Newsletter Week of 16 October 2020
This week I'm focusing on Resdient Alien, the memoir-type thing I've been dabbling at; I thought I'd include a snippet here. This describes a time of enormous tension in the library system where I worked. A number of staff frustrations with the administration culmionated with a pnew oilicy that allowed the administration to transfer staffers against their will. The Board of Trustees, the group that ultimately ruled the library., got involved in investigating the situation.
At the time, I was Chair of the Staff Association, a social group that was the nearest thing we had to a union. While maintaining official neutrality, I was in close contact with one particular Trustee who hyad reached out to me to gauge the staff's feelings. A summer of increasing hostility led into the most tense autumn I had ever witnessed.Here we go:
Soon enough it was time for the General Staff Meeting (GSM), an in-service day where all 200+ library employees gathered in one place to hear inspirational speeches and other folderol. In the weeks before GSM, I got busy. I privately spoke to all the SA reps, asking them to deliver the following message to their staffs: If you disapprove of the transfer policy and the administration, wear black to GSM.
I also informed my Trustee to tell his fellow Trustees (some of whom customarily attended the big meeting, especially when there was free lunch) to be on the lookout for black-clothed votes of no confidence among the staff.
GSM day, and it was a sea of black. Ordinarily, staffers took advantage of the day to show off their finery—this year, the few in color stood out. My Trustee told me that his colleagues were ferociously impressed by the near-unanimity among the staff.
Not long after, the Board ruled against the administration. The administrator behind it all jumped ship before being fired, moving to a library system in another state—leaving supporters helplessly bobbing in shark-infested waters. In the wake of this conflict, the administration became more attentitive to staff conce4rns, and the library entered a happy period.
- Ripped 7 more DVDs to mp4
- Scanned 14 books
- Wrote 750 words on Resident Alien
- Legion of Super-Heroes site: cataloging Feb 1999 comics
- Continuing work on Rule of Five Quarterly #16
Game night!
Back row: Thomas, Bram Crocker, Lisa Crocker
Front row: me
Not pictured: Joseph Crocker, Betsy Anthony Childs (who took the picture)
Here's another snippet from Resodent Alien. Here I'm talking about being a book collector:
By far the most frequent question that book collectors hear is “Have you read all these books?” It’s usually asked in a tone that implies that (a) no one could ever read that many books, and therefore (b) you’re trying to deceive visitors by claiming false literary experience, and (c) what a sad, wasteful life you lead.
This is odd in the extreme. If you show me your coin collection, I don’t ask “Have you spent all these coins?” No one asks philatelists if they’ve mailed letters with all the stamps in their collections. A friend’s mother collected decorative and commemorative spoons; I don’t remember ever hearing anyone inquire if she’d eaten with all of them.
Let me set the record straight. No, I haven’t read all the books I own. I collected a good many of them as physical (or, increasingly, digital) objects for attributes other than their content: part of a complete series, or a publisher’s run, or an author’s work. Some are particularly attractive editions, historical curiosities, or rare editions. Some have sentimental value, or are autographed.