Michael Gorman redux

I have stayed out of the whole Michael Gorman vs. bloggers mess but I found it interesting that a higher education audience seems to be amused by the whole kerfuffle. A column on the Inside Higher Ed website both outlines the story from its genesis point, Gorman’s essay, the Blog People to his current scribblings for ironically a blog, blogs.britannica.com. The author of the column, Scott McLemee seems to have his tongue planted firmly in cheek. My favorite McLemee quote about Gorman’s message is the following.

“He is full of high sentence, like J. Alfred Prufrock. But beneath it all, one finds a sense of cultural history combining one part idyllic idealization with two parts status anxiety. Gorman only appears to be facing hard questions about the new digital order. Actually he is just echoing debates on “mass society” from five or six decades ago.”

Having met Mr. Gorman I can’t imagine that he would enjoy this analysis of his writings so perhaps he will discount it along with any other digital writings.

I lied, this is my favorite McLemee quote from the article.

“Gorman may pine for the good old days — back when literacy and critical intelligence were capacities to be exercised only upon artifacts made of paper and ink. So be it. But let’s not pretend that such nostalgia is anything but escapism at best.”

Globalization notes

Each year I have to head down Mexico way to renew my TN work visa. I selected Nuevo Laredo based on the distance, type of highway (interstate not secondary) and a sheer perverse need to ignore other people’s advice. Crime in Nuevo Laredo is over reported and unless you are planning on searching for trouble it is unlikely to find you. Many of the vendors are suffering and I try to spend at least a little money in local businesses when I travel over. Some of my Canadian colleagues don’t bother with spending any time in Mexico, simply crossing a bridge across the Rio Grande and coming back the other way. I can’t imagine having the opportunity to visit another country and not taking it.

However, upon entering Nuevo Laredo it doesn’t seem too different from Laredo across the bridge. Needing sustenance my friend and I headed out of the main tourist strip on a side road. We noticed a community college and hoped that we might find a decent food source nearby. There was a little place on a corner and crossing our fingers we headed in. Assorted plastic tables and chairs weren’t terribly inviting but the breakfast smells from the grill certainly were. While we were waiting to order a gentleman approached us and asked us in english if we spoke spanish. Having to acknowledge that our spanish is minimal we shrugged embarrassed. The gentleman upon hearing that we were from Houston become animated and told us that he had studied cardiology at St. Luke’s, a Houston hospital. We chatted briefly and he wished us safe travels. We ate magnificently for a pittance and headed off for some shopping.

There are some security choices that we make based on previous trips, we don’t head too far into town and return to vendors that we have bought from before. I was excited about perhaps trying a new restaurant I had read about in Nuevo Laredo but the El Rancho restaurant was too far inside for our comfort. I found out from a review that the owners had recently opened a location in Laredo and I imagine that the two locations couldn’t be in different places culturally. The area of Laredo where El Rancho resides is “New Laredo” with the same hotels, restaurant chains and big box retail stores as any American city. Laredo is one of the fastest growing cities in Texas as are other border towns like Brownsville. One day I hope that the cause of violence in cities like Nuevo Laredo is eradicated but for now it is the business owners and Mexican citizens who are suffering the effects of fear.

Goes both ways

In the near hysteria surrounding the topic of border security here in the US you don’t really hear about drugs and people leaving the US. There was a story in the Calgary Herald today about two inept drug dealers from St. Louis, Missouri who “accidentally” crossed the Canadian border and were caught with almost 3/4 of a kilo of heroin. While the two men were jailed, they were apparently acquitted of importing the drugs into Canada due to their unintentional border crossing. This brings up all sorts of questions about how the hell you mistake the Canadian border for California (their intended destination) although I am sure Stephen Colbert would have a theory on that. If only they hadn’t been high when they googled their route…..

Friends with houses

It seems like more and more of my friends have moved on to adulthood and have purchased homes. I resist only because making that long a commitment to anyone or anything scares the bejesus out of me. I admire Ranger who bought her first house as a single woman and has ably taken on things like maintenance and lawn care. My friend Richard and his wife just bought a house close to his mother in Sugarland. I have to admit that that even though I do not see color as intensely as many due to being mildly color blind, the paint in this place made my eyes twitch. I will provide a photo as evidence.

Cambodian history preserved

There was a story on the CBC website about a museum soon opening in Siem Reap, a Cambodian city that I visited earlier this year. The museum is viewed with pride by the Cambodians that we met and the building itself was large, white, and very stately. I think it truly is a crime that Cambodians have lost much of their history through war, neglect, and the genocide of the Khmer Rouge. The picture of Angkor Wat below is what I remember from the trip although I think there might have been fewer people the day we visited, pictures above. It is wonderful to hear that the museum will soon open and that more of Cambodia’s history will be saved for future generations.

EEOC and libraries

A story on Inside Higher Ed today discussed the EEOC decision to send out a letter that stated the following.
“We commented that job advertisements typically should not indicate a preference based on race, sex, or ethnicity. We noted that there are circumstances under which focused recruiting is used in order to eliminate barriers to employment opportunity and attract a more diverse applicant pool.”

For those of us on academic librarian search committees one of the first things addressed are recommendations from the EEOC relating to fair hiring practices. I believe that diversity is necessary and missing from many academic libraries. While the EEOC letter was directly responding to a complaint from an anti affirmative action group about the standard EEOC recommendations, this brings up an interesting issue.

These EEOC statements in job advertisements are referred to as focused recruiting by the EEOC and they acknowledge that this language serves a purpose.

“Because members of groups that have been historically underrepresented in a particular profession may be deterred from applying unless they are encouraged to do so, such advertisements help employers attain greater diversity among their applicants.”

This article brings up some interesting questions about recruitment of candidates within academic libraries. Are women still underrepresented in academic libraries or are they underrepresented in the administration suites of academic libraries? Are we actively recruiting from minority groups or are we paying lip service to the effort by including the EEOC statement in our job advertisements?

The American Library Association and the Association of Research Libraries has created a new video about recruiting academic librarians and I was curious to view it. There was diversity represented in the video but strangely there was also a sameness to these librarians. I am not sure if I would use this video for my class on Academic Libraries for a few reasons; it seems to be purely a PR mechanism and the challenges faced by academic librarians are not addressed. The video itself is almost seven minutes long and as an academic librarian I started tuning out after three or so.

The message is consistent and unvarying, “being an academic librarian is swell.” And so it is, but are we communicating honestly with individuals who might look to academic librarianship by giving them only half the story? My institution has an incredibly diverse student population and our library staff reflects this. My librarian cohort is not nearly as diverse and our administration suite even less so. I believe that the EEOC decision won’t change how we recruit but perhaps we should think about who we are trying to recruit and why. In the article the following quote comes from Bowling Green University’s Director of the Office of Equity and Diversity, Marshall Rose.

“Despite some good efforts over the years, we are not representative of the communities we serve and we need to reinforce to those communities that are not represented that we are welcoming places for them, that we want them here — that’s a message that ought not to be discouraged, but ought to be encouraged.”

Leaving Serial Hell

Due to illness and job demands I haven’t had time to post. Maybe this blog platform won’t be so different. I am enamoured with Firefox still and it hasn’t crashed at all yet. Once a year my faculty suddenly remember my existence and that is around our Spring Serials Review extravaganza. Usually, I am able to meet all the journal request that I receive from faculty but I quickly realized that the lack of a liaison in one of my departments was going to create new challenges. I have a set of hard science peeps amongst my social scientists and they have a legitimate research need for particular journals. I do not however need to be the person responsible for determining how a $28,000 serials budget was going to find room for $14,000 of new subscriptions. Interlibrary loan is a beautiful thing in my mind and some of my faculty should become more familiar with it. This picture is for my aunt.