Caveat Lector

Ed Cortez, for all he like to killed me when I told him he’d won the student vote for faculty speaker (I ran the survey), was his usual charming, articulate self when he got up to give his address. I value the two courses I took with Ed, and UW-SLIS is assuredly going to miss him.

I got David to pin my little “librarian” pin on me after the SLIS ceremony, and wore it proudly all day. I’m looking at it on my desk now and grinning another of those lunatical grins. Watching the long, long parade of new bachelor’s degrees cross that stage, I was drawn to people with grins like mine—utterly thrilled with their accomplishment, and not ashamed or afraid to show it. I thought about all my Spanish students from back in the day (they’re long graduated by now, all of ’em) and wished them well.

The weather behaved itself with notable courtesy, staying bright and cheerful for the entire SLIS ceremony. It clouded up over lunch, but waited to rain until all of us last-half Letters and Science graduates were safely ensconced in the Kohl Center. By the time we got out, the rain was over. Seeing as how I had been braced for a thoroughly dismal day, I’m grateful.

The Kohl Center ceremony started with a fanfare from six music students on those great long heraldic trumpets, played in tune and in perfect time. Very, very cool. Weepy moment for me, because wow, fanfare! (I’ve played fanfares on recorder before, but I have to admit that brass fanfares are far more authoritative.)

Our little troupe of new librarians sitting in a row at the Kohl Center sported just about the only red-and-white MA hoods there. Journalism was out in force, as were Social Work and Music, but the professional MSes are yellow-and-red, and poor Music is stuck with pink-and-red. This is, of course, because we librarians get just about the only professional, terminal MAs that the UW offers. For almost everybody else, the MA is just a steppingstone on the way to a Ph.D.

(Or not, of course. But people leaving with a “consolation master’s” don’t generally feel they’ve accomplished anything much, and don’t go to graduation. I don’t need to tell you what I think of a system that inculcates that kind of thinking, do I? Right, didn’t think so.)

The scarcity of red and white did give rise to another thought, though. We academic librarians pretty much have to have a second master’s in another discipline to progress in our field. (So, yes, this means that some of the sweat, blood, and tears I gave the Department from Hell is now redeemed, and yes, that’s meaningful to me.) Part of what a department is saying when it says “We don’t grant a terminal master’s” is “Go away, you librarians. We aren’t interested in you; you have nothing to offer us.”

Wow, what utter arrogant wank that is.

I hear through the grapevine (okay, okay, at the Beta Phi Mu dinner) that the local Latin American and Iberian Studies bibliographer position is opening up shortly. (Liaison librarian. Area-studies librarian. Whatever they’re calling it these days.) I won’t be applying, even if Perdóndaris doesn’t come through with an offer (and I still hope they do, I still hope they do!). Aside from not much liking collection development, I just can’t imagine starting out my career working with some of the same folks who broke me into a million shards of uselessness.

Don’t let that stop you from applying, though, if you’ve got the stuff. My trauma is my trauma, and hasn’t got anything to do with you. I do wonder, though, whether they’d be able to respect one of their own rejects as a skilled and talented professional in her own right. Sorta doubt it, frankly.

But that’s all right. You know what? That’s all right. They’ll find someone, and me—I’ll find a place to respect me.

I duly graduated from the University of Wisconsin’s School of Library and Information Studies this morning at approximately 10 am—and just to make sure no minds had changed about letting me out, I attended the Letters and Science graduation ceremony this afternoon, too.

Longtime CavLec readers know that I hate having pictures taken and never post pictures of myself on CavLec. I am not planning to break the streak now. However, I offer you Still Life with Diploma Cover (42K JPEG), which contains (clockwise from carnation): the white carnation handed to us at the SLIS ceremony in lieu of an actual diploma, the gorgeous flower arrangement sent to me by the good-hearted SLIS student from Chicago I’ve been hosting on Wednesday nights, my C. Berger award certificate, my Beta Phi Mu certificate, my Valmai Fenster award certificate (from last year), an index card with a chunk of Augustine’s Sermon 169 on it, the diploma cover handed to us at the Letters and Science ceremony in lieu of an actual diploma, and (suspended from the diploma cover) my tassel.

David got some good pictures of the Bibliomedusa in her magisterial attire this morning, which was bright and sunny and beautiful despite the weatherfolks’ gloomy prognostications. I’ll post ’em, but they’re going into a password-protected directory with a very short shelf-life. If you want the directory location and login, email me.

Magisterial attire, for those of you who don’t know, involves a black gown with calf-length squared-off sleeve ends that practically beg you to sit on them, thus binding yourself into your chair because your hands can’t reach the chair-arms to help lever you up. (I did this twice at the SLIS ceremony and once in the afternoon. Bibliomedusae are obviously not known for grace.) These sleeves make great pockets, however; mine held my St. Augustine index card, the class-gift check, bobby pins, and a couple of pennies at various times through the day.

You also get a hood that in our case was spiffy white velvet with a red satin stripe on a black ground. (Pity the poor master’s graduates of the Music School, who got stuck with pink velvet and the aforementioned red stripe—yuck.) It looks silly going on—one feels rather like Santa Claus—but once in place it’s quite, well, magisterial, as long as it doesn’t cut off your air supply in front. And we Beta Phi Muers got to wear our purple and white honors cords.

Don’t make the mistake, by the way, of trying to wear the hood as a hood. Emperor Palpatine doesn’t have a master’s degree. And your hat is the traditional mortarboard, cap slightly too small (so bring bobby pins; I made a special trip to the store to pick some up last night, and I’m glad I did!), back corner just the right distance from your head for everyone who passes behind you to run into it.

I spent the day alternating between lunatical grins and slight weepiness. I didn’t actually break down in tears, though I was quite close when I got up to give my little spiel for David and Professor Flanigan. But Professor Flanigan would kick my sorry magisterial butt if I lost the ability to pronounce my Latin, so I didn’t. (I did cut the Augustine in half, in deference to my classmates’ patience for dead languages. You CavLec readers get the whole thing.)

David took me to Caspian Café for lunch after the SLIS reception, and promenaded me around the Terrace until it was time to line up for the Letters and Science ceremony. This proceeded with admirable dispatch considering the number of people who had to walk across that stage. (Master’s graduates are lumped in with the bachelor’s folks, though the Ph.Ds get their own ceremony. We master’s grads sit up front, go onstage first, and look cooler.) Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin shook an unbelievable number of hands (including mine, and I am genuinely proud to have shared a stage with her even for thirty seconds), the speeches and the music were great, and I’m glad I went, seeing as how it’s my third college degree but the only mass graduation I’ve ever been to.

A lovely day, and I will never as long as I live forget it. But I haven’t mentioned the coolest part. You know what the coolest part is?

I AM A LIBRARIAN. No matter where I go, what I do, or who pays me to do it, from this day onward, I AM A LIBRARIAN.

And that, my blog-friends all, who have watched this process from the day I had the idea and to whom I am eternally grateful for congratulations, behind-the-scenes support when I needed it, and a warm welcome to the profession—that, my friends, is cool.

(The title of this post is a reference to this earlier one. Bloglines users may not be seeing the <del> tags; trust me, they’re there.)

When I went looking for something to read at graduation, someone (I forget who) asked me for a translation, but it became one of those things that meanders into the back of my head as something I really ought to do one of these days when I have a free minute…

But tomorrow’s graduation, so it’s now or never. Keep in mind that my Latin is incredibly rusty, and was never all that great to begin with. (As many times as I took beginning Latin, you’d think it would have stuck better.) Here’s the bit I mean to read:

Proficite, fratres mei, discutite vos semper sine dolo, sine adulatione, sine palpatione. Non enim aliquis est intus tecum, cui erubescas, et iactes te. Est ibi, sed cui placet humilitas, ipse te probet. Proba et te ipsum tu ipse. Semper tibi displiceat quod es, si vis pervenire ad id quod nondum es. Nam ubi tibi placuisti, ibi remansisti. Si autem dixeris: Sufficit; et peristi. Semper adde, semper ambula, semper profice; noli in via remanere, noli retro redire, noli deviare.

And, roughly, the translation:

Go forward, my brothers; look at yourselves without self-deceit, without pride, without flattery. There’s really nobody in you to make you blush, nobody you have to brag to. But the person inside who’s humble, let him test you. And test yourself, too. Always be a little unhappy with what you are, if you want to be something you’re not, yet, quite. Because if you get too pleased with yourself, there you’ll stay. If you say “hey, that’s enough,” you’re dead. Always keep growing, keep walking, keep moving forward; don’t stop by the side of the road, don’t retrace your steps, don’t turn aside.

(There’s another translation here if you don’t like mine.)

In memoriam Dr. C. Clifford Flanigan, with my best love… because I want to believe he would be proud of me, even though I did go off the road for a while.

(I am running out of Pythonic ways to do this. Probably a sign that the joke has run its course, yes?)

Beta Phi Mu purports to stand for a Greek phrase meaning “Librarians are the guardians of knowledge.” Of course David (dutifully watching me twiddle my purple-and-white honor cords against my purple dress, and I swear I didn’t harmonize with my honor cords on purpose!) couldn’t resist trying to back-translate that one. What he came up with was ????????????? ?????????? ????????. “Or, in your case,” he whispered, pointing to another Greek word he’d written, “????????.”

“I’m a medusa?” I squeal-whispered back. “Rockin’!”

So then he got to doodling:

Which, if TAG didn’t already have a brilliant logo, would itself be a brilliant logo.

I picked up my cap and gown between Ed Cortez’s farewell shindig and the Beta Phi Mu shindig. When I got home from the latter, I put the whole rig on to figure out how to do it (those hoods aren’t easy to manage). I look something like a cross between a frigate and a funeral dais, but so be it; I earned it and I’m bloody well going to wear it.

Seems only right I should finish up library school right where I started it, sacked out on a sofa in the SLIS lab library with the Silver Surfer in my lap and Lake Mendota making ripply blue-on-blue patterns in front of me.

Went to my last class this morning. It’s all over but the shouting. (Lots of that, admittedly. Shindig for graduating students tomorrow, an interview with Carol Berger for a press release—a press release, how bizarre!—Tuesday, a farewell shindig for the departing Ed Cortez and the Beta Phi Mu initiation Thursday, graduation Saturday… lots of shouting.) I am the Fat Lady, folks, and I’m commencing to sing.

I’ve known people who despise graduations in general. I know plenty who despise library school, along with the accomplishment of graduating from it. The chap from Avalon who telephoned me asked if I felt that I learned something from library school, and he seemed decidedly nonplussed, even unnerved, at the enthusiasm of my affirmative.

These people? I’m going to be vulgar and say they can bite me. I’m proud of myself. I wasn’t at all sure I could do this. As much as I knew it was the right thing for me to do, I couldn’t help the occasional nasty skin-crawly sense that I’d screw it up, land back in the despondent brain-drained pit where the Department from Hell left me.

Didn’t. Didn’t screw it up. Didn’t land in any pits. Did learn. Did grow. Did jump on opportunities with both feet. Did do good work. Did give a little back.

And no matter what happens in the job market, no matter where I end up or what I end up doing, as of a week from Saturday, I’ll be a librarian. I’m proud of that, too.

That sound you would have just heard if you were in my home office instead of, well, wherever you are? Was my trusty Xerox XD100 printing out the RFP that is my last graduate-school assignment ever.

Well, okay, maybe not. It’s not entirely out of the question that I would take a graduate-level course or two in order to learn something. But degree-seeking? No way. Not ever again.

It is very, very good to be done, yes indeed. I’m even all caught up on thank-you notes for contributors to the class gift. I think I shall go indulge in chocolate-covered almonds now (and no, not those nasty Hershey’s things, either; I got the good stuff from the crunchy-granola store this morning).

By the way, I unearthed last year’s graduation-ceremony program and learned from it that the Berger Award is voted on by faculty on the basis of leadership and leadership potential. That makes me just silly happy; I have been working rather hard on my attitude toward and understanding of management and leadership, and it’s just nice to see that somebody noticed.

I knew I wasn’t up for any SLIS writing or project awards this year. As good a year as it’s been for me, it hasn’t been one for impressive projects. (Finding a job. Now that would be an impressive project.)

Didn’t bother me. I had my moment last year, when for confidence’s sake I really needed it, and I’m all for glory-sharing anyway.

So the news (received by email just now) that I’m getting the Carol Berger Award for Entrepreneurial Promise sent my jaw plunging to the floor.

Though the award description isn’t up on SLIS’s website, I don’t think we’re talking the garage-millionnaire sense of “entrepreneurial” here. (Just as well, as I’m no millionnaire and my garage is a mess.) TAG is a nice little sideline, but it’s not so much with the raking-it-in. (TAG redesign and restructure coming soon. Promise. I have very good design talent—meaning, someone who definitely isn’t me—working on it.)

But if we’re talking about somebody who jumps on opportunities with both feet, I’ll cop to that. It’s never felt that way to me—I’m not usually terribly calculating about it. Opportunities are. They’re everywhere. Often they go unclaimed. What’s not to jump on?

So, anyway, yes. Just got whacked in the face with a totally unexpected award. Definitely preferable to a dead fish.

I just sent three files of search results to my search client, one of them over a hundred pages long (and no, I wasn’t doing full-text!). With luck, I won’t have duplicated too much of his existing research (which he was supposed to email me and never did). I think I’m in good shape, though, because the lion’s share of my results came from a database I’m sure he didn’t look in. I wrote up my search strategy while I was working on it, so I’m also done with that.

Down to one last project, one informal presentation (akin to the one I did on Monday), and one exam. Truly, it doesn’t seem possible.

Lest I get too excited, however, I’ve also got a presentation to whip up for Perdóndaris (I’ve done all the lit searching I’m going to, and I’ve got an outline; I just need to fill it in), a SLIS class gift to buy, and a raft of jobs to apply to. It’d be awfully nice to have all that done by Friday…

The latest Journal of Books and Wenches is out, and the below-the-fold front-page headline is “SLIS LAUNCHES BLOG—World Ends.”

Uh-oh, I thought, grinning. I’m in trouble.

And sure enough… I reproduce for the general benefit of CavLec fans and detractors everywhere the quote manufactured by the inimitable Malachi Bowles:

“Drat and double-drat, this annoys me no little,” she gesturingly noted. [ Obviously Malachi's been to a talk or a workshop of mine. I do gesture a lot. ] “I’ll be blunt: this is really quite excruciatingly bad. And it’s not as if such an outcome couldn’t have been forecast—in point of fact, I recall mentioning myself that there was no small chance of things blowing up. Even started a pool about it, if I’m not mistaken. Which, if I might allow myself a brief moment of immodesty, I won. Not that anything really blew up in the most literal sense, mind you—sentio aliquos togatos contra me conspirare, after all—but I rather think that this is just as good. And there is a bright side; there’s always a bright side, of course. The OPAC in the sixth circle is in utterly dreadful shape—if I could somehow finagle the redesign gig, methinks it would be one devil of a career-booster, if you’ll pardon the pun. Do they have the Fenster award down here?”

I’m truly sorry Malachi Bowles probably didn’t see me busting a gut reading this in the SLIS commons. My hat’s off to the piratical Malachi—that’s me, all right, hoist a considerable distance by my own petard. Brilliantly done!

I have six assignments due between now and semester’s-end that I haven’t yet finished. Two search problem-sets, that pesky LAN design, the library-renovation report, and the client search and writeup.

This isn’t quite as bad as it sounds. The LAN design is 75% done, as is the renovation report. (Strange to compare them, as the former is strictly limited to six pages of text—I’ve written three—and the latter is already twenty-some-odd pages and climbing.) And problem-sets are problem-sets; might even tackle one of them tonight.

The client search wouldn’t be bad at all (I’ve got four pages of writeup already) if the client would only get back to me with some items of information he promised. (I’ve tweaked him three times. The third time, I said that I’d have to proceed without the information if I didn’t get it by the end of this week, and I intend to hold to that, because I can’t wait. This is, admittedly, poor client service—but I would never behave this way with a real client, not to mention that a real client would have deadline pressure as additional reason to get me the information I need.)

Still. Deep breath, because it’s a lot of details to juggle when I’ve got plenty of other balls (and batons and knives and whathaveyou) in the air too.

I’m more or less packed to go. The d10 came up 8, so that’s how many résumés I’ve stashed in my bag. (I’m sure the extra ones will find good homes.) I’ve shined my shoes, got my bus tickets, scribbled down my hotel reservation number, put sufficient cash in my wallet, all that good stuff. Wireless card, as always, is in the bag, as are a couple of digital-library books for light amusement. (One of ’em’s your XML book, Kevin. The other is Andrew Pace’s digital-library book, which looks bland but nutritious.)

This week and next are the big roller-coaster ride. If I can make it to April 17th more or less unscathed, I’ll be in tolerable shape.