Justin is welcome at our house.

I used to know how to calculate square roots sans calculator. I used to know how to use a slide rule. I used to know a lot of things. Most of them are “used to know”s because my need to use these facts/techniques peaked shortly after I learned them – supplanted by more recent discoveries or more modern processes. However, I still know there is that other way and that historic fact. It is comforting to have fall backs.

Just 2 days ago my road-tripping son needed a place to spend the night when “plan A” fell through. I tried to contact a friend on his route, but the phone line was busy. Fall back: I sent her an e-mail. As it turns out, she has a dial-up connection and her phone was not just busy, it was out. She didn’t get my message until it was too late and Scott was on his own. But the point is that there was a plan B. In our headlong rush to library 2.0, are we going to leave behind the plan Bs of information retrieval? I have a hard time imagining no “just in case” collection, as Rick Anderson calls it. When the circulation system goes down, we don't like it, but we can do manual checkouts when patrons bring us the materials.

Another thing: what about our technical “footprint”? These days it is PC to worry about our effect on Gaia in the sense of living small, eating and buying locally, etc. Is it PC (or even OK) to disregard the environmental cost of producing all the computer hardware and software, of digging trenches to bury all the optical cables, of building and erecting all the transmission towers for wireless networks, etc. to enable us to jettison the “just in case” collection? Or even to begin to consider it as a just in case collection? It’s akin to the debate of cloth vs. disposable diapers. We cannot do without. Who is to decide?

Many years ago, as our family was packing for a vacation, my son asked if it was alright to include a particular item in his bag. When I asked why he thought he needed it, he said it was "for Justin. You know, Justin Case."

A spam by any other name...

We’ve lost the critical faculty. It’s as if, upon realizing our ability to pass along information, we lose our filtering capability, and feel that everything we come across must be passed on. Yesterday's - Bellingham Herald had an opinion piece by Leonard Pitts about the final Harry Potter book and the near impossibility of avoiding knowledge of how it ends. (I couldn't find a stable link, so you need to check the archive for 7/22/07.) Well maybe it was two days ago, because today's edition carefully pointed out, in it's front page story about current Rowling readers, that there were no "spoilers."

This leads me back to earlier concerns about blogging "just because we can." Is it bragging and ego unbridled? A lack of manners? Somebody give me a positive spin here, please. We may need to know what blogs are, to be more in touch with our patrons, but we should be very careful we do not encourage them to use blogging and all the other Library 2.0 tools for the wrong reasons.

Separation angst and Scott's road trip

You know it's coming. And you're glad. And yet you still worry. It's a parent's privilege/dilemma. You tried not to be a hovering, stifling presence, but there were so many things you would have done differently -- so many things you would have done. period. But you have taught them for the last 21 years by word and example, and you have to rest on that. You are proud of the person they have become. So cross your fingers, give them your blessing, and hope you meet up at the rendezvous point. And wait for the calls. Or the text messages.