Reflecting on my MLS
Sometimes I feel as though I've always been a mom. I think this is mostly due to the fact that my life changed so drastically once Dylan was born that I tend to think of the person I was before Dylan as a completely different person or a completely different lifetime. Like that was the era of Just-Jessica, followed by a brief era of Jessica-and-Matt, and now I'm in the Mom-era of Jessica. And it's strange when I think of some of the things I did pre-Mom. Like I used to be able to eat a meal without a squirmy child on my lap... or that I ever went to grad school.
I love being a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM). Before Dylan I would have never thought it possible, but I just couldn't imagine our lives any other way now. And even though I am taking care of a child and the household there is still a little bit of guilt over the fact that I went to grad school, specifically to get a degree that would help me get a career going, and then never used it. My poor MLS is just hiding somewhere under mountains of baby gear feeling completely neglected. But I fully intend to use it in the future... thank goodness it didn't come with an expiration date. The other day I found myself thinking about my whole librarian endevour (by the way, I do think of myself as a librarian... in my mind the degree of an MLS comes with that title whether you're employed or not) because Matt and I took Dylan to the library, which Dylan HATES. He will literally run out of the library screaming, unless we're there for a play group, in which case he's fine. So we don't go often, which is sad, because they're free and if I could just get him to see that he can sit and read books there, I actually think he'd enjoy himself. But I think I'm getting off track, I didn't intend for this to be a post about Dylan's hatred of the library...
But our last library episode got me thinking about my time at CLIS. Whenever I tell people what my masters is in, I also tend to make comments about how boring and easy it was in comparison with many other masters programs. But the other day I realized that I didn't just come away from that program with a diploma, that my time study information science actually did impact me in a much bigger way that I had even realized until now.
I felt this to some extent as an undergrad, but I definitely was overwhelmed by this as a grad student... the more I learned, the less I felt I knew anything about anything. There are so many specialized fields of study and within those so many small subsets that any one person can dedicate an entire lifetime to learn about and still not know everything there is to know... even about just one small subset of a specialized area of information. How on earth can I claim to know anything about a broad field of information then? Like in music (because I REALLY don't want to use library stuff as an example), I would say compared to the average person my age I know a LOT about classical music. But I still know very little about jazz, country, hip hop, african music, australian music, south american music, etc. And then even within the classical genre, I certainly dont know anywhere near as much as my professors who taught me know. And how on earth could I ever attain to be proficient in that area when there are SO many instruments, SO much history, SO much theory, and on and on and on... to that end, I just feel like I know so little about music, it's hardly enough to say I know anything at all. And that is how I now feel about pretty much everything that I think I know anything about.
Another take away from grad school, this is more specific to the library field... we talked a lot about information sources. Are they reliable? How do you know if they're reliable? Where does the information come from? How has it been manipulated? Why would it be manipulated? Who decided that this fact was worthy of the encyclopedia entry while that fact wasn't? What if the two facts had been changed, would that affect our understanding of a topic? It really made me very skeptical of nearly all second hand information. Everything seems to have a spin, not just so-called news shows, but everything. But once it's been printed in something authoritative, people just accept it. For example, I took an arts library class. For one assignment we were giving a picture of an antique chair and we had to find out all we could about this chair. It was a group project, but every group had the same assignment. And here's what we (an entire class of graduate arts librarian students) found out. It was a chair that belonged to an English minister, once we found out the particular type of chair it was, every single art/furniture resource said that this chair was used to both pray and study the Bible but also to watch rooster fights, and made a reference to there being a painting that depicted this chair as people watch roosters fighting. But not one single time did any source name the painting they all got this information from. Maybe the painting exists, but we all found it odd, that it was never named, and that several sources used that tidbit, but never bothered to track down this painting. In all honesty I wouldn't be surprised at all if I learned that our class was the only class in the history of the world who ever researched this particular chair and so what does it matter, but it just makes me wonder and realize how easy it is for information to be manipulated. And how does that effect us? I mean, this is a very small example, but it I'm sure it happens with more important information too.
Along these same lines is the idea of censorship. Which I think the whole library world is strongly opposed to. I'm sure there's some librarian out there who supports it for whatever reason, but in general librarians are big on the whole "information for everyone" idea. Actually that's one of the things I really like about libraries, especially public ones. They provide FREE information to any, and everyone who wants it. But back on track. From an artistic standpoint I think that censoring alters the artists original intent for their work (whether it's music, visual, or written). From an information standpoint I feel that censoring is manipulative. It's okay for you to know this because then you'll think X, but if you know that then you might think Y, and I really want you to think X, so I'll just keep that information unavailable to you. But I want to be the one who decides what and how I think, which means I want the full story. And if I don't end up thinking the way you want me to, oh well for you.
I really struggle with this though now what we have a child. I mean I know that a lot of what's censored in society is good for kids... swearing, violence, sex, etc. And I don't really want Dylan exposed to those things, I certainly don't want him to think it's okay to swear at his 2nd grade teacher, let's say. But I also feel like swear words are just words I mean there are far worse and hurtful things you can say with perfectly acceptable words, so what makes a swear word so inherently bad? hmm... I think I've drifted off topic quite a bit. I think the point I'm trying to make is that I'd like to find a way to parent that doesn't involved hiding things from Dylan yet also teaches him how to correctly (hopefully with morals and good values) use information and express himself.
Obviously it's getting late, and I haven't written in a while, which has resulted in what I'm sure is incoherent babbling. But at least I wrote something. I promise things will get better as I go, but I think I better call it a night for now.
I love being a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM). Before Dylan I would have never thought it possible, but I just couldn't imagine our lives any other way now. And even though I am taking care of a child and the household there is still a little bit of guilt over the fact that I went to grad school, specifically to get a degree that would help me get a career going, and then never used it. My poor MLS is just hiding somewhere under mountains of baby gear feeling completely neglected. But I fully intend to use it in the future... thank goodness it didn't come with an expiration date. The other day I found myself thinking about my whole librarian endevour (by the way, I do think of myself as a librarian... in my mind the degree of an MLS comes with that title whether you're employed or not) because Matt and I took Dylan to the library, which Dylan HATES. He will literally run out of the library screaming, unless we're there for a play group, in which case he's fine. So we don't go often, which is sad, because they're free and if I could just get him to see that he can sit and read books there, I actually think he'd enjoy himself. But I think I'm getting off track, I didn't intend for this to be a post about Dylan's hatred of the library...
But our last library episode got me thinking about my time at CLIS. Whenever I tell people what my masters is in, I also tend to make comments about how boring and easy it was in comparison with many other masters programs. But the other day I realized that I didn't just come away from that program with a diploma, that my time study information science actually did impact me in a much bigger way that I had even realized until now.
I felt this to some extent as an undergrad, but I definitely was overwhelmed by this as a grad student... the more I learned, the less I felt I knew anything about anything. There are so many specialized fields of study and within those so many small subsets that any one person can dedicate an entire lifetime to learn about and still not know everything there is to know... even about just one small subset of a specialized area of information. How on earth can I claim to know anything about a broad field of information then? Like in music (because I REALLY don't want to use library stuff as an example), I would say compared to the average person my age I know a LOT about classical music. But I still know very little about jazz, country, hip hop, african music, australian music, south american music, etc. And then even within the classical genre, I certainly dont know anywhere near as much as my professors who taught me know. And how on earth could I ever attain to be proficient in that area when there are SO many instruments, SO much history, SO much theory, and on and on and on... to that end, I just feel like I know so little about music, it's hardly enough to say I know anything at all. And that is how I now feel about pretty much everything that I think I know anything about.
Another take away from grad school, this is more specific to the library field... we talked a lot about information sources. Are they reliable? How do you know if they're reliable? Where does the information come from? How has it been manipulated? Why would it be manipulated? Who decided that this fact was worthy of the encyclopedia entry while that fact wasn't? What if the two facts had been changed, would that affect our understanding of a topic? It really made me very skeptical of nearly all second hand information. Everything seems to have a spin, not just so-called news shows, but everything. But once it's been printed in something authoritative, people just accept it. For example, I took an arts library class. For one assignment we were giving a picture of an antique chair and we had to find out all we could about this chair. It was a group project, but every group had the same assignment. And here's what we (an entire class of graduate arts librarian students) found out. It was a chair that belonged to an English minister, once we found out the particular type of chair it was, every single art/furniture resource said that this chair was used to both pray and study the Bible but also to watch rooster fights, and made a reference to there being a painting that depicted this chair as people watch roosters fighting. But not one single time did any source name the painting they all got this information from. Maybe the painting exists, but we all found it odd, that it was never named, and that several sources used that tidbit, but never bothered to track down this painting. In all honesty I wouldn't be surprised at all if I learned that our class was the only class in the history of the world who ever researched this particular chair and so what does it matter, but it just makes me wonder and realize how easy it is for information to be manipulated. And how does that effect us? I mean, this is a very small example, but it I'm sure it happens with more important information too.
Along these same lines is the idea of censorship. Which I think the whole library world is strongly opposed to. I'm sure there's some librarian out there who supports it for whatever reason, but in general librarians are big on the whole "information for everyone" idea. Actually that's one of the things I really like about libraries, especially public ones. They provide FREE information to any, and everyone who wants it. But back on track. From an artistic standpoint I think that censoring alters the artists original intent for their work (whether it's music, visual, or written). From an information standpoint I feel that censoring is manipulative. It's okay for you to know this because then you'll think X, but if you know that then you might think Y, and I really want you to think X, so I'll just keep that information unavailable to you. But I want to be the one who decides what and how I think, which means I want the full story. And if I don't end up thinking the way you want me to, oh well for you.
I really struggle with this though now what we have a child. I mean I know that a lot of what's censored in society is good for kids... swearing, violence, sex, etc. And I don't really want Dylan exposed to those things, I certainly don't want him to think it's okay to swear at his 2nd grade teacher, let's say. But I also feel like swear words are just words I mean there are far worse and hurtful things you can say with perfectly acceptable words, so what makes a swear word so inherently bad? hmm... I think I've drifted off topic quite a bit. I think the point I'm trying to make is that I'd like to find a way to parent that doesn't involved hiding things from Dylan yet also teaches him how to correctly (hopefully with morals and good values) use information and express himself.
Obviously it's getting late, and I haven't written in a while, which has resulted in what I'm sure is incoherent babbling. But at least I wrote something. I promise things will get better as I go, but I think I better call it a night for now.
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