ALA Midwinter 2019

Here is my tentative schedule for ALA Midwinter. Note that it is still tentative!


I am flying in on Thursday (1/24) and leaving for Pullman on the 30th - after I teach a class online. (Note: I have not figured out how to make "Agenda" the default view.") Clicking on any event will show details. And do note the time zone note on the bottom. Here, I am seeing things in the Central Time zone, not sure how true that is for others.

ALA Annual 2018

Right now, this matches the version of the calendar in the ALA Scheduler, and lives both on Google Calendar and in my personal Outlook calendar.

Here is my tentative schedule for ALA Annual. Note that it is still tentative!

I will be arriving on Canal Street on Thursday afternoon - it should take me a whole 90 minutes from work!

Clicking on any event will show details. Also clicking on "ALA" opens the calendar for that day. For some reason, not all events are currently showing up, and I will work on that!

And do note the time zone note on the bottom. Here, I am seeing things in the Central Time zone, not sure how true that is for others, but this time, again, I don't change time zones!

Hard to Forget - Book Review

I recently finished reading Hard to Forget: an Alzheimer's Story by Charlie Pierce.

I don't usually read medical non-fiction. But having recently reconnected with a grammar school friend, we were talking about our high school buddies. Charlie and I grew up in the same town, close to each other, and for some of the early years of high school, we often walked to school together. I have been reading Charlie's stuff [off and on] for over 50 years. He wrote {for publication} in high school, and I would sometimes see his work in other places in more recent years. And, oh yes, this is *the* Charlie Pierce of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me."

I have some vivid memories of Charlie's mother, but for me, his dad was a shadowy figure at best.

Part of what I enjoyed was recalling some of the scenery and geography of town.

This is a heart-wrenching, vividly told, brutally honest story. Charlie mixes his information gathering about this debilitating disease with how he and his family reacted to the progression of the illness. Everything from denial, to doing everything possible to help his dad.

It received excellent reviews when it was first published.

I am glad that I read it. In my professional life, "my" division of ALA includes a group of folks who provide services to those suffering from dementia and  their caregivers. As we baby boomers age, this will become an increasingly important service for public libraries to offer.

ALA Elections - 2018 Edition

It is that time of year again!ALA Elections.

I am asked about choosing candidates for ALA Council. Well, have I got good news for you ... one of my friends (and current LITA President) Andromeda Yelton has put together a tool to sort through the ALA Council candidate list. She has been doing it for a few years now, and it could be that this is the first time I have blogged about it, although I am pretty sure I have posted it on Facebook. Here is what she said:

Hi ALA people! Are you gearing up to vote in the ALA election. (<- answer="" be="" br="" here="" should="" the="" yes="">
This is my yearly candidate sorter. It lets you limit to people in particular divisions, round tables, ethnic caucuses, etc. (in addition to Cmd-F/Ctrl-F keyword search goodness). Hopefully it will make the job of finding people who represent you more manageable.

She also noted that there is a small issue:

(there's a javascript bug whereby if you have checked, then unchecked, a filter you end up with an empty page. you can reload the page to reset it. hopefully I will have time to figure it out and fix it, but if you know how, pull requests welcome)

 Here is the link: https://thatandromeda.github.io/ala_candidate_filter/2018_ala_council.html

More on the election when ballots are released in about 10 days. (I am on the ballot again this year, but not the ballot which Andromeda parsed!)

Living in Baton Rouge, Living in the South, and Lent

I cut and pasted this link in the summer of 2017. It was a year after it was written. It was written just after the Alton Sterling shooting. Go read the Wikipedia article, then read the "everythingisfinehere" post. I'll wait.

It’s not getting worse. It’s been there all along.

I spent a lot of years in Connecticut. For many of those years while I lived in Bridgeport, I worked in the suburbs - first Wilton, then Hamden. Both of them are pretty white. My kids went to school where they were in the minority (but not, as in this article, THE minority). I saw some of the issues outlined here. In the North they are often masked by artificial political divisions ... the City/Town line between Bridgeport and Trumbull, for instance.

Now go back and look again at the map. Can you find Florida Boulevard? It is amazing to me how graphically prominent it is. I will also note, that when I drive North/South in the city (or the reverse), I inevitably spend at least a full minute, and often more, waiting to cross Florida Boulevard. There is only one intersection that I regularly use where that does not happen ... it is the T-intersection at River Road and Florida where Florida Boulevard begins. Let me also note that I have driven from that intersection, along Florida Boulevard to Airline Highway without having to stop for a single traffic signal! The road is not only a geographical marker, but an actual physical divide.

Finally let me note. When I first moved to Baton Rouge, I stayed in the same Congressional District as when I lived in New Orleans. It is an amazingly gerrymandered district, drawn to maximize the number of black voters. Look at the map here. I moved south in Baton Rouge, a few miles, and am suddenly in a different district! (Actually, at my old place, it was 0.75 miles to work, and work was in a different district!)

The two most poignant quotes, which resonate most with me, are these:

1. "I had no idea the eye opening experience we had unwittingly signed up for when we agreed to move to Baton Rouge."
2. "I never thought I’d see a city this segregated in my lifetime."

 Part of what I am (finally) beginning to realize is the incredible life of privilege which I have lived.

My challenge to myself this Lenten season is: What am I going to do about that?