I first did a post like this at the end of 2007, and I mean to do another one every year, but … well you know how it goes. Once again, the lines and photos, though mostly completely unrelated, come together to create a picture of the year that will mean the most to me (of course), but that I hope is at least enjoyable to you, Dear Reader. Happy and safe 2012.
January: So here I am at almost 3 in the morning at my mom’s house after driving up from Nashville.
February: I am upset.
March: First, comments.
April: It’s been over a month since I wrote here.
May: I should break this into smaller posts, but I probably won’t.
June: No worries.
July: (nothing written, but there is a theme in these photos…)
August: Here I start another journal.
September: Today, I go to see John.
October: The documentarian in me is compelled to write of all the things that have happened since that Friday in May.
November: Idk what to say to that.
December: You really want to know or is that small talk?
Before we get too far into 2012, I wanted to post this, mostly for me.
- Hearts in Atlantis, Stephen King
- The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
- The Magician King, Lev Grossman
- Blackout, Connie Willis
- All Clear, Connie Willis
- Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge
- Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
Not a very long list, no. Last year was very… busy.
Scholarly Kitchen said:
“Libraries have a great potential role in marketing e-books, but if they continue to think of themselves as the preservationists of physical artifacts, the emerging e-book platforms will leapfrog them.”
To which I comment:
Libraries no longer generally think of themselves as the preservationists of physical artifacts, and most are keenly aware of the inadequacies and frustrations of e-book offerings currently available to them. Libraries and librarians are definitely struggling to find our place in the changing world, but increasingly, that means being a gathering place, a community place, in addition to a place in which or through which patrons access collections. Libraries do want to work with publishers (and are, in fact) and with Amazon; your consignment scenario sounds like a good one, except that the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library would probably stand to make Amazon a lot more money in the form of Prime sign-ups and Kindle book sales than it could with library co-sales.
Libraries that offer e-book checkouts to their patrons are offering the only deals that have been struck at this point. There are stand-out exceptions, such as Douglas County (CO) Libraries, the nascent unglue.it, and authors who license their works in Creative Commons, like Cory Doctorow. There are e-book champions, like Librarian By Day Bobbi Newman, and the Librarian in Black Sarah Houghton. As you mention, ALA is meeting with publishers and has task forces of smart people talking about the problems. Libraries stood by while music transformed from physical to digital and now offer download packages that must be minuscule in comparison to iTunes sales. Books, however, are a library’s traditional core offering; what will a library without books look like? More distressing is the question: what would the have-nots do if we can’t figure this out?
Edit: I left this (without links) as a comment on the above post, but it has not yet been approved.
At LITA Forum this year, John Blyberg mused, “How long will free content be more attractive than ubiquitous access?” It was one of the things I tweeted from his keynote, and it struck me at the time as portentous. What are libraries–traditionally–but stores of free content? Soup kitchens for the information-starved?
It struck me this morning that the combination of the Amazon/Overdrive deal and the new Amazon Kindle Owner’s Lending Library that we have passed this point. Consider: a reader embroiled on her Kindle is warned that her “public library loan” is expiring. Amazon kindly suggests that the reading can continue if she would only buy the book for a mere $8.99, just click here. Oh, or she could check it out from her public library again. Not renew it; check it out again. She might even remember this, though once a loan expires, the Kindle app does not provide a reminder. Let’s say that our Dear Reader is a public library supporter, not just an occasional user. “How did I do that again?” She might even put down the Kindle and visit the library’s website. She might even get to the e-books section and do a search, only to find that she was fourth or fifth or twentieth in line for the library’s single electronic copy. “Oh, screw it,” she thinks, and buys from Amazon, in two clicks, for less than the price of lunch.
I just found this in my drafts folder; it’s about time I published it. It’s a sorry list, compared to years past. Maybe 2011 will be better.
At the end of 2009, I posted a list of books I wanted to read* in 2010:
- Warbreaker, Brandon Sanderson (fantasy) Never cracked it.
- The Long Division, Derek Nikitas (thriller) Still on my shelf!
- Anathem, Neal Stephenson (fantasy) Nope, not this one, either
- Until I Found You, A Novel, John Irving (fiction) (gave up, May 2010)
- Clay’s Quilt, Silas House (fiction) (read January 2010)
- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (fiction) (read January 2010)
Other books read in 2010:
- The Magicians, Lev Grossman (March 3-6)
- Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien (audio, Jan-Feb)
- Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese (May 2010)
- The End of Overeating, John Kessler (May-June 2010)
Read for schoolwork in 2010:
- Third views, second sights : a rephotographic survey of the American West
- New York changing : revisiting Berenice Abbott’s New York
- Milton Rogovin : the making of a social documentary photographer
- Triptychs : Buffalo’s lower West Side revisited
- Seizing the light : a social history of photography / Robert Hirsch
- World history of photography / by Naomi Rosenblum
Read aloud with Miss7 in 2010:
- The Chronicles of Narnia (January – June 2010)
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
* Audiobooks count!
Books read 2009 | books read 2008
January: At the end of 2008, I posted a list of books that I was currently reading, as well as this list of books that I wanted to read in 2009.
February: This is my first from-scratch pattern.
March: I’m running for LITA Board member at large.
April: Modern digital cameras, whether small hand-held models or digital SLRs, often have more modes and options than the average picture-taker needs, but knowing a bit about how modes work can improve photos.
May: I’ve been working today on a TechSource post about creative ways to use a digital camera in a library and have been wowed and awed by all the great programming that is being documented by libraries on flickr.
June: Stay on top of the chaos: In sitting down to write Part 5 of this series, “Turning Images into Objects,” I realized I’d gotten ahead of myself.
July: Three years ago, at the ALA Annual Conference in DC, I wrote this blog post.
August: It’s weird that I have no one to talk to, no one who truly knows the situation.
September: So.
October: I’m on the beach in Clearwater, FL, as the previous few pages weakly attest.
November: Clinical depression is the opposite of addiction.
December: working backward, words I don’t want to lose
Clinical depression is the opposite of addiction. Rather than having a singular focus, depression is absence of caring paired with inability to connect. If this disease could be visualized, it would be a red-black sludge lurking malevolently and quietly in the sulci until some event triggers its oozing over the gyri, until the entire brain is suffocated with it, and it blocks all knowing. The best that can be done for those who suffer is to force it back down into those cerebral crevices, but it cannot be entirely eradicated. It is always lurking, whispering, hinting that pain is coming, and deservedly so. When it is covering one’s existence, the only thought is to silence its screaming, and the only path to silence is to deprive it of the life that feeds it. Unfortunately, in this process, the host dies.
_____
I have sat on this draft for a while, for more than a month, in fact. I’m not in that place anymore, but I seem to go there frequently. I wish I could change that, but I’m starting to live with the fact that this can’t be changed. The best I can do is manage it, not let it get the best of me and hope that those around me are aware and caring enough to help with that.
Someday I want to write about the stigma of all of this. I don’t even know how to begin. Mental illnesses are just that–illnesses. Imbalances caused by brain chemistry, genetics, trauma, environment. What makes them so shaming?
I probably will only tweet for this event, so I’m capturing them here. Be warned: I’m not filtering with the tag; this will contain all my tweets for the entire week.
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This morning, Miss4 finished her breakfast earlier than her sister and ran upstairs to get ready first. “Not fair!” her sister screamed, “she always gets ready before me!” “Well, if you wouldn’t sit there and scream and cry, you could get ready faster,” I criticized in return. She ran out of the room in tears and screamed that she hated her sister. This phrase had been appearing with alarming frequency lately, and I was tired of it. I charged into her bedroom to call her on it, but before I could get a word out, she yelled, “Why do you always yell at me but you encourage her?”
I stopped dead. “You’re right. You’re totally right. I shouldn’t do that.” Because her sister is still 4, I use a completely different approach with her. Demands fall flat–the stronger the demand, the harder she digs her heels in. Miss7 outgrew it, mostly, so to encourage her to get ready quickly, I had appealed to her growing sense of self-responsibility. When she started first grade, we told her that she knew what the morning routine was, and that she was big enough to get ready without being prompted every step of the way. It worked great.
Well, somewhere along the way, that got lost. She constantly gets distracted doing the littlest tasks, and she has to be reminded multiple times every step of the way. It’s easy for morning drama to escalate, especially when Miss4 “does things first.”
So, Miss7 and I had a good talk about how we shouldn’t yell at each other, and how she needs encouragement just as much as her sister does. When we got to the point about not saying “I hate you,” she said “It’s hard helping take care of a little kid.” “I know,” I said, “and I have *two* to look out for.” “I do, too, Mom,” said Miss7, “I have to remind you of stuff sometimes, too.”
Yep. She’s totally right. It’s not fair for parents to take out frustration and stress on our children, but everyone falls prey to it eventually (and for most people, repeatedly). I just hope that others out there are lucky enough to have a kid that will call them on it.
Going to go cry in my Cheerios now.
Libraries and librarians can make use of Creative Commons licensed works but must be careful to adhere to the terms of the licenses. Finding photos that have been licensed CC is the easy part: CC search is a part of flickr, Compfight and even Google Images search.
Read more at the TechSource blog.
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