Scenes from a Library Overhaul: Day 1

Death of a card catalog

Several years ago the local governing agency put forth the call for a new library catalog fitting for a crown jewel of a library system. Several corporate suitors sought the hand of this demanding princess, but only one could win. In the end, Innovative Interfaces met the demanding conditions and won the contract over all other suitors, assuring the local government that their product Millenium would best meet the needs of the library. Nobles, scholars, computer wizards, squires, and pages of the library system gathered repeatedly to consult and protect their diverse needs and wishes for the new catalog system, and the company did its best to construct its wizardly tool to answer even the lowly page's request, "Larger font for printouts, please." Officials reassured patrons and pages alike that this company would best meet their needs, why, even their big sister library, King County, uses it.

Library computer wizards worked day and night to assure the smooth transfer of all bits of knowledge and its relations from one container to the other. They constructed their wizardly spells while business continued as usual among the library caretakers and users. Well, not completely as usual, as the many workers who would use this new catalog needed to learn how to use it without having the completed product to work with. Those who rely heavily on visual cues secretly chewed their nails as they were repeatedly told, "This is not what it's going to look like." But as all wizards (and those who study wizards) know, no one can really convey what a spell looks like until it is completed, but if one can understand the logic of the spell, the change shouldn't be too bad.

Now clearly Day 1 of this library overhaul did not begin on September 11, 2005, but as this humble scribe looks back, it's hard to know where to start, so why not the day the old catalog died? After all, even before the proclamation seeking corporate suitors, the nobles of the fiefdom of Multnomah County had long recognized the continual need to meet change opportunistically, and the library has seen many sweeping shifts in policies, protocols, as well as the magical technology.

This scribe was there when the first of the library's many buildings was completely renovated and brought back to life to include the magical windows into the world called the internet. One by one the buildings were improved with electrical potions and wizardly objects to improve the fiefdom's subjects' access to that internet. Indeed, the advent of the World Wide Web and the continual improvement of computer wizardry brought about the end of the dynix catalog system. Wizardly support is no longer provided to the worn-out DYNA, and most libraries now choose web-based catalogs (and for all this scribe knows, may be the only large catalog system provided these days). Besides, the nobles had a duty to spend the taxes they'd collected for technology on technology, or they would have been fined.

The many scholars, squires, pages, subjects and nobles were quite used to using the old DYNA catalog. Some could even create rudimentary spells with it. One fellow squire tells me DYNA came into use back in 1989. Another squire told me back then they were told a few things, and were set loose to sink or swim. Nowadays we have intensive training to understand the many functions the wizardly tool provides. Some of the teachers were frustrated that they could not yet provide such complete training to their co-workers on the new catalog, but most merely shrugged, knowing at least we wouldn't literally be at risk of drowning. [not at all meant to convey any of the preparation and process was incompetent.]

The library computer wizards and the corporate computer wizards did all they could to make the princess's transition from one catalog to another as seamless as possible, but when it came down to it, when one died the other couldn't immediately be born. So on 6 pm, Sunday, September 11, DYNA was shut down at Multnomah County and squires and pages, whose job it is to check in books and shuffle them to their various places had to stop doing so for three days. Thanks to the foresight of the nobles and other middle-management types, they were not required to shuffle books about aimlessly for those three days, but gatekeepers locked the doors and pulled up the drawbridges until the books and other conveyors of thought and entertainment could be processed in the usual manner. The heralds made proclamations far and wide, so it is to be hoped the subjects heeded their words and don't leave their library materials outside the gates at risk of theft.

MacGyver in Space

The thing I like most about scifi is the creation of worlds, creation of societies. I really get a good fix of that with alternate reality type shows like Sliders or of course the Star Trek universe where so many alien societies are encountered. Lately I've been watching Stargate SG-1. I didn't watch it on television, but now I'm up to the 7th season on DVD. Refreshingly, they haven't succumbed very much to the cheesecake trend that we saw in Star Trek: Enterprise. Almost every episode reveals a new world visited through the stargate.

I got a nifty little bonus with the extras on disc 3 of season 7. MacGyver...er...I mean Richard Dean Anderson (sexier as Jack O'Neil) likes the outdoors, and was working on a project with a friend, documenting 8 of the great rivers of the world. He says the most profound experience was on the upper Yangtze. They made an effort to document the "physicality of it, but also the many Tibetan Buddhist monasteries along the way." He really enjoyed meeting the people and communicating through body language. Unfortunately they must still be working on the documentary, there's no mention in IMDB or his website. There is about 3 minutes on his DVD featurette, wonderful footage.

A Poem: Birthright

let’s face it.
for all our discourse
the snarls lurk
just under the surface.

is it territory
or delight?

a child shines brightly.
no doubt
in her right
to an opinion

years later she sees
and feels
a direct link:
this child to the wounded adult
who mourns for her,
who would have that child
grow
in a wiser love.

some gave that child space,
others confusion.
she can now take it back,
her birthright.
a wild mind
unhindered.

The Obesity Epidemic

Scientific American: Obesity: An Overblown Epidemic? [ NUTRITION AND HEALTH ] A growing number of dissenting researchers accuse government and medical authorities--as well as the media--of misleading the public about the health consequences of rising body weights

Several myths about obesity, or as they say, "conventional wisdom" about the health effects of fat, were questioned in the article. I first learned the CDC's figure of 300,000 deaths per year from obesity was blatantly wrong in the zine Figure 8 #3. (Figure 8 is written by my sweetie's sweetie. She has some really cool interviews in there.) She talked about The Obesity Myth by Paul F. Campos, which figured prominently in the Scientific American article.

There are a few things I have learned over the years from reading fat activists, as well as through my own experience, and I've concluded the greatest risk to our health is not our fatness, but the response to our fatness. The way we are treated due to our fatness affects our access, our willingness to see doctors, and increases our stress.

There are doctors will prescribe weight loss rather than address the symptoms, and the standard strategy to that is to ask, "How do you treat thin people for this problem?" Fortunately with my doctors I have not had to resort to that.

My healthcare provider has a newsletter, and recently they featured the strong connection of body health to mind health, the gist of which is "you are what you think." More than anything else, your state of mind determines how healthy you are, or how susceptible you are to illnesses or injury. (Through the years, I've wondered why a practice of meditation and a vegetarian diet never earned me points with the insurance industry.) I've been meaning to ask them why they don't address the effect oppression has on state of mind, and consequently health. Studies have shown that black people have higher rates of hypertension and heart disease. Hmmm, so do obese people. Is it our eating habits, or the stress from oppression?

If excess weight were treated as a symptom rather than a cause of poor health, life would be so much simpler. I truly believe my gaining of weight in the past 10 years should have been recognized as a symptom of sleep apnea, among other things. Why did my doctors never ask me if I was famous for snoring? The only way I have ever lost weight was through starving myself...so why haven't doctors ever discussed with me reasons for a low metabolism?

Certainly, I have not had a normal relationship with food. I think I do now, and in my estimation have for about ten years, but the damage was already done. If I suffered from an eating disorder, it was a societal one. As a child becoming a woman, I was taught shame for every morsel of food that entered my mouth. I was taught my curvy, rubenesque body was not good enough, would never be good enough. I was taught that I was unacceptable.

I'm sure that some women thinner than me think my obvious enjoyment of food signifies an eating disorder. This societal eating disorder, it is rampant in Wisconsin. When I visited there, I failed at explaining to my mom and grandma that I'd had to learn food was not the enemy. That by feeling guilty about every morsel, I was never satisfied and that kept me seeking satisfaction. People who are subject to this societal eating disorder, they never let go of the control. They always must worry about a gain of a few pounds. They must always talk about the diet they must maintain whenever food is mentioned. They can never be grateful for the food that sustains them, because it is the enemy. They can never be happy with themselves just as they are. The perfect diet is always in the future. What a sad way to live.

I think this was a key for my recovery. I needed to accept and love myself, and I needed to learn gratitude, not guilt, for the food that sustains me. Loving myself, I find and accept my limitations, but I also push at the edges of those limitations to keep moving, to stay healthy. Now I am quite healthy emotionally, but the karma of my past is available for all to see, my big body. There are many factors that contribute to this societal eating disorder, including a weight loss industry that benefits from an "illness" that resists treatment, but I have to wonder if scapegoating enters into it. It is easy to see "overweight". It's easier to hide the karma of other addictions: alcoholism, aggression, obsession, the list could go on. We fear and we judge, and the spotlight gets put on the most easily seen.

"Shocking" History lesson from Right-Wingers

More often than not, I get far right propaganda news for my "polyamory" google news alerts. Hmm, maybe I could start keeping tabs. Today, score 1 for sex advice column result for "open relationship". Score 1 for conservative propaganda for "polyamory". World Net Daily makes me wanna go search for porn just to clear the ucky feelings out of my brain (not that I do that). I mean really...the headline today: "American Hiroshima" Puh-lease.

Today's spider found ACLU's Shocking Legacy for me. According to WND, the American Civil Liberties Union had "strong socialist and communist ties." Oh no! They've always been trying to "destroy America." While I know Margaret Sanger committed illegal abortions, I highly doubt she was a "passionate advocate of eugenics" in the way we've come to understand eugenics as forced sterilization. As I understand it, she worked to give women a choice. WND has given me a nice outline for historical research should I be so inclined, but I will trust my reading, not theirs.

So I try finding Alan Sears' claim that the ACLU "has expressed support for polygamy and polyamory". Some creative googling yielded no results for 'polyamory' on ACLU's website. Way back in 91, some plural wives were supported by ACLU in Utah...this seems to constitute the 'support' for polygamy. He cites the organization's "policy guide" whatever that is. (Why can't I even find it in Worldcat?) Pretty nifty trick, quoting something others can't find, and saying what you like about it.

Even though I can't find a clearcut support for polyamory, thanks, WND, you've inspired me to look into joining the ACLU!

Love Bites

This sex advice column out of Toronto comes up fairly often in my Google news alerts, and I continue to be impressed. Love Bites is written by a former stripper who herself has an open relationship. Sasha is straightforward and practical. From the few I've seen, she is very good at showing people how they limit themselves and how they can either make those chosen limitations work for them, or how they can step outside them. She's also very cute in a pink bathing suit.