Celebrating the Fall of a Liar, or the Redemption of Comic books

In my opinion, it was the greatest crime perpetrated by a man who believed he was saving his society. (Minus 1000 points if you’re thinking of Hitler)

Fredric Wertham - Looking for bad in all the wrong places.

This man - in the guise as doctor and self-appointed social conscience - with his lies and false conclusions, almost destroyed an entire industry and tarnished a media (and its associated genre’s) for 60 years, until the year 2013. 2013 was the year that we all found out that Frederic Wertham was a lying liar who fabricated, misrepresented and just …bloody lied! in his book Seduction of the Innocent, and tarnished the comic book industry for a generation.

If the notion of Karma truly exists, then Dr Wertham hunched over his typewriter pouring over his final draft should feel a sudden ripple of tension,  perhaps even anger, and definitely a sense of shame, as my upraised middle finger in 2013 travels back in time, with all the vitriol and conviction an “up yours, you smarmy bastard!” could raise. (Being South African, those are not the words I have said in my head.)

My behavior is truly warranted, you have to understand that comic books in the 30’s and 40’s  in the U.S. were in the throes of  a golden age. Writers and Artists told bold exhilarating stories in beautifully rendered primary colored panels as spacemen and cowboys shared rack space with superhero’s, gangsters, axe murdering husbands and talking animals, to name but a few. There were simply no limitations  to what stories could be told. They sold incredibly well. Printing runs were in the millions as an avid reading public of both children and adults bought every sort of comic book under the sun.

 The significance of this golden age was the complete lack of internal pressures that curtailed the creative processes. Publisher and writers we in synch every step of the way as publishers realized (when the profits remained high) that fresh new stories would sell well. While on the production end, writers and artists came together to meet expectations of the reading public who were aching for something new, innovative and dynamic. There would’ve been a tipping point of course, every market and business consultant will tell you that markets re-adjust and the ‘bubble’ would burst, but still the potential of the time could have had just a few more years of great output if not for Dr Wertham.

Seduction of the Innocent, was McCarthyism at its best, as it stated boldly that comics was the cause of all the societal ills of the time with the accompanying witch-hunts and hearings that solvers of societal ill employed in their socielal ill solver list of weaponry. Comics, Seduction of the Innocent screamed, was responsible for inspiring violence in youth, for creating homosexuals in its depiction of some superheroes and comics mere existence the sign of a degenerative society (I’m feeling that karmic finger going up again), promoting stupidity, illiteracy and possibly communism and/or chlamydia.

The public hearings followed, and what followed the public hearings was the burning and boycotting of comics, until the inevitable conclusion of foreclosures and job losses. Men and women of stupendous creativity left comics (or forced out due to blacklisting), some never to return as the labels draped over them by Wertham and his followers of ‘do-gooders’ prevented them from working.  Families were left broken as livelihoods were lost because of stupidity, fear and ignorance.

 Having no recourse but to acquiesce to all the pressures from government and Wertham’s supporters, those left standing of what could laughably be called a comic book industry, created a federal regulatory body called the Comics Magazine Association of America,  which set strict guide lines over what could be published.

 The Comics Code Authority stood for 50 years till Marvel Comics in 2000 firmly and resolutely told the Association that it could take a long walk off a short pier. (Once again the South African version in my head is much different and more succinct.) The Code by then had been irrelevant. It took 50 years, let me type that again, 50. YEARS! Which is half a century, and half the lifetime of a human being, for us to have the right to read a comic book with the word ‘boob’ in it. (Yes the rules of the Code got changed to allow for more socially conscious works but something were still anathema. In the 80's and early 90's even with the Code rules changed, you still couldn't, for instance, mention a womens monthly cycle or depict same sex relationships in any sort of positive way. Publishers used the code as a good enough reason to prevent progressive views from being published.)

The South African connection in all of this is chillingly simple to extrapolate:
Wertham was used as whip to keep book selection practices in line with what the government felt should be read. Comics was bad, Comics wasn’t a book, Comics was for people who couldn’t read, Comics were for stupid people, Comics were for anyone that wasn’t white.  So progressive black and coloured teachers told their students to stay away from these works as this would stunt their revolutionary growth, and conservative 'status quo' teachers (and some librarians) felt that comics were beneath them because they would stunt the brain.  Not that comic books weren't sold at the time, they were  freely sold at newsagent and pharmacies, and local version of Superman and Batman were also published in the 60's, but God help you if you brought any of those comics to school or into a library circa 1960 to 1990. Your backside would be striped and your comic book contraband confiscated and burnt.

One of the Faces of Apartheid - with the finger of  Doom

What is the greatest crime of all is that Wertham’s open war on all comic book media lingers in a more subtle form. Older librarians, teachers, grandparents even, when asked about comic book will have some recollection about how their interactions with comics were curtailed in their youth, and when faced with providing an opinion now, would have to think long and hard for even an off handed positive remark.

The final insult it seems is that Wertham’s opinions have sunk into a substrata of popular culture that carries all his generations negativity which OLDER folks these days unconsciously tap into when asked about comics.  There’s no specific source of this negativity as it is always ascribed to “they”, as in “they say…”.  Example: ‘They say reading comics stunts your reading ability.’

And us poor public  librarians in South Africa,(who only recently discovered email and then still use it in the most ass backwards way possible) with an average age of about 42 years (in upper management) will certainly remember those Wertham and Government generated stigmas about comics, despite The Dark Knight and The Avengers and Neil Gaiman and Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison and Robert Kirkman and Brian Michael Bendis and …etc ad infinitum have done to elevate  the status of Comics to a legitimate form of Literary Media.  I’m not saying the books aren’t there in the larger libraries but you have to look long and hard to find them in the majority (and more numerous) of smaller public libraries in excess of 25 titles that don’t start with Tin.. or Ast... and  aren’t just for kids.

But I digress. 

We are here to shov…show a finger where it deserves to be shov..shown.

This is an auspicious month in the year 2013.  Wertham’s conclusions have been effectively debunked as hokum and chicanery of the vilest kind.



St Carol of Tilley



Carol Tilley gained access to Werthams' papers in 2010, and set about working through said papers to see if there was a fact that old Freddy boy might have jiggled to make his crazy more palatable. And lo, the comic book world can now rejoice, and Tilley is my candidate for Comic-don’s sainthood as she has in fact confirmed that our Dr Wertham is a liar with a capital L.





You sir, are a Liar of Note.


So, if you love comics, raise your finger, face it North West and with all the strength and conviction that your Love for that wonderful medium can generate, say loudly and proudly:

“I f---*ng LOVE comics!! And I am fine! Doctor. Wertham. ”

And if you’ve always wanted to try a comic and felt a bit apprehensive about the prospect but never really knew why;
It really is okay.
Promise.
We’ve been waiting for you to join us for quite some time.

Come one, Come all.

"Are arbitrary labels more important than the way we live our lives ?"

 (Cyclops in the graphic novel X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, written Chris Claremont, Art by Brent Anderson) 

It Came to Destroy us from its Shiny Box - A Look Ahead

2012 sucked.

I spent most of it in a worked induced haze, perpetuated by other forces that shall be nameless lest they decided to end me where I stand.

Suffice to say, something did trickle into the old subconscious and flagged down the vehicle of speculative thinking, hijacked it and took it for a joy ride in my medulla oblangata. My frontal lobe was close for renovations at the time.

So here is my sad, unauthorized, barely referenced look at the impending future for the Public Library Service in Cape To.....where I am. Some of the information is purposefully vague on account of me not getting swatted by the full might of the Local Authority's power.

(Or as Darth Vader would say: pow-WAH!)

And as always, this is my own opinion.

It will make sense once you've read the whole post.

E-books and E-readers are going to kill us all, in our beds, at night while we sleep. And its all Pick n Pay's fault.

Up till last year the e-book reader was a device that public librarians were vaguely aware of. A device that wealthier borrowers would brag about while we librarians would just nod, really not give a crap and get on with the job. "Really what's to worry about," the librarian would say, "this doesn't relate to anything at all with what I do."

This is a problem you see, because currently a war is being waged in a faraway place between librarians, publishers and technology companies that will decide the fate of e-books and libraries in the future. The future in this case is 2013.
The battle, which I can conservatively compare to the pesky little hullaballo, or is it fracas, that occurred between that Fanning boy, Music Producers and something called a MP3. Read all about it here:
This perfect storm of new tech, high demand and wrong footed business interests have librarians and public libraries right on the front lines trying to push policy and money into a direction that would see patrons win i.e get them the books they want in the e-book format. Its anything but a bloodless battle.

Libraries in the States have posted record lending numbers for ebooks.

 (Check that here.)

This is linked to increased ownership of ebook readers and devices that allow e reading. (ie phones and tablets with reading apps.)

To stay viable US Public libraries in conjunction with the ALA have had pitched battles with publishers over licensing and service fees.Overdrive, a company that provides the nut and bolts access to e-books on behalf of libraries and is the go between between libraries and publishers that provide e-books, has a virtual a monopoly on this service.  

How it works is, Overdrive is hired by the library to provide the books to the library user by allowing the user to connect to the libraries catalogue which contains all these ebooks.

The User logs into the libraries catalogue, downloads the book his/her device and after a certain amount of time the ebook erases itself off the device or the user goes back on the site and checks-in the book by clicking some button or the e-book is 'locked'

At no point are actual librarians are involved.

(BTW the file format that e-books are encoded in is epub. The mobi format belongs to Amazon. So if you have the new John Grisham, the actual ebook file name would look like this for epub - The Racketeer.epub, and Mobi - The Racketeer.mobi. Epub and Mobi are the book equivalent of what an mp3 is.)

The point of contention that is causing so much trouble is this:

Publishers insist that libraries cannot 'own' the ebooks, and Overdrive and 3M charge fees to libraries based on the publishers licensing fees that allow libraries the right to lend out a particular book a certain amount of times and thereafter either repay the yearly/monthly fee or lose the book from their catalogue. Similarly publishers can refuse to give Overdrive or 3M access to their e-books without any penalties or prior notice thus removing all of those books from the libraries 'shelves', or limit how many 'copies' can go out at a library.It boils down to to renting a library book and then after a year giving it back to the library if you don't pay. 

Its a lousy way to do business, especially considering your victi...customers are institutions that doesn't make money, and publishers and libraries are jockeying for position because e-book consumption doesn't look like its going to dimish.

AT ALL.

Further reading: here and here.

So what's the deal with all this e-book nonsense in Public Libraries in good ole SA?

And why make a fuss about it.

Well its because of this:

Pick n'Pay could spark e-riot 

and this:

PnPcharts new e-reading territory

So the ebook revolution is still forthcoming, no vasts amount of KOBO's seem to be wandering the streets and driving owners into coffee shops or glued onto couches at home, despite vendors like EB and Kalahari offering local ebooks in Afrikaans and cheap romance titles in english. There is no sundering of the Way of Paper Based Books.

The landscape is still as it was.

For how long though?

3 particular little bits of news have got my hackles raised:

One: the LTE network is slowly crawling into life.

Essentially the next step after 3G connectivity. Faster speeds, quicker download times. In time, cheaper rates. (One hopes)

Two: Tablet sales have exploded.
With banks offering tablets as incentives for e-banking and older(but still top of the line) model tablets becoming cheaper or being resold, its easier for people to buy tablets and do all sorts of cool things on them other than shooting at bunch of pigs with a slingshot using birds for ammunition.They can now read too.

Three: Academic publishers like Maskew Millar Longman and Pearson are locally converting all their text books and study books and guides to e-book formats. Ask them you visit the Cape Town Book Fair.

And this is what the Western Cape Education department is doing.

Four: Here is where I use the words 'unnamed source' for the first time in my life. In no way should this be taken as the last word on the matter. Loftier brains than mine could undoubtedly change their minds but the gist of the unnamed source's communication is that the Department of Education is serious considering using e-readers in all schools in the Western Cape as a means to bring down spending.

Spending per child on text books is astronomical.
From Grades 8 to 12, spending on textbooks run in excess of R2000 a child.
Consider: 7 subjects times 2 books per subject, then times again by the number of grades, and you end up with a number with way too much zeroes. What if, you give a child a KOBO, for instance, with all the study material loaded on for the subjects for that grade, or even all the grade?

Do I hear strains of: "But THEFT! will be rampant!"

The price of a basic KOBO is less than a thousand, so insurance for the device should be low, and with all schools getting the e-readers, it would literally flood the market with devices lowering their resale value considerably. They are also so interchangeable, nothing special about them except they have books on them, so why steal them at all. 
School libraries could be virtual and interactive and could be a means to meeting some of the expectations of 'a library in every school' lobbyists like Equal Education.

This is not a pipe dream. This is a serious consideration. This is a viable reality.

Now finally, what is the public libraries challenge?

Considering that this is the way that the world is moving; that the distance from trend to mainstream gets narrower and shorter each year; and contrary to popular belief, South Africa despite its inequalities and deficiencies is still vulnerable to these so-called trend shifts.

Well, consider this scenario:

The market is flushed with e-readers and e-reading apps of every type. Kids are needing study guides or different versions of texts or just wanting books to read. They get mom or dad to take them to the library and the first thing they ask is where they can download the book they want.The public librarian looks at the kid, the parents and the one other lone person in the library and goes: "You know. We haven't got that yet..... Would you like a bookmark?"

The cautionary lesson here is: Needs must.

For all the patrons who would swear blind that they prefer a real book, would give it up in a heartbeat if it meant there children could learn easier without cost being a deciding factor of quality of education. (Lower cost per child means less school fees and more money for infrastructure like teachers, librarians, classrooms, security guards, fences, school halls....)

Being sensitive to projected trends is not a public librarians strong suit, and library management, who once in a while do take their cues from the rank and file, well some rank and file, they are biblically slow to react. Invariably when they do, its too talk about talking about writing a document.

Not the bold, swift, cutting edge service I keep wishing I could be touting to my borrowers.

(We only recently got email and we're still using it wrong.)

So, what then?

Well. And I am just throwing stuff against a wall here, hoping it  sticks:

Why don't we do it ourselves?

Why not develop our own e-book delivery system? (The talky Public Library service is Cape To....I mean here.)

Its not like it wasn't done before.

The local authority in conjunction with other NGO party's developed the open source  platform that provides free internet services to the people of the Western Cape.

Its not cost prohibitive either, groups like the Shuttleworth Foundation, who live and breathe the idea of tech improving our circumstance could be a major partner that could see e-books provided free of charge to smartphones, tablets, e-readers and laptops in South Africa through a home grown open source solution.

And if you're thinking about how we going to get those still expensive e-books onto  up the catalog for loan?

Well locally produced text books and study guides should be the first things we make available. (Needs must, after all.)

We know the WCED are making their own and giving them away, why not make overtures to local publishers as well. It is cheaper to produce an e-book than an actual physical paper book.

But nothing exists in a vacuum and their has to be a leader/driving force for this endeavor; A person, or peoples, or a specific organization that has a large invested interest in a project like this, and are in a position to do a lot of good simply by having access to a lot of people who could benefit directly form an initiative like this. An organization that has access to all stakeholders and for lack of a better term, is politically bulletproof and a political bipartisan poster child for candidates of all parties.

I wonder who that could be....

Like I said: biblically slow.

*sigh*

So here I sit looking ahead at the year to come, awaiting the first announcement that the e-reading revolution has begun.

Thing is, I think it already has and we're hopelessly out of touch and far behind.

Between the Edge and the Abyss

This is a Southfield Story. 

Working in a public library you cultivate an awareness of the place that your library resides in. (You have to; it’s part of how you provide your service.) Your customers are a sample of the type of inhabitants the area is essentially comprised of, be they Zombies, Vampires or Mountain dwelling Hippie’s. 

 

Invariably you tend to get a patron or two that represent the best, worse or downright weird of a specific area and for some reason or other they like to read. 

A lot. 

So Plumstead will have a visit from plucky Mrs X who is 94, still drives, works in one of the coffee shops in the area and has strong opinion about where a book should be shelved, which is here not there. 

Tokai will have the Z Family. Three generations all crowding into the library on a Saturday, five minutes before closing time and arguing loudly about what they have or have not read. 

Simonstown Library is a small library but its borrowers are mostly naval guys, upstanding citizens of the Simonstown area and the space cadets from the nearest mountain commune who have mind melded with nature long enough and now need a good book to read. 

The larger libraries do have these patrons visiting but they are background noise to the general hustle and bustle of the particular problems facing larger library. (Besides Mrs X would definitely not approve of Bellville’s Library’s shelving but sadly this won’t be heard over the impromptu Fight club for the public access pc’s.) 

Southfield has its own brand of craz……unique-ness. 

When I’m asked to describe the nature of Southfield the only reasonable explanation I come up with is this: “You know when someone says they’re on a knife’s edge, or hanging on by fingertip over an abyss of some sort? Well Southfield is the place between the edge and the abyss. That place that stands between the sharpened edge of the knife and a really nasty paper cut. Which in a word means this place is just crazy.” 

Then the person would ask me how I could say something like that and generally be all in a state of ‘aghastliness’. (Which according to another patron can be relieved with Eno.) 

I would shrug and say: “Let me tell you a story:”

About two months ago a colleague came to my desk and asked for help. A simple enough request and since my spider-sense doesn’t usually kick in unless the person asking for help has

a) not bathed for a year, 

b) smells like a wine and vomit,

c) crapped themselves and/or 

d)hands me a sticky book, 

I figured this was just a typical ‘fix the computer’ query. 

What I faced when we stepped up to the desk was a woman looking very concerned and totally not tripping the spidey sense pre-requisites. I approached with the amiable air of someone wanting to help, and got something plonked in my lap. My colleagues then disappeared without actually disappearing.( They just got real busy, real fast. ) It didn’t really register because I was now fully engaged in the something. 

The Something: 

The dear lady was looking for a man; a very specific man and she needed help so desperately. Being the good librarian I sadly am (as opposed to a bad-boy librarian with coiffed hair and an awesome hobby like playing the saxophone), I sauntered over to a computer and fired up google and stood in the computer geeks starter’s position (fingers ready over asdf and jkl;)

The man in question was an advocate she was trying to track down for personal reasons. The giant neon sign that usually goes off when someone says ‘personal reasons’ on that particular day had blown a circuit or the bulbs had popped because I then asked for his name and typed it into the almighty G. (Google) I came up with a couple of hits but needed more information, which meant that I was wading into the deep end of the pool of ‘personal reasons’ with nothing but a pair of trunks, flimsy plastic water wings and the uncomfortable realization that I couldn’t swim. 

She ventured some more information:

 A certain Mr S, a family member, was a lawyer that specialised in Trusts and Policies, and about a couple of months ago he had absconded with about R3 million. (From the murky depths I saw a fin; I hoped it was a dolphin.) Mr S. had not only absconded with his clients’ monies but also her money after she had invested in his practice to the tune of a million bucks. He had also stolen some monies from her as well. She had come to the library, to me, in the hopes that we could get information in case he started up a practice in another part of the country. 

The silence that following her plea was broken by my steadfast clicking of the mouse and frantic typing and for some reason the theme to Jaws. After I had switched the stupid radio off, I returned to the typing, and to my dread and horror, the lady started to cry. (Sharp teeth glinted off the noon day sun, and one water wing went pop) I panicked.

So mesmerized by the possibility that I could track down the scallywag I was battered by the sight of tears. So I made a break for it. (I was still helping her but I could help her from the proximity of the office, on the phone, far away.) I looked at my boss, who loves to handle crying patrons cause then she can indulge in her Mother-of-all fantasy, and I made a call to a friend. I admit that my conversation to him contained words like ‘far-fetched’, possibly ‘crazy’ definitely “I can’t believe this place’ was uttered once, but in the end I got some information that would allow this weeping patron to find the nefarious rapscallion. When I went back to the desk I caught the words “…his trying to kill me.” 

The words got me in mid step, like a demented game of red light/green light without the fun, or a safe word. I waved the woefully inadequate piece of paper in front me like a shield. The hastily scribbled numbers now my only salvation. My boss looked at me, a bemused expression dancing across her face, or it could’ve been the universal nya-nya-nya- nyaaa face. I can never tell. I informed The Lady in Question that she could call the numbers on the scrap of paper (the law society) and she could basically lay a charge against him (or the lawyer equivalent) and the law society would basically smite him from up high if he decided to practice again. 

The elephant in the room put up its hand and said: ‘Hey, remember me.” 

I wasn’t listening at all, but the lady obviously possessed of some advanced pachyderm sensing ability decided to continue on from the ‘his trying to kill me’ with a ‘ ever since his brother disappeared my Husband has been very cold towards me. I think he is poisoning me’ . “Really I should be dead now.” she said earnestly, her face positively glowing with health and vigor. 

There is a sound of a persons brain going from ‘no, seriously?!’ to ‘WTF’ so fast that it literally jams the neurons and spasms your medulla oblongata, the seat of your language controls. 

“Hubba –wha”, I ventured. 

"No really," she says, "I was literally at death’s door 2 days ago. I should in fact be in hospital" 

She looked at me expectantly.  

"Paper”, I said. 

“Phone Number” I said. 

“Help.”

  My boss sidled behind me, asking quietly as the Lady scrutinized the paper: “This is sounding very weird. You sure she’s not just crazy.” 

I almost swallowed my tongue as the words flashed inside my brain, and burnt themselves on the inside of my skull: YOU THINK!!? 

She left soon after, quietly and totally not dropping dead from poisoning. At all. 

The emotional detritus she left in her wake made Jack and Roses’ (Titanic-The Movie) little issues seem pretty plain, simply because that interaction made us doubt our own sanity. (Like believing two people couldn’t fit on that piece of wood. Oh please!!) 

Was she relieved of a million rand but looking like someone who clearly did not have a million rand to spend? 

Was her husband trying to kill her, even though she looked quite healthy, and there was no corroboration from the young lady with her who she claimed was her daughter?

And indeed the most pertinent question of all: Did a certain Mr S disappear with all his clients’ money? 

I had been devoured by the Shark of doubt, felled by its razor teeth into questioning the fabric of my reality. Belief or disbelief: subscribing to either would mean that I had fell for the ‘weirdness’ that was Southfield. One thing I had come to recognize about this place is that living between the knife’s edge and the abyss, warps reality just a little till you can see the cracks in people’s lives. (This helps if they’re finicky readers.)
But perhaps the greater realization is that this place of brick and mortar that is called Library is also just a construct of a warped reality. 

Why, you may ask? 

Well under any other circumstances a room with books in it could just be a store room, a shop, a garbage dump. We (me and you) give it definition, shape and purpose. Which is why libraries ‘take the shape’ of their neighborhoods. So I didn’t feel too bad that this woman had so skewed my bullshit radar, but this whole story still bothered me. 

Was it true, was it a complete work of fiction? 

When the answer came, it wasn’t what I expected, as most answers to life’s more difficult problems often are. My boss called me over to the pc, and pointed to the screen. A web page that had not loaded displayed a couple of lines from an archived database. The database contained old newspaper articles. I read it twice.

 I could feel the words starting to bubble up as my poor medulla oblongata ached. 

The article said: 

Missing: police are looking for Mr S, who disappeared on his way to work on 29 March. He is a self-employed advocate in Cape Town. He travelled with a taxi to the Bellville train station and took a train to Cape Town. He was last ­seen wearing a black suit, white shirt and a tie. His eyes are brown, but he wears sunglasses most of the time. His hair is short and spiky. He has previously disappeared and was found in Graaff-Water in a cave after two days. Anyone with information that can lead to the whereabouts of Mr S, can contact the S A police. 

My boss looked at me and burst into belly shaking laughter. 

"Hubba-wha?" I said dejectedly, and went to go seek solace in my tea break.

A Weatherwax Move

In the words of Terry Pratchett’s greatest creation: 

”I ate'nt dead.”

Due to several events/responsibilities/’stuff’ ganging up and beating the rainbow coloured crap out of my existence, something had to give. 

This blog was one of them .

Suffice to say, I’m knee deep in it.

Not to worry, I haven’t forgot about it though, and the 1 actual live reader I have for this blog can now stop worrying that their source for ridicule and laughter at the mangling of the English language has gone away.  I in fact haven’t. Still here. Will butcher away.

So keep and eye out dear reader, for your amusement I will still indeed drop blog.
Though intermittently.

A Break in Routine, or How I learned to love the Sparkly Stuff.

We Public Librarians have it good.
We have it good in the sense that we can bust out of our routines, like an impromptu staged dance routine in the style of Glee, at the drop of a hat (a normal un-sequined one). 

Take a typical office worker, with his formal clothes and expensive coiffing.
He spends his time in a cubicle or if he works at company that wants to deny you privacy, he works in an open plan office where everyone can see him trying not to scratch his itchy left butt cheek.

 

Then you have the public librarian.
The public librarian wears sensible shoes, a t-shirt or shirt, if he/she is feeling particularly perky that day, sandals. We’re not squished and chained in blood clotting immobility to a cubicle because we’re quite active. 
We sway. We swish. We move.
Hence the comfortable clothes.

And yes your office worker guy does get his hour lunch and gets to schmooze with his colleagues over filter coffee and get to walk outside in the sun or rain, while we librarians are stuck for the duration inside our buildings. But we can do something that not a lot of people are able to do in their jobs (unless it IS there job.)

We can be creative.

The office worker guy or gal, can also be creative.
He can change his screensaver, think up a witty status update on Facebook or tweet some profound wisdom but he’s still stuck there in that constricted space.

If any librarian needs to be away from the managerially induced paperwork or the hot sticky war that is the front line desk, they simply leave, go to that hallowed sanctum (secretly called “at the back” or “workroom”) away from public eyes and can put glue to paper, and paper to cardboard.
Sometimes there’s glitter involved.

It’s a wonderful thing to break out and experience freedom through creative expression. It makes you feel like a child.
Many a time I’ve witnessed a colleagues lose themselves in the simple act of coloring in, or painting.  Even though the finished product might not look as impressive as the effort that went into the making of the poster, display, diorama or a 1 tenth replica of Hogwarts, it is nevertheless the heart and soul of a librarian on full display.
So.
Mr Office worker, have your 9 to 5 and I’ll take my 8 to 7 with my pencils, papers, paints and glue……and glitter.

Librarian Apocalypse Averted! -- for now

It seems that yonder Universities in yonder province with the flat mountain top will be in fact still be producing new librarians, for now. The Powers That Be current elected Representative (El Presidente!) steering the good ship 'South African Librarian Professional Association' has actually said that there was discussions with actual words and people. 

Look: 

"It is my pleasure to confirm that the University of  'University near Flat Mountain' has approved the continuation of the Postgraduate Diploma in Library and Information Studies from 2012 onwards.    Master’s and Doctoral Degrees will also be offered in 2012 and beyond.

'The Professional Association' communicated with the Vice-Chancellor of  ' University near Flat top Mountain' Dr 'Very Important Dude' in January 2011, expressing our dismay and concern at the announced closure of the Library Department.   We were subsequently invited to meet with the Deputy Vice-Chancellor,  Prof 'Slightly Less Important Dude that has realised too late, that stuff rolls down hill'  on 19 October to discuss the possible continuation of the PGDipLIS.     
Following a very fruitful meeting and discussion,  I received an official letter this week from Prof 'Slightly Less Important Dude that has realized that stuff rolls down hill' confirming the continuation of the LIS courses at 'University near Flat Top Mountain.' "

There are some thoughts though:
Dr. 'Very Important Dude' expressed dismay at round about January 2011, whereupon it took 9 months to get a reaction.Yeesh!

Universities, like most business have bottom lines, and even though you'll probably hear some "we put education first" rhetoric, if a department isn't getting the rands and cents that necessitates its existence, then the university will probably take action of a cutting nature. 
Which begs the question: Will the University make its Post grad qualification attractive to prospective students by offering it with a part time option? Especially since Public Librarians (who really do need this degree) have been hampered by the Local Authority in terms of how much study time they can have.

Let all agree that this is a minor reprieve for the University, the message from the University is that they will continue providing the qualification but with no give or take with regards to accommodating students. Which,as I recall, was the reason the Library Department was shut down in the first place. 

"...doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Definition of Insanity by A. Einstein.