Library School

So back when I was an undergrad I worked in the library on campus in the circulation department. In the normal course of events you get to talking with people and you come to find out how the people who work full time came be doing that.
For the most part librarians have gone to library school. At this point in time "library school" means a masters program at an institution accredited by the American Library Association (ALA). There are undergraduate programs that will prepare you for a masters program but there is currently (that I am aware of) no bachelors degree in Library and Information Science. As you may know, not all librarians have MLS degrees. There are many who have become librarians through years of experience.
What does the word "librarian" mean then? The term is quite specific actually. A library is just like any work place, there are different jobs that make it run. Generally speaking, a librarian is a rank within the organization and not a general job title for every person who works at the library. Library's have library assistants, volunteers, people who work in library systems (computers or "IT"), and those who work in acquisitions and cataloguing. Most likely each area has a coordinator (maybe called a dept. head or supervisor) and that person could have the title of librarian, but not always. Sometimes, there is only one position that is actually called "librarian." This means many things but most often it means you get paid more for what you do. Make no mistake, a title means nothing in terms of how much work you do.
What you notice in looking at job descriptions is that a position with the word "librarian" attached to it demands not just credentials but experience. Like many jobs they require that you bring something to the table in order to deserve what you are being offered.
What is common practice is to address someone who may not have the official title of librarian, as a librarian. I am officially a Reader Advisor, that is what you will see on my job description. If you ask anyone who knows me, I am a librarian. My boss is the Regional Librarian for Massachusetts. There is only one librarian here at BTBL in this case (note: we are not the only two people here).
So there's a bit of information for you, ask me about my job some day, I'll be happy to tell you (maybe another entry...)

Allegories

I very much value the allegory as a method of instruction. I have come to value them due to the types of books I have read (and read) that use allegory. I have two very clear topics in mind for this post, the periods of rest in one's life and those of action.

Shakespeare's Hamlet shows the consequences of both of these topics in gory detail. Hamlet's father's ghost comes to him and tells him to avenge his death and Hamlet spends the rest of the play not doing much about it. We see the consequences of Hamlet's inaction quite clearly when there are more dead people than living left in the Danish court by the end of the play (unintended consequence is another post for all you Ophelia fans out there).

Hamlet has enjoyed the privileges of his royal life and the chance for inaction that comes from those privileges. Now comes the time for action and we the audience must decide if Hamlet is to be blamed for just standing there talking to himself. I'm not sure what I would do if my father's ghost came to me and said "Hey! Your uncle killed me while I was taking a nap, take care of that for me." Most know the anguish of having to get over the initial shock of big news and having to then take action. Some say that inaction is a kind of action as it demonstrates the more important fact that you made a choice, thus overcoming indecision.

It is all to easy to say "I didn't ask for this you know!" and any fair minded person will agree with you when that is the case. History is full of examples of undue hardship (various genocides, plagues, etc.) where people are expected to not just survive, but overcome. The best thing to say to someone who faces sudden adversity is to remind him that indecision is never an option.

So then in life we have the times spent in the green valleys, the garden shades. We must learn to see these times for what they are, a chance to refresh and restore what was taken away by the journey to get there. The other periods are spent in the high places with rocks, snow, wind, and cold. These high places also afford a look around at where you have been and (sometimes) where you are going. We may become battered and bruised while in the high places, but we are still there.

Alright, enough of that for now.

This sermon brought to you by my love of reading and by a little verse in the book of Habakkuk.

Settling in...

As some of you may know my wife and I found out earlier this month that we are going to have a child. This came as a surprise because, in point of fact, we were told that K could not conceive. As with most surprises in life, we had to come to terms with this and I think we were both surprised by how much we both found we noticed we had issues to come to terms over.
First and foremost we had to accept the fact that K was not just pregnant, but 6 months pregnant. The doctor who gave me the news said (in part) that we would need to speak with an Ob. and decide "what to do about the pregnancy" (just what you want to hear with your father in law sitting next to you). Well, as you may know, there is not much that can be decided in regard to a pregnancy that is 6 months along. Political and religious discussion aside the first issues at hand were; is the baby developing normally, is K in any way at risk, and finally what the hell are we going do?
We have since come to learn that our baby is developing at the expected pace and well, we'll have to see about rest of it when he gets here. Something K and I talked about a great deal in our discussions about ever wanting to have children was my low vision. This low vision problem (high myopia or near sightedness) came down the line through my father's side my father, is the only one of my grandmother's children to have it, he has one cousin with the condition. Complications can arise from this level of near sightedness but there is no real "expected" pathology. It is such a different world now then I was born into that having a child with low vision these days is so very different. Surgeries that were new and ground breaking in the past are quite common and some even widely recognized in the public.
I think I can finally come to why I sat down to compose this entry. One of the issues I found I had to come to terms with was feeling guilty for wishing my son will have no vision problems or any problems at all . Every disabled person must at some point face a very hard fact, that you would not wish your condition on your worst enemy. Some choose more active ways of coming to terms with this, some just live in denial. At the core of this issue is the question "well, does admitting I don't want this for my child mean I am saying I am flawed and damaged?" Well, duh, yes, you are saying that of yourself. I can remember the exact time in my life when I first started to think about this. There was a show on ABC called Life Goes On about a family with a child with Downs Syndrome. The parents of this child find out they are pregnant again (their oldest child is 19) and are concerned that the baby may have Downs. The issue they struggle with is to terminate the pregnancy or not. This causes friction for their son and themselves (the baby turns out not to have the condition). I remember a line from the show where the mother asks the son to be truly honest with himself and ask if he would really want another being to come into the world with Downs Syndrome. I remember this show made me squirm, I wasn't really sure why yet though. I know now I wasn't really ready to think that way about my self and my life yet.
Fast forward to my junior year of college. I am taking an intro to sociology class and we are discussing the Human Genome Project. One aspect of the HGP is unintended consequences in the area of eugenics. Data from the HGP will allow people to know what genes can be turned on or off in a fetus (this "light switch" method is still a ways off even now, though gene suppression is a reality). Now, for the first time I wondered "Hey! What if certain genes were turned off in me? I might not be the me I am now!" (Oh, youth!) It was not until my professor reminded us that until you are faced with the daunting specter of admitting to yourself that, out of love, you wish nothing but the best of health in mind and body for another, this topic really is academic.
So she was right. I never new such angst as I have come to know in these past weeks. What I have come to be most grateful for is that it is not angst over feelings about me and myself. I know my wife feels much angst, some the same, some of a totally different kind that I will never know. We are trying (with varying degrees of success mind you) to deal with the stress of waiting to find out how the next phase of the journey will begin. Imagine being told you are going to journey to the moon but no one will tell you how you will get there, just that it is going to be one hell of trip.
With age comes wisdom, I am so happy for that. Despite the tolls we pay on the way of wisdom, I am happy for that.

Tanglewood Festival Chorus

So about 10 years ago a woman I went to college with announced that she was going into Boston to audition for the Tanglewood Festival Chorus (TFC). So what is that you ask? TFC is the chorus in residence for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. There was not always a chorus for this purpose, it started a little over 30 years ago. Back 10 years ago you went to the open audition where you were handed a score of a major choral work and they told you what portion of the work you would be auditioning with. We all went in and practiced the section as a big group and then we got called in to sing in octets (2 people to a part). Your octet was then went in and sang the same thing you just sang with the big group. If John Oliver (the director) had some question about your voice or anything else, you and three others sang as a quartet.
Now, if you did well in this audition you got a call back to come sing a solo piece. I got a call back. I was scared to death. I didn't know what to do. I hadn't told my voice teacher I was doing this and that's rather a big deal since they get rather, well, pissy about that sort of thing because they want you to do well as much as you do.
I decided I would audition with a selection from Die Winterise by Schubert that I had learned the last semester. My teacher laughed politely and said no, don't bother, it's not a good piece for you (he had picked it the semester before btw). Instead he told me I should do a piece called The Trees They Grow So High by Britten. I saw two problems, 1. it was in English and 2. it wasn't very glamorous or showy. Dr. McGahan told me it didn't matter, that I have a gift of for interpreting Britten and this would be fine. Now, on the face of it this selection seems rather simple. It is a narrative told by a woman about how she was betrothed to a man, a boy really, who was younger than she and how she was going to have to wait or him to go to school and then come back before they can wed. I'm not sure but I'm reasonably certain what is happening is that father of the girl (who also appears in the work) knows the groom is wealthy and not in the best of health and so the bride will soon be quite rich.
I had to work my ass off to get the tempi right on this, I still wasn't sure I Had it down but I gave it my best shot in the audition. When I finished all John had to say was "Gee, I've never heard that one before." I have since come to know they (conductors) are all like that, they never react to anything. Well, I got in.
So I did about two and a half season with TFC, then I wanted out. It wasn't so much the hard work (it is hard work) but, well, I had a hard time fitting in. I was one of two people from UML who got in from the group of us that auditioned. THe other person seemed to fit in better. Fast forward about 8 years and I am telling my girl friend about my life and every once and a while we talk about TFC. After we had been married we would talk about it now and then and last Spring she asked me if I thought I could get in again, well, I wasn't sure. I looked up the audition dates and saw they weren't far away.
It was very different this time, no big group, just the solo audition. Now though there is a big purge every 3 years (even if you just auditioned to get in right before that!) We all have to go in and sing our hearts out to be able to stay in. Sometimes it's hell, but you are part of something so much bigger than yourself. I love beautiful music, it is something we can only do while we are able to.
Well, that was a mouth full.

Searching and Researching

I have many times read and reread a passage from a book because it strikes me as profound. I try very hard to maintain a record of these passages (maybe it is because librarians know that, more than likely, somebody is going to ask about it someday). I have more than once been very grateful that I have done this. Some are very poignant, some are more mundane.

Very often someone comes to you and asks for advice; sometimes you have none to give. Often you can only think what some other person told you, perhaps you tell the story of another and home it is apt. These are the times you might be very grateful you have learned to recognize wisdom when you see it.

Certainly it is not practical to copy down every phrase that catches your attention, but when something truly strikes you, truly makes you aware of another point of view or another way of describing the world around us, then you might just take it down.

TVIs

There are many kinds of educators in the world. By educators I refer to those who are formally trained and who have been assigned some type of title. I would like to tell you about Teachers of the Visually Impaired (TVI).

TVIs are specialists within the field of Special Education who work with students with visual impairments that range from very low vision (like me) to totally blind. The duties of a TVI are varied and many. For the most part the TVI helps to find ways for the student to learn. This means evaluating the student (as quickly as possible) and finding out how the student learns. This includes learning to read braille (for the record, you can spell it without the capital B) how to use a computer, how to use assistive technology, and how to use books on tape. A school or school system will generally not employ TVIs in their own right, TVIs are generaly subcontractors who work in a consortium or colaborative.

I had 4 TVIs as a student. The first I don't remember very well because she worked with me in Pre-school and in first grade (I skipped Kindergarten, but that's another entry). This TVI evaluated me and helped to set up my Individualized Education Plan (IEP) that would help guide my education over the next 12 years. In the 2nd grade I had a new teacher, she would work with me over the next two years. This teacher taught me how to count coins, tell time, work out math problems (I remember she made me practice erasing...a lot) and many other things I don't even recall. After three years she told me she had to go away because she was going to have a baby and I remember being stunned. She was the first person who ever told me she was pregnant (I'm the youngest in my family and the youngest grandchild on one side so not many babies for me to hear about). The next teacher was only with me for a year (a temporary hire until they found a replacement for my previous teacher), she worked very hard with me training me to use books on tape and to become an auditory learner.

The next year I started junior high and now I had another teacher. To say the least, I was not the ideal student (what pre-teen is?) . This poor woman had to bribe me (chocolate no less) to get me to show up on time for our sessions. Now I was leaning computer literacy. How to type, use a computer in all aspects including word processing and other skills but in a way that allowed me to actually be able to learn, and not miss what I needed to know.

Don't misunderstand, these are not tutors. They facilitate learning by making sure their students are using the best possible accommodations and that the student is being empowered to do this independently. How well the student learns that last lesson is always a bit unclear.

The deal is that when you are done senior year, you don't get a TVI anymore, so you have to be ready (whatever that means!). To say the least, I had no idea how not ready I was, but that's a different post.

These folks help students to go out in the world and take it on. They are deserving of our praise and most of all, our support. I know they have mine.

Welcome

At one time I had on online diary from Diaryland and I gave it the same name. I had to put a lot of thought into that name, that's why I used it again.

For those who do not know, a libretto is a kind of script. All the words to an opera are written out, just like a script, and that document is called the libretto. It is almost exclusively used for opera, for musicals the same thing is called "book" as in "book and musical by..."

I am a musician. I think about music often, I don't get to listen to it enough and I certainly don't get to perform enough. The libretto is a collection of words, the music is in the score, it happens around, becomes the empodiment of and is embodied by the libretto. So too then this, this blog, is my libretto.

So what then will you find here. I'm not sure. Recent events in my life have prompted me to rethink a great many things. Maybe I will share some of those thoughts with you.

The other day my wife and I were in the midst of a very important discussion about our future. At this point, the "midst" point, I stopped in my train of thought to say to her that I had realized something very shocking to me: I am able to talk to just about everyone, about very deep and important matters, but with her it is not so easy. Of course we "talk" in the traditional sense. We have a great deal in common and share similar interests. Ask anyone we know (including those who may not care to share our company) and you will be told that we are never at a loss for words.

So then what do you think we talked about then? She agreed with me that indeed I do have that problem. K told me that I work too hard to tell her what I believe is the correct thing to say or that I want to say what it is she thinks is the correct answer. She is right; I am into saying the right thing. I'm a librarian; people come to me for answers, for help. Part of my fascination with my wife is that, well, she doesn't really need my guidance, she needs my help. There is a difference there if you think about it. We all know how to dig a hole, more often it would go a lot faster or we could do a better job if someone helped out by grabbing a shovel. We have all seen it, the people who stand around remarking about the ice on the side walk rather then helping up the person who just slipped and fell.

So then this is a problem to work on; getting past the point of not offering my insight, my thoughts, and instead, helping.

In life there are books (there are librettos) anthologies of poetry, cook books and the list goes on and on. Sometimes we find what we need when we go looking for it, other times we must dig and dig. I offer a toast (and my hand) to the lady who plunks on her spelunking gear and goes to seek out the help.