talking over coffee with a friend helped me realize this sigh is not one to make alone

This is not a post about the debate of practice vs. theory and which one you study in a program like Library Science, especially around archival study.

I’m all for theory. I love theory. I love not believing in someone’s theory and feeling superior for it. Just as I love practicing: being on the job, working with patrons, being able to say that I have learned this software program or that program.

Rather, this is a quick, hard jab at high-falutin’ talk around and about theory.

Write simply. Say it simply. It is more beautiful that way.

This is what good marketing looks like.

I felt incredibly privileged to attend Bookless, an excellent and extremely well-done event at the Madison Central Public Library. According to a few of my peers in my program who grew up here, the Central Library is one many people know, but it really needs an uplift. And that’s exactly what it is getting! I highly encourage you to continue to donate to the new library here.

Three students in the UW Madison program created this wonderful project centered around art inspired within libraries called Library as Incubator, and it has thrived since originally launched. It’s really quite imaginative and inspiring on its own. Because Bookless was so focused on art within the library, I actually thought the idea came from this project. However, according to their blog, the idea came from the Gallery Coordinator Trent Miller of the library as a fundraiser. And as far as I can tell, not only was the fundraiser a smashing success, the marketing of libraries was one too!

The first great idea that I loved from this event: it wasn’t targeted to only children & families or adults (and hipsters, haha). From 10am to 2pm, families were highly encouraged to come check out the fun. I didn’t attend then but I heard from classmates who volunteered that it was extremely fun to see the kids so excited to paint on walls and do other fun art projects! Then Bookless opened again at 7pm with a bar for us adults. Lots of people were still drawing on the walls. There was a section devoted to stamps and old stickers (I put one of my face, Rainbow Brite style). There was a fantastic photo booth. Downstairs in the basement, music boomed and a trippy video played to it. Ghostlike, creepy figures hung from the walls. Art installations hugged the walls and were placed between the frames of the old stacks. The lockers of the “Lower Staxx!” workers were on display.  The pneumatic tubes were used by the Oracle. Upstairs, the old fiction room was used as a stage for various bands through the night. And, of course, more art was on display!

Everyone I saw seemed to be having fun. Unfortunately for me, it was a little too hot and smokey, so I went home feeling a little faint and overheated. Water and sleep helped me immensely. Other than that, and sometimes too-low lighting, there is nothing bad I can say about the Bookless event. Huge, huge kudos to the Madison Public Library!

Two other posts & Spring beginning

It’s the last day of break! I went on a walk and had brunch today, both of which I talk about here, on the MetaDiners blog. Go check it out!

Some of my photos were also used for this post from the Society of American Archivists UW Madison Student Chapter. It’s a definitive end to the Archives Month blog for 2011. I encourage you to go read that too! I am still working out logistics with Ron, featured in the post, about coming back to Clinton to help out with some manuscripts.

I have half of my reading done, another half to go, and a problem with the school’s online system/blackboard. I have all of the articles downloaded or Zotero-d for the semester. I am not really ready to say goodbye to pleasure reading for a while, but it has to be done. And I’m in a good place for the semester to start. Let’s hope, of course, it stays this way.

Nearly free, no sew, easy, and fast Headband Carousel!

This isn’t a craft blog and won’t be turning into one anytime soon, because I tend to not be a crafty person — however, today I felt that sheer brilliance entered my brain, and I must share it with you all. (you all who happen to wear headbands)

When I got home from running errands today, I took off my headband and put it where I usually do — on a tiny towel rack above the toilet — and it did what it usually does: promptly fell.  Momentarily too frustrated to continue to do ANYTHING else, I grabbed some newspaper from our recycle bin and a glass jar, and made what I will call a headband carousel. It worked SWIMMINGLY so then to make it slightly prettier, I got some construction paper out and made it again, but better!

This was practically free; the jars were given to me by a friend for a Fund Drive of a food bank and the paper I have had around my house for years. Most of the DIY headband solutions I’ve seen involve sewing. This is a nearly free, no sew, easy, FAST solution.

So here, dear readers with a headband problem, is how I did it:

Step 1: get paper of your choice of color and tear into strips.

You could also use pretty rocks, marbles, or stones.

Step 2: Crinkle up the paper and stuff it into the jar.

Step 3: Gather all of your headbands and start fitting one end into the jar. The decorative piece, if it exists, should go on the outside of the jar.

Step 4: Behold!

Lastly, I put the jar on top of my dresser. I can now always gaze upon the pretty, big flowers and bows!

it’s a very very mad world

Like most of my friends, I am on Pinterest a lot these days. I think the inspiration is addicting because you’re not just pinning an idea to a board, but you’re also pinning the idea of “You, Improved.” When you save something inspiring you’re imagining your life and yourself as something better: more organized, more stylized, more designed.

I recently read a post by a new writer at Hack Library School, Joanna June. She wrote about the idea of “the horizon” and how we tend to hope for a time in the future, on the horizon, when we’ll finally have time to sit down or get out and do everything on our to do list. She wrote something that, as I read it, felt like I wrote it, or had at least been thinking it for a long time now:

My issue is neither starting nor finishing right now. My problem is creating the head space to concentrate on anything longer than the next three minutes or think about that which is past today. … I’ve felt anxious and scattered in waves while trying to concentrate on my project and deal with whatever is most screaming for attention. Not ideal productivity conditions. [emphasis hers]

It’s very easy to say something about the hectic life we lead, and I could laugh to you about how I make lists about the list I need to make. But, really, what I’ve come to realize is it isn’t about realizing I’m busy now, it’s realizing I’m going to be busy for a very long time. I will always have the horizon, I will always hope for a time I can sit down to think, I will always pin pretty examples of good organization to virtual boards. And that, frankly, is a problem for many reasons — one being that I am finding myself much more often walking through my apartment, knowing what I wanted to find/write down/remember when I began at Point  A and then forgetting entirely by the time I reach Point B.

I’m nearly constantly watching something, listening to a podcast, talking to someone, listening to music, reading, or playing a game. Is my brain just too full? Should I eat breakfast in silence and stillness, and not pick up a New Yorker? Oh, but then I will constantly feel behind on the times!

There are solutions for this, of course, and I’m not going to lay them out since I don’t feel qualified to. Elsie Larson over at A Beautiful Mess some tips for Prolific Living which are a good start. However, I feel happy that I’m solidly choosing a lifestyle of “prolific living.” I’ve realized that I can’t just sit around, I need to produce (not babies yet!!). I need to feel part of the community.

One of the things I grappled with, when I chose archiving and libraries for my future path, was that it didn’t seem as world-changing as going to work for a nonprofit in policy or to become an environmental law lawyer or to become a teacher in a low-income, under-resourced school. But it’s not true. We aren’t those things, but we don’t have to be; we are not only important venues and keepers of culture but my peers are caring folks who also want to help. That’s a good community to be in, and I’m glad I’ve chosen to be a prolific component of it.

I leave you with this thought: live intentionally, but don’t map it out.

In the meantime, I have to ever-prepare. I need a system. I also especially want a good system for research in grad school — I had my own in undergrad, but writing a history paper is just different from writing an archives paper. And here I ask you! Before I set out to form an organization system, do you have any advice? How do you organize your research to ease the process of paper writing?

First Storm of 2012 (well, of this winter)

In the past 48 hours or so, Madison and other parts of the Midwest were finally given a snow storm! This came one day after Madison broke a record high of 1975, when it was 50 degrees. It got all the way up to 53 degrees, in Wisconsin, in January. A lot of people here were beginning to tell me they didn’t know what was going on, that they weren’t lying about winter, how weird it was, and so on. Winter has been quite easy!

The snow storm wasn’t bad, either. I didn’t find it that windy or cold. It was only slightly annoying that as I walked, snow got in my eyes. I also find it strange that I basically have to get dressed again on top of my clothes when I leave work to go back out into the snow.

The first day of the storm, the snow as it fell was mostly a nuisance and the wind blew it around on the ground like it was dust. My coworker said it looked like an awfully cold sandstorm. It was difficult to focus on checking in the periodicals we receive at the Wisconsin Historical Society, because I kept looking out at the window to see the way the snow and wind played together on the roof tops!

When I got home, I opened the door and shouted to Derek, my boyfriend, to come play. He hastily put on his boots and jacket, and we kicked around the powder for a long time. We dragged our feet in it. We watched a dog in the dog park below (we live on a ridge) play in the snow. Then we decided to walk down to the lake to see if it froze. On the ridge I live on, there’s steps leading down to the street — these were completely covered so we had to gingerly find our way, laughing the entire time. On the way back up them later, I fell smack down into the steps! The snow caught my fall, though. :)

The lake was not completely frozen over; the parts along the man-made “shore” were still only mere slush. It was so cool to see the snow on top of the frozen lake. We threw a lot of sticks to see if we could break any of the ice. Then we drew in the snow like it was sand on a beach (of course the words “Derek” “loves” “Dana” were written — what else do people write when they are given a stick and landscape?).

The most magical part was when I looked down at my hands, which were in dark gloves, and saw it: a SNOWFLAKE! I have been in snow before, but very rarely, and I honestly can’t remember ever looking down closely. I don’t know why it took me so long. They are so beautiful and sparkly and … majestic. Derek and I, in our excitement, kept pointing out snowflakes on each other, like we were monkeys picking at nits.

I was also transfixed by the sound of cars on the un-shoveled roads. They sound like they are in padded rooms, and they roll along so much more slowly and quietly than usual. Everything felt quieter and calmer. I missed my signal to walk across the street because I couldn’t stop staring and listening.

The snow has become bigger today — it is much easier to see the large flakes, and they don’t dance like sand. The cold isn’t too bad. It wasn’t too hard for Derek to dig our car out of the snow; it was about 5-6″. Maybe living in snow won’t be so bad …?

Inferiority Complex (hack library school)

I’m finally getting to my emails and blogs after a few weeks away, so I’m quite late on picking this up, but I just read a blog post over at Hack Library School about the “inferiority complex.” It can be a good reminder to back off from the dread of job-finding as our minds drift to the future during a long winter break rather than on the immediate stress of classes. One of the commenters, Nora, made a particularly good point: our inferiority complex is probably extremely heightened due the job market. What would we be like if it was 2004 and the world was ever-growing? It’s not that the work is terribly difficult, it’s that getting the work can be terribly difficult. And loans are scary.

I have pretty much (75%?) decided to not re-work the paper I wrote for my archives class on graves in Srebrenica for publication submission to a student journal, due this January 15th. If it was in February or March, maybe, but there are still many things I want to research and weave into my paper. There aren’t many days left until January 15th. If I love this topic, and I want to do right by it, I think I just need to spend more time on it. Part of getting away from an inferiority complex is getting away from the idea of the race — that I have to do it NOW, or FIRST. Everyone is on different timelines (as Facebook will show us soon).

Take your time. Take your tea, and your vacation, and it will all work out.