Paycheck to paycheck to pillar to post

Paycheck to Paycheck - Librarian

You know my favorite librarian joke? What's the difference between a librarian and a large pizza? A large pizza can feed a family of four. OK, it's an old joke, and one teen can eat a large pizza. But this graph from to Center on Housing Policy makes it clear that even two-librarian income families (working full time) can barely afford a house payment in most of the USA.

Note: "The annual income needed to qualify for a mortgage was calculated using the average prevailing interest rate, assumes a 10 percent downpayment (sic) and the use of private mortgage insurance, and includes principal, interest, taxes and insurance." I don't know about the entire country, but a less than 20% down payment here pretty much takes your offer off the table.

I know I often say that no one goes into librarianship for the money, fame, or glory. Seeking fame and glory probably would not be good character traits in a good front line librarian. (Another note: I am not saying anything at all here about library directors.) I am not grousing (this once) about the lack of year-end bonuses or over-time. I understand about most public librarians being salaried government employees, though I know many salaried government employees get both bonuses and over-time. But I digress.

I don't know much about the wage figures they use. The latest numbers online at the Bureau of Labor Statistics are:

Salaries of librarians vary according to the individual’s qualifications and the type, size, and location of the library. Librarians with primarily administrative duties often have greater earnings. Median annual earnings of librarians in May 2004 were $45,900. The middle 50 percent earned between $36,980 and $56,960. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $28,930, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $70,200. Median annual earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of librarians in May 2004 were as follows:
Colleges, universities, and professional schools $47,830
Elementary and secondary schools 47,580
Local government 42,500
Other information services 40,000

The average annual salary for all librarians in the Federal Government in nonsupervisory, supervisory, and managerial positions was $74,630 in 2005.

About three in ten librarians are a member of a union or are covered under a union contract.

You may say, librarians should not live in the expensive metropolitan areas. Are the people there undeserving of public libraries? Oh, they should breed their own independently wealthy librarians! You may say that public librarians who want to live in expensive areas should just take a vow of poverty. I didn't know we took holy orders. I do know Episcopal priests get housing allowances synched to local markets. I know that some jurisdictions and programs give breaks to firefighters, police, and teachers. I have yet to hear of one for librarians.

I'm not poor. But I am experiencing some schadenfreude over the housing market. I don't want people to lose their homes due to foreclosure, but I would like to see housing prices "correct" to the point where I can afford something with two bedrooms. Of course, I think the Southern California market is going to go through the roof again in the wake of the fires. Good old supply and demand.

I feel terrible when I think of all the people I have encouraged to be public librarians. I still think it's a great job. I guess it's a great job if it's not the primary income in a household. I have little hope of this changing. ALA has rachetted up their PR and advocacy immensely in the last ten years. I think it has barely registered a ripple when it comes to impacting wages. I have to believe it is not because the work is not valued--the constant kudos are one of the great benefits.

Here I am, preaching to the choir, which won't change anything, either. But when I see these kinds of charts, I just have to mount my little hobbyhorse once again. In part, just to say "Look; I'm not crazy." But I have no answers.

On biblio, another note. I've started using GoodReads more for my lists of read and unread. No MARC records, but the other functionality is nice. Plus the friending thing is nice--I'm really enjoying MockTurtle's updates. I also put my mini-review of Ten Days in the Hills there. I think it will do for my shorter rants. Another experiment.

Not to worry

Just a short post to let you know we are fine here, in our little arm of San Diego next to the sea. The air is smoky, but so far my meds for asthma and bronchitis are doing the trick.

MPOW closed at 4:00 yesterday, Tuesday, and remained closed all day today. We hope to reopen 10-5 tomorrow. Meanwhile, Spot just gets cuter.

Thing 23--FINISHED!

I finished the InfoPeople 23 Things Challenge yesterday. You can see all my 23 Things here. I thought I'd copy the post here so you can see what I've been up to. The good news, besides being done, is that the challenge did reinvigorate my interest in the social web, and the biblioblogosphere in particular.

I'm happy that I've looked at some new and not-so-new technologies and ideas through the lens of "what can enhance my library?" I wasn't that interested in the "Library 2.0" bandwagon when it brushed past me in 2005-2006. Taking a good hard look at it now was useful. At least now I feel au courant with the buzz, as of last March. Looking more closely, I see the original 23 Things was "loosely based upon Stephen Abram's article, 43 Things I (or You) might want to do this year (Information Outlook - Feb 2006) and the website 43Things." I know nothing makes something dated faster than a blog post. Being au courant a year-ago-last-February makes me feel decidedly less au courant. But I don't care deeply, as I think my surfing and reading around were more current, and anything that let me sit back and spend quality time with Walt Crawford is good. (Of course, I saw the new C&I came out yesterday. I think I'll print it at work!)

I do intend to get back to biblioblathering! I have to note some recent likely candidates that have joined the great unfinished: A Distant Magic (Mary Jo, how could you?); The Lonely Patient, The Dog Whisperer (if he can whisper, I can skim); the two-volume history of the Kumeyaay (interest and intention but SO dry).

23. Summarize your thoughts about this program on your blog.

In checking to see that I had actually done all of the other 22 Things (one of the payments for going out of order), I had many chances to revisit what I liked, didn't like, etc. Plus what I didn't get to: if you want to know the only library use I found for twitter, email me.

The time constraints were difficult. I originally said I would set aside one to one and a half hours a week to work on this. Of course, there were some weeks when I just did not have a spare 5 minutes. There were also many weeks when I thought the Things were too interesting to leave alone and gladly spent my own free time to work on them. Not every student is going to want to do that. (Note: I have no idea how much time I should allot to training this week :D) My boyfriend did NOT approve.

I found my Learning Contract this week accidentally (it was in the Program Expenses file?). I had correctly identified time as my main obstacle, and told myself to find off-desk time, attention/focus, and access to the office PC. I have to report that these things did work a bit for me. My co-workers have been great about giving me time--now I know I can ask when I need it. My attention and focus have been pretty good. Once you have played with enough of these Things, you learn to stay on track. Or you make your boyfriend mad, don't meet deadlines, etc. ANYTHING that helps me with time management is GOOD. So that was an unexpected side benefit.

One of my thoughts is that I'd like to keep on mentoring others doing this challenge. I think a more active leader could really help. I hated hearing people say they were stuck on stuff or lost or whatever. Now that I'm done, I don't want to lose these skills. So I'm going to see if I can find a way to keep this going.

One of the reasons I wanted to do this course was I hoped it would be a way to get to know more people at MPOW. It was, but on a fairly limited basis. I think the decision to do our posting by email was a mistake. Subscribing to all the blogs with an aggregator really worked for me to see what others were doing--Outlook just doesn't have the same functionality for links, images, etc. Meanwhile, now I'm going to miss keeping up with some of 23 Thingers--I already have informal plans with a couple. The interactivity is my fave aspect of library 2.0. I would like to see more interactivity with my colleagues, as well as our customers!

When I read Walt Crawford's article (see Thing 15), I started to wonder 1)why did InfoPeople suggest an article so opposed to the "Library 2.0" bandwagon and 2)why were we all doing these Things?

I went back to the FAQ

There is a lot of buzz in the library press about Web 2.0 and its impact on libraries. The California State Library believes that Web 2.0, and the social software that it has given birth to, has tremendous transformational potential, perhaps second only to the introduction of the Internet itself. In recognition of the importance of Web 2.0, the State Library has made a special grant award to Infopeople for a series of FREE training events titled Moving Libraries Forward to Web 2.0.

I think staying fresh on new technology is important in our line of work. We need to know what our most "permaconnected" users want and need. In part because we need to serve them, but more because things trickle down from the early adopters. I didn't want to touch a computer when I was in college. I keep wishing I could find that boyfriend-with-the-incredibly-common-name who tried so hard to get me interested. YOU WERE RIGHT! I also thought iPods were kind of stupid less than three years ago. Now, you will take mine from my cold dead ears.

The fun aspect of 23 Things is important, too. Having fun helps us learn, and opens us up to innovations. Many of the 23 Things left me cold, and/or I never saw any compelling way to use them in libraries. But other people have. Great! Let's keep the candles burning.

So, let's make our online presence vital, let's reach out to our communities and start two-way discussions, let's look at new services, let's look at existing services in new and different ways. In the words of one of my top ten favorite biblioblogs, It's All Good.

Now I'm not going to touch a computer for at least ten minutes :D

you can run a red light

Well, now that I've been censured by both houses of Congress, I feel I have a bit of added weight to my opinions and general avoirdupois and/or gravitas. I mean who'd a thunk it? Way back last eon, when I was active in the anti-apartheid movement, I was told that the FBI had a file on me. I said, "If the worst thing you can say about me is that I oppose apartheid, well, all right!"

Meanwhile, for the last five years, I have been very vocal in my opposition to the war in Iraq. MoveOn was the only thing that gave me hope, though I think the Democratic leadership has crushed it. MoveOn also gave me wonderful opportunities to connect with other Americans, to go to congressional offices and speak to legislative staff. I wouldn't trade it. So, though I first thought I should keep my head down,
I am standing up and saying, hey, look who Congress censured--me!

When the big flap started two weeks ago, I couldn't believe it. Private citizens were being censured by the Senate for expressing their views in a newspaper ad? I may get my amendments confused some times, but I'm sure that's covered in the first ten. Those dearly held freedoms, right?

Nevermind. I am wrapping my brain around the idea that I am the enemy here. Me and my debit card and MoveOn. A middle-aged peacenik=an agent provocateur. Definitely. I don't usually discuss politics here, even if it does fall under blather. I try to keep my politics separate from my librarianship. But on the Venn diagram in my mind, there is the occasional overlap.

Reading Spook Country, I often thought about how the three narrators bring their own politics to the conspiracy that envelopes them. I related at different points to each of them, Hollis, a fading cult art rock star, Tito, a member of a large Cuban-Chinese syndicate, andMilgrim, an amphetamine addict and prisoner, perhaps.

Some of the constructs are elegant as only Gibson can be. Describing a rant on the Frankfurt School, "it had an appealing sci-fi campiness to it, staccato and exciting, with grainy monochrome Eurocommie star-spawn in tweed jackets and knit ties, breeding like Starbucks." Throw in "locative art" which combines GPS and VR to show River Phoenix's dead body in front of the Viper Lounge. And my favorite character name from Pattern Recognition makes a reappearance:Hubertus Bigend (possibly pronounced "bay-jend"). Gibson gives Bigend a Wikipedia entry, which Hollis looks up. Maybe Spook Country is the first novel
2.0. I read a few extracts on Gibson's blog, before I decided I didn't want to ruin the anticipation. Delayed gratification really worked for me this time.

Reading Spook Country was such a pleasure--and not just because I received a signed copy in the mail a week after it came out. (I am truly blessed in my friendships.) In some ways it reminded me of reading Thomas Pynchon before everyone and everything became post-modern. Spook Country is post modern in some senses. I saw that
the NY Times Book Review said that it is the first post post 9/11 novel. That's an interesting take. I'm sticking with some vast exploded Venn diagram/novel 2.0.

Thank you NYT, for the blue image of Gibson. Please don't go after me for copyright infringement. It's a thumbnail. For educational purposes, and didn't you make your site free? Not that way? Go ahead, censure me. I saw Across the Universe, which warped my brain. It was not to the sixties as Spook Country was to the Cold War (did I mention Cubans texting in Russian?), in my mind. Both works said more about the oh-ohs (my term for this decade we are in), though Gibson wielded the far mightier lens.