MG reconsidered

So after talking over the MG thing in a non-judgmental, neutral way with a colleague, acting just genuinely curious about it, it seems that maybe there's an in-house rationale for the way we're doing things after all...if only because of distortions owing to our curious local practices.  Because whereas in most libraries YA would now come to represent the edgier, high end "older teen" material in a standard collection, that stuff in OUR collection has already been pushed over into the Adult Materials section, such that existing YA in our system would be regarded as MG in any other library, so we might as well change the classification to the prevailing descriptive norm, which effectively phases out YA from current local usage because again all the stuff that would be YA in more standardized libraries are already sharing shelf and classification space with the rest of Adult Materials.  I still think it's weird...and believe me, it is...but bowing to local conditions being what they are, there is a certain kind of logic to it, however senseless it might seem at first blush.  At first blush it seems merely cosmetic and an empty gesture...and while on some level that's true, it's also an updated and more accurate description of the books in our collection that would other have remained in YA going forward if the MG category did not yet exist in the first place.

It's a little tough to wrap your head around, but it does make a certain kind of sense that I see more clearly today than in my original post.

It's hard to admit being wrong, but in this case, I guess I was in my original posting on this topic.

Cool but ironic signage (GML)

Snapped a picture of this cool signage we have advertising our manga collection:

Neat, huh?  The character in the image is named Natsu Dragneel and his is a major character in the Fairy Tail manga & anime.  The irony?  We don't actually own any volumes of the Fairy Tail manga itself.  I put in a "Suggest A Title" request, advising we collect at least the first 15 volumes or so, but it remains to be seen if those purchases will be made or not.  I personally am a huge fan of the Fairy Tail franchise, and its anime adaptation is one of my favorite Anime shows of all time.  Are you FIRED UP to discover more manga?

Currently reading (brief impression of) Listen, Liberal [by Thomas Frank]

I'm currently reading [read: listening to the audiobook] of Listen, Liberal by journalist Thomas Frank, of What's the Matter with Kansas fame.  It is basically a critique of the Democratic Party since the late 1960s; specifically a critique of its policy shifts away from the New Deal coalition of FDR and towards courting the young emerging professional class and outright disdain and contempt for traditional working class voters.

It's a very good and eye-opening book but also incredibly depressing.

It makes a good companion piece to Chris Hayes' Twilight of the Elites: America after Meritocracy (2013), though Hayes' own programming shifts since 2013, and really since leaving UP with Chris Hayes on Saturday mornings, with its long-format, deep policy dives and landing the more prestigious but greatly abbreviated 7pm slot just before Rachel Maddow, and his coverage of the Bernie Sanders campaign, Hayes himself seems to have sold out and fallen in line with the Meritocratic consensus he once so eloquently deplored in the pages of his 2013 book.  It saddens me.

With the victory of Hillary Clinton over Sanders, the Meritocracy seems as firmly in charge of the Democratic Party's destiny right now as it ever has been.  That saddens me, as a "Bernie Bitter Ender", though I will probably reluctantly pull the lever for HRC come November because Trump must be stopped no matter what.  It just saddens me that "permanent disillusionment" seems to be the fate I must resign myself to in this country for someone with my particular set of political ideals that HRC pays lip service to at best.  I hope I'm wrong and that HRC pleasantly surprises me; but after the disappointments of the first Clinton presidency and the mediocre gains of Obama's two terms, I'm not holding my breath.  I feel like Bernie Sanders was our last best hope.  My tepid support for HRC is born out of an exhausted fatalism and looking back at the 1990s through rose colored glasses.

The new Thomas Frank book also reminds me of my ultimate failure to join the Professional Class as a working librarian.  I'm shut out, largely owing to my inability to navigate the intricacies of office politics owing to my at the time undiagnosed Asperger's.  If I had made it, I might have had to more deeply examine myself as potentially part of the problem...or I'd be more oblivious to that fact, shielded from critical self examination by my larger paycheck.

I belong to what my friend PK describes as "The Intellectual Proletariat", e.g. highly educated but under-employed, well-read liberal artsy types lacking high tech STEM skills but otherwise skilled at critical thinking, writing, etc. but objecting to The Washington Consensus on moral grounds.

I'm only a few chapters in so far, but Thomas Frank makes it clear that things went awry by deliberate design as far back as 1972, so basically for as long as I've been alive (born in February 1971).  The Great Society was undermined fatally by the Vietnam War and the social split caused by that war, with union hardhats beating hippies with a sense of patriotic zeal, and the over-correction in reaction to that, the undue obsession with the then Youth Culture, as the "new" base of the Democratic Party, and the inculcated disdain for working stiffs and probably returning veterans not lucky enough to get a college deferment from the war, or lacking the economic means to flee to Canada for the war's duration.

As the old saying has it, "The Personal is the Political";  I'm reminded that Librarianship has become so professionalized that the MLS is today a defacto MBA for Libraryland and if you're not in some kind of managerial role, you're deemed unworthy to call yourself a Library professional or Librarian period if you're "merely" a solo practitioner providing core library services to the public directly.  That role is considered unworthy of "professional" level salary compensation, etc.  That's what merely college educated "paras" are for, no MLS required.  Librarians manage Paras & Clerks first, and provide core library services only as an afterthought, or in more of a consulting capacity at most.  It wasn't always this way, and the change isn't necessarily for the better, and definitely hurts ASD people from becoming successful Librarians due to the emphasis on the managerial role, which we often SUCK at.  If you have an MLS but are mainly interested in providing core library services directly to the public, well, you're an underachiever by definition and sucks to be you, pal.

I deplore this state of affairs, but also feel I'm just a lone voice, crying in the wilderness.

Half-assed Public Outreach (HPL @ Anime Matsuri X)

     I really enjoyed this year's Anime Matsuri X (tenth) convention at the end of February 2016 down at the George R. Brown Convention center.  I got to meet voice actor Vic Mignogna and get his autograph on a few of my prized DVD/Blu-Ray combo packs.  It was my friend Sarah's first Anime Matsuri, so I devoted my efforts to ensuring she had an enjoyable convention and thus spent a lot more time with her exploring the dealer's room and a lot less time attending panels than I had originally planned for.  I'm just about out of shelf space for anime figurines, so I didn't make any purchases of that nature this time around.  Probably the first anime convention I've been to where I didn't walk away with at least one purchased figurine.  I did pick up a few rare/out-of-print DVDs for myself but otherwise I was good and restrained myself.

Anyway, while wandering the dealer's room, I noticed that Houston Public Library had purchased and set up a booth at the convention, presumably to do library outreach.  That was definitely a cool idea, I thought.  However, having attended both Friday and Saturday (the busiest days), I kept walking by the HPL table and there was NEVER any person manning the booth, at all, all day.  Just a table laid out with general information about the library and its services and collections, to pick up at your leisure.  But no actual library personnel on site to ask questions, sign up people for library cards, etc.

I thought to myself WOW, this is really half-assed library outreach.  Did they just not want to PAY anyone to be there on library time?  And even if they had been willing to pay at least one library worker or librarian to sit/stand behind the booth's table, their set-up was really really generic and not at all eye-catching.  I was thinking to myself the whole time Guys! You're at an ANIME convention for heaven's sake!  Don't you think you ought to be playing up the parts of your collection that would interest this captive audience??

If I had been in charge, I would have had 1 circulation person on hand ready to sign people up and issue library cards to all Texas residents interested; maybe even with a credit card square on a tablet in case any out-of-state people wanted to pay to get a card for a year (or pay off fines).  More importantly I would've had demonstrations of Hoopla! and all the manga that can be found on ComicsPlus (Library edition) and Hoopla! respectively.  I would've been showing off all the cool old school anime that Hoopla! currently showcases.  THAT would be knowing your audience and catering to their interests.  If they liked what they saw but didn't have a library card, you could sign them up on the spot, show them how to download the Hoopla app, and how to sign in with their new library credentials.  Then they could go on their merry way, watching anime on their phone, showing it to their friends, who might also want to sign up, etc.

I mean, I'm glad HPL was there at all, which was more than we did, but damn did they go about it really half-assed.  They could've gotten so much more out of their library outreach effort if they'd tried just a little bit harder and invested fractionally a bit more $$ beyond what they already sunk getting a dealer's room table in the first place, probably the biggest single ticket expense item in their effort that weekend.

Watching Folly from the Sidelines.

     There used to be (and may still be) a column in the monthly professional military periodical Proceedings by the Naval Institute Press that had the title of "Nobody asked me, but..." which were guest articles by active duty, reserve, and retired Navy & Marine personnel who would weigh in with their personal opinion about current Navy or Marine Corps practices.
     I remember reading these columns with interest with every new issue of Proceedings that would appear on the periodical shelf in the NJROTC room of my High School.  When I think back on it, I wonder how many of the contributors to this column were undiagnosed Aspies in uniform in the late 1980s.  People who march to the beat of a different drummer, or had a different, or outsider's perspective on things that could point the way to a new and better way of handling things. 
     It's been I can't remember how long since I last looked at an issue of Proceedings, of course, and I've long since distanced myself personally from any involvement in military affairs apart from a lingering layman's interest from time to time.  But it's funny the things you remember from a few years spent in High School NJROTC and a few semesters of college level NROTC.
     All of this is a long-winded way of writing a blog post that is basically the Libraryland equivalent of "Nobody asked me, but..."
     Word was passed down that from henceforth we would be re-labeling all of our YA books as MG books, which stands for "Middle Grades"; this was to be implemented system-wide.  I thought it was a curiously labor-intensive long term project for such a seemingly cosmetic and superficial change.  I'm not a Youth Services librarian, would not want to be one either (unless my outsized interest in manga and anime could be of use in such a context someday).  Nor am I actively involved in Cataloging work either.  I think RDA is madness and a step backwards or at least weirdly sideways from AACR2.  But I've made peace with that philosophical objection and backed away from the active discussions of cataloging professionals.  But I was curious about the rationale behind the change, and did some very cursory Googling to find out about why this change from YA to MG suddenly came about.  Was it merely fickle fashion or was there a solid reason for it?  I consulted YALSA and read a few professional articles to gain a deeper understanding of the debate.
     And the debate, as I understand it now from that cursory review of the literature, is that some libraries are agitating for a more fine grained distinction between Young Adult (YA) literature aimed at more mature late teens (16 and up) and Juvenile (read: children's) literature.  Literature in the more broad sense of "reading material" (Lektüre in German), beyond the narrow sense of Literary fiction (Literatur, in German).  I know most professionals know that already, but it took a number of years for that distinction to become clear to ME, I'm embarrassed to admit.  Middle Grades (MG) fiction, as I now understand it, has been proposed by YALSA members to fill the perceived gap, aimed at Tween and Young Teen readers who are beyond Juvenile reading material but for whom some of the material currently found in YA is a bit more mature, serious, emotionally challenging, etc, than this subset of young people.  Delineated in this fashion, it makes perfect sense.  You would have J, MG, & YA literature in your collective Youth Services collections, ideally speaking, and these readers would eventually age out and begin checking out the majority of their reading materials from the Adult Services main collection.  One of the "shell-games" we play locally to head off censorship challenges before they occur is to selectively classify certain controversial topics as the next level of age classification than is standard practice in other, less conservative communities.  We place in YA certain materials that other libraries would place in J, and place in the Adult Collection certain very mature YA works (usually those dealing with sexuality and social issues) that might otherwise be challenged by overly nosy & conservative parents.  I think it's unfortunate we have to play this game with our public patrons, but I concede it's better than fending off constant challenges and raising public ire against the library, since we exist thanks to the local taxes paid by the general public, and if it maintains goodwill, the game is worth continuing,  however much it may offend my inner sense of professionalism and cherished ideals about library ethics in the abstract.  The net effect is fewer challenges, we still collect and retain the material, and those that truly need it can still obtain it without shame or judgement, and that is what we call a WIN at the end of the day.
    But the fact that we play this delicate, quasi shell-game of classification as a normal part of doing business where we operate fills me with a sense of dread at our ham-fisted implementation of the Middle Grades (MG) classification schema as a complete replacement for YA.  I'm beating my head against my desk in frustration at just how stupid our local decision is versus YALSA's original intent with creating MG in the first place.  It completely misses the point of what YALSA was advocating; instead of a more fine-grained classification schema, our local decision essentially *collapses* the distinction between MG and YA.  The net effect may well be that a lot more material in the upper end of YA maturity levels will get shunted over to compete for shelf space in the Adult Collection.  YA will cease to be a meaningful designation in our system, and that's really unfortunate, since it's a perfectly good schema and I personally like a lot of the popular fiction that's written at this level of reader, and the spinoff media that comes from it (think Harry Potter or Percy Jackson).

To reiterate, I'm not a cataloger, I'm not a Youth Services librarian.  It's none of my business and nobody asked me.  I'm an obscure Interlibrary loan clerk and just content to keep doing my job.  But as someone who once upon a time actually held a professional position as a librarian with an actual ALA-accredited MLS, this boneheaded local decision makes me want to scream on the inside.  I don't raise a stink locally because it wouldn't do any good and would be plain disadvantageous for my long term career prospects.  But I did feel the need to get this off my chest, since just yelling into my pillow at night wasn't quite enough.

Quick review of Hoopla!

So basically this is the "poor man's version" of Netflix for library card holders.  It's actually pretty cool, though.

I had a fun evening last night playing around with Hoopla! online; I created a separate account for myself via my HPL Link Card, and created an account for my mom for her FBCL card. Then I poked around and marked a lot of "favorites" for myself. Unsurprisingly, HPL's holdings in Hoopla! are slightly more robust than those of FBCL, including several more Anime titles. Most are, equally unsurprising, sub-only films, but a few are English dubs, like Ghost in the Shell 2.0. Macross Plus was described as being in English, with some of the ADR cast listed, but when I actually checked it out and started watching, it was all in Japanese. I started Ghost in the Shell 2.0 but didn't quite finish. I'll pick it up where I left off tomorrow. Maybe Macross Plus, too.

I also explored the Hoopla! music catalogs of both collections as well as the audiobook catalogs of both, too.  I bookmarked several audiobook "favorites" for possible future check-outs.

I noticed there's a lot of "cover bands" in the music section, doing renditions of more famous songs "in the style of...X" rather than the original artist. Also, there are a lot of tricky children's animated movies that seem awful close to more famous original properties from Disney, Pixar and the like...with parallel, slightly deceptive titles and artwork.  This is a little shady, but I understand why they do it.

I like the fact that, like Netflix, Hoopla! remembers where you stopped and allows you to play back from that point instead of the beginning of the video.  It would be much more frustrating if they didn't do that.  Reportedly audiobooks do the same, even across multiple check-outs on the same card.

Users are limited to a set number of check outs per 30-day period, there is no benefit for returning an item early, the embargo is still enforced to the end of the period.  For a smaller system like FBCL, our checkout limit is 5 items.  For a slightly larger system like HPL, their limit is 7.

I like that there are even a few Spanish audiobooks available.  I checked out and started listening to a Spanish translation of Sun Tsu's The Art of War ("El Arte de la Guerra").  I wish this service had existed when I was learning Spanish in the late 1990s.  Side note, Houston Atheists now have a Spanish-language meetup for Freethinkers whose primary language is Spanish...I wish *this* group had been around in the late 1990s, too...I longed to discuss philosophical concepts with someone of a more rational, non-religious mindset back then, en español.

I watched the trailer (these are demos that one may check out that don't count against one's check out limit) for a movie about The Red Baron, von Richthofen, that looked pretty good...probably better than that James Franco movie "Flyboys", about the American volunteers for the French Air Force before formal U.S. entry into WW1, that I did manage to see in theaters.  It is in English, but with German actors and their noticeable German accents.

I like that the library is extending a service like this to the less fortunate library card users among us who can't afford a monthly Netflix subscription or an iTunes account.  It is possible to access Hoopla! over the web and also on the main mobile devices like iPhone/iPad and Android and also the Kindle Fire app for Hoopla!  It's fun to explore this digital content and is much, much simpler to use than Overdrive.  It should help discourage online content piracy and encourage users to access legal, legitimate content paid for by their local library system.

One fault I find with both Overdrive and Hoopla! is that in the audiobook content, right-wing views predominate in certain select categories like economics, history, and general nonfiction.  Next is mainstream centrist views and bringing up the rear far behind are left-wing critiques of mainstream economics, politics, history, etc.  These views are either few and far between or just non-existent, especially in newer digital media.  Such views do catch up eventually over time, like in Overdrive, but in Hoopla! the right-wing view dominates to a disturbing degree.  The Conservative and Reactionary movements seem far more media and tech savvy than the Lib/Left opposition, sad to say.
They are much quicker on the draw to get their views presented and available to the eyes and ears of library users, and this is an issue of concern.

Why ILL should be headed by a Librarian

The public library workplace is all too often a minefield of office politics.  So much depends on one’s professional rank insofar as who gets listened to and whom can be safely ignored or snubbed.

Any department or unit that is NOT headed by a librarian is at a distinct disadvantage vis a vis other departments and units which are.

In a large system, cooperation between the branches is key, especially for system-wide functions like Interlibrary loan.

Our main library building is undergoing extensive renovations and as such had to make the painful decision to close our doors to the public.  We only have a skeleton crew of the circulation staff on site besides Support Services, which in our organizational structure includes ILL.  The OPAC had to be adjusted to disallow holds to be routed to our main branch, but this impacted ILL as well, as I was no longer able to place holds myself.  We engineered a low-tech work around, wherein I would simply email my ILL Liaisons at each branch with my daily pull requests from their stacks and they would route the items to me via the interoffice mail system (which is still operational) instead of through the traditional circulation system.

This worked well at first, but there has been a regression to the mean insofar as, once again, some branches are more responsive and reliable than others.  Also, apparently, my email sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, is easy to ignore, etc.  I’ve also been scolded for improper use of the “Mark as urgent” function in email.  Evidently because of my Asperger’s, I’m just not competent or to be trusted with this function.  ;-)  Just because I subjectively think something is urgent is not sufficient cause for me to mark it as such.  I’ve tried to argue my case but been shouted down one too many times, even by one of my local advocates.  It’s just a fight not worth having.  You’ve got to pick your battles and found this ground to be untenable.

Many of my ILL Branch liaisons are actual librarians, and in the smaller branches, the actual branch manager.  They easily outrank me, a mere Clerk.  All of my efforts to get them to respond to my ILL requests have to be done by begging, obsequious pleading, etc.  It’s not as if I can throw my weight around or apply the pressure of collegiality, as an equal.  I feel as though ILL as a whole unit gets less respect because the highest ranking person in our unit is a Paraprofessional.  I feel like if we had an actual librarian in charge, our requests might be attended to more promptly by all branches.  If we were headed by a librarian, we would be better positioned to complain directly to the administration about recalcitrant branches who were lax in their responsiveness to ILL requests, which reflects negatively on the system as a whole.  As it stands, we just have to keep our heads down and fill our existing requests to the best of our ability during this time of utter dependency on the branches.  Alas, the stacks in the main building are temporarily closed and thus I’m not able to pull books held in my own building until we-reopen at the end of the month.

Although I think things will improve once our stacks revert from closed to open and we resume full circulation operations, I still think the lack of a librarian in charge of ILL has an impact on the effectiveness of ILL as a whole within the system.  Because we’re not headed up by a peer of equal standing, we can be snubbed and ignored more easily by those units which are so headed.  It’s not as if this is mean-spirited or deliberate.  It’s just benign neglect and inattention, mostly, though in the end our ability to be a full ILL partner with other libraries still suffers regardless.

Pleasant surprise(s)

One lemon-to-lemonade moment I've experienced lately;  It turns out my ILL liaisons at the various branches are quite a bit more responsive and efficient than regular circulation staff.

I've had to fall back to relying on them, actually, because my main building is currently closed to the public and we have only a skeleton crew on staff in circulation.  Hold requests have been completely shut off for the main building in the catalog, which disrupted my daily operations immediately.  Evidently this hadn't been taken into account despite my having raised the issue in a staff meeting and being reassured that it would all be taken care of.  I was pretty enraged about this for the better part of a day but bit my tongue and maintained a cool, factual facade to my supervisor on what I needed and why the current arrangement needed a work-around.  I'm grateful to the Assistant Director of the system for intervening directly and directing me to rely instead on old-fashioned email directly to the ILL liaisons still staffing the various branches in the system.

Turns out these folks are more on-the-ball than their regular circulation counterparts when it comes to responding to my requests via email instead of via the internal hold mechanism of the OPAC.  Some branches are more reliable than others, some circ staff more dependable than others.  It's just the reality out there.  But my ILL Liaisons are amazing.  NOT ONE request has arrived too late at the main building to fill an existing ILL request since we had to jury-rig the current set-up in lieu of using the OPAC's internal hold system.  So proud of my Liaisons out there!  The main building stacks are also currently closed, which is frustrating since it means I can't just go upstairs and grab something off the shelves to fill a request.  I'm 100% relying on my pull requests via email now.  The current adult collection is now a work-zone, with the book shelves covered by protective tarp while the ceiling is being completely replaced, the wiring redone, etc.  We basically have to steer clear of the rest of the building outside of the basement for the next couple of months.

I'm also grateful for the books I'm sometimes able to add in the catalog--donations of duplicates already cataloged and in-system that need additional copies at other branch libraries.  They're not put out on the shelf every day, but I'm grateful every time new books of this type appear for me to work on.  It's not actual cataloging, but it's often close enough to keep me happy.  I'm certainly more efficient at it than our other clerks without professional experience as a working librarian.

Grateful for Navigator, because WorldShare S*CKS

I'm personally grateful the State of Texas is having all of us Public Libraries currently on OCLC First Search transition to the Navigator system for ILL.  Near as I can tell, Navigator will actually supersede OCLC WorldShare, which is scheduled to roll-out and replace OCLC First Search by December 31st of 2013.  I have tried to use OCLC WorldShare but OMG, I hate this interface so much.  It's SO DAMN SLOW and sluggish.  It takes forever to load in between actions.  I hate not being able to mass-printout new requests without having to go through them individually one at a time.  In so many ways WorldShare is a step BACKWARDS in terms of staff functionality.  I'm sure it does some important new & good things as well, but as an experienced First Search user, what stands out to me are what WorldShare handles more poorly than First Search.  I just can't get past these things, and not for lack of trying either.

We've not had a chance to beta-test a live version of Navigator, but from the simulations we've done in training, the interface seems much more user friendly and logical than WorldShare at least.  So day to day I've given up trying to use/learn WorldShare, since Navigator seems to make WorldShare moot after its own implementation by the State of Texas.  I feel sorry for non-Texas libraries who will be under WorldShare's yoke after 31 December of 2013, though.

For now, OCLC First Search still works swimmingly well so that's what I'm sticking with for daily ILL requests until Navigator comes online officially.  WorldShare to me is mainly a waste of time---far, far less efficient than First Search.  I can't begin to explain WHY that's the case, only that as a practical matter in day to day operations, it IS emphatically the case.  It's not merely a case of my being familiar with First Search and less familiar with WorldShare.  I've genuinely tried to make WorldShare work for me, on several occasions, as has my co-worker.  We're both equally frustrated by its sluggishness and clunkyness.  Perhaps another case of the computer scientists designing library software without querying actual library staff before developing it?  So it would seem, at any rate.

Personal loss of passion.

In Library School I was actively involved in the Progressive Librarians Guild.  Back in 2003, I was vehemently against the Iraq War and involved online with fellow SLIS students who opposed the war.  I was even against the original invasion of Afghanistan, which was a very unpopular, minority view in those days.

My anti-War stance and friendships with fellow anti-War SLIS grad students is what naturally lead me to PLG.  As I became more active in the online discussion in those days, I was invited to join the Progressive Librarians Guild Coordinating Committee.  I did join, and served for a number of  years, mostly chiming in on votes put before the CC to say yea or nay to a proposed resolution or public statement.  I cared very much in those early years.

My anti-War activism also drew me to the woman (an UNT undergrad) whom I would eventually marry.  We were both anti-War and sought comfort in each other.  The problem was that we both opposed the War and President Bush for vastly, vastly different reasons.  Over time we learned the painful truth that we were more united by what we opposed than anything positive we could both affirm.  When she returned to the intense religiosity of her childhood, it more or less spelled the end of our relationship.  She was also verbally abusive and I was conflict averse and also an undiagnosed person on the autism spectrum.  My undiagnosed ASD definitely played a role in the disintegration of my marriage.  We were both stumbling around in the dark.

I can see now that my undiagnosed ASD had led to some social faux pas online with the PLG group.  I even got "flamed" once or twice for honest remarks I made that were not well received.  I was pretty naive about the ins and outs of Leftist politics in those days.  Probably still am.

Two failed attempts at being a professional Librarian later, and after finally landing a job at a local public library system as a mere clerk (and grateful even for that!), I found myself increasingly estranged from PLG and its work.  I still morally support them from afar, but I just find it increasingly hard to care as much about a profession that in the main does not seem to care about me.  I feel excluded from librarianship and thus alienated from it.  I missed some key votes on PLG-CC because I just couldn't stay motivated to stay on top of things.  I had more immediate concerns, like my horrific, bullying boss at the time.  I'm still grateful to have weathered that long and difficult storm.  I am pleased to be sailing on open, peaceful seas with a gentle breeze at my back again.

I made everything easy on everyone and just up and resigned my PLG-CC post without a fight.  My heart simply wasn't in it anymore.  At most I sometimes keep up with some of the members via Facebook, sometimes contribute to the Facebook page.  I'm subscribed to the general PLG list, but don't pay it much mind anymore either.

Upon coming to terms with my ASD diagnosis, I realized that one of my Library school friends & anti-War compatriots, Nancy, was also probably an ASD person as well, I realized from hindsight.  I tried to seek Nancy out, only to be told by a mutual friend that Nancy had subsequently passed away from an illness...far far too young.  The mutual friend was at least able to confirm for me that Nancy indeed was on the autism spectrum.  But I was heartbroken at not being able to commiserate with her after my own diagnosis.  I can remember Nancy being very socially awkward, even more so than me, and feeling kind of sorry for her and even trying to encourage her to speak more or re-assure her that what she had to say was important.  I miss Nancy so much sometimes.  Our mutual friend assures me that Nancy was much loved by her patrons, and that is a small comfort.  I'm glad she was able to find some success as a librarian before being forced to exit this life far too soon.

I stay in touch with a library colleague who is still in North Texas and whom I'm convinced is a fellow Aspie.  He resisted even my DX at first but over time he's come to at least allow that it's possible we're both on the autism spectrum and that is why we "get" each other more readily than other people do.  He's going through a rough patch now but to his credit he's a survivor and I have confidence in him.  After all, he still has the same job, while I had to leave North Texas in disgrace.  He made that small college town we both shared even more fun than it otherwise would've been for me.

I have an ASD colleague that I work with now, but he is a part-time staffer and does not have even a BA, much less an MLS.  He's far less intellectual or introspective than me.  He's progressed to being at least friendly now, but really, we have nothing in common.  I'm polite, but I really haven't much interest in forming an actual friendship with this co-worker.  I have a couple of Neurotypical co-workers that I actually do like to hang out with...they're comic book & sci-fi nerds, so at least we have some things tangentially in common.
We used to play a tabletop RPG together but that is now on hiatus.  I know in the beginning my ASD caused me to make some social missteps that now limit my participation in their social circles.  It's just how it is.  Some of the friends of friends are cool with me, others not (though they pretend otherwise to be polite).

Ironically, I did work up enough passion to even write about all this in this blogpost.  As you can see, there's not much that moves or motivates me within Librarianship anymore.  I just can't muster much enthusiasm for the profession that mostly let me down and failed me.  It's just a job now, nothing more.  Don't get me wrong, I still like my job, I could be vastly worse, but I don't feel forcefully passionate about it the way I did when I was an actual working librarian being paid a real and respectable salary.  I live at home with my parents because on my salary now I'd be *desperately* poor after making the sky-high apartment rents in this area every month.  I do pay my parents a modest rent every month, but beyond that this arrangement, though mildly annoying at times, does give me enough disposable income to have a fairly good life.  It's not at all uncommon for Aspie men my age to live with their parents, which helps take away some of the sting of the situation and removes for me some of the social stigma--or at least my worry about the social stigma of living at home with my folks. I even maintained an emotionally intimate relationship with a girlfriend while living at home and working for AIG in between library jobs...I'd spend weekends with her...Friday and Saturday nights through Sunday AM, then weekdays at home.  It was a very agreeable arrangement.  Lisa was such a lovely partner whom I cared for deeply.  If I had known of my ASD diagnosis then, had understood just how good a fit my AIG job was with my A.S., and appreciated more just how good a fit Lisa was with ME, it's entirely conceivable that I would've turned down the next university librarian gig down and just stayed on with Lisa and with AIG forever; It's not unreasonable to think I might've even had a kid or two with Lisa under slightly different hypothetical circumstances.  I would've made my own heart more emotionally available to Lisa if I hadn't been so focused on professional ambitions within Librarianship in those years.

I loved my job with AIG.  It was an excellent fit for me as an Aspie.  I only ever tried my hand at Librarianship because my AIG job *wasn't* good enough for my mother, who nagged me constantly about it being beneath me and not good for someone so smart as me.  Since she was a librarian, I figured becoming one myself would finally shut her the hell up and stop her constant disapproval and nagging over my career path and just leave me in peace.  It's all tragic and stupid in hindsight.  It can't be fixed, I'm unable to return to AIG thanks to a permanent hiring freeze on account of the big gov't bailout.  There was an opportunity to relocate to their Wisconsin office, but we could not come to terms on salary or relo costs, and not having ANY family or friends in that state, I just felt too uneasy about a move so big and leaving me so entirely alone.  I just felt too vulnerable and unable to seize on the opportunity--owning again in part to my recent ASD diagnosis.

These are regrets I'll carry with me as long as I live, the long shadow of regret of decisions made out of ignorance of my ASD condition.  An earlier diagnosis in my life might have made all the difference.

(Repost) ASAN Statement on Media Reports Regarding Newtown, CT Shooting

The following is a repost of ASAN's press release from yesterday;  Quoted in full below.

 link is here: http://autisticadvocacy.org/2012/12/asan-statement-on-media-reports-regarding-newton-ct-shooting/

===================================================================== 

ASAN Statement on Media Reports Regarding Newtown, CT Shooting

December 14, 2012

In response to recent media reports that the perpetrator of today’s shooting in Newtown, Connecticut may have been diagnosed on the autism spectrum or with a psychiatric disability, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) issued the following statement today:
“Our hearts go out to the victims of today’s shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and their families. Recent media reports have suggested that the perpetrator of this violence, Adam Lanza, may have been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a diagnosis on the autism spectrum, or with another psychiatric disability. In either event, it is imperative that as we mourn the victims of this horrific tragedy that commentators and the media avoid drawing inappropriate and unfounded links between autism or other disabilities and violence. Autistic Americans and individuals with other disabilities are no more likely to commit violent crime than non-disabled people. In fact, people with disabilities of all kinds, including autism, are vastly more likely to be the victims of violent crime than the perpetrators. Should the shooter in today’s shooting prove to in fact be diagnosed on the autism spectrum or with another disability, the millions of Americans with disabilities should be no more implicated in his actions than the non-disabled population is responsible for those of non-disabled shooters.
Today’s violence was the act of an individual. We urge media, government and community leaders to speak out against any effort to spuriously link the Autistic or broader disability community with violent crime. Autistic Americans and other groups of people with disabilities persist in facing discrimination and segregation in school, the workplace and the general community. In this terrible time, our society should not further stigmatize our community. As our great nation has so many times in the past, let us come together to both mourn those killed by acts of heinous murder and defend all parts of our country from the scourge of stigma and prejudice.”

Media inquiries regarding this shooting may be directed to ASAN at info@autisticadvocacy.org.

A librarian takes a vacation.

I recently took a vacation to visit relatives in Southeastern Missouri over the Thanksgiving break; We did not dine together on the actual day but rather the Saturday following.  We traveled to SE Missouri from SE Texas on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  My library system was closed starting Thanksgiving Day and remaining closed through the weekend.

I had a good time visiting with and catching up with relatives in this rural small town in SE Missouri but eventually I decided to stretch my legs and take a walk around the neighborhood.  I mainly knew the place from driving around it over the years (or being driven around it as a kid), mainly at Christmastime and the Summer.  I was less sure about the terrain on foot.  With the help of my iPhone and GPS locator function, I was able to locate the local public library and navigate the few short blocks of my aunt's neighborhood to its location.  I assumed it would be closed, as my library was, but to my surprise, when I got there, I found that although they had been closed Thursday and Friday, the were indeed open for the weekend like usual.  After taking some photographs of the exterior, I ventured inside.

It was a nice library, albeit not very busy.  Besides the three library staffers (what appeared to be a librarian and two circulation clerks), there was one other patron in the children's section and that was about it.  I hit the YA section looking out for any Manga collections or other graphic novels...there were a few comic book graphic novels I think but absolutely no English-language translated Japanese Manga anywhere.  I was taken a bit aback by this and asked the librarian on duty if they had any Manga in their collection.  She stated they didn't and that it wasn't popular here so they don't carry it, but to try the local comic book store near the Wal-Mart.  I found this analysis dubious but kept my opinion to myself, and thanked her for trying to help.  I explained I was a library staffer from Texas and just visiting relatives in town for the weekend.

Having returned home, I looked up the library's webpage online.  It does indeed have one, but to my surprise, it does NOT have a web-accessible OPAC.  I was kind of shocked by this.  They do have a presence on Facebook, but no OPAC that is web-accessible.  I do think they had a site-based OPAC, but I did not actually browse the catalog during my visit, and I don't recall seeing a card catalog, so I do assume they had at least a rudimentary online catalog on site, even if not one that was remotely accessible.  Their website does have a kind of "dictionary catalog" in the form of downloadable PDFs of popular genres of fiction, with the titles in alphabetical order, but no listings for non-fiction works.

I know in the course of my ILL work I've encountered small-town Texas libraries with no identifiable link to their catalog on their webpage, so I know this is not unheard of, but I still find it a little shocking.  Perhaps internet access in this (largely) rural area is still not widely available and the funding authorities still don't see a web-accessible OPAC to be a worthwhile investment at this time.  I personally think a web accessible OPAC is almost a bare minimum requirement for any functional US library of any size, but perhaps that's my own idealism and naivete talking.  It's not as if this library was utterly bereft of technology; they had computers that patrons could sign up to use for blocks of time and surf the web, etc.  They did have a surprisingly large number of obsolete formats, like VHS tapes (my own library system finished weeding the last of our VHS tapes in the past year), and books on tape (now available only at our main branch)...but again, I wonder if adoption of DVD technology perhaps isn't as widespread here and if many older patrons still cling to their VHS players and are unwilling or financially unable to upgrade to DVD players, much less Blu-Ray players.  They did at least have DVDs in their collection, and music CDs and books on CD.

I was personally annoyed by the lack of Anime DVDs of any kind, on top of their being no Manga.  It would be one thing to add some test titles to a collection and then decide not to buy any more if they fail to circulate; But it's something else to declare from the outset that "nobody in this town is interested in Manga" and just refuse to buy any.  Perhaps they are just wanting to avoid courting controversy with the more conservative elements of the local community.  On the other hand, my library system collects quite a fair bit of manga and it is very popular among the YA crowd.

It's nice that they bothered to create a Facebook page to be able to better communicate with their patron base and wider community--kudos to them on that.  But the lack of a web-accessible OPAC still bothers me. But perhaps their funding is so precarious that it's all they can do just to keep the doors open...though if that were the case then why re-open on the weekend of a major holiday like Thanksgiving?  Seems like it would make more sense to keep the doors closed and heating & overhead costs down those two extra days than open up with very little patron foot traffic.

Still, I do figure they must have a shoestring budget because just a cursory scan of the nonfiction titles showed me that many of the books were old and would've already been weeded out of my home system.  Newer materials were few and far between.  The more a library neglects weeding and new acquisitions, the more it becomes a glorified "reading room" with maybe some computers thrown in and the less it fulfills its mission as a true library.  Perhaps the city fathers don't quite understand that, or else there really just isn't the money available right now.  It is a nice building, on the edge of what appears to be the former downtown area of this town.  It has a lot of potential and promise, but right now falls short, in my estimation.  The rest of this town, sadly, I think, combines the worst aspects of rural isolation and a replication of suburban sprawl.  It is an utterly car-dependent community.  It lacks (to my knowledge) a really identifiable center the way Texas towns like Denton or McKinney have clearly identifiable centers.  It has a few nice residential neighborhoods, but everything else are strung out in strip centers along the main road through town next to the main highway.  They even ripped up their railroad tracks that used to cut through the middle of this community.  This was not a wise move in the era of post Peak Oil, a decision I fear this community will one day sharply regret.  This is the sort of lack of community planning I suspect insightful authors like James Howard Kunstler would love to hate and ridicule.  Many who live in this community prefer to do their consumer shopping in larger neighboring towns, even across state lines, when they have wants and needs not met by the local big box store.

What is interesting is that the skeleton remains of the former downtown area and it actually looks nice, with recently re-paved cobblestone streets, very walkable blocks, etc...there are a few valiant little businesses here and there, and a few government buildings, but lots of empty buildings with lease signs, etc.  The seeds are there for community re-vitalization further into the future of the Long Emergency, but for now they lie dormant and will not be considered so long as the drive-in utopia remains the dominant paradigm of this community.

This is the former IOOF (International Order of Oddfellows) hall, founded circa 1908.  This sort of urban programming has potential for the kind of mixed use, residential-over-commercial arrangement that used to be a lot more prevalent in our country than today.  This area could be "re-programmed" into something hip and cool and that would make young adults in their 20s and 30s actually want to come here and spend time together, etc.  But it takes vision and a willingness to invest capital, proper government leadership and planning, perhaps revisions to existing ordinances and regulations, etc.  It's nice that the library butts up against this district, and I hope it bodes well for the library's future.  But like the library itself, this district is not at present living up to its full potential.

Go do it.

Change.org|The Proven Petition Site

Lost in (AV format) transition...

I am of a particular age that I really got vigorous use out of certain "books on tape", especially in the late 1990s up through the early 2000s, specifically the time period where I was actively considering becoming a librarian and finally made the move to go to library school.  Listening to nonfiction audiobooks, especially those of the Blackstone Audio collection, but also the courses on offer from The Teaching Company, were a very large part of my "Life of the Mind" of those years.  They kept me intellectually fresh and invigorated after I briefly departed academia in 1997 upon the completion of my "terminal" first Master's degree in German Studies.  I still read normal nonfiction books as well, of course.  I also kept alive a "Life of the Mind" through the comic-book format "(X) for Beginners" (published in NYC) and the UK produced "Introducing..(X)" series.  These are works I wish I'd had at my disposal during my first slog through graduate school.  I also wish I'd read David Harvey's The condition of postmodernity.  It was already in print by then but I knew nothing of it;  I knew that of all PoMo theorists I liked Fredric Jameson the best, insofar as I liked his Marxian leanings; But Harvey is more directly connected to the Marxist tradition and more readable generally than Jameson, I think.

But that aside, I also very much enjoyed more popular nonfiction titles in audiobook format, such as unabridged Blackstone audio productions of works by Arnold J. Toynbee, the famous British historian, as read by celebrated voice-actor narrator David Case.  Case was one of a kind and narrated many of my favorite audiobooks of that era.  I also enjoyed Edith Hamilton's The Roman Way and The Greek Way...very general historical/sociological overview examinations of the Classical world.  I also deeply enjoyed Neil Postman's works read by Jeff Riggenbach--also under the Blackstone Audio imprint.  I own most of Postman's major works in book form of course, but the audiobook format left a deep impression on me indeed, especially as these works were HUGE influences on me before, during, and after library school.

While the printed forms of these works of course remain in many academic libraries, this audio content will most likely be lost to recorded history as the cassette format continues to vanish and disappear from most library collections.  And unlike popular fiction titles, they are unlikely to be reproduced in CD format as there's just no profitability in it for publishers...even for digitization of the existing audio rather than re-recording the content with new voice talents.  It is my impression that most academic libraries do not collect audiobooks in any significant numbers, nor did they collect that many audio-cassettes either.  No, the audio-cassette based nonfiction "Book on tape" was almost always the exclusive purview of Public libraries, and Public libraries are not generally in the archival business and thus these "obsolete" formats are thoroughly weeded without a single tear being shed, to make space for updated formats...CD, DVD, MP3, Blu-Ray...and that is as it should be, for the most part.

But part of me can't help but feel a sense of loss for the material that falls into this unfortunate gap...which were a lavish publishing risk even in the time they were initially reproduced, relying heavily on library acquisitions sales more so than direct marketing to consumers, or propped up by large sales figures from more popular fiction titles offered....and that have next to zero chance of being converted to a more advanced format into the future.  They will simply vanish and all that will remain are the printed word versions.  At least there are those copies, for which we should be grateful.  Perhaps I'm simply being ridiculously nostalgic for a format that meant so much to me personally, in my own intellectual growth.  That is most likely the case.  I've held out for as long as I have because I had one of the last car models of the early 2000s that still came with a tape deck as the standard feature, and only this year have begun looking to replace it with a newer version that will finally have a dashboard CD player as the standard (and also MP3 hookups if I can swing it)...something countless thousands of other library patrons have been already enjoying for years and years.  My cassette player in my vehicle is on its last legs, it is hyper-sensitive to road conditions, spitting out the cassette on all but the smoothest of drive surfaces.  It's temperamental now and quite difficult to get it to play a full book on tape properly anymore, cassette after cassette.

I do look forward to getting an onboard CD player in my next vehicle...and there is still plenty of quality audiobook content out there for me to enjoy.  But some of the original experiences I had with earlier audiobook titles are an experience future generations of readers will simply never know...and that's a shame of sorts.  They will have to work harder and seek out the printed material, if so inclined. 

One thing I do lament about online audiobooks and ebooks is the currently shoddy state of bibliographic access for these special formats material, which are often housed separately online, away from the actual OPAC.  There is often a dearth of subject access---often one only gets a single dumb google-esque keyword searchbox and if one is lucky the ability to narrow one's search by some additional parameters later.  It's highly frustrating to a librarian like me who knows better, but is probably just accepted without complaint by the average patron who is unaware of the power of the OPAC to begin with, much less understands what it means to have a system without that power.

Anyway, those are my thoughts about Libraryland these days.  More later as the inspiration strikes.

Thoughts on our in-house Music Classification System

The county-level public library system that employs me utilizes a "home grown" classification system when it comes to categorizing music.  It's very rudimentary and simple...almost too simple.  We've had some vehement patron reaction to the way we don't distinguish between traditional "Blues" music (that we code with the three-letter designation BLU) and more contemporary music commonly called "R&B" or Rhythm & Blues, which, though derived from classical Blues, is indeed its own genre of music.  However, in our library system, it gets shoved under the BLU designation.  This has always rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning of my tenure there, and evidently some of our patrons feel the same, recently (in the past several months) commiting acts of 'helpful' vandalism, scratching out the BLU code and writing in by hand with permanent pen, "R&B", up to and including not only the front label on the insert but also the rear label, which takes some knowledge and effort to open and get to without damaging the jewel case.

This would give a thoughtful cataloger pause to consider perhaps overhauling the classification scheme going forward...maybe not to retroactively reclassify CDs, but at least all new purchases going forward falling under the new schemes.  Not my former boss, however.  She was determined to stick to the established scheme and not budge.

Also, our "home-grown" system distinguishes between Religious music, coded REL, and Christian Religious Music, or CREL.  I noted with interest that a CD of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was coded "REL" and *not* "CREL".  Such things are always up to cataloger judgement, of course...but the choice is revealing of a Protestant bias.  As an atheist, I would have no trouble according the Mormon Tabernacle Choir the "CREL" designator.  On the other hand, as an atheist, I would probably abolish the "CREL" designator entirely and just collapse everything under "REL".  I wondered to myself why this wasn't done from the get go, as it would be much simpler.  Then I remembered how conservative and predominantly Christian this area is and how no doubt Christian patrons and especially parents might complain if their little ones went looking for wholesome Christian music and had to wade through music of "heathen" religions and give them funny ideas that could lead to heresy, hellfire and perdition.  Or something.  Anyway, it dawned on me it was probably a conscious decision made early on, in order to head off precisely that kind of complaint.

One amusing aspect to this, however, is the inconsistency of Christian performers who merit the CREL designator while others only get REL.  Mainline Christianity is well represented in both designations, while Mormonism is specifically excluded from the CREL group.

There are some downright howlers in the system, too...the first breakout album by Bruce Hornsby & The Range is classified as "CTY" (Country music)...when it hilariously isn't; it's POP, after all.  This was one LAZY cataloger who looked at the group's name and just assumed it was Country instead of listening to a few sample tracks.

By the way, very Apropos of this discussion, there was a very interesting discussion of music genres recently on the Geologic Podcast by George Hrab in one of his latest episodes, in response to a fan mail question.

See the show notes here:
http://geologicpodcast.com/webpage/the-geologic-podcast-episode-276

Enjoy!  I love George Hrab & his work.

Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead

Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up - sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She's gone where the goblins go,
Below - below - below. Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!

***

Translation:  my horrible workplace bully tyrant of a boss has been dismissed and we are free of her at last.  Everything tranquilo and modestly upbeat for now.

Quick Anime/Manga resources for YA librarians.

Especially perhaps to you new YA librarians who don't know much about Manga/Anime and who don't have teenage children to tell you, there are a couple of Podcasts out there that I find enhance my enjoyment as an otaku of these art forms.

First and foremost, you definitely want to familiarize yourself with Anime News Network, and their related podcast ANNcast. Chock full of valuable news and opinion about new and even classic anime. These guys definitely know their stuff. I don't always agree with them but I do respect their vast knowledge and well informed opinions.

A bit more edgy and controversial than ANNCast is the Anime World Order podcast, hosted by OtakuUSA magazine contributor Daryl Surat and others.

Speaking of, as many of you know, Shonen Jump is no longer in print and has gone 100% digital subscription. I know serials area pain in the arse in library land, I really do get that. But your patrons will love you forever if you are willing to spend the coin and replace or augment your Shonen Jump subscription with a print subscription to OtakuUSA. Trust me, the kids still want the physical media for this. Good ol' OtakuUSA is the last man standing, the last English language print serial publication devoted to Anime and Manga in North America. You are doing your YA patrons a disservice if you fail to subscribe to this periodical.

If you have an iPhone, you may want to download the Ani.me "app", which is a mobile application affiliated with the main Anim.me news website...you can browse new news articles daily via your iPhone at lunch, say. Always good to get breaking news on new releases, new licensing agreements, voice cast announcements, etc.

If you really like the English dubs and want to know more about the voice actors behind the shows, there's no better place to look than the "That Anime Show" podcast hosted by voice actor (and sometime ADR director and script writer) J. Michael Tatum and ADR director (and sometime voice actress) Terri Doty. About once a month, they interview their fellow English language voice actors, mostly FUNImation regulars but on occasion actors up from Houston that record more often with Sentai Filmworks. It's fun to listen to all the behind-the-scenes banter and backstory, and it's nice to know that many of the voice actors involved are also close personal friends in real life, with funny, sometimes embarrassing stories and always interesting opinions on life, culture, art, and sometimes politics as well. I finally got caught up on all the back episodes of TAS and I can say they definitely made my morning and evening commutes to and from my library workplace all the more livelier and interesting...there are many, many laugh-out-loud moments listening to this show. Not unlike the same reason I love the Rooster Teeth Podcast (aka "The Drunk Tank"), I feel like I'm back in High School or College staying up really late with my best friends cracking jokes and telling stories when I listen to this show.

Rooster Teeth are the geniuses behind the hit "Red versus Blue" action / comedy animation series based on pre-gen animation using the HALO game system on the XBOX. They also do comedic shorts, game reviews, etc. But I especially love their weekly podcast and the hilarious interaction between all the hosts, who are also all the voice actors for the principle characters of the RvB series. While these guys only touch on Anime/Manga tangentially, they are a good source for general gamer nerd culture, and there is indeed some cross-over. Their podcast so often makes me LOL and ROFL and ROFLMAO.

Lastly, Meetup.com; There is probably a local Anime/Manga meetup or club in your area, and if you are a YA librarian, it might behoove you to attend, to get a feel for the vibe and pulse of local Anime/Manga otaku culture. Get to know your patrons and potential patrons. Get the lowdown on what's hot, what's not, etc.

In other news, stepping down from PLG-CC

As a passing note, I made the decision to step down from my seat on the Coordinating Committee of the Progressive Librarians Guild and revert back to being just a general member. I sat on the CC for nearly 10 years, contributed to discussion, made some important votes on some resolutions, etc. It was fun, but my heart is just not into it anymore. The list activity really spiked in recent months and it was kind of like sensory overload for me and I backed out and shut down...violating a CC bylaw in the process. Rather than haggle over it or argue or seek to make amends by stepping up and redoubling my efforts, I just decided to make it easy on everyone and formally submit my resignation. It's hard to imagine the ultimatum coming at a worse time for me in my personal life, either.

I won't go into detail, but something came to light recently that I was much happier not knowing about, but now that I do know, I see how to go forward into the future acting as I had in the past transforms me from unwitting enabler to a co-conspirator with full knowledge, and that I refuse. I've decided to act on that front by doing nothing. Pulling back and withdrawing my material support. It sucks because the people involved were good friends and my decision to stick to what seems right and proper for myself on an ethical level will probably cost me those friendships and destroy one of my social support networks along with it.

Like I said, really shitty timing. Luckily, I've got other activities I put on the back burner that I can now move to the front, like the Houston Anime Meetup, or the local branch of the Houston Atheist Meetup for Sugar Land/Stafford area. My RPG buds are unable to play in April, but I look forward to resuming in May and especially look forward to summer when we will have extra players returning to us and maybe even pick up a new member, depending.

I look forward to just being a general PLG member again, hadn't realized I had dropped off the general mailing list either. Listservs just feel like such Web 1.0 tech...honestly I pay way more attention to Facebook than traditional email these days...as much as I love PLG, and as much as I'm sometimes a skeptical Luddite myself, sometimes change genuinely is good, sometimes the positives do outweigh the negatives, etc. I was totally wrong about blogs and happy to be wrong about them. I thought they were a silly idea, why wouldn't you just update a static website instead? *bonk* Because blogs are easier and user-friendlier, silly. Because the world isn't static, it's dynamic. Just how utterly wrong I was about the nature of blogs and blogging is just jaw-dropping. I appreciate Rory Litwin's early critique about early Library blog Culture; I think he was spot-on with that criticism, actually; but even Library Juice eventually transitioned to a blog format. There's something just kind of relentless about it. Blogs just structurally make so much sense and have been so powerful and transformative in our contemporary world since they made their debut. A local favorite progressive political site in my corner of the greater Houston Area, Juanita Jean's, still defiantly calls itself "not a blog", but it so painfully obviously is. Again, that reaction is actually in rebellion to early blog culture and less so about the nature of blogs themselves.

I'm also not blind to the highly problematic nature of Facebook. Yes, it makes social organizing incredibly easy and greatly facilitates communication compared to traditional mass email lists...but it also makes intelligence gathering incredibly easier for the alphabet soup agencies...NSA, FBI, CIA, DHS, et. al. Very much easier to map out social networks and the interconnections between people, all willingly supplied online by the participants themselves...lots of raw data for the most advanced AI software to munch on and build algorithms and formulae to parse out who is a threat to the National Security State...I still hope my file reads "Mostly harmless".

I miss having an active, intellectual life of the mind, where I read all the time, socialized when *I* wanted to, not when others expected me to...was able to keep contact and interaction with the parents to a basic minimum...back when I thought I really had some promise as a public intellectual. I'm a fop, and intellectual lightweight and a dandy. I like artsy movies, I listen to NPR and KPFT...as well as some engaging podcasts.

But I've also lightened up. I'm very very much into Anime and even Manga these days. Yesterday I read Vols. 1-2 of the manga series Bakuman, about two teen boys who resolve to become manga creators...one is the writer, the ideas man, while the other is the artist. I know there is already an anime out there of this series, don't recall if there's an English dub for it as well but I think so? Anyway, reading the manga, I imagined the characters speaking in different of my favorite voice actor's voices...In my head I cast Johnny Yong Bosch for Mashiro, and Chris Ayers for Tagaki. Still undecided on the female cast, but I kept reading Miho's friend who's into Tagaki with Brittney Karbowski's voice in my head and it kinda worked. I read Miho's voice sometimes with Luci Christian's voice in mind, other times with Monica Rial...also tested out Carrie Savage...with mixed results...that would be a much more difficult casting decision.

What's interesting is that I know actual FUNImation script writers like J. Michael Tatum actually do sometimes do their writing with a particular voice actor in mind. And sometimes the casting director picks up on that vibe and makes a casting decision that is in harmony with the writer's idea. Tatum tells of a time when he wrote a part with fellow actor Chris Ayers in mind; Director Chris Sabat picked up on that and gave the nod to Chris Ayres. As I recall, Ayres later approached Tatum, very enthusiastically, and said words to the effect of: "I feel like this was written just for me...!! I totally get this character!!", and I think Tatum told Ayres his guess was correct. I love hearing these little back stories on the That Anime Podcast Show.

Anyway, let me wrap this up for now as I'm wandering far afield and a fresh post is called for.

Blog re-named.

As you can see from the header above, I have formally re-launched this blog as "Aspie Aggie Librarian", since my discussion of the intersection of my Asperger's syndrome and my flagging library career will be the shifting focus of this blog until further notice.


I've always been what you could characterize as the "absent-minded professor" type of person. I also recently attended a conference featuring Temple Grandin and Sean Barron on Autism & Asperger's, aimed primarily at teachers but also with good general information. I learned that I fit into a specific sub-group of Aspergians who are versatile with languages/translations/words but have a corresponding deficit in having exceedingly poor drawing skills (that is very true, I can speak to that from personal experience) and we are "so-so" at math. Also, true dat.

Also, like Temple Grandin (though perhaps not as strongly), I was always definitely better at Geometry rather than Algebra, which was always my mathematical Achilles' heel. Trig and even parts of Calculus I understood, but my lack of facility with Algebra always weighed me down like a dead albatross.

Another deep personal regret? I was always good at Chemistry. In fact I aced High School Chemistry, but I lacked the courage to take Chemistry once I got to Texas A&M. I allowed myself to get "psyched out" and didn't take it, and that was a mistake, as I probably not only would have enjoyed it, I might have done very well...and, call me crazy, maybe even made it one of my majors. A double major in Chemistry and German would've given me a far more rewarding career path than my actual degree in History and German.

Also, in some ways, I was not Aspergian ENOUGH in some respects, especially when it came to History or German Studies...If I had been able to fixate on a select narrow topic in either field and really burrow into it, study it from all angles, etc, I might have found a rewarding career in academia. I probably couldn't teach worth a damn, but I would've potentially been a better researcher. While I do have some of that peculiar Aspie focus and obsessiveness, I also have a lot of diverse interests and can get quickly bored with a topic and want to move onto the next thing that tickles my fancy. I tend to like to study a lot of things only slightly deeper than a superficial level but no one thing in any particular depth, which isn't a formula for success in the Academic world.

I remember painfully how Rice University seemed able to manage to suck all the joy and life out of a subject I thought I loved, namely German Studies. My first semester back in Grad School at UNT, I spent a lot of free time ignoring my library coursework and doing personal research on German Studies pedagogy in Higher Ed and finding researchers who agreed with me about all my pet theories about what Rice U. was doing wrong during my period of study there and how German Studies ought properly be done in these United States (hint: by not trying to reproduce verbatim the standard Germanistik curriculum of German-speaking Europe--it does not work and only leads to frustration on the part of North American students).

I did shit like this all the time, by the way; Back at Rice U, I grew disillusioned with the actual canonical curriculum and instead developed a strange passion for all things Slavic Studies...especially Czech literature but also Polish lit/film, etc. Devoted days upon days I did not have to researching these things and blowing off my actual responsibilities because they bored me.

All of it, for better or works, makes so much more sense in the light of my Asperger's diagnosis...Hell, the very year I began as a newly minted German Studies graduate student, 1994, was the very year Asperger's syndrome was formally adopted into the DSM-IV as a distinct diagnosis...that it was recognized as a milder form of Autism.

And let me tell you, in 1994, back in Houston all alone and away from my social network supports I'd built up over my 5 years at Texas A&M, I felt like a fish out of water and utterly awkward as hell. My behavior was eccentric and Aspergian in the extreme...especially my multiple failed attempts at relationships with women during this time frame...comedically bad flops and gaffes in hindsight, all of which can be laid at Asperger's door. Stuff that would be regarded as textbook Aspergian missteps today...but there was no Asperger's textbook in the mid-1990s, so all I could call myself was an "introvert" and I was stumbling around in the dark trying to understand what I was doing wrong, etc.

I had also been awkward and a bit of a social outcast among the American ex-pat community during my study abroad year in Tübingen, Germany...something I only now understand may have been partly the fault of my (undiagnosed) Asperger's syndrome...that and regional differences, the TUFTS students being stuck up assholes who looked down their noses at someone from a mere state school in the American South, and a former A&M college at that.

I've always had a hard time "fitting in", but treasured the rare occasions where I did manage to, somehow...always few and far between. I relish the times I was able to have deep, meaningful conversations with interesting people who also took me and my ideas seriously as well. I abused alcohol as a means to suppress the anxiety caused by my inherent social awkwardness and overcome my inherent shyness and introversion. Alcohol and other drug abuse is definitely a risk factor for anyone on the Autism spectrum, probably more so than for the average NT.

Since I was too erratic and mood-dependent in my study habits and self-discipline to be a stable, reliable Academic, I hoped Librarianship would serve as a back-door into getting employed at the University level, but it only worked for painfully brief spans of time...fun while it lasted but alas....now I'm a public sector employee and while it's not bad, it does still feel like a waste of my true talents and abilities and knowledge base...

I had the idea for this post driving home from work today but delayed logging on to long and drew a blank at first, but I think in the course of composing this blog post I have covered all the major points I had wanted to raise earlier...at least jot them down *someplace*, and here is as good a place as any, I figure.

I've been meeting with other Asperger's people in my local area. We're trying to put together a podcast but we're still just learning and experimenting, nothing quite ready for "prime time" yet. I just enjoy their company, and I enjoy our open discussion forum on Facebook, where we can help each other overcome problems, issues, and challenges.

I wish there was a League of Autistic Library Workers or other focus-group or advocacy organization or something...there have to be others of us out there and I'm sure they face similar challenges and difficulties in the library workplace. If we could only connect and stand together somehow...carve out a niche for ourselves within ALA...maybe start an SRRT roundtable devoted to OUR issues, etc. That's where I'd envision things going in the future, with any hope.

Until then, keep struggling, my brothers and sisters.

20 x 20 hindsight or warning lights in the rearview mirror.

It didn't really occur to me until today that, as an Aspergian male going to work in libraries, I am entering a world populated and managed largely by neurotypical (NT) women.

The flashing red warning lights are now quite blinding in my philosophical rear-view mirror as I look backwards through time.

My ability to relate to neurotypical (NT) women on any level has been historically not promising, to put it mildly. NT male-female communication is challenging enough. Throwing an AS diagnosis into the mix "turns it up to eleven", so to speak.

I left a job that was damn near ideal for me as an Aspie (as a Medical Travel Assistance Coordinator for AIG International Services) and entered what turned out to be a goddamn minefield of intrigue, misunderstanding and dirty poker politics.

In part because my well-meaning mum thought the AIG job was "beneath me" and that "someone so smart" as me should have a better paying, more respectable job. I did come to embrace the idea of librarianship for myself eventually...but I'd be lying if I denied that part of my motivation was just to make mum finally shut up about my career choice. If I could become a librarian just like her, she'd have no further grounds to gripe about me, or so I had naively reasoned.

Gawd, some days I just want to crawl under a rock and literally die of embarrassment.