Feelings, no matter how you voted

No one gets to tell me how to feel. Not the people who voted for Trump and because of my skin color think I may have voted for him too. Don't tell me to feel excited.

Please if you voted for Trump, Remember that giving someone rights, does not take rights away from you. Remember that often times being politically correct requires nothing more than being polite, and a willingness to learn. If a word or phrase offends you wouldn't you prefer people stop using that word or phrase? Return the favor, pay it forward. Learn what is offensive and be polite.

If you voted for Trump, don't tell me it will not be that bad. That there is no way that the president can take away my freedoms, my friends freedoms, and the freedoms of millions of Americans. The president can put a cabinet into place that with the help of a socially conservative congress can do just that. They may have to fight for it, but it is disheartening to watch, and we are afraid while watching and fighting to retain those freedoms. Remember that fear doesn't make us cowards.

No one gets to tell me how to feel. Not the people who voted for Clinton and because I am a woman assume that I voted for her too. Don't tell me what to be enraged at, don't tell me what to be indignant about. I have friends and co-workers and classmates that fit into every demographic group that has been insulted. I am a demographic that has been insulted. I have bled, I got to be middle aged (remember the insult "Look at that face"), I got fat, and I am not rich. I have been sexually harassed, and groped in public.

I also know that if Clinton had won, it is likely that Trump supporters would today be feeling shock, anger, and fear.

I do recommend you find a cause you feel strongly about, no matter how you voted. Pick that cause and fight to better everyone.

I get to decide what fights I will take on and what fights I will leave to others. Only I can make that choice. You get to decide what fights you will take on.

I won't tell you how to feel, don't tell me how to feel.

wrapping up Learning 2.0

I missed the deadline for the Nebraska Learns 2.0. I did learn about new web applications. I learned more about some that I already used. Some that I never got to I will to go through and learn. Others that I never got to I use quite a bit already. All in all it was a good experience, and if such a program is offered again I will try to participate and keep up so that I get the full benefit of the program.

2 posts in 1 More Learning 2.0

Thing 4:

Register your blog and join the party.

Ummm, well for Leraning 2.0 this is done, however as far as how does this help my patrons or co-workers. If they don't know where your blog is, how are they going to be able to go there and find all that useful information you keep learning and typing about? If you are going to use your blog for work, then the people who need to know what is in it need to know where to find it. Advertise yourself!

Thing 5:

Instant messaging

I IMed with Allana, and asked her about starting up on this whole program of Learning 2.0. The whole conversation went exactly as a reference question should go. She was right there; there was virtually no wait for answers. Afterwards I jumped in and started looking around the Learning 2.0 site and thinking about how all this can work in a library setting.

There is a lot of potential for keeping up with co-workers in a different part of the building, asking questions about how to get that invoice paid, or clarifying procedures. It also has some benefit for reference work, but if your reference desk is busy with face to face questions, the person handling IM for reference might be better placed away from the desk.

Learning about Technology while working in a Library

Thing 1:

Discovery has never been so much fun.

Okay, linking discovery and learning to help library patrons and customers internal and external. This is an easy one. Our patrons/customers are becoming more and more tech savvy. Many of them can help themselves and learn the new technology on their own. But, do we have to provide that technology in our libraries. How do we know what to provide? Can we as library workers use the technology ourselves so that we can help our customers who are not tech savvy?

We find out or learn what technology is needed in many ways: talking to our patrons, reading professional journals, attending training courses, and going out on the web and looking around for it. I think we all know that Google is not just a noun. I google frequently to find things. So what if it isn’t a scholarly source, it does find scholarly papers that have been web-published. It finds vendors that want to sell you the technology you are looking for. Sometimes you even find freeware. We as librarians are in the business of evaluating resources to see if they are valid or not, we just use that evaluation skill to determine which sites are giving us the good information. I find Wikipedia to be an excellent source for answering many quick questions like what is (insert name of computer program you need information about here). For example go to wikipedia and type CAD in the search box. The main entry is about Computer Aided Design, but there is a disambiguation page on Cad that fits my introduction to the word (many many years ago): Cad (character), a man who seduces a young woman, often to her social or financial ruin. (My mom used it in reference to Ashley Wilkes and his dishonesty in dealing with Scarlett.)

I could go on and on about how we need to continue to learn and discover new things to help our patrons and co-workers but really I think it has all been said before and much better than I said it in the previous paragraph. I think the only thing left I want to mention here is, is this fun? Well, for me it is. Especially when I am not on a deadline, deadlines always take the fun out of things, don’t they?

Good Samaritans

There is at least one good Samaritan in the neighborhood I live in. I have been the recipient of his/her generosity several times over the past few years. The Samaritan(s) in my neighborhood come armed with snowblowers or shovels.

Yesterday I got home early from work, (sick) and quickly shoveled the 3 inches of snow off my sidewalks, then went inside and curled up for a nap. I was awakened around 4:00 as the neighbors got home and fired up their snowblowers. After a while I realized that I wasn't going back to sleep off the fever, so I got up and dressed to go shovel again. My front walk had been snowblown! I know because I took another 2 inches or so off the walk leading from my front door down to the sidewalk. I also shoveled the end of my driveway. That is all I ever shovel off of it because it is in horrible shape, big dips and dives and lots of ground upheaval underneath. This morning when I went out to head into work, someone had come by again and snow blew a path to my car door.

To all you good Samaritans out there, thank you.

Mall Shooting

I was going to write a little about video games today, but then one of life's tragedies happened. The shooting at the Westroads Mall in Omaha Nebraska. This mall is about a mile from where my parents live. When I was a young teen I would walk to and from the mall as there was no bus service that far out. We were not even in the city limits at the time.

I have not seen a list of the victims yet, but I have not received any calls from grieving friends, relatives, or co-workers. For some strange reason, I am one of the first ones people call. I cannot do anything for these people but be there, hold their hand, and sometimes cry with them. Somehow this comforts them, so I do it. I had a counselor describe this grieving I do with others as empathic. He liked to have me around in bad situations as well. Perhaps on some level I am empathic and perhaps I do siphon off part of their pain. I know there is no scientific proof of this. I just know what happens. Since I have not been called to someone's house, or hospital room to just be with them, I trust that all those I know are safe. They are safe but feeling the grief and shock that all of us in Omaha are feeling.