[Publib] Monday thoughts on Sunday

[Sharon Foster]

Maybe I misunderstood the question. If those are the only three
choices, I would probably be a carpenter. Problem is, it's a hard way
to make a living right now, even in Fairfield County, CT. New home
construction is cyclical in the best of times and, while there is
repair work, I'm not sure it generates enough income to live on. For a
recession-proof, work-with-my-hands job, I'd be a farmer. With a few
chickens and goats, and enough land, I'd be self-sustaining.

Sharon M. Foster, JD, MLS
Librarians bring order out of chaos.
http://www.vsa-software.com/mlsportfolio/






On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 7:58 AM, Robert Balliot<rballiot at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is no reason librarians cannot be plumbers, electricians, and
> carpenters too.  The wealth of public
> libraries provides the resources to learn many skill sets.  As proponents of
> lifetime learning we should
> embrace our inner builders and repairers.  One of my friends is a very
> skilled writer and also worked
> as a plumber.  Developing physical skills along with mental skills certainly
> enhances brain function.
>
> In fact, I think most library directors, after managing buildings for any
> length of time or going through a
> building project will develop at least a cursory knowledge of architectural,
> structural, plumbing, mechanical
> and electrical plans.  Perhaps the most valuable skill sets will be heating
> and air conditioning along
> with furniture restoration and repair.  All librarians become interior
> designers - developing ergonomic
> processes to either complement or make up for the original configurations of
> their architects.
>
>
> R. Balliot
> http://oceanstatelibrarian.com
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 12:12 AM, Martha Grenzeback
> <graymatters at windstream.net> wrote:
>>
>> I don't think well-lit matters so much as air-conditioned (at least here
>> in the Nebraska summers)...I do wash my own windows (they don't get done
>> often, though) and do my own gardening, but I think a lot of brainwashing
>> goes on at school. I have three daughters and would love to have a plumber,
>> electrician, and carpenter in the family, since those are sorely needed
>> around here, but to no avail (except for one promising boyfriend). I studied
>> library science because I love it. At least I can direct people to plumbing
>> guides and such.....
>>
>> Martha Grenzeback
>> graymatters at windstream.net
>>
>>
>>
>> At 03:54 PM 7/5/2009, Backwage at aol.com wrote:
>>
>> Recently the New York Times has offered an article about the worth of a
>> modern-day master's degree.  The link follows--if as happens it doesn't
>> function you can always look the piece up yourselves.
>>
>>
>> http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/what-is-a-masters-degree-worth/?scp=1&sq=masters%20degree&st=cse
>>
>> The Times has received quite a few comments on topic.  Reading through
>> them we find the usual themes, many of which have been worked to death by
>> newly-minted librarians over the years:  lack of jobs, student loan burdens,
>> terrific competition and of course, the lack of recognition by society in
>> general.
>>
>> Most of these gripes ring about as true as the signs of the beggars on
>> freeway on-ramps.   They more or less say "Will Work For Food" but the
>> reality is somewhat at variance with this claim.  I recall years ago when
>> there was a teacher's strike in Los Angeles, the longshore locals invited
>> the strikers to work the docks on a temporary basis.  Very few did, and
>> those who did evaporated pretty quickly.
>>
>> Here in the building trades we often get inquiries by laid-off teachers
>> and other educated folk about apprenticeships.  They sometimes fill out
>> applications, and they always pass the tests, but they almost never stick
>> around, even though the starting apprentice pay meets or exceeds beginning
>> teacher salaries, and the top pay (after only five years!) beats the heck
>> out of what almost any teacher gets.  The hourly wage for an electrician is
>> $35.95 and the plumber wage is almost 34 dollars, not counting the benefit
>> packages.  Things are a bit slow right now, but anybody can apply for the
>> apprenticeship program.  In fact, the laborers union is always hiring, and
>> you can go to work ASAP.
>>
>> The reason that these folks don't is because they don't want to.  Work,
>> that is.  Today they will use the excuse of the recession, but a year or so
>> ago when things were going fine they just griped about something else.  Why
>> is this so?  Well, we might look at a time when this wasn't so.
>>
>> The schoolteachers and librarians of my childhood mostly had other careers
>> before getting their college degrees.  I had teachers who were previously
>> plumbers, landscapers and carpenters.  They even went back to the trades in
>> summer.  A librarian I knew had been a laborer; another was a tech writer in
>> an aircraft plant.  Another packed fruit in a cannery.  These weren't
>> summer-break jobs but what they did and would have done forever if they
>> hadn't gotten an M.A. degree.  My own father taught school but was an
>> aircraft mechanic before that.  By the time I did my own librarian
>> internships I found that none of my superiors had done anything in the way
>> of manual work at all.  Over the course of a couple of generations, the
>> working class connections had withered away.
>>
>> Side note:  I worked as a clerk in a public library where none of the
>> librarians had ever worked outside the cloister.  All of them had gone from
>> college to college to the library.  In this same place the clerks were all
>> working class people, most with only a bit of college done.  Talk about a
>> culture chasm.  Sometimes I had to translate so the two sides could
>> understand each other.  I could do this because the librarians figured I was
>> going to be a librarian, and because the clerks were the parents of kids I'd
>> grown up with.  I could write a book just from the conversations each side
>> had about the other.
>>
>> Nowadays the educated classes look down on manual labor.  This is not to
>> say that they don't give lip service to it, but the real measure of their
>> feeling comes through in how they raise their own kids.  I've seen dozens of
>> librarians and teachers who would tell you "Whatever my kid does is fine
>> with me," but then they sit up late filling out applications to Yale so
>> little Dingbat doesn't have to dirty his hands among the lower classes.
>> Mind you, the trade union officials I work with are the same--they direct
>> their own kids to college unless the kid is a very dim bulb, at which point
>> they finance his entry into a "music school" where the kid can learn the
>> rudiments of guitar playing until he finds himself (on the couch at home).
>>
>> [As I look down the street where I live, not a single householder mows his
>> own lawn or washes his own windows.  The trucks come around from the diaper
>> service, the laundry and even to deliver groceries.  They look at me like
>> I'm crazy because I do my own gardening--they can't even name the flowers in
>> their own yards.  I have yet to meet a young person in these parts who was
>> not destined for college--the kids wear college sweatshirts from junior high
>> school onward.  What will happen to those who don't get into college?  Will
>> they hate themselves or feel betrayed, like the folks with degrees who can't
>> find the job they want?]
>>
>> And tell me, what is it about actual work that the educated classes
>> dislike?  Is it the duties or the milieu, or perhaps the label?  My own Pop
>> left the aircraft business to take a two-thirds cut in pay to be a
>> schoolteacher.  For a smart man he was an idiot.  And very proud to be an
>> intellectual.  Sometimes I wonder exactly what that means.
>>
>> Once we had masses of people demanding jobs; now we have masses of
>> educated folk demanding jobs that won't dirty their hands--and also that
>> these jobs be located in clean, well-lit offices among others of their
>> kind.  Tell me the truth:  would you work at something other than
>> librarianship for the same money or better?  And why don't you now?
>>
>> M. McGrorty
>> ________________________________
>> Make your summer sizzle with fast and easy recipes for the grill.
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