Libraries are growing out of the box

We are living in interesting times. Global stability is not a reality but a dream (and perhaps for some a goal). The worldwide economy is currently in upheaval, from our own recession (funny how they won't use the D-word and yet we're seeing some of the worst unemployment rates and economic outlooks since the 1930s) to the financial crisis in Greece. People in other nations are forming their own revolutions against their leaders; Egypt and Libya did it, who's next? Protest seems to be the buzzword of the day, and even here in the US we have no end in sight for dedicated groups of people participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Take a moment and think about this: we're all right now in the middle of history. Each one of these events will be making it into history books and will almost certainly be discussed and theorized about; students will be writing papers about these events. And we're living it.

Libraries, in their own way, are also going through revolutionary changes. Even before some of the more recent economic and political struggles, libraries were evolving. Technology can take some (a lot) of the credit for that. Our libraries have had to change and adapt to match their communities' needs, and so many of the "traditional" ideas about libraries have been turned upside-down. For decades, libraries were seen as a place that houses books, and librarians were the gatekeepers (perhaps "guards" better describes the public attitude). Now, more and more libraries have drawn away from the idea that they are a house of books and now try to promote the idea that they are a haven of information. And that information takes any and all forms: books, DVDs, CDs, websites, classes and workshops, story times, game nights, job seeking support, and on and on. Libraries are growing out of the box they had been in for some time, and the rate of change seems to be increasing, not slowing down. Librarians now wear more hats then ever: researcher, guide, tech savant, entertainer, social worker (often not by choice), decoder, event coordinator, career advisor, detective, and any other position needed to provide their patrons with needed information or services.

The Occupy Wall Street libraries that have cropped up seem to be "breaking the rules" even more drastically. Instead of having a building that patrons must go to in order to access the physical materials, the libraries have gone to the people. At Zuccotti Park, books are stored in bins at the OWS camp's People's Library. They are cataloged--a nod to a traditional part of the life of a book in the library--but its circulation system is one that would likely make many library administrators shudder. There is no formal system policing the taking and returning of books. Anyone can come by and take a book if they want it, and they can keep it as long as they like, returning it only when they're done (or not at all). The catalog, then, is not the accurate listing of materials in the library that its counterpart in brick-and-mortar libraries is. Rather, it's a record of what has passed through the OWS library. To those long used to the "normal" way libraries are run, this kind of library (and it is a library in truth) is drastically different, maybe even alarmingly so. For more information about the People's Library, you can check their blog.

On another note, Scooter and I have continued to try recipes from the slow cooker cookbook I mentioned in my last post. This last Sunday, we made the slow cooker risotto recipe. Now, I love risotto, and I was a little unsure about how good this recipe would taste. I was pleasantly surprised. It was easier than my favorite recipe, and it still delivered a good flavor and texture. Scooter and I, as always, changed some of it, so here's our recipe:

What you'll need:
1/4 c. olive oil
4 shallots, minced
1/2 c. white wine (we used a Riesling)
1 1/4 c. Arborio rice
3 14.5-oz. cans chicken broth
1/2 c. grated Romano cheese
salt to taste

What you'll need to do:
1. In a skillet (cast iron preferred), heat the oil over medium heat. Add the shallots and saute until softened. You don't want to brown them, so if they are cooking too fast, turn down the heat a little.
2. Add the wine and cook 1-2 minutes, allowing the liquid to cook down a bit. Add the rice and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring often. Don't brown the rice.
3. Remove from heat and scrape the rice mixture into the slow-cooker. Add the broth and salt, then set to HIGH. Cook for 2 hours until the broth and wine have been absorbed by the rice. The rice should be moist, not dry.
4. Turn off the heat or put on KEEP WARM and add the grated Romano cheese. Stir it in completely and serve.

We fried up some chicken in the skillet and had the risotto with it (yum!). The shallots have a mild flavor, so if you like the flavor of onions, I would recommend substituting the shallots with either yellow or red onion. Also, you want the Arborio rice or another thick-grain rice for this recipe; something like a basmati rice is too thin and won't hold up. The original recipe calls for Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, but I like a stronger flavor, so we opted for the Romano. One great thing about risotto is that you can add other ingredients along with the basics. I like mine with mushrooms too. However, since this recipe uses a slow cooker, you may have to experiment a little since not everything can keep its texture and flavor in a slow cooker.

Enjoy!

Finally...another recipe!

Happy Belated Halloween! I sincerely hope everyone had a safe and fun holiday. My apartment complex celebrated with our own get-together potluck. My contribution was the edible pumpkin patch to the right. This project idea was from the Hello Cupcake! book I've mentioned before in other posts. If you like being creative, definitely pick this book up! I will take credit for the presentation idea. The plate is my pizza pan and the "grass" is coconut colored with a little bit of green food coloring--perfect for making a "home" for the pumpkins. Since I am known in the complex as the one with the vegetable garden, making a pumpkin patch seemed like a cute idea.

I've also acquired another cookbook recently. My aunt and uncle got Scooter and me a slow cooker cookbook to help us save time since we're now both working full-time. We've already tried two recipes (both a success), and I'll be putting another one to the test tomorrow. If you want to check out the book for yourself, it can be found here on Amazon. We made the Chicken with Golden Raisins recipe this last weekend, and of course changed it up a bit. Here's our version (and it was soooooooo good!).

What you'll need:
1 lb. thick-cut bacon
3/4 c. flour
8 bone-in chicken thighs, with the skin
1 c. dry red wine (we used the Clos du Bois Cabernet Sauvignon)
1 c. heavy cream
1/2 c. golden raisins
salt and pepper to taste
4-qt. slow cooker

What you'll need to do:
1. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, fry up the bacon. I suggest a cast-iron skillet if you have it, as it will cook the chicken evenly and crisp the skin nicely. You can cook the bacon in batches, pouring the excess bacon fat into a coffee mug. Bacon should be cooked until slightly soft. Set the bacon aside for later.
2. Keeping the skillet over medium-high heat, add a thin layer of retained bacon grease to the bottom of the pan. Put the flour into a flat dish or pie pan. Take each piece of chicken one at a time and dredge in the flour, then add it to the skillet skin-side down (don't crowd the chicken--you may need to cook it in batches). Cook the chicken until it is brown on each side and the skin is crispy, about 5-8 minutes per side.
3. Move the chicken to your slow-cooker. Once all the chicken is cooked, add the wine to the skillet a little at a time. Be very careful!! Adding the wine to the hot grease all at once could cause the hot liquid to splash or the wine to ignite if you're using a gas stove! After adding the wine, scrape the bottom of the pan to get all of the drippings. Once the wine has cooked down--after about 2-3 minutes--add the liquid from the skillet to the slow cooker. Season with salt and pepper. Note that the bacon will be adding salt to the recipe, so you may want to hold back a bit with the salt.
4. Cover and set the slow cooker setting to LOW and cook for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
5. Stir in the cream, raisins, and bacon. Cover and set the slow cooker to HIGH and cook for 1 hour. Serve hot over rice or noodles.

The wine you use to cook with is a nice accompanyment to the dish itself, especially if you get one you like to drink. Enjoy!

Library ethics and online sources

In my reference class this semester, we recently tackled the topic of ethics in the profession. As one of the authors we read for this unit noted, the library profession is unique because its Code of Professional Ethics is unenforceable, exactly the opposite of other professions like law and medicine: "the ethical conduct of attorneys and physicians has been heavily regulated by individual states and informed by national associations, most notably the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association...ALA, however, lacks any such mechanism" (Sturgeon, 2007, p. 57). Since the profession has several controversial challenges, including user privacy rights and intellectual freedom rights, this makes things rather murky. There can be a lot of grey area. I took some time to reflect on this and responded to the issue with the following post to my class's discussion board (citation information has been added to for readers' benefit here):

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Ethics to me is such a complex issue, and we can easily get tangled up in it, especially in the position we have as library professionals. Our professional and personal ethics don't necessarily have to be separate (and for many of us, we may find that there is a lot of cross-over); however, it doesn't automatically follow that they will always be parallel either. There are many situations, some of which have been highlighted by our readings this week, where these two sets of ethics may potentially come into conflict and we are presented with a choice that requires courage to follow either way: which code (personal or professional) do we choose? It's a Catch-22 situation--damned if you do, and damned if you don't. My personal feelings about this issue is that it will require a lot more thought and reflection on my part before I am satisfied and confident of my ability to choose for myself when that time comes (and I know inevitably it will).

Katz's (1992) quote “Find all requested material. The librarian is not in the position of being a judge” is in part highlighted by Dowd's (1989) study. [Dowd did a study where he told 13 librarians at different libraries "I want to learn how to freebase cocaine."] To some extent, I can see the logic in this, and I think Dowd (1989) provides a compelling argument as to why we can't restrict information--we have no way to intuit exactly the reason why a person asks a question, and as Dowd (1989) explains in response to his own question he posed librarians, a medical student and a writer could both have equally harmless reasons for requesting to know how to freebase cocaine. One thing that it's important to note--and something that Dowd (1989) did not explicitly state in his article--the information itself is not illegal. Having the information breaks no laws (as far as I am aware). It's what is done with the information that may be criminal or harmless, and librarians have no reasonable and reliable means by which to make that judgment. So, as Katz (1992) implies, we shouldn't judge in the first place.

I think Foskett's (1962) statement “No politics, no religion, no morals” is another way to look at the same thing Katz (1992) was arguing for. If we let go our own political, religious, and moral bias, it becomes easier to withhold judgment of those who approach us to find controversial information. McMenemy's (2007) article quotes Foskett as stating that librarians "must be the reader's alter ego, immersed in his politics, his religion, his morals" (p. 178). By putting aside our own bias and "accepting" those of the patron, we attempt to find those resources in the best interests of the patron and not ourselves. I put quotations around accepting because I mean it more in terms of understanding and accepting where the patron is coming from more than truly making their biases our own.

Ethics truly is a tangled web, an issue with many sides that provoke many (often heated) debates. However, in order to fulfill our duty as librarians, it is one that I truly believe we all must examine and reflect on.
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As you can see from the dates of the sources, this is not a new topic, but it's one that the profession continues to struggle with. And I understand that from this exposure that it will be something I may struggle with myself in the future from time to time when controversial questions and inquiries for "questionable" information present themselves.

On a slightly different tangent, a classmate posted some interesting current events about libraries that I thought I would share. The first is a video on Youtube done by Librarian in Black, a fairly well-known blogger who comments about current issues in the profession. Her video is a call to action and commentary about some of the not-so-good aspects of the recent Amazon agreement to provide libraries with digital materials through the Overdrive service. The next is an article about the People's Library that has been created in the Occupy movement in New York. According to the article, other similar libraries seem to be forming at other Occupy locations across the nation, including in San Francisco, Portland, and Boston.

With two big papers done and turned in, I'm hoping to return to a more "business-as-usual" schedule with future posts.

 
References:
Dowd, R.C. (1989). I want to find out how to freebase cocaine or yet another unobtrusive test of reference performance. Reference Librarian, 25/26, 483-493.

Foskett, D.J. (1962). The creed of a librarian: No politics, no religion, no morals. Library Association Occasional Papers No. 3. London: Library Association.

Katz, B. (1992). Introduction to reference work. New York: McGraw-Hill.

McMenemy, D. (2007). Librarians and ethical neutrality: Revisiting the creed of a librarian. Library Review 56(3). 177-181.

Sturgeon, R. (2007). Laying down the law: ALA's ethics codes are enforceable rules needed for information professionals? American Libraries 38 (10). 56-57.