I wanted to enjoy this documentary about wine sommeliers, but I couldn’t get over how unlikable most of the subjects were. Plus, the whole “Master’s exam” has an unpleasant fraternal odor to it. Then again, maybe I’m just jealous that I don’t get to spend every waking moment consumed by (and consuming) wine history and culture.
I love libraries. I plan to live in one someday.
I recently started following Tressie McMillan Cottom, Professor of Sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, on Twitter and then quickly added her to my “do not miss!” list. Her recent interview with WordPress has some great quotes about writing, teaching, and libraries.
On blogging:
“[A]s my mother always told me, “If the lease isn’t in your name, you’re homeless.” You have to have a place of your own to take the kind of risks necessary for intellectual development.”
On libraries:
“Oh! I just love libraries. Love them. I plan to live in one someday.”
On learning:
“We can come to know alone, but to learn we have to be social. If I cannot translate my research into praxis and my praxis into research then I don’t really know what I’m talking about.”
Read more on her blog.
We’re eating ourselves alive
“Our current version of the internet lives and breathes off a currency of human attention. With the success and failure of many internet companies predicated on how much of a person’s time they can capture.” Jesse Weaver, Instagram and the cult of the attention web.
After stepping away from Facebook and Twitter for a month and subsisting on a diet of chronologically, self-customized feeds instead of algorithmily-defined ones, I realized how empty much of that content is. Also, I miss Google Reader.
Drabinski on professionalism in libraries
Before opening the floor for discussion of professionalism in libraries, I recommend we start here: Emily Drabinski, “Valuing professionalism: Discourse as professional practice” (2016).
QOTD: One’s own name is a magical thing
Words do have power. Names have power. Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it. — Ursula Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind
Drug-induced consolation
Usually, I don’t mind getting old, but today getting old sucks. I’m just gonna lay here in my codeine-induced haze and read some Boethius.
Backyard demolition
Today, the real demo work began. In two weeks this all will be flowers, trees, and raised beds.
March 30-day challenge: Twitter and Facebook
During the past 30 days, I decided to take a break from Twitter and Facebook. Here’s what I discovered:
I didn’t miss it much and, to my surprise, there wasn’t much in terms of news and announcements that I wasn’t able to get from other sources. There is one professional group that provides me access to information that I can’t get anywhere else (without as little effort) and it’s necessary for me to be on Facebook for my job, but I could easily let my profile go dark, quietly exit that space, and only use the FB messenger app to stay in contact with friends.
This was much more difficult to ignore. For real-time events, conversations, and news, there really isn’t an alternative for me. While I was certainly able to get by without it, I missed checking in during breaking news and, most of all, connecting with the community there. One obvious benefit: it’s been much easier for me to single-task. So I’m torn on whether I want to return to my previous levels of engagement.
A bold move by MIT Libraries
Ellen Finnie has shared some exciting news coming out of MIT libraries: their collections budget is now under their scholarly communications program. This will potentially give collections librarians the flexibility to significantly shift the way they strategize and negotiate purchasing decisions. The “vote with your money” approach is perhaps one of the best options we have when it comes to changing the scholarly publishing landscape in favor of a more open, affordable, and “healthier” system.
It also opens up opportunities for having tough but nonetheless important conversations with faculty who insist they need journal x for their research but who may not realize the full implications of publisher x’s licensing terms. It’s high time, in my opinion, the we (librarians and academic) take back the responsibility for stewarding scholarly information to create a system that better reflects our values and aims.
Constantly tweaking the work-life equation
Living in a large, urban area has afforded me the luxury of being able to work for multiple academic institutions without having to relocate. Unfortunately in academia, moving around is the norm and, as Margaret Kosmala points out, is risky for individuals and families alike, especially those who identify as racial or ethnic minorities, are part of same-sex relationships, or come from underrepresented groups in higher ed.
“Frequent moving needs to stop being the norm for early career academics. It’s harmful in many, many ways.”
Kosmala looks at how this practice in academia negatively impacts diversity as well as its extremely harmful effect on mental health. In the same vein, Marria Accardi has written a post about keeping burnout at bay. These are the types of posts that catch my attention of late.
In my own life, I’ve adopted practices similar to those in Marria’s post, including scheduled quiet time, meditation, weekly pre- and post-review sessions, and daily walks. I’ve also begun meeting regularly with a therapist to address my (albeit mild) anxiety and depression, exercising a few times a week, and dedicating myself to 7-8 hours of sleep (infant and toddler notwithstanding). This of course means sacrificing some projects and quite often saying no to new ones.
The most difficult practice for me has been changing the way I react to stress. When someone walks into my office with an urgent concern, I try to make a conscious effort to remain detached and examine the issue as a puzzle to be solved, not as a fire that needs to be squelched. I am guilty more often than I care to admit of making too much to do of what objectively are minor issues and this undoubtedly contributes to my elevated stress levels.
The one problem I have yet to solve is the lack of time for research. This can’t happen at home (unless I am willing to sacrifice sleep or attention to my family) and so my only option is to find time during the work day. I am currently experimenting with various scheduling methods and tricks, like setting meetings with myself and slightly closing my office door, but these are often undone. If anyone has solutions to offer, I’m all ears!