Failing at group collaboration

For the first time since I can't remember when, I've jeopardized a group project. I'm usually the one who's on top of the schedule, slinging out ideas, or trying to find the right words to rally the troops so being on this side of the things really sucks.

Depression is a nasty, insidious thing. It can strike from anywhere - sometimes with good cause and sometimes just because. I think my least favorite part is the "waking up" and realizing just how much you've let slide. I'm willing and able to make amends, but I feel terribly guilty and ashamed for not being on my game.

To my group partner, I'm sorry. To the group I wanted to help with our project, I'm sorry.

Libraries as Maker Spaces



Fayetteville Free Library's MakerBot

In a radical reboot of the image of the library, the Fayetteville Free Library is the first public library to open a maker space in the United States. Since then, other public libraries have created maker space programs in their institutions.

I love the "libraries as maker spaces" trend because I think that they showcase how libraries are able to adapt and change to support the intellectual, functional and collaborative needs of their communities.

Check out these library websites for more information:

Fayetteville Free Library
Westport Public Library

Geeking Out the Library: Social Networking and Teens in the Library

Teens spend more time online than any previous generation. In part, this is due to a dearth of physical places where teens can congregate after the school, but also because the web is a place which is considered “theirs”. Many adults are uncomfortable in or unfamiliar with the social settings which are common in Web 2.0 whereas today’s teens have never known a world without Internet.

This is something that educators and librarians are only beginning to understand. Adoption of Web 2.0 aspects -- such as social networking, blogging and podcasts – into classrooms has been slow. Research into how teens use and rely upon Web 2.0 has only scratched the surface. Librarians and educators need to delve deeper into both how teens use social media and other web outlets to better understand how teens interact with each other and their world, providing learning in a context that is more suited to their preferred environment.

In “More than MySpace: Teens, Librarians and Social Networking” by Robyn M. Lupa, the idea is put forth that librarians, both school and public, must lead the way for educators to take hold of and understand the new mediums through which teens are meeting. Old standards and stereotypes are holding back both the teens seeking to access information and educators attempting to pass on information. Lupa states that “[i]f we want to remain relevant to teens’ needs, it only makes sense that, as organizations, we need to use the same tools that teens do to communicate.”

Scholarly literature describes both positives as well as potential drawbacks to social networking; researchers overwhelmingly support teen social networking as a phenomenon that is here to stay. Adolescents need their own spaces for socialization that are not defined by adults, but these spaces can be difficult for teens to create, define, and explore in a physical world regulated by adults. The online world affords teens a status equal to adults and allows friends to connect even in adult-regulated spaces. 

Social media presents a real opportunity for librarians to engage with teen patrons and help them to define and develop their own social networks, both in and outside of library walls.

Library Building Nostalgia

Library buildings are lovely, and most of us feel a great sense of nostalgia for the experiences we've had there, but we are shifting to a culture that is far less dependent on physical buildings and more reliant on virtual networks. To overlook that the Millennial generation feels none of what we feel for library buildings is to perpetuate the belief that "libraries are irrelevant."

 

This blog post from Phil Bradley's library weblog makes an elegant argument about why libraries are more than what our publics are currently seeing...

 

A library is not...

a building. Sure, there are some lovely wonderful buildings which house libraries, and we don't have to go back too far to see when the building that housed a library was essentially a temple of worship to the book. However, while a library needs a building (although I'm not going too far down that route any longer, since a case can easily made that it's no longer true), it can't define the library. Sure, it can help with the concept of a library, and it can assist in the role of the library - they used to be quiet buildings with loud rooms, but now they're more often than not a loud building with quiet rooms, but a building full of books, neatly arranged with helpful people doing things for the members/clients/etc could quite easily be a bookshop.

A library is not a collection of books. It's also not a collection of resources either. We cannot define ourselves by the artifacts that we use. We should - hopefully - have long gone beyond that - into other media to begin with, but then, as society has started to leave physical objects behind with the increased use of music files instead of CDs and films on demand instead of DVDs and knowledge 'in the cloud' instead of on CD-ROM, so has the the library and the librarians. We're not in the book business - we have *never* been in the book business. We're in the knowledge business, helping, assisting and facilitating what our members and our communities want.

http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/2011/10/a-library-is-not.html
 

Kansas City Public Library
 

As pictured above, the Kansas City Public Library is an example of a beautiful library facade - it immediately evokes all the nostalgia that Baby Boomers and Generation X feels about their community libraries, but as Mr. Bradley points out - libraries are more than a collection of books. Furthermore, as more electronic resources come online and available through the cloud, the more this facade will begin to appear old-fashioned and antiquated; a symbol of a bygone era. Libraries deserve better.

Mental Snapshot

Snapshot of my internal dialogue: "I wonder whether I could find some reading about social mores in virtual worlds. I don't feel really confident about my searching ability yet so I'll 'ask a librarian' at UW. Wow, there are so many interesting things to read; I'll never be able to learn and comprehend everything I'd like to know. That's a depressing thought. I wonder if people who report high levels of curiosity are more prone to depression? I wonder whether I could find some interesting journal articles about curiosity and depression?..."

The One Flaw

"And the thing that kills me about her is that she doesn't see that she's intelligent, sarcastic, funny, sweet... all she can think about is [the one flaw]"

The person described above is a new friend, but one that I admire immensely because she's sweet, funny, charming, cute as hell, etc.... and it shocked me to hear from her husband that she just didn't see that in herself. Her "one" flaw (we typically all have one thing that we obsess over) is so monumental to her that it negates a dozen fantastic qualities that actually mean so much more than the gravity of the flaw. Give me the quality of compassion over embarassing foot odor any day.

What got to me about the conversation is that it wasn't about me, but it could've described me. I've become so body dysmorphic and self-conscious that I no longer recognize my charms (or I feel guilty when I do like I'm claiming something that doesn't really belong to me) and I do not believe the compliments that I receive. Others might say that I'm funny, smart, friendly, warm... even pretty and I can say "but I'm fat" as if that negates everything else.

But it doesn't. I know that whatever flaw eats away at my friend absolutely doesn't make her any less shiny and - despite what my somewhat ED-raddled brain tells me - I'm not anymore" terminally special" than anyone else.

Yes, I am fat, but being fat doesn't make my any of my other qualities any less (or more) genuine.

Notes on deprivation and craving

As part of my ongoing eating disorder recovery, I am making peace with food. As a part of making peace with food, I am (re)reading "Intuitive Eating" which advocates a non-diet approach to eating/food. There is a section specifically devoted to the deprivation/craving dichotomy: "The moment you banish a food, it paradoxically builds up a 'craving life' of its own that gets stronger with each diet, and builds more momentum as the deprivation deepens."

All of a sudden it hits me that the reverse is also true. I dread the start of new relationships because it triggers all kinds of desire that I don't know how to moderate. The moment I start to feel "new relationship energy" is when I start setting up barriers and rules for myself that ostensibly are to prevent me from making a fool of myself, but really end up causing me massive amounts of insecurity and anxiety. And because I don't give myself permission to enjoy and participate in the NRE, the "craving" ratchets up enormously which in turn triggers more attempts at deprivation.

The book advocates giving yourself permission to eat unconditionally. No bargaining (cheesecake today, salad tomorrow); no limits (well, only half the doughnut...); and no judgment (I'm so bad for wanting to eat this) for your choices.

I wonder if I'd feel better if I gave myself unconditional permission to enjoy new relationships, to communicate when it felt natural to me, and to express affection genuinely without measuring it against my rigid standard of how much is acceptable when. I'm surely bound to fuck it up a little at first, but I might actually learn to trust myself over time.

Ars Vivendi

By day, I am a fearless conquerer of professional services marketer, and by night, I devour books, movies, music, and games in my quest to be America's Next Top Librarian. This space is dedicated to my experiences and insights as I make a career transition away from the corporate world towards public service.

Last week, I read Arthur Phillips' The Egyptologist. I was particularly struck by this passage:

"See the beautiful and heroic aspects: a boy runs for the very last time into his ramshackle home (for there must have been a last time, whether he knew it or now just then), and he shouts with pride about some accomplishment, still expecting (with the dregs of his childish instincts for love) to receive praise from the lady of the house. He shouts with pride that he has learnt to do this or that, something academic or athletic. And he receives as a mark of her definitive indifference to him either a blow or a fruity curse marinated in liquor or mere runny-nosed, vomiting silence, while new semi-siblings mewl and squat all over the room. As if such a moment is, in the child’s blossoming mind, necessarily tragic! Not at all: why assume such a moment represents a door closing, rather than the equally creaky sound of a door opening? How can the untrained ear tell the difference? Close your eyes, and if, after that tooth-grinding squeal, one feels a breeze of insight of opportunity, then you know…

Modern sociology shows that the brightest children understand the significance of this moment, and their adaptation to it can only be termed a second birth: a birth into total independence, free of any ties to illusions, free of any illusions of ties. A birth in which the child becomes both his own parents. He alone will make himself from this day on. The greatest act of creation will now begin, the creation of myself…

But, if you are unable to realize your way out of childish delusions, if you blunder on, relying on the love of a mother, the trust-worthy interest of the priest or the teacher or the employer or the lover or the officer, the benevolent concern of the rich for the poor; the jolly companionship and foul-weathered loyalty of trusted pals, well, then you are doomed to a life of childhood. You will have no real adulthood, and no hope of making an achievement worthy of permanent note."

From the time I was 17, I've made it a personal mission to travel my life boldly. At times, my mission has faltered when I've grown complacent but it's never failed - I eventually find myself preparing again to cast my fate upon the waters. Four years ago, I was shaken into fresh action and chose to pursue higher education in library and information science. It was a largely selfish act since the professional outlook for librarians isn't very robust, but I wanted to give myself the gift of a second birth into a world of my own making.

This blog is dedicated to my personal ars vivendi (art of living).