Political Hugs & Kisses

On Tuesday, Congressman Dreier arrived at my library with his entourage for a library tour of the facility that he raised the initial $1.3 million for. Last night was the first Town Council meeting at the library so Supervisor Antonivich was present. He ponied up the additional $21 million needed to complete the library. I don't have a lot of experience with politicians. A few Japanese ones that are a completely a different animal and former Governor Ceyetano of Hawaii. I went on a trade mission with him and other business people to Korea one year. I didn't have much interaction with the former governor, only a few pleasantries during course of several days. Ceyetano was super laid back but I was mostly impressed by his speaking skills. An extremely good orator. So essentially I doubled my politician experience this week.
On Tuesday I felt like a celebrity. The Congressman came complete with cameras. I don't know if people actually knew who he was or not or just that fact that he looked famous but a number of the patrons were whipping out their cell phone cameras as well to record the moment. My first experience with pseudo-paparazzi. The visit started out with a firm a handshake that lasted longer than I was comfortable with. I am always awkward and unsure when it comes to touching other people that I don't know. I prefer the Japanese bow. Even in church my order of preference for offering peace is a bow and then a handshake. I have to steel myself for hugs if that is what the church does. And saying Our Father, I do not like to hold hands with the people around me if I don't know them. So Congressman Dreier's handshake quickly ratcheted up the meter of discomfort especially when he gave me a slight pull in towards him. Completely unnerved, but I kept the smile pasted on my lips. Later, at the end of the tour I did actually get a hug. Super awkward on my part. I felt I was doing a dance move, handshake, in for the hug, and then swing out. I almost lost my balance.
The last night at the end of the Supervisor's words he made his way to to back of the meeting room where I was seated a table. I got up to shake his hand and then he pulled me in for a cheek kiss. Fortunately, I am more comfortable with cheek kissing after years of teaching students from other countries and living in Hawaii where male acquaintances seem to often cheek kiss and closer male friends will actually lip kiss. I had about 3 male friends that would plant me a big one whenever we saw each other. Again my discomfort meter is triggered when I don't really know the person at all. I have been to many events with Supervisor Antonovich present, ground breakings, job fairs, dedications, etc. Also I am greeted by his smiling face every time I check the time. There is a photo of him posted under the clock at the Customer Service Desk. I almost feel that I know him. So thankfully the cheek kiss went off without a twinge on my part. But I did note that I seem to have crossed from a member of the crowd to someone that can be kissed.
I am beginning to feel a bit like a celebrity myself. I have had my photo in the paper and stories where I was quoted no less than 4 times in the last month. I am kind of enjoying all the attention, perhaps I need to start getting out of my comfort zone and offer people more hugs and kisses myself.

Glad to Be Free of Time Warner

Yesterday, I got a surprise when I opened my cable bill. It doubled in the space of a month. Apparently my offer expired. The offer that the cable guy told me would not expire--well except for the Showtime that I haven't watched in 8 months. I don't even know what channel it is and it is too far in for me to surf to.
So I called Time Warner to see what was up with my bill. I expected to see a rate increase in January but that didn't happen. It happened this week.
The call system was very frustrating, It kept looping me through with I'm sorry I didn't understand that. It took me 4:20 to get into the cue. Then I got the service rep from Hell. When I complained about the automated system and that it took me an uncommonly long time to get into the cue, she said We have a lot of people waiting. What? Instead of saying I'm sorry that must be frustrating, we are working on the system to provide excellent customer service, she didn't want to hear that the company she works for has horrible automation. Well, I guess, they hire the same sort of employees as they do machines.
Then she continued to dispute with me on this issue, I said, if you will listen to me then we can get to my problem and you can get to the next customer. Finally, I explained my problem. She looked at my account and said That is your rate. What? No it wasn't until this month, what happened. This took another 3 times explaining before she looked into my account to see what happened to make my bill double.
The I explained that Time Warner has two options they can either reduce my bill back to my former rate or I can turn my cable box in. Then she went on about something, I don't even remember. When I asked to speak with a supervisor she refused. Then I got fed up with her and explained that I wanted to speak with a supervisor about the lack of her customer service skills. This took another 3 minutes of explaining to her that I wanted to complain about her so I needed to speak with someone. Finally, she put me on hold and I spoke to the supervisor which she had previously explained to me did not exist. To be fair the supervisor was professional.
The end result is that there were no special rates and Time Warner would rather not have my business. Which is fine with me because after yesterday's interaction and the fact that the last two times I went to the local store during their business hours they were closed, I am happy to be without TV.
TV is something that I don't really need. For me $50 was a fair price for me to get TV and internet. (Turns out my neighbor has a wireless network that I can cockroach on so I don't internet) But more than $50 crosses what I deem as a fair value for my perceived needs. TV for me is a convenience and not a necessity. When the cable guy knocked on my door offering me the deal with immediate hook up (no being held hostage in the apartment waiting for them to come in the window and then failing) I did a quick value calculation in my head. The cost matched the value I was willing to pay, so it worked. Now the cost exceeds the value so back to the cable shop. If they are open that is.

Jonathan Swift Promoted the Eating of Children...

...to solve the famine woes of Ireland. I have an equally intriguing solution to for library budgets. Like many libraries across the nation and around the world, my system has had one shortfall after another since the economic meltdown under Bush.
Last week we learned that in the next FY our system has an anticipated budget gap of $8 million dollars. Our fearless leader explained that they have to either find the money somewhere or they have to cut out of the budget. In libraries 80% of our budget is generally allocated to salaries. We are a labor intensive organization because basically we are a service organization. Books although expensive do not add up to the cost of someone processing them, retrieving them, checking them back in and putting them back on the shelf. The cost of each book is a one time fee, the cost of the people touching that book is a recurring fee for the life of that book. That is assuming that the item is something that people want and not something that languishes on the shelf for an indefinite period of time.
So what to do? The first step happened several months ago when 40 part-time people were laid off. That was black day for me because I lost a good employee. Our materials budget has been trimmed about as lean as it can really get. Once again this isn't where the bulk of the budget is anyhow. The next step is probably cutting service hours. But I have run a business before and I know that there is no real savings in just closing the building some hours a week. You are still paying rent and there has to be some climate control because there are computers that require a degree of comfort. And since we do not live in Alaska but in a Mediterranean climate that requires cooling for a significant part of the year. No real savings there. So once again we are back to people. By cutting hours you can start enacting more aggressive lay-offs. I am not looking forward to this next FY at all.
Here is my solution to meet the budget short falls that library systems in general are experiencing to prevent further lay-offs. Libraries like to have people leave them $ when they pass on. The Waikiki Library in Honolulu unexpectedly received $2 million dollars when snowbird who used the library on his trips to Hawaii passed away. What a windfall. So libraries do pursue donations of this type and try to make people aware that you can will your money to libraries in much the same way you might to an animal shelter.
So here is where we get creative. Library Systems can develop a crack teams with two prongs. The first prong would be the business suited smooth talkers. They identify people in their service area that have substantial resources and are library users. They approach these people and convince them to sign their trusts over to the library upon their demise. Once a reasonable amount of time has passed to lower suspicions, then the second team is activated. The purpose of this unit would be to make sure that the donors met an untimely accident. The library system become the beneficiary and hence valuable jobs are saved. Budget problems solved, end of story.

New Year Musings

Today is the convergence of the Chinese Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day on a long President's Day weekend. How often does this happen?
I am renewing my resolutions and hope they stick this time. The first 6 weeks of the solar year was just practice and a dry run right?
The library is now open and we are beginning to settle into a rhythm. It has been incredibly busy with lots of details that require my attention. We have had over 2,000 new card applications so that has taken up all the staffs' time. This past week, I put in extra hours due to programming and community obligations. I am so ready for a long weekend.
My apartment has been out of control for a while now. Since I will be moving at the end of next month, I spent the morning weeding some of my stuff and establishing some order.
The cats are growing and are a joy. Well for the most part. 4:00 a.m. requests for belly rubs from Misha are wearing me out. And Sasha's insatiable curiosity gets frustrating. Nothing and I mean nothing can be left out without it coming to his attention. He gets up on everything and then pulls things down for Misha to play with. Misha seems to be a jewelry thief as I find him carting earrings and necklaces off for his personal enjoyment. And their love of cheese--what more can I say.
So it is New Year's again. The year of the Tiger. The last Year of the Tiger had me in Japan (which celebrates it with the solar New Year). So many things have happened over the past dozen years. Moves from Hiroshima to Honolulu to California. Completing my Master's. New jobs, marathons, the loss of my father, new friends, health issues, some steps forward and some steps back.
What do I hope the next year holds. I hope to finally GET IT RIGHT!! All those things that I want me to be but just am not, I want to become or to forget. So in other words I want to realize who I am and who I am not and then live true to this person. That's all, not much to ask right?

Count Down to the Soft Opening

Since the first of November, I have been working on opening the new La Crescenta Library. It has been an interesting and tiring adventure. The library is very nice and the public will enjoy it without a doubt. But there were some very frustrating moments in getting the library up. Some of the problems stem from the fact that we never have enough space for what we want. Also, since the library was literally carved out of the side of a mountain, the footprint is a bit awkward. About half of my adult fiction stacks were reallocated to additional parking spaces some where in the planning process. Since parking is important and people won't use the library if they can't reasonably get to it, I do not begrudge the decision--often. Since the library is 3x the size it used to be, I doubt that anyone will really notice. Then I ended up with a massive amount of audio visual shelving that had to be converted to regular shelving, I am still changing shelves out and the soft opening is next week.
Why so many audio visual shelves? Well, the building plan called for a 30/30/30 mix of children, adult and audiovisual materials. A collection of this mix does not and I repeat DOES NOT translate into the same percentage mix of shelving. Children and AV items are slim and sleek, Adult materials are usually 3x or more the width of Children books and DVD cases. Hmmm... oops...
But hey, the glass is half full here, I look at it this way. If everything had gone along swimmingly smooth, I would have learned a lot but not nearly as much as I have. If I ever have the opportunity to be involved in another library opening, I will be more prepared.
I like my library and I think it will be a strong asset to the community. I think I will have a great staff and we will have the chance to try out new and innovative ideas. Also I will have the chance to reuse my bag of tricks and programs that I have built since becoming a library. Always love the chance to try old stuff on a new audience.
On Saturday, Jan 16. we will open the doors to the masses. This is our soft opening but since people have been chomping at the bit for the new library, I suspect we will have a flood of people and not a trickle. Our grand opening is at the end of the month.

Digital Divide

This morning on my way up to the Antelope Valley, I'm a visiting librarian in Lancaster until my computers and network are installed. The moving in process just keeps dragging on. Back on topic. This the radio reporter told me that cell phones are replacing landlines in many homes. OK, no big surprise, then he went on to say that the rate of rich people giving up landlines outpace poor people. At first blush this seemed to contradict other reports that have stated that the world's poor are by passing land lines and going straight for cellphones with Internet capability.
As the miles passed I chewed on this facts only to digested them into a reason both could be true.
First, America's poor are not the same as the world's poor. Many countries where the majority of the world's poor live just does not and probably never will have the infrastructure to support wired technology. These people can only hope to connect to the rest of us via wireless technology, so in other words these people will out of necessity jump ahead in the technology cue. America's poor on the other hand tend to live in rural or remote areas where wireless coverage, despite AT&T and Verizon's claims is not ubiquitous. On the other hand, wired coverage is--even the party lines of my rural youth are mostly a thing of the past these days.
Rural-ness is another reason not to give up that ole landline even if a wireless provider is available. Wireless telephone does not mean wireless Internet coverage. My Iphone Internet capability was as non-existent as my savings account this summer in Idabel, OK. And Idabel is technically town. Cable internet through Time Warner or other providers is not any more available than cable TV. Rural America is dotted with satellite dishes for this reason. With this fact, dial up is a sad reality for many of America's ruralites no matter their own personal income.
Something else to consider that keep America's poor tied down is that landlines are often subsidized by us. For those poverty level incomes, we pay a portion of our phone bills to allow them to have very reasonably priced phone service. Phone service but not health care is seen as a basic necessity that should be available to one and all. With adequate documentation, a family can apply for the subsidy annually.
And finally, the rich have few children, and can afford family plans for their progeny. The poor may not have means to provide each and every one of their offspring with cellphones.
One question that did spring to mind as I walked past the line of less than homed individuals in front of the Lancaster Library. What is the rate of cellphones among those poor who are homeless vs those who are poor and aboded? Is there a bigger percentage? Do these people have the wherewithal to get and maintain a cell phone? Do they have people to call?

Musings

I can't believe it has been so long since I last posted. Lots has happened in the past three weeks. I am still trying to adjust to having kittens. Sasha adjusted right on schedule and is now a Graceless Wonder and Nosey Parker. However, Misha is still suffering PTSD and has yet adjusted. I spent all day Sunday trying to tame him. I checked the Internet and the advice says "Small Room Containment". First I lured them into the bathroom. Sasha and Misha stayed there for a while and I handled Misha frequently with rewards of Kraft Singles and baby food. Later I put them in the pet taxi while I cleaned the bathroom, took a shower and prepared the closet.
All went fine and well until about 9:00 when they start getting revved up for the evening's play time. Sasha got restless, Misha was still hissing at times. I kicked Sasha out but that didn't work because he just scratched at the door and meowed. Then I put both of them back in and that didn't work without me because they just scratched the door and meowed. I gave up and let them out so I could go to sleep and not get kicked out of my apartment nor pay damages when I move out.
Misha is a tough nut to crack and I think my options as the clock is running out, is to either ask the Vet for some Kitty Prozac to get him over this phase or take him to the ASPCA and ask them to try to socialize him for a donation. When I take them to the Vet on Saturday, I will ask which is the better option.
On a different note, I have started at the new buldi89g (Sasha's contribution). There are a lot of hurtles to cross before January. Also it is clear that the architect and everyone else involved in the project did not really get the feedback of Librarians. So many things are what people imagine a library should be like but is not actually what we want the library of the 21st Century to be nor what actual users need it to be. So we are trying to remediate these facets or learn to live them.
Two big problems, we don't have enough shelving for adults and have had to work around that. The previous manager did not like to weed at all. So right now we have the old collection (All of IT), all the materials that have been bought over the past two years while it was closed for rebuilding, the Opening Day materials and some reassigns. I am bursting at the seams with just the old collection and have had to spend time weeding out shabby, and unused materials before we try to absorb the new collections (]=kl Sasha again) onto the shelves.
The other big problem is that the art work in the children's area is scary. There is a dead or rubber chicken on the clock shoot that sends lost toys away. There is a guy powering the clock wearing a ram's skull on his head while riding a bicycle with saw blades. There is a Zombie looking sombrero wearing guy that is pulling a cart and a guy that is half fish, half something else with a long bird beak mask on. So now the Powers that Be need to sort it out and see if they can get the artist to adjust the artwork. The concept seems to be from an old Wizard of Oz book plate but MY GOD those things can be scary. I would have nightmares if I were a 7 or 8 year old looking at it. I get creeped out as it is and I am an adult.
More later.