Find your passion

I fell into librarianship by accident, in a way. I had a degree in history and sociology, along with the honours program (a Great Books course of study, now the Lewis Honors College) at the University of Kentucky. I was in the MA program studying ancient and medieval history at UK, and not progressing because my anxiety made me terrified of finishing my thesis (where the subject was already chosen: Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's treatise De nobilitate et praecellentia foeminei sexus declamatio ('Declamation on the Preeminence and Nobility of the Female Sex').

and having to defend it orally before a committee. I do very well in writing, but oral arguments are not my forte. So it occurred to me that maybe I needed something I could make a career out of other than being a professor of history.

I asked for time away from my history studies and enrolled in library school, and I finished it in one year, during which I was fortunate to study with Lois Mai Chan (who wrote a major textbook on Library of Congress cataloguing) and George Cunha (one of the pioneers of conservation in this country), among others. I went back and tried to finish the MA afterwards, and never managed to, even though I took every graduate-level class in my focus area offered by the university and more. I finally ran out of time, and they politely told me to leave.

It took me four years to find a job as a librarian (there are a LOT of people in my town with library degrees because of the school, and not that many jobs open up, and that seems to be the case over time). I completed another undergraduate major and minor during that time and was basically a professional student. Then I finally landed a job as a medical librarian — in a totally different area from anything I expected — and flourished. I'd found my calling. I loved being a librarian, actually working as one. That lasted 20 years, and then I was laid off when the library closed. I was asked back to help in another area because I'd been flexible and had helped out in their department. I did that for 9 years, doing healthcare patient scheduling and insurance authorisation, but I wasn't happy; I was stressed; I was burned out. It did not end as well as it could have.

I was out of work for seven months, decided I did not want to work in healthcare at all, and tried to find library or administrative/office positions instead. I did a lot of job seeking with local universities, the state, and municipalities. I was finally offered a state job recently, and as long as I pass the drug test and the more intensive background check they're running now (and I don't see why I won't), I start the week after next.

I am so thrilled to finally be doing what I trained for and what I feel is a calling. I may have 'found' it accidentally, but it is what makes me happy and want to get out of bed in the morning. I'll be working with an underserved population in a challenging environment, so it'll definitely be a change. I'm so hoping it goes well.

Quote of the Day

Quote of the day (image is from a plaque by Daniel Miller available on Etsy; I've linked it, so follow it if you'd like to purchase one):

A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good, just because it's accepted by a majority.

--Booker T. Washington

Found on Facebook

I'm not sure where it originated. It was on Brad Takei's Facebook page.

Quote of the day

There are seven days of the week, and someday isn't one of them.

Thanks to the folks at SparkPeople for that one.

Quote of the day

that YKWIA sent me. It's from the musical The Music Man:

Oh, my dear little librarian, if you pile up enough tomorrows, all you will be left with is a lot of empty yesterdays.

Words of wisdom, indeed.

Quote for the day:

"I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the years'."--Henry Moore (Things I learn from Smarter Alarm, the talking alarm application I have on my phone, which reads the time, date, news, and quotes in a nice male British voice to me every morning. I also set two general alarms with Samsung ringtones and a Gentle Alarm application which slowly wakes you up by ramping up the tone (birds and happy music) before challenging you to turn it off by touching a series of three dots in the order they were lit up).

I like something George Takei

said on his Facebook page today:

Happy 11/11/11. The one day when dyslexia has no power.

Nice quote

Via Blake at LISNews:

A library was a place that suggested the most perfect order, with every book allotted its exact place, and a record kept of its every movement, in and out, and yet a library eventually converts its readers to the view that the world is not in perfect order at all, that most things are increasingly difficult to understand, that no two books ever quite agree; it seemed designed to be a polite hint that the god Chaos is still very present in the universe, unveiling new forms of chaos all the time. ….visitors who spent long enough in her library would become connoisseurs of misunderstandings, not just of authors and readers misunderstanding each other, but of the universal dither, of how people changed their minds about what they meant, of how words were used in ways no one could make sense of….a library was very far from being a place where nothing happened, for in it the world was rearranged a million ways; rigidities dissolved, and reformed and dissolved again; a library was a great mountain of lies as well of truth.

[From Happiness by Theodore Zeldin, as quoted at the The What's Next: Top Trends Blog]

Here's a book-related quote I found

My original Star Wars poster had survived the attack, though my library of paperbacks had taken a real beating. Those darned zombies, they always dog-ear the pages and crack the spines the minute they've done oozing foul goop and smashing up furniture.

--Jim Butcher, Proven Guilty [The Dresden Files, Book 8]

I love Harry Dresden. Besides, it's the only series of books I've ever read that had flying flaming daemonic monkey poo.

Quote of the day

It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields.

--Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Thank you, YKWIA, for a wonderful Hanukkah present. I'm enjoying Thoreau immensely, although I haven't gotten that far into his writings yet. :)

A humourous quote from Jody, my friend from elementary school

something she posted as her Facebook status:

When attacked by a circus troupe, go for the juggler.

As many times as carnivals come into play with Call of Cthulhu, I'll keep this in mind. :)

Quote of the day

On the sidebar, there's a widget that gives a quote of the day. Today's is from Abraham Joshua Heschel:

"Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge."

I rather like that.

A great Doctor Who library quote

Thanks to Brian Herzog (the Swiss Army Librarian) for pointing this one out:

'You want weapons? We're in a library! Books! The best weapon in the world!'

Oh, this is so me

A button that says 'I have the grace and poise of crackhead rhino'. That may have to become my new theme quote.

Came across this quote in my reader

"I believe that everything happens for a reason.
People change so that you can learn to let go.
Things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right.
You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself.
Sometimes, good things fall apart so better things can fall together."
~Marilyn Monroe

It's a shame her belief didn't save her. But it was a good quote for my day, and for my life, for that matter. Thanks for posting it, Marianne Lenox, and for sharing it, Buffy Hamilton.

On closeout over at Northern Sun

Listening to: 'Everyone's a Hero' from Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog

T-shirts I like for only $7--

'Lord, please let me be the person my psychiatrist medicates me to be.'

'I love my country...But I think we should start seeing other people'

I love Northern Sun (of course I would, liberal that I am). Where else can you get a rainbow sarong for Pride? And I came across a nice quote from Helen Keller looking through their catalogue: 'It is a terrible thing to see and yet have no vision.'

I think the best (non-closeout) bumpersticker I saw, though was 'Don't Pray in My School and I Won't Think in Your Church'.

Random quote to meditate on

from the song 'Sober', sung by Pink (songwriters Marcella Araica, Kara Dioguardi, Nate Hills, and Alecia Moore (the last of which is Pink)):

I don't wanna be the girl who has to fill the silence
The quiet scares me 'cause it screams the truth

I like today's Quote of the Day

'Genius is eternal patience.'--Michelangelo

I try the patience of genius every single day. :)

Great quote from NYC Mayor Bloomberg

No matter who wins the presidency in November, 'at least we'll have an adult in office who can lead and accomplish something.'

Take that, Bush!

Of course, Bloomberg refused to say he was criticising President Bush. Instead he said his focus was not on the past, but on the future.

What this country has to do is not judge George W. Bush on the last eight years. The public voted him into office twice and then he governed for eight years. What is before us now is a very important decision: who do we want to lead for the next four years ... that's what we should be focusing on.

Bloomberg: Next president will be 'adult'