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Do You Want to be a Librarian?

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A librarian friend posted this video on her Facebook this week, and it is awesome. It was shot in 1947, and besides a couple points of blatant sexism is still a pretty good representation of the heart of librarianship. Love!




My favorite part is the guy at 3:09 who's like "I don't know the author or the title, but it's a blue book," and the librarian says, "I think we can help you," instead of punching him in the face, which is what I would have done. OK, not really. But geez. Actually, that's something I've brought up in my metadata class--that the physical description, while not super helpful for organizing, is more important for recall than you might imagine. I've seen more than enough people asking for a certain color book or book with certain cover art to know that sometimes that's really all a person knows, so we should be able to work with that to help them out.
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Emily Dickinson

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I can't believe it's already the last week of April. This month has just flown by! So this is my last National Poetry Month post, and I couldn't well forget Emily Dickinson (actually, I feel like there are a lot of poets I wish I could spotlight... one month of poetry just isn't enough!). She's one of my favorites, I think mostly for how prolific she is--it seems like there's always a poem of hers I haven't yet read.

Here's one of my favorites--in fact, I'm scheming a tattoo inspired by this poem... but that's a post for another time!
XXXII

HOPE is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
  
And sweetest in the gale is heard;       
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
  
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;       
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

I hope you've enjoyed these weekly poems as much as I have, and I encourage you to make poetry a part of your everyday life--even after National Poetry Month is over!
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Theologian Thursday: Gregory of Nazianzus (c.329-c.390)

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For the next few weeks, Theologian Thursday is going to highlight the Cappadocian Fathers (and sister Macrina)--perhaps the most important Greek influence in church history. I'm pretty excited about it, because I love rediscovering pre-schism Christian thought--eastern ideas that were lost and have been lacking in the western church. It really helps develop a fuller, more rounded theology.

(image from here)

Gregory of Nazianzus was an acetic monk at heart, but after traveling and studying extensively spent a good deal of his life in the priesthood and public ministry--mostly due to the prodding of his father and his friend Basil the Great. He became the bishop of Constantinople, the goal of this position being to rid the church of Arian and Apollinarian heresies.

His life work was upholding Nicene orthodoxy, as well as developing an orthodox theology of the Trinity and a fleshed-out pneumatology. Gregory is usually credited with the formation of the idea of "procession" of the Holy Spirit--that it proceeds from both the Father and the Son, and yet, since Father and Son are one, that which proceeds from them is also one with them (I know, crazy stuff, right?). I'll probably discuss more about his trinitarian thought and the "social" trinity in later Cappadocian posts--it was kind of a team effort.

What you should read:
Ratings:
(To read more about my rating system, click HERE.)
Gender Equality:
Gregory is another of the super-early Church Fathers, so it's hardly fair to rate him here. But since he was one of the Cappadocian Fathers, I imagine he did get some influence from Macrina (about whom I'll post later), so surely he had a little respect for the ideas of women.
Environmental Sensibility:
I think Gregory was much more concerned with spiritual issues than those regarding creation. However, one could interpret his belief about Christ's assuming humanity for the purpose of its redemption to be assuming creation as a whole.
Heretical Tendencies:
Super orthodox. He lived and breathed the Nicene Creed. And while the western church may have shelved his ideas, I think it's definitely safe to say he's nowhere near heresy.
General Badassery: 
Gregory was pretty tame. He spoke harshly against Arians, but that's to be expected from such an orthodox bishop. I'm more convinced of his character by the fact that, though he wasn't really interested in being a high-profile church leader, and would rather live the monastic life, he basically did as he was told by those around him. He's also the least-well-known of the Cappadocians. Pretty vanilla, I'd say. But of course that doesn't make his work any less important!

And lastly, a quote:
"That which was not assumed is not redeemed; but that which is united to God is saved."

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Cool Card Catalog

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This is too cool--had to share it.

Plus, a confession: I've never actually used a card catalog! I don't think I even really know how. I think I'm just young enough that computers were the norm in libraries, even the public library I went to as a child.

Does your library have a card catalog? Or is it simply a fond memory/legend?

P.S. Theologian Thursday should be forthcoming...

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Metadata Matters!

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Baseball team, Eymard Seminary, Suffern, N.Y. (LOC)

This is a picture of the Eymard Seminary baseball team from Suffern, New York, taken sometime between 1890 and 1910. Eymard scored a run in the 12th inning to win the game.

The only reason I know this stuff (except the winning run part; that's obvious) about a photo taken over 100 years ago is metadata.

It drives me crazy when I'm at thrift stores, and I find a basket of awesome old photos but there is nothing written on the back. No names, no dates, no information about what the photo is of. I mean, part of it's fun, because you can make up your own stories about the people in the photos (what, you don't do that?), but it's mostly frustrating.

The metadata class I'm taking right now is revealing to me the importance of accurate labeling. Not only for the purpose of recall and ease of use, but for posterity. It's especially important in today's digital age, where we have photo file names like DSC012894. So not descriptive! So not helpful for finding that photo or explaining to our great-great-grandchildren what it's a photo of. I don't want to be cursed by future generations for failing to properly label and tag my files!

Another MLIS candidate in my program has a great post on her blog about personal digital preservation, including labeling your files with appropriate metadata. Check it out! It's definitely inspired me to do some work on my own files.

All this talk about metadata also makes me think about how I tag my blog posts, and how I search for things online. I'd like to just snap my fingers (I can't not link to this. I tried, and I can't.) and have everything in the whole world labeled nicely. I guess that can't happen. But I can do my part!

How do you feel about metadata? (Easily the nerdiest question ever blogged.) Do you care about labels and tags?