Some information, please

This sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie seemed completely appropriate for my first official day in library school.

I'm taking three courses this quarter. All rather alarmingly titled:

• Research, Assessment, and Design
• Information Resources, Services, and Collection
• The Question of Information

The first two classes are my core classes for the quarter; the latter is a newly updated seminar. At our first unofficial meeting last Thursday, we physically built an inverted file and then marveled at the sheer size of Google. The fact that humans have created and turned our lives over to a machine that no single human can fully understand is wondrously eery.

But today was day one and so I made my way to Mary Gates Hall, home of the iSchool and started with Research, Assessment, and Design. Class began with this video of Bach's "Little Fugue" and naturally I was won over.

We spoke about research and observation. About how who you are as a researcher effects the research that you do. For example, an individual with classical training and an individual with little to no musical training would probably have different thoughts and observations about this video. When doing research, sometimes you have to get closer or farther away from your area of study. Sometimes you have to look through a different lens. Like a kaleidoscope. Please now imagine thirty or so graduate students looking through variously shaped and sized kaleidoscopes. Because that happened today.

In my second class of the day (Information Resources, Services, and Collection), we spoke about the "reference librarian." Our professor had us describe a typical reference librarian--what he or she looked like, how he or she behaved, etc. And we came up with this. Meet Nancy, reference librarian extraordinaire.

 

My recreation of the professor's drawing

Excepting the glasses, cat tote, clogs, and long skirt (although I do wear shorter skirts), I'd say I'm almost there. I have been told that I dress and look like a librarian on several occasions.

But even future librarians maintain the librarian stereotype. Fortunately, our professor said that we  came up with a nicer stereotype than last year's students. We decided that our reference librarian is friendly, open-minded, patient, passionate, organized, likes cats (notice her cat tote bag), adaptable, intelligent, and occasionally snarky (after a margarita or two...). Inside her bag is an iPhone, a Tupperware full of apples, her laptop, some crossword puzzles, a second pair of fun glasses, a note book, and some pens and pencils, and a Kindle Fire. She participates in knitting club, is quite invested in schools and educational programs, and always attends ALA.

We also looked at this poem by Sam Walter Foss from The Song of the Library Staff

Foss, Sam W, and Merle D. V. Johnson. The Song of the Library Staff. Berkeley, Calif: Peacock Press, 1965. Print. 

I think my favorite line is: "See this flower of perfect knowledge, blooming like a lush geranium." Makes us sound a little sexy.

All in all, an excellent beginning to the next two years of graduate school. And I'll leave you with this excellent Ruth Harrison, Reference Librarian sketch from Prairie Home Companion.