Tag: rant

Pandemic: Stress, Anxiety, Fear & Uncertainty

It’s 7:30 a.m. on a weekday and I’ve been awake for half an hour. My phone dings with a new text message: A staff member reporting they’re sick and won’t be in today. So begins the scramble to find last minute coverage for their shift.

This used to happen maybe once or twice a month, a few times a year.

It happens multiple times a month now, sometimes multiple times in a single week. Some have symptoms or a positive test and need to quarantine, some are waiting for test results, some are simply worried about a possible exposure and don’t want to risk exposing coworkers. Scheduling has become incredibly unpredictable and coverage is stretched thin.

It’s gotten to the point that I wake up every morning with a low-key dread sitting in my stomach, waiting for my phone to ding. I have a visceral anxious reaction every time it does.

I didn’t used to have this reaction.

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Grammar Doesn’t Matter

A Rant about the Arguments over “They/Them” Pronouns

Once again, I see arguments online about the grammaticality of the singular “they/them” pronoun. People yelling that it can’t be singular and using it that way is just confusing and it’s therefore illegitimate, followed by people illuminating the history of the word and pointing out that language changes all the time anyway and citing numerous examples of how easy singular “they” is to understand in practice. I, myself, have done the latter on multiple occasions. And I’ve come to the following conclusion:

This is all bullshit distraction. The grammar DOES NOT MATTER.

Trans youth are at the highest risk of suicide of any group in our country. When trans youth have adults in their lives who support and affirm their chosen gender identity, their risk of suicide drops by half.

Using people’s preferred pronouns can help save lives.

Trans folk of all ages are at elevated risk of violence, suicide, employment discrimination, healthcare discrimination, homelessness, and incarceration. When communities support and affirm trans identities these risks are substantially reduced.

Using people’s preferred pronouns can help save lives.

I don’t give a shit about grammar. People’s lives are at stake.

If you’re more concerned about grammar than the lives and well-being of actual people, your position is morally indefensible.

I personally found the singular “they/them” confusing at first. It contradicts a lifetime of grammatical conditioning and it took time for me to get used to it. I honestly don’t think I’ll ever not be confused by of most of the newly invented gender-neutral pronouns that have been introduced over the past few years. I’m afraid of messing them up. I’m afraid I’ll hurt someone if I get their pronouns wrong, and I’m afraid of how people might judge me for my mistakes.

My confusion doesn’t matter.

If using preferred pronouns can help a trans kid turn away from contemplating suicide, I’ll do it whether I understand the language or not. If using preferred pronouns helps a trans person feel accepted and affirmed, I’ll do it. If using preferred pronouns contributes even in some small way to building a more accepting and supportive culture, one which materially improves the lives of people and reduces suicide rates, then HELL YES I’ll do it. I have a moral obligation to do it.

I don’t give a shit how confusing it is.

There’s no morally defensible position which can hold my personal confusion as more important than the lives and well-being of other people. Pronouns may confuse me but they don’t do me any actual harm. If using them can materially improve the lives of trans individuals, then I’m happy to be confused.

We need to stop engaging with arguments about grammar. Engaging in this allows TERFs and transphobes to control the terms of the argument. It grants de facto legitimacy to an anti-trans platform that should never be legitimized. It’s a distraction and a sidetrack and we keep falling for it. We have to stop.

People’s lives and well being will always matter more than any concerns about grammar.

Anyone who argues about the grammar of pronouns for trans folk has no legitimate argument to make.

F*ck the Books

Now that I have your attention with my intentionally confrontational, click-baity post title…

Last month (May 2020), my library reopened our book returns in preparation for limited reintroduction of material circulation in our community. The course of the pandemic in our service area was on a trend that indicated it would be safe to do so. The best data we have suggests we need to let returned materials sit for 72 hours before processing them back into the collection, onto the shelves, and into patrons’ hands.

Which is why a few of our branches have giant piles of books dumped on the floor:

Pile of books on a library floor

(From this news item: “Johnson County libraries busy after restarting dropoffs, holds and pickups,” Carey Wickersham. Fox 4, Nexstar Media Group, Inc. https://fox4kc.com/tracking-coronavirus/johnson-county-libraries-busy-after-restarting-dropoffs-holds-and-pickups/. Accessed June 18, 2020.)

Images like this one were presented in the media as my library reopened our book returns. It caused a minor furor online: people were offended we would treat books so callously. There were outraged comments on Twitter. Even the article this image is taken from can’t seem to avoid a slightly judgmental tone:

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I Hate Buzzwords: A Rant

I make no bones of the fact that I harbor an intense dislike of buzzwords. The thing is, I have a hard time explaining why I dislike buzzwords so much.

There’s one in particular I’ve been hearing more often over the past few years which may be the worst one yet:

Teamness.

It’s such an egregiously nonsense word! However, it offers a perfect opportunity to clarify my position.

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I Hate Poet Voice

We all know what “Poet Voice” is, right? A poet reads their work aloud and they take on a vocal style that’s flat, slow, monotonous, weighted down with cringing self-conscious significance.

I harbor an intense dislike of Poet Voice. I’m happy to see rigorous analysis backs me up on this.

An Algorithmic Investigation of the Highfalutin ‘Poet Voice’ by Cara Giaimo, posted on Atlas Obscura, May 1, 2018

Still, it bothers me when people critique Poet Voice primarily by comparing it to regular conversational voice. Poetry shouldn’t be treated like normal speech—it’s an elevated use of language and recitation should reflect that. Poetic recitation should be more performative, more crafted, distinct from casual conversation. Each word of a poem is significant and must be heard and understood.

The problem isn’t that Poet Voice is unnatural or different from conversational voice. The problem is that Poet Voice is boring.

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How Can Libraries Compete with Amazon?

I’m so bored by this question. Let’s talk instead about some things Amazon can’t do:

  • Amazon can’t be part of a community.
  • Amazon can’t build meaningful, multifaceted relationships with people at a local level.
  • Amazon can’t provide communal space.
  • Amazon can’t provide boots-on-ground, in-the-trenches, front-line community services.
  • Amazon can’t provide anything beyond purely commercial transactions.
  • Amazon can’t be assumed to care about the common good.
  • Amazon can’t build trust with people.

Libraries do all these things. Libraries do so much more than these things. All without ever advertising to you, without leveraging your needs for commercial gain.

Amazon values monetization. Libraries value people.

Can libraries compete with Amazon? This isn’t a legitimate question. If you think Amazon is competition for libraries, then you fundamentally don’t understand what libraries do.

The truth is this:

Amazon can’t compete with us.

On the Economic Value of Human Beings

This.

Immigrants Shouldn’t Have to Be ‘Talented’ to Be Welcome by Masha Gessen (New York Times, September 6, 2017)

If immigration is debated only in terms of whether it benefits the economy, politicians begin to divide people into two categories: “valuable” and “illegal.” When countries make people illegal, the world comes apart. When we agree to talk about people as cogs, we lose our humanity.

I hate how our culture has decided that economics is the only thing that matters. That every aspect of our society is assessed predominately—if not exclusively—in economic terms. Education, healthcare, the environment, arts and humanities, science and engineering, technology, civil rights, immigration and refugees, and on and on and on…

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My Twitter Year

One of my goals this year is to participate more in professional conversations and debates. For me, this means getting more active on Twitter. That’s where I keep track of most of my professional connections.

This past week saw my first forays in that direction.

There’s a quote from Donny Miller that has become ubiquitous among information professionals:

“In the age of information, ignorance is a choice.”

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Library Thought Leaders

On April 8, 2015, dolly m (@loather) tweeted the following:

dolly m pithily sums up something I’ve been wrestling with for the past few years, ever since I started working in a public library:

There are so-named “thought leaders” in the library community who make their living telling the rest of us how we should do our jobs. They travel from conference to conference, keynoting and presenting, speaking about the current state of librarianship.

Several of these thought leaders haven’t worked as librarians in an actual library in a long time. Some not since before the internet existed. Some of them have no first-hand experience of the practical realities of being a librarian in the Digital Information Age.

This makes it hard swallow when they presume to tell me how I should do my job.

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Public Library Reference: An Unscientific Test

I debated for several weeks about writing this post. Some of what I want to talk about I already discussed in my post, The Pain of Bad Reference Interactions. I think there’s more to say, though.

My concern is that I have some strong criticisms of the reference interactions I’ve had with some public libraries in the United States. I use no names and I leave out all identifying details—but it’s still possible that some of these libraries, or even some of their librarians, will be able to recognize themselves if they read this.

I have no desire to shame anyone with this post. I find online public shaming culture abhorrent and I refuse to participate in it.

I believe that criticism is necessary for improvement. I offer all criticisms in the sincere hope that it will help us all to serve our communities even better than we already do, and in my desire to help define the best path forward for public libraries in the Digital Information Age.

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