blahg, blahg, blahg…

I was just over on the MLA 2.0 101 blog, yammering on with comments about the use of social networking tools in libraries. This is kind of more of the same, mostly because it’s now 2:30 in the morning and I’m still awake. And still thinking. And all of this late night thinking has kind of led me to perhaps an answer to one of the questions I was posing in those aforementioned comments, i.e. what’s the missing piece I sense in the act of online social networking? I think perhaps it’s this… it is 2:30 in the morning and all of the people, plants and animals in my home are sleeping. All but me. I am alone – all alone – with all of these thoughts ruminating ’round in my head. I can fool myself into thinking I’m sharing them with someone right now by putting them here on my blog, but really I’m not. I’m really just thinking out loud to myself. Or better put, typing out loud to myself. (I’m not actually speaking at the moment.)

So I think the answer, in part, to my question is that in our world of virtual communication, too often we’re doing just that… virtually communicating. In other words, almost but not quite. I had a good friend move away several months back and we keep in touch often via email. We’re still a part of each other’s lives, still share thoughts about work and life in general. And in many ways, our virtual communication seems to make it virtually so much easier to stay in touch. Almost, but not quite. No amount of email and no amount of blogging and no amount of wall postings on a friend’s Facebook site will ever adequately substitute for a couple of hours together over lunch or dinner. The latter is real, the former a mere surrogate.

In the strangeness of 2:54 in the morning, I even can’t help but begin to think that the words I type here in this virtual space are virtually words, too. Not quite real. They’re not ink from a pen on a piece of paper. They don’t reside in my notebook. They just appear on the glow of my screen, sitting on some intangible space somewhere. And perhaps this is the crux of the matter, perhaps what remains most unresolved for me in my understanding and acceptance of these newer forms of communication. It is the blurring of the lines between the real and the virtual that I find slightly unsettling. The confusing of one for the other. The substituting of one for the sake of the other.

I’ve read that people experienced similar fears when telephones first gained popularity. It’s probably nothing new. And that thought virtually makes me feel better. Almost. Not quite.

(3:19AM)

Last week, the Red Sox players organized a protest during their spring training game with the Toronto Blue Jays. You see, they were upset that their coaches and staff weren’t going to get the same $40,000 stipend each of them was receiving for the hardship they were about to incur by traveling to Japan for a couple of exhibition games, followed by their regular season opening games. The media was very kind to them, what with how they stood together for the “little guy” and all that. And while that’s all well and good, pardon me if I’m having a hard time imagining the likes of Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger leading labor-organizing rallies for such behavior.

Terry Francona was quoted as saying, “For some (of the staff), the money is equivalent to two fifths of their salary for the year. I don’t believe coaches are second-class citizens. It doesn’t sit well with me, and continues to boggle my mind.”

The manager really hit one out of the ballpark with that statement. It’s mind-boggling, for sure. According to the U.S. Census (2006), the median household income in Massachusetts is $59,963. Men working full-time, year-round jobs make an average of $51,960. Females, $40,174 for the same. Mr. Francona believes coaches aren’t second class citizens, but as for the rest of us… well, I guess one can draw his/her own conclusion.

Team captain Jason Varitek said, “There are other people that are involved who are being forgotten.” I hope for the Sox’ sake that the guys continue to be so on-target with their swings this season, because right now they’re hitting homeruns galore!

During my weekly department meeting yesterday, my manager shared with each of us part of an article printed in the most recent issue of “Time” (March 24, 2008)  called “10 Ideas that are Changing the World”. We learned that #2 is “The End of Customer Service: With self-service technology, you’ll never have to see a clerk again”. So there it was, yet another expert in some area, some unknown CEO of some unheard of company, prophesying the future (for his benefit, I might add, since his company creates self-service systems). We got a similar library-related piece a couple of weeks ago (Taiga Forum Provocative Statements) that offered us a nice, concise list of eight statements, all to be prefaced by “Within the next five years…”. I figure if I take these to heart, essentially I can believe that in the next five years, I’ll be extinct. Or at least my job will. And in more depressing moments, I think if I keep receiving and reading these enlightening tidbits, I might start believing that I’m already there. Extinct, that is.

There’s no denying that the self-service model is prevalent in our society; self check-in at the airport, self check-out at the grocery store, self-serve banking at the ATM, self-serve fueling at the pump. And arguably, FAQ pages, end-user database searching, and self-service check-out are slowly taking the place of reference librarians and circulation folks in libraries. Bottom line, according to Mr. Nuti (that previously referenced expert), is that companies love self-service because it saves them money. Budget-crunched libraries are no exception.

So I guess it’s no wonder these ideas keep being floated around my professional field. Wave the white flag and surrender, I reckon. There’s no stopping progress and certainly no competition for the almighty dollar. You’re considered a curmudgeon (to put it nicely) if you don’t play along. You’re in denial, a luddite, a techno-phobe, a roadblock to progress, even an insubordinate if you dare choose to believe (or heaven forbid, state out loud) that there might be something else more important and something greater lost in this rush “forward”.

But every now and then, I feel a faint pulse in my fading career. Last night as I worked the reference desk, a young student came by and the first words out of her mouth were, “I’m so glad you’re still here”. She told me, almost in tears, that she had spent hours unsuccesfully working on a project, that she was lost and confused in what she was doing, and that her professor wouldn’t answer her phone messages or emails. So we sat down together and for the next twenty minutes or so worked through what she was trying to do. I shared with her a bit of my knowledge and expertise, helped get her going down the right path, and without much effort at all, made her feel a whole lot better. Now tell me, when was the last time any automated answering service made you feel the same?

So we can continue on in my profession claiming that the end is near, and in doing so will no doubt create a self-fulfilling prophecy. But as for me, I’m still holding on to the belief that the world is a better place when we help one another instead of always helping ourselves.

[For a great song/video to go along with these thoughts, visit Billy Bragg’s website.]