Hey so how's it going?

Oh, Hi. How ya doing? Been up to much? Uh huh. Uh huh. mmmmm huh. Oh really? Well that sounds interesting and or horrible. Me? Well, been super busy like everyone else.

We did another podcast at work for Get Caught Reading month. It was kind of fun. And I'm proud to say I met with a group of folks and we planned a production schedule and we'll have a new podcast theme for each month for the next year!

In one dimension of my reality there's a vote coming up this Tuesday. Let me just say this -- I've experienced Forum Trolls on various forums - but I've never actually seen the breeding ground from which they came - until now. Reading the various posts - I'm torn - the forum moderator in me wants to ban the use of too large images for no dang reason - the information professional in me wants them to cite their sources - and the person who has actual experience working in the environment that so desperately needs improving in me wants to go and tell them the reality of the building & budget they all think is fine and dandy (not that we all don't love having to cross our fingers when nuking our lunches that a breaker doesn't blow or looking extra careful at the database usage to see what we can cancel without a massive stop in service should the vote go the undesired way)...but I know it wouldn't do that dimension of my reality any good for me to do any of that. And instead I silently read the troll forums.

Another dimension of my reality found me and the husband at Borders on Friday morning. We dropped the little one off at day care so we could have our 9 year anniversary date during the day. We dropped her off at 8:30 and decided to see when Borders opened and browse some books and music. We got there about 10 minutes before open and there were already folks there before us - waiting for the doors to open at 9:00. I commented to the husband how interesting that was - because if they just wanted a place to study they could have gone down the street to Belle Isle or if they wanted coffee they could just go up the street to Starbucks. But for some reason they wanted Borders. Well maybe they were having a mega sale on some sort of books. So when the doors opened husband and I walked and after the 10 or so folks before us - and they all had lined up at the coffee counter before grabbing a magazine or unloading their textbooks to study. Even those customers who looked to be around retirement age. For us we actually had in mind to purchase copies of Owly and Fables and browse the sales tables. And as I watched the folks grab their cup of over priced caffeine and then go and read one of the magazines from the magazine rack I thought to myself - if Belle Isle had a coffee bar would they had gone down there instead? I mean after all -- all they were spending money on was coffee everything else they wanted for the county/tax payers pays for just down the street.

Another dimension of my reality found me cataloging books today and there was occasion for a lot of people to be at the place of my other library. But it was strange to have visitors from New Jersey stop in and to tell me that they were impressed with our library. I thanked them, and in the back of my mind I thought they were just being kind, but when they said their synagogue library was only the size of the reading area of our temple library I can only imagine the dropped-jaw look on my face. And then I took the opportunity to tout our collection size and how our catalog is online. I mean heck why not right? Can't us Okie show them East-Coasters what it means to be intellectual and to value knowledge and what it means to invest a little into your community to preserve a cultural experience for future generations? Sure there are other libraries around my temple patrons could go to - but they wouldn't have the specialized collection, knowledge staff or convenience if they used the other libraries.

I don't know - so many dimensions of my reality focus around libraries/librarianship etc. Even the aspects where I'm the only librarian - I still function in the librarian role. This coming Tuesday I'll be attending a OSWG meeting. And I am the "librarian that uses joomla" person - in a room full of state webmasters. Kind of neat.

Anyways - enough rambling - I need to go enjoy the rest of this lovely Mother's Day. My daughter has tomatoes and bell peppers coming up in her little garden that we need to look at -- Oh and along that lines -- can anyone tell me what I'm suppose to do with 3 pumpkin plants and the pumpkins that will be attached to them after a while? We didn't realize they would grow so well.