In the Land of the Blind...

My Director said this to me on my way to teach a class last week - "In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed is their king." I thought that was quite amusing and said a great deal. I can see how it can apply to any number of situations.

Recently, a colleague of mine in a distant university flew into a rage when her "superiors" came to her with "concerns" regarding her Facebook group and how it was being used to communicate with her student workers. I am paraphrasing, but she said something to the affect that the other supervisors felt as if they were being forced to join her Facebook group. The details are to complicated to fully describe here, but the gist of her rage rests on the reactionary position of her library administrators.

As was described to her, there had not been a complete buy-in regarding using Facebook for library projects. Apparently, as she would no doubt agree, she is forced to live in the Land of the Blind where there is an attempt to blind those with visions of novel approaches to services! The One-Eyed indeed!

If we as librarians are supposed to represent the One-Eyed in a land of the Information Blind, what does it say when the administrators of our libraries seek to put those eyes out? Are we to take steps backwards? This has been the failing of the field for years! We lag behind in technology, and when the few us that see the light reach for it, we are pulled down and chastised! Is it quite depressing on many levels.

It must be noted, in the spirit of fairness, that on the following day, she was allowed to reactive her Facebook group. However, it should not have been stopped in the first place simply because some librarians seek to live in the Land of the Blind.

Toxic Mentors...

My new position as an Academic Reference Librarian and Assistant Professor has put me into a the position of helping out the Circulation and Interlibrary Loan Librarian. This is no big deal seeing as how we fill only about 3-5 requests every two days or so. I have to scan copied articles and turn them into PDFs, so I get to come across some interesting material every once in a while. This just happens to be one of those "once in a while" events.

I scanned this article entitled "What To Do About Toxic Mentors". It is from Nurse Educator, vol. 11, no. 2, March/April 1986, pages 29-30, in case you want to track it down for yourself. The author breaks down toxic mentors into several categories with such names as "avoiders", "blockers", and "destroyers/criticizers". While this is from a nursing journal, I know that it applies to all sectors of the known world. Scott Adams would agree 100 percent.

For me, the most dangerous of the the so-called "toxic mentors" is the "destroyer/criticizer". Let me quote the author directly here so the full impact of this most insidious of people is fully realized. "Even more toxic are the 'Destroyer/Criticizers,' who tear down the junior person in some way. In this group, the Underminers are particularly subtle; it takes awhile to realize what you are experiencing." It must be noted that Underminers are not explained in the article. The example given is that when a nurse began to excel at her job, slowly over time her responsibilities were cut back and her involvement was minimized. Quite interesting.

So, be on the lookout for these "toxic mentors" and other potentially poisonous people. They will bleed you white if you let them.

"You can't handle the truth!"

While I was home over the weekend, the film "A Few Good Men" was on some cable station and I had it on as background noise while eating dinner. I like that movie - I bet the play is even better because theatre is always better than any movie.

Anyway, my wife and I were talking about the election or some such, and I ended up talking about the War. We were talking about waging war on TV and the like and the fact you (a nation) can't win a war on TV because no one wants to know how it is won, just the fact that the war is won. It hit me, suddenly, just what Col. Jessep's speech during the court marshal actually meant. Like a lightning bolt, boom. And to think I've been watching this movie for years and never got it. But I digress...

Col. Jessep says "You can't handle the truth!" And he is right. His speech goes on to say things about walls and men with guns and how freedom is defended by walls and men with guns. He elaborates further by saying (paraphrase here) that deep down inside "you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall" and that "I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to you". The key here in understanding Jessep is this: people want their freedoms defended, but they don't want to know how that is actually accomplished. We won World War II and at the time no one really knew how we were winning until most of the shots had been fired. News was being censored quite well, as were personal letters from the fronts. If WWII had been on TV like Vietnam and Iraq, Europe would be speaking German now.

Anyway, the point of this analytical exercise is the obvious realization of something that I had been expounding on for years - that you cannot win wars on TV. Nations want to win wars, but the people don't really want to know how the wars are won, not until much, much later, when it no longer matters but to academics and armchair generals. Is this a cynical view of a modern, democratic, and supposedly educated society? Some would say so. Others would say it is an statement of how things are. The Abu Ghraib incident is the perfect example. In WWII, we would never have known about it until many years after the fact.

So, the real question is this: can you handle the truth of war, or is it better for you to turn a blind eye and be glad for victory? Think about it...

Starting a new blog off right...

The world has taken a turn for the surreal. I thought that I was a great cynic, but apparently others make me appear amateurish! (Who would have figured!)

I came across the Annoyed Librarian's blog, from the ALA Direct newsletter where she describes library classes that are never offered but should be, and I would have taken them if they were available. Classes such Library Politics would have been quite good as libraries are terribly political places. I suppose that all academia is political, but my experience in libraries has proven beyond all measure that some libraries are dangerous and Machiavellian - houses of depravity, misery, and suffering! I used to work in one such place and still keep in contact with those that languish there in total hopelessness.

In addition to these woefully and ever-wise class offerings that should be provided, I remember reading the musing of one such cynic from an LIS program in California. The title of the document was "Library School Lunacy" and it hits the mark dead on!

Now, I must say that I love being an academic librarian. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gone to library school in the first place. And it says Red Mage because I used to play D&D eons ago and was a neutral mage that wore red robes. I still read Dragonlance regularly. I like helping people find the information they seek for their various tasks and assignments. It is always good to be thanked by students and professors when you find what they need.

I may be a cynic, but I still do my best to fill information needs.