"Life After Dancing"

Sigh...should have known it was just a matter of time.

Come on, Bristol Palin is only 20 and surely she couldn't have had more than a year since the whole dancing gig. Although I must confess that a few of the statements in the NY Times article have me wondering about not only authorship of this item but the reason it exists at all. I noticed that Palin the Elder's oeuvre was mentioned at the top of the article, with links given to them reviews of them and to the HarperCollins site.
Could this be nothing more than a marketing ploy? After reading Bristol's Facebook rant, I have trouble imagining that she is capable of authorship. Furthermore, I recall that there was some discussion about who the real author of heSarah's books was.

Per the NYT, 

Bristol Palin is writing a book. Not Afraid of Life will be released this summer by HarperCollins, the publisher of Sarah Palin’s books, Going Rogue and America By Heart.

 Why do I anticipate that this will be a tome with a heavy right-to-life theme and sounding absolutely nothing like her Facebook posts?

PS  – The saved images of the flame war seems to have largely disappeared from the Interwebz. I was able to locate a copy of the transcript (posted as jpg to preserve the interactions). As I do not own the copyright to the image I am unable to post it. Email me for a copy).

Your Virtual Self and the Job Hunt

I recently received this very interesting and informative article by Susanne Markgren on how to manage your online presence. Certainly, it can be no secret to anyone by now that employers can, and do, search for information about you online. That's only fair; I do the same thing to potential employers before I even bother to fill out their application. Frequently I find information about them which indicates financial woes or other issues that cause me to look askance at some aspect of their management or stability. Who wants to go to the trouble of moving to some place and end up being left high and dry?

As few years ago, as a lark, I googled myself and was amazed that a quote of mine in the local newspaper had been picked up and run in American Libraries. Some took offense at my comment and used the quote as a reason to vilify me. I don't find that online discussion any more, which is just as well. But the thing I have to wonder about is this:

We are told that resumes have to be concise because poor employers are inundated with hundreds of applications and they apparently have no more than 30 seconds to spend looking at any one of them. How, then, is it possible that these same overworked employers have the time to spend googling us and making judgments based on blog entries, Facebook status updates and the like?

I refuse to apologize for having an opinion and expressing it. Those libraries who fear my thoughts lack a fundamental conception of intellectual freedom.

Will it be a merry Christmas for Borders, Barnes & Noble?

Holiday shopping season seen as decisive to survival of bookstore chains

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40719268/ns/business-retail/


Why don't these chains diversify and break out into other media to distribute in electronic formats? I realize that paper formats are slow and expensive to produce, but I prefer the singularly sensual feeling of scanning the pages, subconsciously dog-earing the corners as I prepared to turn the pages. I have been known to read in pools, rivers and bathtubs. The loss of a book, though sad, is not insurmountable. 

This is just all kinds of wrong

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — A private company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, growing into the country’s fifth-largest library system.

Anger as a Private Company Takes Over Libraries


 From the article:

“A lot of libraries are atrocious,” Mr. Pezzanite said. “Their policies are all about job security. That’s why the profession is nervous about us. You can go to a library for 35 years and never have to do anything and then have your retirement. We’re not running our company that way. You come to us, you’re going to have to work.”

And from the LSSI site:

"At LSSI, we create an environment that brings our librarians out from behind the scenes and outfront serving their customers."

Frank Pezzanite, Library Privateer

Wow. You'll never believe this, Mr. Pezzanite, but in libraries there is this thing called a Reference Desk. Out front (which, BTW, most librarians could tell you is two words, not one).

Frank, you might want to visit a library one day and see what librarians actually do. We're so damn cheap we recycle scratch paper. Whereas you're so damn cheap, you pay low wages to non-union employees to pad your own retirement. I don't know a single librarian who entered the profession because they wanted to make a ton of money, or to find a chair to sit on to wait down the clock until their retirement.

As I posted on LinkedIn, I want your attempt to line your pocket with public funds to fail – but the real losers will be all the dedicated, professional librarians you've displaced, along with those whose access to information has been limited while you got a nice chunk o' change.

I just thought I'd mention that I considered applying for the position of Acquisition Plan & Content Development Specialist in Saudi Arabia that you posted on the LSSI site. The problem is that I could not figure out whether to use the West Coast Application or the East Coast Application. Nyo well. Your loss.

I'm baaaack!

Heya kiddies!

I know I've been gone a while but for those of you waiting with bated breath (LOL) I'll be posting again soon. Just had a lot of stuff I had to do for other people and whatnot.