Friday, March 28, 2008

rave

While doing homework (both boys are actually sleeping at the same time, after weeks of conspiring against me) I found this fun resource with real, actual librarians to help you... 24/7 baby! As I was writing below (yes, incoherently, and incompletely, forgive me--I am constantly interrupted) about using Google for searching, here is a great research/information alternative:

AskColorado: http://www.askcolorado.org/info/index.html It's a group of statewide librarians who provide (quality) help on whatever you want to know about... they even offer it in SPANISH. how cool is that? Maybe I could work there some day, it might be fun to mix up with a face to face job. FTF as they wrote in the last paper I was reading. There's Milo... He can tell when I am gloating about naptime.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

time, flying

Well, finals came and went, and I was sure that I'd be lounging around catching up on posting when I was finished freaking out about my schoolwork. This didn't happen though. In fact, days went by where I didn't check my email, I fell behind on reading the Annoyed Librarian, my favorite library blog, and I didn't even read any good books.
That part isn't entirely true, I borrowed The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency on cd, since I read it long ago on my friend Megan's couch in Oak Creek, CO and proceeded over the years to plow through all the rest of the series which is a mighty fine read, let me tell you what. In any case, I got it on CD because although the books are good, the books read by this wonderful woman narrator are even better. Really. So I've been driving around ignoring the boys and continually turning up the volume in the car, (that's where the cds are) so that I can catch part of the story before we arrive at our destination. It has made me a decidedly more distracted driver, and this is very bad news indeed, considering my usual distracted state. Ah but to hear about Zebra Drive, and Mma Ramotswe, it is so engaging and lovely.
I had one of my two classes for this quarter today. Two Reference courses. George asked me what that meant, and I told him I was going to find out really soon. Reference, does anyone use this service which is the most important job of a librarian? Confess people, do you think--ah, I'll ask a librarian and they will have all sorts of novel, high-quality sources for me to search and find the answer to my question.
No, you don't, you go above, and you type it into your google bar, and sort through junk to find the best choice there, and hopefully you get your question answered. I am the first one to tout the glory of Google. Like this blog for example, google at it's finest (though it's named blogger....).

But, once I can tell you more about what Reference really is (ask me in ten weeks, i should have a much better idea), I think you may look at your local librarian with new eyes. I may not make it in this profession though, if everyone keeps talking about the old lady with the bun. really. Is that what you think of too?

I have a great memory of Justin's eyes lighting up (our friend who works at the San Diego Wild Animal Park- not sure of his title, but he works as a zookeeper, and then does other things too) when he talked about the librarian who worked there. Someone who helped access important information competently is the jist of what I got from what he said. This is more along the lines of what I think of when I think of librarians.

I love going to the reference desk, you ask a question, and the person knows the answer! immediately! what a nice thing, this is.

Now to bed, before one of the two of our boys would like me to not be sleeping. Ah yes, but I did promise to not talk about that didn't I?

Monday, March 3, 2008

The Business of Being Born

This documentary is worth watching more than one time. Please see it if anyone in your life is thinking about having a baby. The trailer is powerful, the link is on my sidebar. Don't think that you aren't interested, it's compelling and a different way to see something for our culture.

I had two babies at home, and although most people I know know this, almost none have ever asked me why or what it was like. This video does a good job of describing my discovery process, the things I learned while researching birth in the US and portraying the utter beauty and bliss that accompanied the births of our two boys. I was transformed as a person because of my birth experiences, and they permanently altered the way I view myself. I got to visit other worlds on my way to bringing these babies here, what a gift.

Order it on netflix and watch it with someone you love, it is so lovely.

http://www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com/