Law Schools are truly a universe unto themselves (via Ask A Manager https://www.askamanager.org/2022/05/strangely-dramatic-responses-to-mundane-office-changes.html#comment-3869239)
I am generally not a Literature person, non-fiction all the way, but Grapes of Wrath is legit good, and much like my feelings about Moby-Dick....... also I can't believe high schoolers are supposed to read this
Finally reading the Grapes of Wrath for the first time and I was not prepared for how much commentary there would be about animal urination in the first few chapters, but honestly??????? this makes it feel like the most honest novel I've ever read because who among us who spends time with animals isn't constantly attending to some of their bodily functions
who is writing about the career advantages of being at certain types of institutions? i really want to read this literature. obviously we have some great literature on contingent vs permanent archivists, but what are career outcomes for archivists across various sectors? And even intra-sector differences (e.g., public vs private universities)?
I want to be abundantly clear that both of these publications are valuable! I have friends who've worked on them, and I cite the OCLC report all the time. It's great. I just question why we use environmental imagery as literally a form of branding, and not as an existential fulcrum around which to re-evaluate our work.
i have to say it does not sit well with me to see environmental images used for publications that do not explicitly call out the environmental connections to library work
the first is OCLC's Total Cost of Stewardship which features an iceberg https://www.oclc.org/research/publications/2021/oclcresearch-total-cost-of-stewardship.html
at the risk of being earnest on main, part of the reason I am writing this Green New Deal for Archives is because I think archivists are some of the greatest people on earth and I want more places that pay us for work that I really honestly believe makes society better in the long run
also maybe it's the crowd i roll with, but the vast majority of archivists do not make great liars and I think this is the greatest thing about us. i have been having a lot of weirdness with MPOW but i love being part of the community of archivists. archivists may choose their words carefully, but i've always felt like the most truthful people in my life are other archivists, and i know other archivists in the field call me up to ask me about Stuff because they know I won't bullshit them.
*correction: the outsize role, not outside role (I have made the argument that the Big 10 and Ivy Plus are actually way too involved with dominating discussions of archival standards, values, and practice since the overwhelming majority of archives do not have the resources or capacity that elite institutions do)
Loving this New Books Network podcast episode about "The Problem with Museums" and how hard it is to define museums and how museums serve as something like a central bank in that they "stabilize the market" by ensuring persistent value of items. I see SO many parallels with archives. With the RepoData project, we were often challenged to define an archive. And Amy Chen's Placing Papers has talked about the outside role that elite manuscript repositories play in creating a market.
Team Midwest forever and ever amen. Archivist and records manager. Climate comrade. My peaceable kingdom features snails, owls, and possums.