Halloween

Five years ago, I graduated from the community college where I now work.

Today, I am sitting at my desk in my graduation cap and gown, maroon and silver tassle bobbing at the corner of my field of vision. Why? Because today is Halloween.

It is interesting to make a silly, fun costume out of something that was once a symbol of the hard work on which I spent two years of my life. It reminds me that school isn't everything, that when we're all old, we will look back with some amusement on all that which we once took so seriously.

Things that were important will not seem as important when day is done and we stare across the expanses of our lives. There will be pride, joy, and grief; graduations, silly costumes, and things we regret.

But for now, I'm sitting in a library in my old graduation cap and gown, happy that there are good times to look ridiculous. To not worry what other people think: that is freeing.

Happy Halloween, everybody. Eat some candy, read some H. P. Lovecraft, and have fun.

Assignments

Some of you are probably wondering how taking an online class works. Well, it involves a lot of reading and a lot of posting to online discussion boards.

And just when you are about to go nuts from doing that, there is the writing. I now have two assignments left for my Intro class, and one for my Young Adults class. One from each of those categories is due mid-December at the end of the semester.

The remaining one is due in a week. 2500 words on an issue selected from a list. Ten sources. I have selected "Information Ethics" as my issue.

I would like to write "if someone is informationally unethical, punch him or her in the face," but I don't think that would fly. And it wouldn't be very informative, anyway, not to mention ethical. Instead, I will write 2500 words about "Libraries, Privacy and the U.S. Government," because that is the issue for which the library where I work has the most books.

And we all know that in the world of college research papers, the one who finds the most books semi-related to a given topic wins.

The other assignment I just completed allowed me to write about a book that I like, then record myself pretending to be an old lady. That was much more fun. But then, I suppose that if everything were fun, we wouldn't know what fun was because we would have nothing to compare it to. Isn't that funny?

Odd Book Out

Okay, so once a week has turned into once a whenever-I-see-something-weird.

And now I unveil this amusing title:
Big Black Boring Rock: Essays on Northwest Geology by Stephen P. Reidel

And there ye have it.

Prisoners

An article on why being a prison librarian is not so scary after all: So You Want To Become a Prison Librarian?

When I was on my desperate job hunt last spring before I knew which school I would be going to, I noticed an ad for a library assistant in the King County jail. It paid over $18/hr, just for an assistant position.

I suppose they have to pay more to get people in there. Even my own reaction to the idea of working in a prison library was at first fear. Would inmates ever get violent in the library? Would they create uncomfortable situations for the librarian . . . sexual comments, threatening comments, etc.?

The reality according to that article, and a woman in one of my online classes, seems to be that prisoners in libraries are quite well-behaved. If they don't stay that way, then they can lose their library privileges, for one thing. For another--I bet there are some prisoners who aren't well-behaved enough to have library privileges in the first place.

For the ones who do use the library, some for the first time in their lives, the recent Standardized Chapel Library Project came as a brutal kick in the face. The project is an effort by the Bureau of Prisons to keep books off of prison library shelves that could incite radical religious views. However, rather than pulling only books with radical points of view, the Bureau made a list of approved books and pulled all religious books that were not on it.

In prisons, libraries are places for people to heal. They are places where prisoners can learn new trades, be exposed to new ideas, even find healing in faith. For the Bureau to do this is not only counter-intuitive, it directly goes against the mission of a "correctional facility" . . . to correct. To help those who want it.

I am glad that there has been such an outcry from all people against this that the Standardized Chapel Library Project has been halted and books will be returned to the shelves. For although these men and women are in prison, it was a wise man who once said:

"If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:31.5-32