The Love Blog for October 8

I almost wanted to call it the "Luuurve" Blog because you know how happy I get about Freakangels every week and all.

Then I remembered all of the Other stuff I've got open on my toolbar up there for sharing and thought that perhaps this is not the time to get all squishy.

I've been doing limited research on just how much it's going to cost me to get into graduate school for this mythical job that I want to make happen (and, oh, it will, believe me. (even if I hafta carve it out of some micromanager's ass)). PhD confirmed that my brain is configured for it, so really, it's just a matter of picking, right? Right?

If the book didn't have a bit of mold, this would be far more exciting news: McGraw Hill has an entire series of books on Library Education and they don't suck! The footnotes are subtle and stay at the foot of the page, and the bibliography is enough to make out with. Seriously.

I'm working back to up my 100 pages a day of not-light reading, which makes very little sense as in less than a month, NaNoWriMo begins and I've got this big crazy idea in mind that means I'll have 2 weeks to write 50K words. If the writing and the crazy did not bring absolute joy, this would not even begin to be an idea, much less an incredibly possible one.

Libraries do not exist in vacuums, they are constructed. They are, in fact, one of the few social constructs that work against the standardization of humans that so many other social constructs require and create. They are, as has been discussed frequently of late in my clade, indicators of community, of the growth and health of a city or any other more socially defined group (because I weigh economy more heavily in my understanding of 'city' than of a social group). Issues of community, its definition, difficulties and how it is perceived keep cropping up in my Google Reader. (While I do not believe it is appropriate for this to exist to the exclusion of all other feed readers, I really do love my Google Reader. I feed it good things and then they show up every day - in great numbers of braingasm!)

Anything but social network self awareness, please!!! The British Library has a fairly large number of regularly updated blogs. The map showed up on facecrack yesterday, and on this blog that I read and enjoy: Growing Knowledge: The Evolution of Research. The exhibit opens on October 14. So. When do we leave?

Speaking of social networks, a beloved OL friend writes a fantastic review of the NewTwitter. He is also fantastic snarky and writes a webcomic called PitchBlack. You go read now.

There will be tea and more to talk about when you get back.

You're back? Good. Because this is where it gets interesting. (-er.)(yeah, that's not a word.)(*shrug*)

Two people contemplating the same sort of solution to a jointly witnessed problem hardly defines a meme. It does, however, lead to the kind of focused thought and conversation that makes it possible to go from a texted conversation about one person not wanting to own a bookshop to the desire to go and visit private libraries in far-flung (from the middle of the US) and exotic places to writing down a big crazy idea only to find David Byrne writing my soundtrack in photographs and bicycles. 

We're going to take a moment for me to be just happy that David Byrne is in the world. And by in the world, I mean IN the world, dammit.

My idea is not the same as my friend A's idea. She would have a privately run public library. It is worth noting that both of us started thinking along these lines because we believe that our colleagues at the library and those patrons who do not wish to be customers formed a kind of community, and that group was and is being disrespected and disacknowledged. I do not know that there is something inherent in the world of library and librarians (who are different than bibliophiles and very much not the same beasts (and I do mean beasts) as bibliomaniacs) that is cohesive, or if this is an experience that is shared by members of a variety of workplaces. Libraries have been around for a few thousand years. Librarians live in their timeline.

And then, Detroit came back into the conversation.

It seems that A and I are in good company with our little ideas. The Public Professor writes about a guy who is working in Detroit (seriously, this all showed up within a week of each other) to get folks to grow gardens. Brilliant! Food and work and a sense of belonging and contribution. You really ought to read more there. Some good stuff. And more on social networks.

We must live in the 21st century or something.

Edited about an hour later: Just in case it is possible that I wasn't riding a larger wave, I hopped over to Whitechapel and found this: Detroit Lives, part 1 of 3

Yes. 200 white kids on bicycles. Sometimes it is good.