. For a bona fide Virtual Reality, which purports to having 8,000,000 members (of which one can expect to find only 30,000 unique users during peak hours), this sort of "commerce" is offensive.

It's like businesses have stopped taking Second Life seriously. In terms of Library 2.0, there's no doubt that Second Life posses a definite "emerging technology linking patrons and library service" (my words), but for businesses, that just doesn't cut it. Given the fact that "one of the most frequently purchased items in Second Life is genitalia." (qtd. in LA Times), and users often participate in furryism and hit on strangers at the same time, it comes as no surprise that traditional companies are having difficulty reaching an interested consumer base. What can Dell, Best Buy, American Apparel or Sun Microsystems to such a, shall we say, niche demographic?

Even Nissan's innovative "automotive amusement park" can really only go so far. Visitors are not buying cars. Such fiendish marketing results in less than profitable returns. For libraries, Second Life seems to be a viable alternative for hipsters and wannabes such as myself, but for corporations, who no doubt spend the equivalent of a computer programmer's salary or more on their Second Life coordinator, it would be more than difficult to see a return on their investment.

But... what i think is worse than a waste investment, is an investor who doesn't learn from his/her mistakes. IBM who has had a strong Second Life presence, is now moving to the greener pastures of There and Entropia Universe...

Excuse me, but... how is that different from the failed experiment of Second Life? Do they actually think the demographic is more receptive on those servers? Oh please. If you've seen one non-RPG-MMORPG you've seen them all. Besides which, there are FAR more users to be found on actual RPGs such as Worlds of Warcraft, Everquest, URU or the like. When many users on the same server can't even speak the same language (other than pigeon English), doesn't that... put a whole new spin on the term "International Conglomerate"? Of course i have no idea if Sony would allow outside commerce on their servers, it seems like those companies who invested so much time and effort on Second Life, if they're not willing to change their strategy, should at least consider opening themselves up to a far larger consumer base than can be found on There or Entropia Universe. When people forgo their actual wedding to have a ceremony on WoW... wouldn't said people want a company that could take care of all the trimmings?

Abstract vs. Concrete

According to John Blyberg's recent post "Four Little Octets" a strong composite tenet of Library 2.0 is "a set of attitudes that are less constrained by convention and more motivated by collaboration, empowerment, and hospitality." This sounds very motivating and inspiring, but the truth is, i have to come up with an insightful response. Convention is... a little vague. What and how is convention defined? i wanted to make sure i knew what i was about, so i looked it up. According to Funk & Wagnalls Standard Comprehensive International, convention is defined as: general consent, or something established by it; precedent; custom; rule, etc. Obviously there are commonly shared "conventions" when it comes to library service, but it is my belief that this word does not operate linearly.

Is the internet now a convention? How long precisely does it take for a practice to become common place and even an expected outcome of reference service? i want to believe libraries the world over are motivated by collaboration, empowerment and hospitality. If they were not they wouldn't make their millage. i thus proport that those attitudes are a given. What doesn't immediately make a lot of sense is: what is an attitude which espouses being "less constrained by convention"look like?

So again, how long? If we assume as Blyberg supposes that the internet gave rise to a revolution in library service which has only very recently been recognized as such, and if we assume the internet didn't really get off it's feet until 1994, we could easily surmise that a convention can come into being in less than 13 years. So, about a decade. Well, actually, that presupposes that the internet is in fact, a convention. But if it wasn't, i'm not at all sure what Blyberg is arguing. So if we round that down to a decade, and also suppose that most "modern" (i use the term loosely) libraries are or soon will be internet dependent you arrive at... yes, the internet must in point of fact be a convention.

Except if we go back to the composite tenet of Library 2.0, the attitude we're looking for is one in which we are less constrained by convention. Uh-oh. I smell a problem brewing. What we're looking for is a library service that isn't limited to those which are internet dependent. Yet, the alternative is what? The past. Card and CD-ROM catalogs and research that took weeks instead of hours (yes, i realize these sentences are fragments Amber). Obviously, despite its novelty reminisce-quotient, no one wants to go back to those days. But... we have yet to uncover a new platform by which to jump beyond our present methods of providing service. So... what then IS our goal here? Find new ways to utilitze old technology? We do that all the time--software is only as good as the way in which it was conceived to be used in. For example: most people utilize more than just one piece of software when they build a website. You can't create images that will do what you want in a program like Frontpage or Dreamweaver, but you also can't create code that'll function as a java script in say Adobe Photoshop. When someone goes to make a website, they'd probably be utilizing both types of software. Not because they were told to. It's just the logical conclusion.

So what is the logical conclusion to the convention of the internet? How do we move beyond the tether of the world wide web and the Internet 2? Some people are saying SmS and yes, text messaging has been used and abused very affectively in Japan for many years. But is it the natural next step? No. i would argue that while we exist in the convention of the internet, until we slip upon that eureka-like moment of designing a new technology or creative design to base library service on, Library 2.0 is dependent on the internet. Just knowing that we're dependent, as Blyberg seems to suggest here, isn't enough. Would AACR2's natural next logical step actually be RDA if we were trying to think beyond the internet? We're not all of us visionaries but we can learn as much as possible about current trends and experiment with what other's have found successful. No one's saying we shouldn't be looking to the future, but falling back on a convention doesn't necessarily equate failure to change and grow.

Innovation vs. Stagnation

It's possible someone has already blogged on this topic as i am pathetically slow in getting these things done.

Librarian.net recently posted on "are librarians innovators? do libraries innovate?" and i like to think it echoes one of my previous blogs.

"However, when you’re the only free internet in town, taking a step like offering free wifi when the library is closed, or having a way that people can use your computers to download ebooks checked out from other libraries in other states seems pretty innovative indeed."

Such innovations seem to represent little work on the place of the administration (unless of course you have a very conservative Board of Directors), but could greatly improve service and library use. It probably goes without saying that improving library use would also lead to a increase in circ, among other things. So why aren't they doing it?

Perhaps innovation isn't necessary to keeping your library alive, but it certainly can't hurt. Probably the biggest culture shock a western experiences when visiting Japan is being dumb struck by the sheer amount of constant innovation, in industry the U.S. hasn't even looked at in decades. It's silly. Everything from super-intelligent toilets to ferris wheel parking garages hidden in old buildings to cafes where you can get cozy and are encouraged to fall asleep reading manga you haven't paid for...?! Well, suffice it to say western innovation is... found wanting.

i want to believe the biggest road block against western innovation is simple resistance to change. i find it very hard to believe that U.S., Canadian and U.K. research and development departments are simply not as creative as those in Japan. It is our economies simply are not equipped to pour much money into reinventing the wheel. Though, legislature is always opting for new methodologies like the recent bill for Stem Cell Research.

If libraries could jump on the innovating bandwagon and have our industry lead others into the 21st century, why wouldn't we?