libraria miscellanea

There have been many times in my life where I was vulnerable. Dictionary.com defines this as, "(of a person) in need of special care, support, or protection because of age, disability, or risk of abuse or neglect." Synonyms are: helpless, defenseless, powerless, impotent, weak, susceptible. During those times, my community was also small; sometimes, it was only my small family and maybe a co-worker, or a church. As a single mom, an injured returned Peace Corps volunteer with no home or job, and also as a child, I have known vulnerability. By United States definitions, I grew up in poverty. We utilized government assistance, the help and goodwill of grandparents, and community non-profit clothing and toy closets, especially around the holidays. I really appreciated what we had. My four siblings and I rarely enjoyed food from restaurants, never went on vacations, and looked forward to grandma taking us back to school shopping for clothes, and the Indian commodity supplies

I've been on a mindfulness journey since November 2018, teaching weekly free meditation classes at my public library, and consequently setting out on a daily personal meditation and mindfulness practice. This has expanded into working through self-compassion, learning how to accept myself, my feelings, and embrace them, sit with them, name them, and be kind to myself. Holy cow, that is not easy and it can be very overwhelming at times. I think I'm most surprised about how many feelings and how often I feel overwhelming feelings; both positive and negative ones. At the leadership institute retreat is where I started this journey and met other librarians who were very open, and identified as "empaths." they quickly opened up to me and helped me realize I guess I am one of these, too. I used to HATE that my mom was so emotional when i was a kid- I didn't know at the time that she had been living, undiagnosed, with bipolar disorder, so her moods were extreme a

I didn't hear very many positive things about Harper Lee's newly released novel, Go Set a Watchman  when my turn for our library's copy came around last week:  "It was supposed to be a rough draft."  "Nothing can compare to To Kill a Mockingbird." " Not everybody can enjoy this book." But still, I resolved to give it a fair chance and promptly checked it out. I have enjoyed reading other books by young Southern ladies, such as Carson McCullers.  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter  captivated my attention as a young-20-something.  I was moved by the author's sensitivity, the sense of loneliness and humanity, and the vivid description of empoverished life in the South, being a new transplant myself (I moved to North Carolina by way of South Africa then before that, Oklahoma, which is sometimes considered but definitely not, Southern). And of course, I read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird in high school English class.  We subsequently revi

My best friend recently recommended that I read, Surprise:  Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected  by Tania Luna and Leeann Renniger, PhD.  At first, I thought, hmm, I am pretty good at surprise and finding interesting things in everyday, but okay, I'll try it.  The design of the book is modern, attractive, cute.  The idea is pretty intriguing.  The best part, however, are the last two chapters:  "Cultivate Relationships," and "Surprise Yourself."  These ladies offer REAL advice in the form of specific exercises you can do to transform your day, your outlook, even, they boast, your world.  The authors are surprisingly candid, sharing personal journeys from depression to joy and surprise, which validates their claims, and makes me, a real person, be able to connect to the ideas and suggestions they posit. "When we are surprised we feel deeply connected and thoroughly alive.  Surprising ourselves every day is a vital part of living a happ

When you think of a library, do you typically think that food and drinks are permitted?  I suppose this depends on your age; when I was a kid, you were not permitted to speak above a whisper, let alone bring in something to eat or drink; but, these times they are a changin.'  Our library has a policy forbidding food and drink, unless it is otherwise approved by library staff.  [raised eyebrow] We serve snacks at book club meetings, author visits, and other programs.  People subversively bring their snacks, thinking we don't notice.  I try to walk the line between upholding the rules and graciousness, but if somebody comes in with a cup of coffee or a Route 44, I have to draw the line:  you spill that on the computer and it's done-zo.  Think again, buddy. But, what's really neat about today's library as third place is that you can transform it into anything you want:  painting studio, lego crafting faire, ice cream party, or cake decorating station.  Tomorrow, I

We have a library garden.  As a master gardener who got her training from Oklahoma, I am accustomed to red clay and extreme temperatures.  My current experience in the Piedmont of North Carolina has taught me that nothing I know can be trusted.  Even though the Carolina clay is much like our Okie clay, the climate is much milder, wetter, and different things grow better and longer.  I have gardened in the Kalahari desert, both with school kids and for myself, and that was kind of easy:  sand instead of clay.  Water conservation, keeping the water in, instead of busting up the surface, providing drainage:  opposite gardening. I have hijacked the landscaping (complete with a foot of topsoil) and planted cilantro, tomatoes, mustard greens, basil, green peppers, peas, radishes, gourds, and cucumbers.  Oh yes, and loofah. A great piece of conversation this summer and fall with my patrons has been the loofah.  Our neighbor donated two loofah sprouts to us, and I chose a spot which I thoug

Leaving the library to realize potential   Working in a small library is a unique and special experience.   Our community is small, but nestled between two larger towns, and an interstate jaunt of less than 50 miles to Charlotte, a large metropolitan area.   We are near Lake Norman and the State Park, and some of our patrons are quite wealthy; however many of the residents are in the lower middle and poorer income brackets.   There are business people, some of whom commute to work, and some farmers and teachers.   Some of our patrons are elderly, quite a few school aged children frequent the library, some teens, and some young adults; their needs range from readers’ advisory for fiction series, troubleshooting school laptops, job and resume help, basic computer skills, storytime and most important of all, the need for a third place to enjoy and interact with others. My previous library experience had been both in a rural, empoverished village in South Africa, and in a medi

It’s weird to grow up “white” but be part-Native American.   I always longed for a rich, fully involved cultural heritage and known family lineage.   Some of my girlfriends went to frequent pow-wows, had grandmothers with homemade frybread recipes, and who won Indian Princess contests with their beads and homemade dresses year after year.   By contrast, my grandfather’s father, who was a full-blood Cherokee, converted to become a Southern Baptist at some point in his young life.   He was awarded a scholarship to study seminary at Haskell College (now Haskell Indian Nations University), and proceeded to convert Cherokees on the Reservation to become Baptist Christians, too.   He did not teach his children anything of their native customs, heritage or language, but showed them how to assimilate, as best they could, into small town, white Oklahoman culture.   My grandfather was in the Army Reserve and married a white woman (my grandmother).   What is assimilation?   Part of assi

When I was in graduate school, the web was a different place than it is today.  Some new technologies and concepts were cloud computing, RSS, and social networking.  Wikis had been around for years, but wikipedia had only just become popular.  It was a time of shifting paradigms and new toys.  Facebook had just gone public, previously only available to college students.  Much of the details were still a mystery to me, but I caught on quickly and wanted to learn more.  It seemed to me that all the new media sharing could only serve to make life easier and more fun; it was certainly helping me, anyway. Another subject that really interested me was cataloging and indexing.  As an emerging information professional, I felt it my duty to understand how knowledge and information has been organized up to this point.  Librarians had been responsible for organizing and disseminating information for the general public, and they had done a great job.  Using data schemes, like the Dewey Decimal