![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
8/4/08 15:43Somehow I have four meetings on my agenda for the next three days. Two are mandatory trainings of various kinds, one is a systemwide meeting, and one is a "meet and greet" of people I suspect I've (mostly) already met. I actually really like getting out of the branch once in a while, but it's "once in a while" and it's a seriously long commute.
I did have a good meeting last week. Bill Keller, the executive editor of the NY Times, was giving a talk on his new book, which is a biography of Nelson Mandela for teens and quite good. Of course, he had to start the talk by saying flattering things about librarians - that seems like a constant when non-librarians talk about librarians. But when he said that journalists and librarians share an impatience and frustration with glib answers and oversimplifications. Because, yes. I feel like the top three things I say to patrons are "The bathroom's through that corridor on the left," "Here's how you sign up for a computer," and "It's a little bit more complicated than that."
Keller also made the point that books for young people so often try to ignore or gloss over the "Horrible unfinishedness of history." That's especially applicable in the case of a book like his, on Nelson Mandela, and also books on civil rights or women's rights - so often they have an implied ending of "...And then things were all better, yay, the end!" - at best, some throwaway acknowledgement that we're not done yet.
I understand why postmodernism comes in for a lot of snickering, but I honestly think that the most valuable thing I learned at college was to distrust narratives. (My natural tendency, it must be said, goes all the way in the opposite direction!) If it fits into a neat story - if it fits into a neat story that had a beginning and an end - then that's probably only because all the messy bits were chopped off.
I did have a good meeting last week. Bill Keller, the executive editor of the NY Times, was giving a talk on his new book, which is a biography of Nelson Mandela for teens and quite good. Of course, he had to start the talk by saying flattering things about librarians - that seems like a constant when non-librarians talk about librarians. But when he said that journalists and librarians share an impatience and frustration with glib answers and oversimplifications. Because, yes. I feel like the top three things I say to patrons are "The bathroom's through that corridor on the left," "Here's how you sign up for a computer," and "It's a little bit more complicated than that."
Keller also made the point that books for young people so often try to ignore or gloss over the "Horrible unfinishedness of history." That's especially applicable in the case of a book like his, on Nelson Mandela, and also books on civil rights or women's rights - so often they have an implied ending of "...And then things were all better, yay, the end!" - at best, some throwaway acknowledgement that we're not done yet.
I understand why postmodernism comes in for a lot of snickering, but I honestly think that the most valuable thing I learned at college was to distrust narratives. (My natural tendency, it must be said, goes all the way in the opposite direction!) If it fits into a neat story - if it fits into a neat story that had a beginning and an end - then that's probably only because all the messy bits were chopped off.