Tag Archives: thanksgiving

Giving Thanks

22 Nov

Happy Thanksgiving Eve, everyone! I love Thanksgiving. It has long been my favorite holiday – a low key affair, tucked in between the over-the-top madness of Halloween (what in the world has happened with that holiday?!) and Christmas. I enjoy cooking, football games, fall weather. I do little, if any, shopping but do spend time making gifts and cards during the long weekend. It’s quiet and peaceful and indeed a time to give thanks.

I started a list of thanks in my head last night and so I don’t forget them (and have a place to look back on them during those moments I may feel frustrated and not particularly thankful), I’m going to put them here.

When it comes to my work, I am easily the most thankful for my team in Research & Scholarly Communication Services here at my library. Lisa, Tess, Leah, Kris, and Robert are an amazing group of people who make my job immensely enjoyable. They are talented, creative, both independent and collaborative, and always willing to help while maintaining healthy boundaries for themselves and others. They are accountable, respectful, professional, and each one of them kind and fun to work with. We have done such great work together over the past year (and more) and we have so many wonderful opportunities to do more in the future. I’m grateful for them all.

I’m also thankful to work in a library with an administration (library administration) that is supportive of professional growth and professional service. The latter has meant so much to me in my career and I know that both of these things are not givens for everyone in my profession. Investing in your staff, in my opinion, is essential. It’s putting your money behind your values. For this, I’m grateful.

I admit that I’m at a low point with my feelings for UMass Medical School, where I’ve worked these past 19 years. I’m not convinced that the administration of the university is putting money behind the values it espouses, but that said, I am thankful for this place that I’ve called my work home for so long. I’ve had lots of opportunities to grow, to do different things, even to leave the library for a few years to gain experience in another aspect of research. Before I came to work here, my longest stint at any workplace was 7 years. There’s something to be said for any place that keeps calling you to show up each day for so many days.

I’m thankful for my larger medical / health sciences librarian community – my frolleagues (HT, MJ Tooey). On more than one occasion I’ve said, “I could get stuck pretty much anywhere in the United States and be able to call someone who would at least know someone that I know.” We are an amazing network of people and I’ll always be thankful for landing in this profession.

I’m thankful for plenty of things outside of work, too. I’m thankful for a grand group of friends who are a bit younger than I am, yet who welcome me along to all sorts of youthful engagements (still vacillating on that invite to a late-night music event this evening). I do so many things solo in my life and yet I have so many friends wherever I land. It’s a gift.

I’m also thankful for the people I know around Worcester who keep the music going. From my pal, Linda, who I occasionally sing and play music with, to all of the others who share their immense talents around town, to WCUW, our community radio station where I’m fortunate to spin tunes every other week… if ever I’m looking for an afternoon or evening of music, it’s easy to find here in my hometown. Music makes the world go round. Amen.

I’m thankful for old friends that I’ve known forever. I’m thankful that as I pulled into work this morning and my phone rang, the picture of my best friend and college roommate popped up. It was the whole family, on their way to her mom’s (my adopted mom) house, calling to wish me Happy Thanksgiving (and ask about a clarinet – but that’s another story). I have a good, big handful of friends who have been a part of my life now for 40+ years. Despite miles and time between visits, we remain close and always there for one another. That’s awfully special.

And finally, I am thankful for my warm and comfortable home, complete with someone I’ve also shared a lot of years with, in varying ways. Lynn had a frightening health scare two years ago at Thanksgiving and has gone through a lot since – chemo and radiation and scans and scans. She got WONDERFUL news yesterday that’s likely the best Thanksgiving news I can imagine. AND I’m thankful for that goofy beagle, Bayer, who found me almost a year ago, and for my Tater who’s been with us through most of our Worcester years (still hissing and growling and ruling the house). As we are, we are a family.

I was in a bit of a funk last holiday season. I wasn’t into much of any of it and then when it was over, I felt regret. I’m not going there this year. There is so much sadness and anger and fighting and just the worst of humanity in the world today. I’m not adding to it. I have too much to be thankful for. May you also have much the same.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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Thankful for Differences

21 Nov

I was going to start off this post with “Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!”, but then remembered that posting on the Internet means that one has a worldwide audience  and as Thanksgiving is an American holiday, not everyone who reads and follows my “Librarian Hats” blog celebrates it. All that aside though, being thankful is a universal act and we can all pause and give thanks for family, friends, colleagues, professional growth, good food, and banjos. (I’m picking up my new banjo – an early Christmas present – this afternoon! My mind keeps wandering in that direction.) As for me, I’ve much to be thankful for, not the least of which is gratitude for the many people who have shared with me, over the past couple of months, how much you’ve enjoyed this blog. I really do appreciate that – I appreciate YOU!

I read a commentary in The Chronicle of Higher Education this morning that also brought to mind something to be thankful for in my profession and that is the fact that the leadership, namely the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, sought to celebrate progressive, out-of-the-box thinking, when they opted to offer up the administrative supplement grants to place informationists in funded research projects. We are a profession that talks a lot about the need to do things differently, yet we more often stay stuck in traditional roles and services because we either (a) can’t think of how to rearrange things enough to do different things or (b) cannot financially support new endeavors. By providing some funding for the informationist projects, NLM gave librarians and library administrators some real support towards their pitch to researchers. We could say to them, “Here is a funded person to support your team.” Like it or not (and I personally don’t), money talks.

The piece from The Chronicle speaks to recognizing those in the classroom who think differently, who approach problems differently, and who may not be the best students, as measured by grades or other standardized measures.

Shortly after Sir John Gurdon won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine this year, a report circulated that had been written by one of his high-school biology teachers. The report lambasted the young scientist, stating: “Several times he has been in trouble, because he will not listen, but will insist on doing his work in his own way.” This perfectly illustrates how teachers can fail to recognize a new way of thinking. In our most obstinate moments, the mere suggestion that a student can do something contrary to the way we teach it and still become successful is inconceivable.

As librarians, we instruct people on how to use information “the right way”; “Search PubMed like this,” we say, “Impact factors are essential for determining the best journals,” we believe, “We MUST have a reference desk!!” we cry. And many times, we are correct. I’m not suggesting we’re in the post-modern world of learning where there are no rules nor best practices, but like Anne Sobel, I do believe that we too easily get trapped by and in our comfort zones. Not having the money or the time or the staff or the resources to do something different becomes an easy fall-back excuse against trying new things. These realities (and they are realities), can lull us into staying put while our relevance walks right out the door. Sometimes, maybe we need to look to troublemakers and say to them, “Go ahead, make some trouble.” If it turns into something new and useful and great for our libraries, we can celebrate. If it turns into trouble, we can say, “Let’s try something else.” No harm, no foul (Or in the case of Thanksgiving, “fowl”. ba da bing!)

I’m personally not much of a rule-breaker and I also think that we’ve nurtured a generation of young people who believe that they’re geniuses because they’ve heard that they’re special from the day they were born. Not everyone is gifted, nor is everything we ever try a brilliant move. When Sobel states that an overactive mind may be a sign of gifted-ness or genius, my first instinct is to snort and think, “Or much more likely, just someone who never learned the discipline of paying attention.” Still, I appreciate the salient point of her piece, that “one remarkable student with progressive ideas can elevate an entire class.” 

Remarkable or not, let’s give thanks for the individuals in our profession who think differently and for the institutions, administrators and leaders who support them. When we work in a field driven by information and technology, and a world of continuing change, to do otherwise is to set ourselves up for a long road of frustrations and not much to be thankful for.

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