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A couple things make a post.
Aug. 3rd, 2018 10:46 pmSeveral things make a post, I suppose.
Firstly, oh, organization of mine, givewn that we are in Election mode. I think you can do a lot better in the weekly message from high administration to the rest of us than spending time talking about the passing of an award given from leadership to a person in leadership that best exemplifies the virtues of leadership. I saw it as basically of no interest to anyone outside of leadership, and it read to me like a very self-congratulatory item. Perhaps there was nothing better to talk about. I doubt that, but perhaps that was the best they would think of at the time.
It's also a bit...something that I had a person come in who was new to the sate ad county and was asking about which candidates would be good ones to vote for. I was able to do the requisite non-endorsement and providing only informative content on where someone could find information about what other people have said about endorsements or their lack. It was amusing to be able to do the thing that the organization has been very insistent that we do, even on the cases of our own ballot measure coming up. I still find it...aggravating that we don't get to advocate for ourselves in that kind of situation, but I'm very much getting to the opinion that many of the sacred cows of the profession need re-thinking.
I get to see some of that play out in the discussions of whether "neutral" should be a value to aspire to (no) and the large amount of people talking Very Seriously about whether an interpretation of "library spaces should be open to all" needs to explicitly mention hate groups as people that are welcome, and how if we don't let the people and opinions we disagree with into the facilities, then we're potentially legally liable and betraying our values. I think one of the best rebuttals that I've seen to that idea is the one that suggests that intellectual freedom is one of our values, and that it needs to be balanced with other values, like the ones that ask us to provide our services with an eye toward equity, diversity, and inclusion. I like that idea, that values are in tension, and that means we have to make decisions about which ones that we want to prioritize, so that we can send an appropriate message about who we want to explicitly welcome to the library.
Given how much libraries have been on the side of the oppressor (and plenty in the profession seem to still be okay with that, at least through the idea that fidelity to values like neutrality are more important than the people who get affected by those values), there's a lot of ground that needs to be made up to the point where we can talk about library values as being non-partisan and ultimately with a view toward making libraries welcoming spaces for everyone.
But I wanted to close out with trying to find three things that don't suck in my life right now, which seems like a useful antidote to the somewhat depressive feelings I've been having lately. The sorts of "The decisions you made in the past were good ones, but they say that you are a terrible person at heart" weasels that come from my lived experiences. And perhaps they're linked to past other things, too, since a familiar feeling reared its head when I started trying to think through how I might develop a program for a particular audience - that feeling that came about when crativity was being squelched by a previous manager that wasn't all that interested in it.
Firstly, oh, organization of mine, givewn that we are in Election mode. I think you can do a lot better in the weekly message from high administration to the rest of us than spending time talking about the passing of an award given from leadership to a person in leadership that best exemplifies the virtues of leadership. I saw it as basically of no interest to anyone outside of leadership, and it read to me like a very self-congratulatory item. Perhaps there was nothing better to talk about. I doubt that, but perhaps that was the best they would think of at the time.
It's also a bit...something that I had a person come in who was new to the sate ad county and was asking about which candidates would be good ones to vote for. I was able to do the requisite non-endorsement and providing only informative content on where someone could find information about what other people have said about endorsements or their lack. It was amusing to be able to do the thing that the organization has been very insistent that we do, even on the cases of our own ballot measure coming up. I still find it...aggravating that we don't get to advocate for ourselves in that kind of situation, but I'm very much getting to the opinion that many of the sacred cows of the profession need re-thinking.
I get to see some of that play out in the discussions of whether "neutral" should be a value to aspire to (no) and the large amount of people talking Very Seriously about whether an interpretation of "library spaces should be open to all" needs to explicitly mention hate groups as people that are welcome, and how if we don't let the people and opinions we disagree with into the facilities, then we're potentially legally liable and betraying our values. I think one of the best rebuttals that I've seen to that idea is the one that suggests that intellectual freedom is one of our values, and that it needs to be balanced with other values, like the ones that ask us to provide our services with an eye toward equity, diversity, and inclusion. I like that idea, that values are in tension, and that means we have to make decisions about which ones that we want to prioritize, so that we can send an appropriate message about who we want to explicitly welcome to the library.
Given how much libraries have been on the side of the oppressor (and plenty in the profession seem to still be okay with that, at least through the idea that fidelity to values like neutrality are more important than the people who get affected by those values), there's a lot of ground that needs to be made up to the point where we can talk about library values as being non-partisan and ultimately with a view toward making libraries welcoming spaces for everyone.
But I wanted to close out with trying to find three things that don't suck in my life right now, which seems like a useful antidote to the somewhat depressive feelings I've been having lately. The sorts of "The decisions you made in the past were good ones, but they say that you are a terrible person at heart" weasels that come from my lived experiences. And perhaps they're linked to past other things, too, since a familiar feeling reared its head when I started trying to think through how I might develop a program for a particular audience - that feeling that came about when crativity was being squelched by a previous manager that wasn't all that interested in it.
- I have commissions to look forward to. I finally got through to a person whose art I admired (and bought) at a convention this year, and ptu down the fee for them to create what I hope will be great works of art - a couple of which might be turned into prints and merch for that artist to them sell to others.
- The house is coming together. The garage got cleaned out when my parents came to visit, and that was a major help in feeling like the place is mine more and more. The weeds are showing signs of being beaten. The house had a perennial morning glory infestation, and since I don't have someone else to tell me that the only way to get rid of them is to pull them, I've resorted to chemical warfare against them, and it seems to be having an effect - I don't have climbing vines on the fences, and a lot of what was green and spreading seems to be brown and very much dying. I have an appointment with someone to come and look at the basement and see if we can't fix the flooding problems. It takes time and money, of course, but I have some of that to be able to fix problems with, so that's a good thing, too.
- I've got people. The kind of people that will use you as an example because you're friends and you know them. The kinds of people that say hello, even if it's been a while since you've appeared in their space. And the kinds of people that stay friends with you even as you go through tough times. It's a comforting abstract to have, even if right now, having the particular would be more helpful. I went back and read all of my AO3 comments, just as a way of reminding myself that people do appreciate the output, and that they enjoyed it as well. I think it helped fight the weasels
