2 Semesters Over

I just submitted my case study for Library Admin. I put together a budget for a surplus of money! Wow! I wonder when I'll be able to put those skills to use in the real world! Probably never...

I aced my Reference class. In fact, my Pathfinder project co-earned top score with some other classmate. I ended tops in my class. Does anyone else like the sound of me tooting my own horn? No? Oh well. That's the news!

Final Paper - Leadership Librarians

I am currently writing my paper on leadership in library administration. Well, currently I am blogging about writing about leadership in library administration. I'm about halfway through and hating most of my words. Things should look up eventually.

Ever wonder how much crap people go through when they try to lead a group of people? I do, and it seems if you don't really believe in the thing you are working for, then you will probably give in to the pressures of people who avoid change. The crap tends to pile up and become too much.

Back to my writing! I plan to finish my rough draft today and start the arduous editing process tomorrow.

Pathfinder Project = Finished

I just submitted the most practical & informative assignment I have been tasked with in my Graduate career up to this point. I created a pathfinder on the topic of my choosing. In the process, I learned how to use the HTML 4.01 markup language to create a webpage. I also learned how to use FTP to upload the assignment to my web page. It's pretty sweet.

A pathfinder is a resource that librarians put together in order to help patrons get familiar with a topic. It's a tool for Bibliographic Instruction. That's a big term for "teaching people how to get the information they need on a given subject."

My subject was "Origins & Distinctives of the Plymouth Brethren." I found a bunch of informative sources and organized them in the pathfinder with a few short annotations to aid in the research process. The pathfinder is really only supposed to get people started on their research.

You can find the finished product here: http://bit.ly/HD9j3d

Mere Christianity: A Must-Read For the Thinking Man

Mere Christianity 

(C.S. Lewis Signature Classics) [Kindle Edition]

C. S. Lewis (Author)

Get it here!

A must-read for the thinking man

This blog post is a carbon copy from my religious blog entitled: We Talk of Holy Things.

I just finished teaching Mere Christianity to my Sunday School class. Actually, to be completely accurate, @mrskylarkk & I just finished teaching Mere Christianity to the High School Sunday School class. It was a phenomenal experience.

It is one thing to read a book & enjoy it yourself, it is another thing entirely to use a book as a text for pedagogy. One must know the material better than their students. One must know the chapters and how they relate to other arguments. One must be prepared for everything. As a result, One learns more than he has in previous readings of the same book. That happened to me.

C. S. Lewis, the author of this classic work, begins with a natural argument for morality--not Christianity, not even Deity. Slowly, the argument for an outside entity is built. Notice also that Christianity is in the majority throughout the first chapter. Christianity agrees with every religion (which well outnumbers atheists). In fact, Christians agree that there is one monotheistic God, and is still in the majority with Judaism & Islam. These things do not distinguish Christianity, these are things that are common to mankind.

What distinguishes Christianity is the relationship that Mankind can have with their Creator. Since the Creator is outside of the Creation, He has an ultimate goal. That ultimate goal is reanimation--to make Mankind back into a perfect image of Himself. That is the mere goal of Christianity; the point, if you will. By looking at the human experience in this way, it makes sense that Man has no meaning as long as he strives against God's will. If the painting ran away from the artist, would it ever be a masterpiece? The answer is no, and the same applies to Man's spiritual state.

Another thing to keep in mind with this piece of literature--& it should be treated as such, this is no self-help book--is its original presentation. Remember that Mere Christianity was originally conceived as a series of radio segments aired after World War II while Lewis was at Oxford. Hence, the chapters are short and succinct. In addition, the chapters build and never get too heavy. Further, note that Lewis is struggling to keep a fair & balanced view of humanity in a time when absolute devils were seen in positions of power. How many people must have thought they were in the presence of the Antichrist? While Hitler & Mussolini were antichrists, they certainly were not the apocalyptic Antichrist of Dispensationalism. But that is another topic for another time. What is to be remembered is the state of the world at the time of these discussions.

Library Student, FTW!

In our discussion board, we were talking about continuing education after school. Most of my classmates sided against continuing education. Here are my comments followed by my professor's comments.

I am fairly certain that most, if not all professional-class careers continue their education. Teachers must be re-certified. Medical professionals must take classes. I believe lawyers must keep their credentials updated. It would only strengthen the argument that Librarians are professionals if some kind of continuing education was required. - ME

I think that this is a crucial point.  Would you want to be treated by a doctor who graduated from medical school 20 years ago and never tried to keep up with anything new since that time?  Any professional worth his or her salt MUST keep up with the changes in the workplace, whether it is by taking courses or by other means.  The profession of librarianship is completely different now compared to what it was when I was in library school.  If I had not been keeping up with the changes, I would now be utterly unqualified to do anything in this field.  Our profession, more than many others, is changing constantly and rapidly.  [By the way, this follows a period of I would say 100 years when it didn't change too much at all, i.e. from the 1860s to the early 1960s.]  When you graduate from this program, there is no way you will still be qualified to do your job 5 years later if you do not make serious efforts to keep up with the changes that will undoubtedly continue to occur. - HE

To that is say, Boo-jackashaw!

 

Library Technology

This is an interesting poll that asks the question: Which new technology(ies) do you think will have the most impact on libraries in the next 2-5 years?

http://polldaddy.com/poll/5996592/

Important Stuff

I haven't posted much lately, mostly because I have been pissed with my professor who does not know how to communicate effectively.

I just read a chapter in my book for Library Administration. It was about the human resource frame of management. Basically it talks about how a lot of companies screw their employees over for the sake of short-term profits, then they lose out in the long run because their company has gone to hell in a hand-basket. Think outsourcing to a foreign country where you can pay little to less people, give them a couple crappy resources and then in a few years realize that your customer satisfaction levels are scraping the bottom of the barrel. That's an example of poor human resource investment.

The flip-side of that are examples of good human resource investment. This is when companies give their employees the tools to do their job efficiently. They are compensated for their work. They receive a certain psychological fulfillment in the workplace. This investment brings a return that is much greater than the chop-house method. In fact, when employees feel that the company backs them, they tend to respond by working harder and innovating more. This is what we saw in the post-war boom. What we are seeing now results from the late-90s / early-2000s.

The crux of what I read relied on the psychological fulfillment of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. This theory basically states that man is always trying to find satisfaction of some kind. The quest begins with basic needs--like food--and gradually the needs become more aesthetic and ephemeral, until they self-actualize. The workplace can, and should, be a place where some of these needs are met. Certainly, food and shelter are met via salary, but a sense of purpose is also closely tied to work. Do you really think that what you are doing is important?

Maybe yes, maybe no...