I started a new job last week. I’m excited about it! I also want to issue this reminder: as has always been the case, my posts here represent my own feelings and opinions and not those of any employer, past, present, or future.
I am teaching Introduction to Programming for Information Professionals, online, for the University of Maryland this semester. My colleague, Bill Kules, has taught this class (in person) several times and has included social justice/critical perspectives aspects in at least one prior semester (docx). We talked about including it in each…
I have a whole series of posts coming up, where I talk about hospitality in a particular context (spoiler: the context is interviewing and hiring). But some recent threads on the Code4Lib listserv make me want to write about it in a different context, maybe a little more broadly. Also,…
There was homework for this week’s #critlib, a Twitter chat/community (and website) about critical librarianship that I participate in. Without going and finding the actual definition, according to the folks who started it, I’ll say that it seems to me that “critical librarianship” means librarianship (and information science) practiced through…
We have this ideal, in American society, of a “low maintenance†person, and I get the sense that the ideal is especially important for women to meet. We should be easygoing. We should not complain, and whatever is offered to us should be enough, should be accepted with gratitude. We must never impose on others. Taken to its logical conclusion, it also means suffering should be done in silence.
“We’ve got a pipeline problem, so let’s build a better pipeline.” –Bess Sadler, Code4Lib 2014 Conference (the link goes to the video) I’ve been thinking hard (for two years, judging by the draft date on this post) about how to grow as a programmer, when one is also a librarian.…
This is my tableflip post. I promised to write one, so here it is. It’s not very salacious, honestly.
An important piece of internet privacy is under attack, and I’m asking for help protecting it. The EFF explains it well, but short version: every domain (the part of a web address that comes after “www” and includes something like “.org” or “.com” — in the case of this blog,…
October 29 is World Psoriasis Day. I’ve already missed World Arthritis Day (Facebook link), which was October 12th. (I was too busy to write, then, anyway.) I’m going to bullet point out the conclusions I want you to draw from this post, before I get to the post itself. Consider…
If you don’t want the responsibility that comes from having power, get off the effing stage. There are so many people who do want it and who will use it well. And if you choose to keep the power, without being responsible, then understand: many of us will turn our backs on you. We won’t come to your talks, follow you on social media, work for your organization, or vote for you when you want to govern our associations—whatever form of power you have been granted, it will fade if you are not responsible. I, for one, am tired of granting power to people who don’t deserve it. I won’t do it anymore, and I hope others will join me in that.
