Possible Futures and My United Books of Academia

It's almost the end of March, and there's snow in the sky. I don't think I need to say anything else about that.

As I'm preparing to take off for GDC, I find myself gazing wide-eyed into the future - or trying to anyway. There are so many things for me to learn and so many people for me to meet in the days to come. But more importantly, there will be so many opportunities for the things I learn and the people I meet to boomerang around again and show up in my life in an impactful way. I'd like to hope so, at least.

Another thing that has me looking far ahead is The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half  the Twenty-First Century. It's a few years old, but I've been so tuned out of science since I graduated high school that it's fascinating me. The breadth of the essays contained within it also promises insight into a stunning array of specialized fields. Right now, I'm reading about how science has been able to transfer portions of the brain between species, and what consequences these types of transfers might have on humans. Bizarre stuff that one would only expect to see in fiction.

The reason I'm reading this is because I was inspired to look to the future by the post-literacy presenter at ACRL. While post-literacy served as a starting point for my research, I'm bouncing around quite a few ideas right now: nanobiology, transhumanism, the post-information age, and plain old human and brain evolution. All quite fascinating. I think I may have been spurred to dive into the stacks and max out my borrowing allowances because I had just come from a library conference, but it's been a while since I got my hands on a big pile of books, and I'm really enjoying the process of scanning through them for the information I need, while paging more slowly through the information I like. Ain't research grand?

I'm also trying to whip through a book on why children need fantasy violence, Killing Monsters. It's a pretty interesting read thus far, explaining how violence represented in media that are distinctly separate from a child's reality (toy soldiers, comic books, cartoons) can help children to understand violence better rather than desensitize them to it. I'm curious to get to some more in-depth analysis of where the border is between fantasy and reality, because that's where trouble often ensues, at least from the critics' perspectives.

This post was a bit all over the place, but I'm just out to share my thoughts lately - it takes a lot less time than actually stringing together the pieces, and guarantees I share anything at all!

Rousing Round Table

I've just come from the working lunch round tables, and although I'm not sure the round table discussion wound up being about the true topic at hand, it was fun nonetheless. I sat down to a table centered on the topic of "Delivering Resources to Developing World Users." Naturally, I was curious what the library industry was doing to address this issue - I hoped to gain insight into some possibly non-electronically based delivery methods. The table facilitator was Jaron Porciello, a librarian from Cornell University working on a project called TEEAL: The essential electronic agricultural library. Sponsored by a long list of partners, this LanTEEAL 2.0, or the Agricultural Library in a Box, works to deliver hard drives jam-packed with full-text articles to agricultural scientists in four different languages.

Two of the women at the table sat down because they saw that we were relatively lonely, and Tim joined as well (obviously because I was already there). The last contributor to the discussion was a man from the Netherlands working with learners in developing countries. He said that at least one of the foreign libraries he was working with had only one computer with a .5kbps dial-up Internet connection to service the entire campus population. The librarian also knew little to no English, and therefore could only sort the books in his library by the LC classification, having no other idea of what each book actually contained. I mentioned to him that we were using cell phones as a way to reach populations with limited computer access through the UN project, and he received a few other helpful contacts from the women at the table before taking off for another.

As seems always to be the case, the conversation diverged because there was an interest in hearing more about the projects that we were working on. One of the women at the table has a 44-year-old brother with cystic fibrosis, so she and Tim fell into a rather natural conversation, while I continued talking to Jaron about the possible entry strategies to marketing and distributing the UN game in the long run. The conversation was wonderful, fruitful, and energizing. I look forward to continuing a correspondence with her in the months to come as the UN project really getes underway with its development.

All very exciting, and it all happened in such a short amount of time. Even if my ever more frequent contemplation of what life would be like as a librarian turns out to be nothing career-altering, I'll never stop loving what the world of academic libraries has to offer me.

Sky-High Night, Low-Hanging Morning

Fortunately, the title of this post has more to do with the weather and my current location than it does with my spirits. Last night, Tim and I went to the Chair's Reception at the Columbia Tower Club, on the 75th floor of the Columbia Tower. The view was absolutely gorgeous - it reminded me why cities everywhere fascinate me. We had a good conversation with Mat Willmott, the puzzle master for the earlier MIT session, too. Looking forward to getting a peak at the Cambridge area from an insider's perspective at some point in the future.

This morning, the classic Seattle clouds have finally rolled in, and rain is on the agenda. This may give me more motivation to stay indoors and do work than I already had, but I may still venture down to Chinatown with my camera - I promised someone I'd get a few good pics of the city.

I'm looking foward to a wrap-up of the conference. Though it's been a great experience, it'll be nice to get back to the normal ebb and flow of things for...well, a few days before I'm off to San Francisco. I can't stop thinking about how bizarre and wonderful the past two years of school have been. I'm definitely going to miss it, but I think I'll enjoy the days without a constant surprise on the horizon more than I can even imagine right now.

The Absolutely True Conundrum of Sherman Alexei

So the rest of conference day 2 was a bit up and down. I listened to a panel presented by a group from MIT who were using puzzles published in their student newspaper and posted around campus to teach students about the tools available through the library. Very cool, makes me wish I were better at making cryptograms and psuedo-sudoku that embed a necessary recognition of ISBN numbers and how to request materials from archives.

Then, local writer/poet/playwright/comedian Sherman Alexei gave a keynote speech. Having read his bio in the program, I came into the session wondering what he could possibly say that was at all related to information literacy. Sadly, I came out of the session thinking the answer was "not much at all." Don't get me wrong, he was an entertaining speaker, quick with his words and unabashed in his self-expression, but I was frankly surprised that his talk was so much about himself and his perception of the world. I am left wondering now if he was tasked with being the mid-conference keynote speaker simply to provide a pick-me-up for the attendees.

On my way out, however, someone turned to me on the escalators and said she recognized me from my presentation earlier in the day. We had a brief conversation about gender studies, and I wish I had gotten her name to continue the conversation. For me, that was the pick-me-up needed.

Surfacing for Air

I keep saying it: I'm a terrible blogger. But wow, 3 months this time...oh how the time goes by. I'm listening to Owl City's "Hello Seattle" in...you guessed it, Seattle. Maybe it's because it hasn't rained yet, but I'm really loving the city. Well, I am now that I've been down to the Pike Street Market. It's the largest year-round market in the country, which I think is just phenomenal, not to mention its diversity of offerings in local and imported arts and crafts.

I discovered today that wearing my polka-dotted dress, Ann Taylor sweater, white costume jewelry, and funky red lipstick, while not particularly mature by my standards, has gotten me called ma'am an awful lot. Or at least that's what I attribute it to. Maybe eating and shopping alone is just considered an older person's thing to do. What I also discovered was the best panang curry I've ever had in my life, at a Thai place called Typhoon down by the water. Perfect combination of creamy, peanutty, and spicy. And the deal-sealer: it was cheap. I love a place where I can afford to be a foodee.

My presentation this morning with peer Tim Miner and Information Literacy Librarian Sarah Cohen was quite possibly the most fun I've had giving a presentation in a long while. Many of the questions we expected to be grilled with were passed off on the presenters just before us, who were paired with our session. Either way, I think we could have handled it, and our ideas were generally accepted well. Yet another day where becoming a librarian feels at least marginally feasible.

I say marginally because being here makes me realize how little I really do know about librarianship. I've done my best to get excited about the panels and contributed papers, but I just don't know what a lot of them are trying to address. That said, this is probably the friendliest community of conference goers I've met thus far, and so I at least don't feel like running out of the room when I realize I don't know much about the topics at hand.

So, one more day of the conference to go before I fly home and get back to business, which there's been quite a lot of lately. I got my first apartment, which has switched on the financial freakout flashing red light in my head, and consequently I've been becoming increasingly more nervous about securing a sustainable career in Burlington. Heck, I'm even unsure of finding a sustainable job in Burlington, let alone something that will advance my life goals. I hope my portfolio will sell my abilities as an individual, and I hope that I soon find the time to work on that portfolio more!

But enough of worries. There are plenty of things to celebrate. I'll be going to GDC for the first time in just over a week now, and I was on VPR last month talking about games and higher ed. with the fabulous Ann DeMarle and Wesley Knee. That was another fun presentation-esque experience, and yet another strange thing for me to put in my CV.

I'm seeing more and more that my life may not always be full of surprises, but it sure is full of strange things, and I think it's something to be valued. On that note, back to the conference I go!