First, I apologize for the lateness of this post and for missing the last two weeks. Sometimes life happens and I'm getting really busy. But, I'm here today and I'm actually going to give you a glimpse at what happens behind the scenes in libraries: library theory. Actually, no. There's not as much theory in the field of library science as you may think considering how important information is to our profession, but the book I'm reviewing today is, in fact, a book about a theory of information, specifically, the theory of information worlds.
Now, I'll include the reference for the book on this post in APA style, but Information Worlds: Social Context, Technology, and Information Behavior in the Age of the Internet is not like others I've left reviews for. It is not a "fun" book; it's essentially a textbook. So if you're interested, definitely read it. If you just want to read a chapter or two that sounds super interesting, great. But I'm not necessarily writing this review in an effort to convince you to read, or not read, this book. This review is more of a "Wow, that was really interesting and it has x implications" style than a "this book is awesome and everyone should read it" style. The premise of the Theory of Information Worlds is that an individual's information behavior (i.e., the way a person searches for, interacts with, and uses information) is influenced by the multiple "worlds" that make up their life. For example, an avid knitter/crocheter/weaver likely has people, both in person and virtually, that they knit/crochet/weave with and/or share patterns with. This collection of people and the contexts they interact in are one information world. The same person will also have other information worlds, some of which are larger and smaller than others. But within these worlds there are people who are trusted and information that has value or doesn't have value. And these worlds interact with other worlds and overall guide the individual's information behavior. Now, the book goes into much greater detail about this premise and the influence of media, the internet, and libraries on this concept. But while I find this theory very interesting and potentially very influential to my own research, that's not the part of the book that I actually want to call attention to. I want to call attention to Chapter 8, otherwise known as the chapter that calls out politics in a BIG way. Chapter 8 focuses on an aspect of information worlds called information value. Information value is the amount of value an information world places on information in general, specific information, and where information comes from. Information value is different for each information world and is greatly influenced by cultural/societal values. And depending on how powerful certain people are, the information value of a very small world can be imposed on a very large number of people. An entire country, in fact, can have the information value of a single small world imposed on them. And the United States of America is a prime example. Now, this book was written in 2010, and chapter 8 is looking at the influences of President George W. Bush rather than more current administrations, but the premise remains the same. When a person in power is part of a small world whose information value is based on the curtailment of information for whatever reason, the democratic process of said country can be compromised. If accurate information, however damning, isn't shared with the public then the public cannot truly make decisions on who they want to lead their country or what they want those leaders to do. Access to information is important, and the information value held by small worlds in power has lot to do with what information is accessible to a democratic nation. When I was reading this book, specifically Chapter 8, it was another piece of evidence about how many modern librarians/libraries are radical places. Places where access to information is more important than enforcing the information values of those in power. I think reading this book, or even just skimming it, is actually a pretty important thing. But don't just read it. Read it critically. No book or thought is infallible. There can be holes in everything, and maybe you'll see something that just doesn't sit right with you and that will make you go out and do some research and you'll further your own information value. But this book has some really important points about the access, use, and restriction of information. All things that are becoming increasingly important in the era we live in. Happy Reading! Jaeger, P., & Burnett, G. (2010). Information worlds: Social context, technology, and information behavior in the age of the Internet. New York: Routledge.
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Diversity in Literature is a big buzzword phrase nowadays, as well it should be. Society as a whole has come to the conclusion that diversity is good, and whitewashing is bad. Representation matters. A lot of times the argument for diversity is played out in terms of jobs, schooling, and movies/TV shows. There have been a lot of newer TV shows and movies that have brought the idea of representation to the forefront (looking at you Always Be My Maybe by Netflix), but sometimes we forget to talk about representation in books too. After all, you can use your imagination and make the characters in books look like whatever you want them to look like in your head right? To some extent, yes (depending on whether or not the author puts a lot of effort into describing his/her/their characters). But then you also get those rather disturbing arguments about how Hermione Granger is/isn't black. And you realize that unless it is explicitly stated that a character is/isn't a specific race/ethnicity you'll get jerks saying that it doesn't matter what you imagine in your head, the representation isn't there. So it's actually still pretty important for representation to be clearly, irrevocably, stated by the authors, even if descriptions are relatively open-ended. This is especially true in certain genres, such as romance.
I love romance novels. I've read a lot of romance novels in many genres and will likely continue reading them throughout my life. But sometimes there's a representation problem. For example, a lot of historical romances are about white, hetero-normative, neuro-normative, usually skinny/muscular, Christian heroines/heroes. This is one reason why I'm writing a historical novel with a Jewish heroine. I want to see myself represented in the books I love to read. If you look at contemporary romances or paranormal romances there's a bit more variety usually. But it can still be difficult to find books that aren't hetero-normative, neuro-normative, and full of skinny/muscular forms of beauty. There are also a lot of white people. Thankfully for the genre, a lot of new authors are writing books that increase representation. Helen Hoang is one of them. I haven't read very many romances that are about Asian characters. I also haven't read very many romances about non-neuro-normative people, though they are out there and can be quite good. This is one reason I loved Helen Hoang's novel The Kiss Quotient. I'm currently reading the second novel she wrote, The Bride Test, and it's holding up very well too but I'm focusing on The Kiss Quotient in this post. Without giving too much away, The Kiss Quotient is the story of Stella, a thirty year old woman with Asperger's, a syndrome on the Autism spectrum, and Michael, an escort who is part Vietnamese (his mother is Vietnamese and his father is of Swedish origin and is all around a bad person). They meet when Stella hires Michael to teach her how to become proficient at sex. Stella's experiences so far have been lackluster to say the least, and horrific if we're being accurate. She thinks she needs practice, because she wants to have a relationship, she just doesn't know how to get there without thinking of pilot fish cleaning a sharks teeth when she's French kissing. So she hires a professional. Michael has a lot on his shoulders. He hates escorting but has to do it to help his family pay the bills. But he likes Stella, and he can't afford to turn down the offer she gives him in order to help her. So he agrees to help her through the lesson plans she's created and then let her go to find the man she wants. But things get sticky. I'll leave the synopsis at that, but suffice to say, this was a super fun read and I loved it. Helen Hoang is funny. I laughed out loud so many times. But she's also real. In both The Kiss Quotient and The Bride Test there are times when I had a sort of epiphany. I'm white, which means that try as I might I won't ever really understand exactly what it is that minorities go through. I'm also neuro-normative (at least I think I am, I've never gotten tested), so I will never understand exactly what it is that non-neuro-normative people go through. How they have to deal with overstimulation, or obsessions, or compulsions, etc. But Helen Hoang brought those experiences to me through her writing. I won't ever understand exactly what it would be like, but I have a better understanding of it now than I did before. And I still got to enjoy a fun, sexy, hilarious book about love and all the issues that come with it. In short, read The Kiss Quotient. Then read The Bride Test. Then read The Heart Principle. And start adding books with diverse characters into your repertoire. It's worth it, and it will help make the world a better place. (And if you need help finding some, just ask me; I'm always willing to give out book recommendations). Happy Reading! Today, May 2, 2019, is Yom HaShoah. In English, that's Holocaust Memorial Day. For Jews such as myself, it is an important day because millions of Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and people with disabilities were systematically destroyed by Nazis. Jews were not the only group that were targeted by the Nazis, but as a people we make sure to remember the Holocaust and all the lives lost to hatred, xenophobia, and white supremacy. I am writing this blog post in part because even as we remember the lives lost in the Holocaust today, we also are dealing with rising levels of antisemitism, racism, and xenophobia throughout the world. A piece of evidence supporting this is the shooting at the Poway Chabad in California on Saturday, April 27. While this shooting did not result in as many fatalities as another recent synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, life was still lost. One of the underlying reasons for the shooting was antisemitism. Another was white-supremacy. These were also two reasons the Jews were targeted during the Holocaust.
On Monday I was having a conversation with a few other young Jews in my community about how this shooting and antisemitism affected us. One of the topics revolved around how we as Jews can communicate to our friends how an event like Poway affects us even when it's "small." After all, "only" one person died and a few others were injured. It wasn't like Pittsburgh when 11 people died, or the shooting at the Mosque in Christchurch New Zealand when 51 people died, or the bombs at Catholic churches in Sri Lanka where hundreds died. So Poway, in some ways, is not as big a tragedy and does not get as much media coverage and so people who are not in a Jewish community may not be speaking of it. But it is still very important to our lives. Every shooting or violent act against us is. So how can we communicate this to others without seeming whiny. Because it may not be a big deal to them, but it is very important to us. I suggested writing a blog where you don't just post about tragedies but use the blog to share your truth. Which is what I am trying to do with this blog. I am trying to share my truth through the books I read, the days I live, and the research/writing that I do. And since I gave such a lovely suggestion to a friend, I decided to take my own advice and write a blog. Especially since what happened at Poway is actually relevant to Yom HaShoah. The second topic that stuck with me from my conversation with other young Jews about Poway is the following question: do you feel safe or scared? And my answer for this question was, do I ever feel safe? I didn't go through the Holocaust. None of my immediate family did. All my grandparents, and even great grandparents were safely in the U.S. when the Holocaust happened. I have no personal stories (removed by a few generations) about the antisemitism, the ghettos, the concentration camps, the underground, the death. But I've read books, I've attended classes, I've met others whose grandparents lived through the Holocaust, or maybe didn't. And I grew up in a place where there were very few Jews in a town that was not necessarily Jew friendly. A few of the other people I was speaking with on Friday mentioned that they don't necessarily feel unsafe except when they go to synagogue and see the armed guards there. That's when they're reminded of the shootings. Or sometimes there's a phrase people say that's antisemitic and they're triggered. They don't really notice feeling unsafe. When I grew up, every high holiday there was a cop car at our synagogue. My parents taught me that I don't mention my Judaism unless its with friends. Friends who are established. As I grew older, this changed somewhat. But I almost always laughed off the antisemitic comments people made. It's safer that way. And when people start throwing up "Heil Hitlers" you just keep walking. I don't want you to think it was dangerous back then. It really wasn't. Incidents were very few and very far between. But while sometimes a small thing will trigger me now (it may not have meant anything, but if I see a shirt with a stormtrooper helmet on it saying "Support Our Troops" I'm going to walk in the other direction, maybe jog if it won't be conspicuous), I don't feel any more unsafe being a Jew, and happy to be a Jew, than I ever did. And after thinking about it, it is partly because I have always been afraid. Jews are white, and therefore don't have it as badly as other minorities in the U.S. We are still a minority and still victims of white-supremacy, but because many of us also have white skin (no, not all of us, and internal prejudice is still a major problem unfortunately) many of us also don't worry as much about being shot by the police. Right now. We don't necessarily fear that gentrification will push us out of our homes. We don't usually fear that someone will call the cops on us only because of the color of our skin. We still fear that someone is going to get it into their head that Jews have too much money. That Jews run the state through a grand conspiracy. That "if only the Jews were gone things would be better for us." Antisemitism is an interesting form of prejudice because it relies on the victims not looking like victims. If the Jews look like scapegoats, a people who are privileged but not quite privileged enough, then we can take the blame of everyone's problems. It has been like this since medieval times. It was key to the Pittsburgh shooting. And so we are still afraid. Balanced between privilege and prejudice we never know when the scales will tip. And so we are always afraid. Violence is on the rise. Terrorism based on white supremacy is becoming more blatant (it's always been high, we just didn't want to recognize it). And the overt trends in the U.S. are looking more and more like Nazi Germany. The U.S. has always had issues. The country was built on the attempted genocide of indigenous peoples and the slavery of African nations. It has benefited from the exploitation of non-whites at every point in its history and we sweep that fact under the rug. But now the U.S. is letting those actions become acceptable, even celebrated, with no attempt to cushion the blows. Now, the U.S. is scapegoating immigrants and asylum seekers. The Latinx communities are bearing the brunt of this now. Soon it may change. Scapegoats might once again be Jews. Or Muslims. Or Blacks. Or Indigenous Nations. Or Asians. Or Pacific Islanders. Or homosexuals. Anyone that doesn't fit with white-supremacy. It happened before. It seems to be happening again. And so we are always afraid. These have been my thoughts this week. And I hope that my truth has made you uncomfortable. Because discomfort inspires action. Think about what you see and hear around you. Be kind. Stand up to authority to take care of your neighbors. Do not be complacent. And maybe we will be able to be less afraid. Last year and this year I've been trying to increase my non-fiction reading repertoire (though I cheat a little bit and count memoirs as non-fiction, which is a debatable classification that I take full advantage of) because I prefer fiction to non-fiction. Part of this is because reading is at least a partial escape for me, and I don't really want to read about the real horrible things happening in the world. This is also why I prefer romances and fantasy with at least a mostly happy ending. Part of it is that non-fiction reads differently than fiction, and often the writing style in non-fiction books is one that often leaves me with glazed over eyes even when the topic is interesting. However, I do want to be well-informed and I don't want to push myself into a corner with my reading, so in 2018 and 2019 I've given myself the goal of reading at least one non-fiction (memoirs included) book per month. And for April 2019 I read The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game. Somewhat surprisingly (though I don't know why it would be a surprise as I like board games) the history of Monopoly is fascinating.
You see, the game itself was originally an argument against monopolies and, to some extent, capitalism. I won't go into the whole history but the game of origin was called The Landlord's Game and was invented by Lizzie Magie in 1904. It had two ways to play, monopoly style and non-monopoly style. As the game spread and people put their own spin on the game, including making homemade boards, it became known as the monopoly game, as the monopoly style was the one most used. But I'll let you read the book to get the whole story. ;) While it wasn't my favorite book ever to read, at this point I'm unsure whether a non-fiction book will ever receive that distinction for me, it was very interesting because it went about telling the history of Monopoly through the lens of a game developed in the 1970s (I believe the official date is 1977), Anti-Monopoly. The cool thing is, while I hadn't really noticed such a game before, I actually saw one today at the Labyrinth board game store in Washington D.C. I don't know if it's just because I read this book and so I noticed the game for the first time, or if the game had just never been sold in any of the stores I've purchased games from before, but it was really cool to see the Anti-Monopoly game, especially because this book made the topic so interesting. The Monopolists is written by a journalist, and therefore has a journalistic tone. That is, it tries very hard to be objective even though no human being can be completely objective. That being said, overall I think the book did a fairly good job of not overtly telling us that big corporations are jerks and shouldn't be trusted. It was surely implied, at least it was in my mind, but it wasn't an in-your-face statement. The book also increased my interest in trademark/copyright law (which is something I'll need to deal with at some point as an aspiring author anyway) and how since cases like the Anti-Monopoly case went through laws have changed to better protect the big corporations from their iconic products entering into the public domain. Mickey Mouse anyone? Overall, I enjoyed The Monopolists. I think it was well written, well researched, and the topic was quite interesting. I suggest it for anyone who is interested in the history of games, underdogs winning court cases, commentaries on current economic systems, and enthusiasts of the Monopoly game itself. If you end up reading it, or have a non-fiction book suggestion for me, let me know in the comments! Happy reading! So in case you didn't notice, I missed two weeks of posting, sorry about that. I believe I had a reasonable excuse for the first week though, because I totally felt like death. Whatever cold/flu whatever that was hitting the East coast of the USA (and might still be here) took me down hard. And it took all but one of my co-workers down at the same time. It was an interesting week at work, what with the chorus of hacks and nose blowing. Last week I was on the tail end of it all and probably should have posted but I lost track of time during the day and it just didn't happen. And that type of thing just kept happening throughout the whole week, so here we are.
I don't really have anything specific I want to write today. Not that I haven't been reading a lot and gathering up a lot of fodder for social commentary, but if I'm not in the right mood trying to discuss either of those is exhausting and I don't do it well. Case in point, someone asking about universal income at a dinner I was at, me saying we should abolish capitalism, and the conversation going nowhere because it was difficult for me to fully articulate why I think that. Keep in mind, I'm a budding leftist. I haven't read much of the material needed to bring up hard facts/figures off the top of my head, and most of my knowledge right now revolve around small facts that I learn and my feeling that the current system never really worked because if it had then why haven't we fixed the problems of poverty, starvation, and climate change yet? Look at the technology we have. Look at the number of videos on the internet about "this plate is fully compostable" or "this robot cleans the oceans" or "this shampoo has no plastic bottle." Yet, none of those initiatives seem to really get off the ground. Not to mention, individual pollution is minuscule compared to that of factories. Yet even though climate scientists have essentially said we're screwed if we don't fix this by 2050, I don't see a whole lot being done by companies to fix it. All of this combined with the fact that some studies show there are about five times as many empty domiciles for rent as there are homeless people in the US (Truthdig 2012), and that there are people in the US who are homeless but still work 40 hours a week(McCoy, 2019)...Well, that doesn't give me warm and happy feelings about capitalism. So even though I said I wasn't going to talk about it, I did. Go figure. The story told by McCoy? It was right across from my work building. I walk that stretch of road every day and see people in tents or huddled under blankets. I'm pretty sure I saw the altercation mentioned, when Monica was yelling at the clean-up crews. It was a few minutes before a conference call, I was dialing the number, and I looked out the window and saw a woman yelling at the people dragging her belongings away. It might not have been the woman referenced in the story; it might have been another person saying the same things. Another person who is trying so hard to keep on his/her/their feet but failing because the system we're in works against them. Some people may say that this system we're in is a bastardization of capitalism, and pure capitalism isn't like this. Pure capitalism will actually work. But I don't think that's true. And maybe it's partially because I haven't actually read Ayn Rand and just can't picture it. Maybe human beings are "just greedy" and the system isn't at fault. But what if it isn't that humans are "just greedy?" What if a system like capitalism, or at least the version we currently have, is the reason humans are "just greedy?" I see a system around us that rewards being greedy. It rewards looking out only for yourself. It rewards the hoarding of money (which by they way, is totally made up and doesn't actually mean anything unless you're in a system that forces it to mean something). And when you are rewarded for being greedy? Then that is what you become. And evolutionarily, those people who are "best" at being greedy and ignoring others? Well they're in prime position to reproduce. There's a reason the highest ratios of psychopathic traits are in CEOs. This turned into a very deep and dark post, and I apologize. But sometimes when I'm writing and can actually search for my references/facts I make better arguments. I do not want this to turn into an online argument. I just needed to express some of the inner worries and stresses of my life. Feel free to give your own opinions or point me towards other articles that support or don't support my views. Just don't turn it into an argument. Next week I'll have a happier topic. Maybe a book or movie review... Happy Reading! References: McCoy, T. (2019, March 22). Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness in the U.S. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com Truthdig. (2012) Vacant houses outnumber homeless people in the U.S. Retrieved from https://www.truthdig.com/articles/vacant-houses-outnumber-homeless-people-in-u-s/ This past weekend I read The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. A popular YA novel in its own right, it is also now a major motion picture. But before you decide to write it off as just another dystopian novel that got turned into a movie, I suggest you actually read the story (heck, I'll accept reading the synopsis on Amazon.com or listening to a family member or friend describe the plot to you).
First of all, this book is only as dystopian as our current society here in the United States of America. Now, for those of you who still think our country is the absolute greatest in the world, we're still living in a pretty dang dystopian society. And from my perspective, it's been getting worse for a number of years. But back to the novel. The gist of the novel, for those of you who didn't go and read the synopsis, is that it is the story of a black, teenage girl who witnessed one of her best friends getting shot by a police officer at a traffic stop. The boy who was shot was black. He was unarmed. He was not making any threatening moves to the police officer. That isn't a spoiler, by the way, because it all happens in the first few chapters. The rest of the book details the weeks that follow. Starr, the main character, has to navigate talking to the police after the "incident", dealing with gang activity in her neighborhood, trying to stay afloat in a private school where she is one of three black students, and deciding whether she should talk to the media about her, and her deceased friend's, side of the story. It is a commentary on racial tensions in the U.S.A. and the unacknowledged racism that is shoved down our throats every single day until it seems natural rather than learned. It is depressing, rage-inducing, and a book I think everyone should read (but especially white people, because we need to get our ish together). What I want to focus on today, though, is not how well-written and timely this book is. I'm not going to discuss anything related to a reference interview; sometimes I will, but not today. Today, I want to talk about a very specific sub-plot in the book between Starr and a classmate she used to think was a good friend, Hailey. Hailey has...issues. Hailey is, I think, what many white people are when they think they are being "good" but missing the point entirely. Now, Hailey says some very racist things throughout the course of the book. But when she's called out on it by Starr and others, she responds with an outraged, "I can't believe you're calling me racist!" Do you see the problem? It's not just in books. See, racism is systemic violence, and it is pretty much baked into every single day of our lives. Unfortunately, racism is framed as a personal failing of the individuals of our society. So rather than white people recognizing that something they said/did was racist and taking the necessary steps to stop saying/doing that racist thing, white people respond defensively and try to use logic to worm their way out of responsibility. This actually makes the whole situation worse, because the person who was the object of the words/act now has additional violence heaped on them because they are being told that their feelings do not matter, only white people's feelings matter. This is a subtle violence against minorities in some ways. It isn't something that is easily called out. After all, if all a white person has to do is say "But I'm not racist" to get out of taking responsibility, then what is the point of a minority even saying something? We even saw this issue in the recent congressional testimony of Michael Cohen (Lind, 2019), where a mention of a racist act by President Trump was conflated to be an accusation of racism. Regardless of your opinions about whether President Trump is or isn't racist (we're not going to get into it here), the pattern is the same. Rather than a discussion about how a white person could take responsibility for doing something racist and then make efforts to not do it again, it became a back and forth argument about how you shouldn't call someone racist. First, if someone is racist you should call them out on it. Second, that ignores the fact that racism is not a personal failing but a systemic problem. The Hate U Give gives us white people insight into how anyone can say/do something racist. It isn't the main point of the book, and is in fact a very small subplot, but I think it is just as important and ties into the broader theme. For example, characters in the book say that the cop who shot the black teenager wasn't racist, he was a nice guy, his life has been torn apart by this too. But why did he stop the kids in the first place? They weren't speeding. All that was wrong was a broken tail-light. How can that turn into a shooting? Because we are all trained to be racist by our society. And it is an active fight not to be. And even when you're fighting it, you can still do something racist. You can still say something racist. But what needs to happen then is not to get defensive about being a good person and not being racist. It is to accept that what you did was wrong and then take steps to make it better. And once you've done that, don't do it again. It isn't something you can say sorry for and then repeat. This is a longer post then I meant it to be, but I think that's what is so great about the book. The Hate U Give made me think, and it made me focus on things that I do and that I see others doing. It has given me a better awareness of my own prejudices, and I hope it has given me even greater motivation to watch what I say and do. The Hate U Give shows us some of the issues in our society in a well-written and accessible novel. I encourage everyone to read it and find their own lessons in its pages (it's also on audiobook *wink*). Happy Reading! References: Lind D. (2019).This Cohen hearing fight was everything wrong with how America talks about “racism”: An argument about whether Trump is “a racist” became a heated fight between House Democrats and Republicans. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/27/18243173/cohen-hearing-trump-racist-comments Thomas, A. (2017). The hate u give. |
AuthorThe author is a librarian who reads "too much" (is there such a thing?) and talks just as much. As an aspiring author she gets bogged down by grammar rules when she just wants to forget them to make a sentence flow, but never seems to be able to. She appreciates thoughtful comments and constructive criticism, but internet trolls beware, she's read enough fantasy novels to know how to defeat the monsters. Archives
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