It's Academic

When I was deciding what to write about for my first blog post, I followed the advice we give students: Choose a topic that interests you. This guidance led me to my current favorite Netflix series, “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo.”

For anyone not familiar with Kondo’s KonMari method of organizing, this article from Newsweek is a good summary. Her 2012 book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, is likely a hold-shelf favorite at your local library.

The phenomenon is not just about organizing. The KonMari method focuses on sorting items by category and appreciating all of them — even the things that are heading out the door. Items that are kept should have value to you or “spark joy,” according to Kondo. For me, the idea of cherishing things that bring you joy is a strong message on its own.

As I watched the show, and browsed gleeful #konmari posts from coworkers, friends and acquaintances, I began to think about how this could be applied at work.

Although I’ve not seen anyone walk through the stacks tapping on books to “wake them up,” there are other examples in academic libraries. We redesign LibGuides and update them with useful, current content. We develop our collections, clean our work spaces, and revamp lesson plans. We switch out displays and rearrange furniture based on our patrons’ interests and current needs. The end results, in their own ways, spark joy.

This can also be applied to professional development, service, long-term projects and daily routines. Tasks like going through email, writing reports, creating manuals, and digging into meeting minutes can involve lots of “clutter” or messy, overwhelming details.

Unlike a home-tidying project, we can’t shred, recycle or donate tasks that we are obligated to finish. Instead, we can consider what we appreciate about them, or why the end result is meaningful or valuable.

A few colleagues were recently joking about having mindfulness practices ready for their multiple (truly, many) committee responsibilities. We laughed, but there’s truth in that. Pausing for a moment to remember the big picture can help us regain focus in our work and our homes.

What sparks joy? What is the goal? These are reminders I’ll be thinking of more in 2019, partly due to what I’ve learned from watching Marie Kondo in action. The process may not be neat, but the results are often worth it.

Here we go again… Does anyone else feel the sense of boredom when it comes to trying to create displays and programming for the same events year after year? It’s striking me quite hard at the moment as our college cadets have been off campus for a month, and are returning just in time for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Our students celebrate MLK Day every year… How do we come up with new and innovative ways to re-engage not only our students, but also ourselves for these special events?

At Valley Forge Military Academy & College, we honor a “Virtue of the Month” tied in with the five pillars of our institution, and integrate it across campus. We have a speaker come in for a session in our chapel; some faculty integrate the virtue into their lesson plans. We at the library create a recommended reading list, and create a small display featuring those books. We have the physical books displayed, and then also feature the titles in the “Recommended Reading” section of our online catalog!

We also tap into things that are unique to our campus, like the birthdays of our service branches, and POW MIA Recognition Day (our library houses our campus POW MIA tribute). And for January 2019, we’re celebrating what would have been the 100th birthday of the creator of one of my favorite fictional teen boys, Holden Caulfield, none other than Mr. JD Salinger (class of 1936)!

We do similar displays throughout the year, but felt like we hit a rut. We started paying attention to news stories and social media feeds, trying to get an in on something new, something unique… We heard about National Cocoa Day (December 13th) from an ALA Store email listserv, and thought, hey, it’s during finals week, why not celebrate? So we did! It was a HUGE success, and we kept the cocoa flowing late into our extended hours.

Libraries are in the information business… no one knew about National Cocoa Day – until we told them! So – we’ve since discovered National Today, a website featuring over 1100 celebration days and suggestions for how to celebrate! We’re gearing up for National Lego Day coming up on January 28th, and have purchased some Lego Classic sets to have on reserve here in the library. This event will also launch our having board games and puzzles on reserve as well. We’re hoping that it could also be an impetus to get more involved with Makerspaces…

Get creative! Know your audience; know your mission statement. Create a tie-in, and go for it!

That being said: Happy National Hat Day (January 15th)! Don’t be a phony; go put on your red hunting cap, and read some Catcher in the Rye (or maybe sip on some cocoa while playing with Legos)…

(images credited to Baker Library at Valley Forge Military Academy & College)

Of the many lulls librarians experience during the academic year, none feels as pronounced as the semester break that hinges on the turn of the calendar. In mid-December the suddenly quiet library recalls the bygone days of solemnity that the new era of open commons replaced; for a time, even new libraries feel older than they are. The librarian knows this is temporary, a mere hibernation, yet by January the quietude proves intoxicating.

Like Janus, the Roman god of transitions, endings, beginnings, and other dualities of time, the librarian sees the past and the future, often in the same moment. In January, we are like Janus, the month’s namesake. We catch our breath, reflect upon where we have been, and simultaneously consider how to move forward.

These thoughts were apparent to me when I recently undertook a weeding project, a task perhaps best performed by librarians, and gardeners, during the summer. Slowly walking the stacks, pulling and examining specific volumes, I was weighing the past against the future, looking like Janus in two directions at once.

In a sense we are always doing exactly this. Libraries were once lone repositories of knowledge; now libraries provide access to thousands of remote repositories. Librarians were once lone guardians of knowledge; now librarians are less guardians than guides to entire galaxies of information. Whether we hold a book or a smart phone in our hands, we bring the blurry past into focus for the present.

It is very cold today; it feels like January should. There are few people in the library, but they will return in great numbers in just a few days. The quiet will end and the future will be here. Though the calendar calls for several more weeks of winter, librarians will emerge from their dens. For us it is already spring.