And thanks to my friend, James Ascher, an amazing librarian, I found this blog post I’d overlooked last week, Virtual Dave’s “Bullet Point: “We live in Shakespearian Times.”

Dave discusses the challenges we face in the field and ponders how he (and anyone) can stay optimistic. He writes,

As I go around the country I encounter too many librarians who see the vision, who embrace change, but have grown too tired and discouraged to hope again. They are quieted by the scars of past optimism.

A little further down he says,

Between the Annoyed Librarians of the world and the perceived resistance to change in the field, isn’t it all just a lost cause? How can we overcome? How can we continue to step over the ruble of past initiatives, and broken momentum, and ignore the anticipation of disappointment while once again stepping into the firing line of positive change?

His answer is encouragement. I hope you’re right, Dave. And, here’s what I’d like to share with you– your post gave me (and James, and many others) encouragement. Thank you. I hope that in some small way I can return the favor some day.

I was inspired to read someone remind us that,

As I have said before, we too often undersell the importance and raw power of what we do. We are a nobel[sic] profession. We don’t shelve books, and change toner cartridges – we maintain an infrastructure for social action. We don’t reference resources, and catalog artifacts – we teach and inspire.

Right now our city is undergoing a budget cutting process that I feel does not take into account what place the library holds in the community. We also have other departments who are trying to assert increasing influence over service provision and even website content. Too often I’ve heard us referred to as “a city department”. Yes– we are a city department, but more imporantly we’re also a part of something much larger. I’ve found it hard to resist despair over this even while biting my tongue about it publically.

I want us to advocate, I want us to not take it lying down. These words confirmed for me that my instincts are probably right. Why should we be quiet about what happens to us? Why should we wait on other department’s decisions? Why don’t we feel that we have the right to be as outspoken for ourselves as the rest of the city? This is Boulder, and this is the Wild West– our culture here is to not take things lying down. Our meetings go on forever because we have a history of vibrant citizen advocacy. We should embrace that history and acknowledge that we are a part of it.

Audacious action has worked for libraries before. I think of the Seattle Public Library closings as just one example.

So I end with the paragraphs the inspired me to write this post. Inspired to me to face the next week with optimism. Because I don’t think I can say it any better than Dave did:

So too can librarians overcome the crushing forces of mediocrity and cynicism – but we must believe that we can.

Faced with the enormities of these tasks – terrorism, economic disaster, apathy – standing up at a meeting and speaking truth to power? Simple. Faced with the real issues we must face – I can take on the added committee assignment, or backhand comment. How do I stay optimistic? I realize first the issues I face are miniscule to the good I can do. How do I get inspired to face intransigence, or laziness, or ineptitude? I look right past them at the real goal, and those who really need me.

Block me, and I will go around you. Build a wall, and I will build a door. Lock the door and I will break a window. And if I don’t have have a leader to inspire me, I will lead. If I don’t have a team that will support me, I will recruit a team from beyond the organizational boundaries – every policy has a loophole, every system has a hidden reward.

I’m gathering up my saw, screwdriver, hinges, and some wood-screws. Let’s build some doors together!

Ok, Ok. The meme has inhaled me. I can hold off no longer. I’ve been tagged on Facebook too many times and even on Twitter, some of my favorite tweeps insist I cannot escape.

So, you probably know the drill by now:

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your home page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.

Of course, like my friend the fabulous Colleen, I chose to break the rules and just post it in my blog so I can share it around to Friendfeed (oh yeah, I should check that site once in a while, shouldn’t I?) and other digital places I once had time to visit. (Remember me, teh Internet? Oh hai!)

1. I am the Brewin’ Librarian…. but I rarely have time to brew any more. I hate to confess this, but in the last two years I’ve probably only made about four batches of beer (and one didn’t turn out well– first time in 10 years!). Also, I drink more red wine than beer these days, and except for at conferences, I don’t actually drink very often at all.

2. From the time my daughter was 2 until she was 7 I was a single dad. I didn’t really know that much about parenting or children, but I worked hard and asked a *lot* of questions and she seems to have turned out alright. =)

3. During that same time I returned to school as a “non-traditional student” and received my undergrad in political science. I did this mostly to live off of student loans so that I could keep my parenting schedule open and flexible. I was fairly unfocused at the time but was tired of sales and restaurant management and needed a change.

4. When I first went into library school, I knew I loved libraries but I wasn’t entirely sure it was the right field for me. I primarily did so to avoid paying off my massive undergrad debt (see above). However, I have since found that librarianship has brought happiness and a fulfillment to my life that is only rivaled by being a dad (although libraries are still distant second to that).

5. I am a certified ballet Dad. When my daughter was younger, she was very interested in ballet and I did everything I could to support it. I swallowed my pride and asked for scholarships, I moved my own school/work schedule around hers, and I learned more than I thought I’d ever know about an art form previously bewildering to me. On the day before her first recital, she accidentally tore off some of the sequins from the bottom of her tutu. Although I can’t sew for the life of me, I sat in a restaurant that day, sewing up a child’s lavender tutu and did a pretty damn good job of it. I consider this one of my greatest accomplishments.

6. I got my first computer at age 12, it was one of those old TRS-80s with 4k RAM that you had to program in BASIC, and run off of a cassette drive. Later, I took it apart and upgraded it to a whopping 16K RAM.

7. For years I was part of the “Elite” BBS hacker scene. I ran a series of BBS boards, founded and ran a network of BBSes that spanned 7 countries. However, I was never a “black hat” type hacker, I was only ever interested in learning what cool things I could do with a computer or network– I’ve never caused any harm. This was WAY before the Internet.

8. However, once I heard of the Internet, like every good little hacker, I promptly managed to “borrow” an unused Washington University student’s account to gain access. This was before you could purchase an account. As soon as I could purchase Internet access, I did so, mostly because I had drifted away from the hacking and BBS scene by then anyway.

9. Like most computer geeks, my diet growing up was terrible. I could probably eat pizza three times a day. Sadly, although I struggle with this, my diet still has not improved as much as I’d like it to.

10. I have memorized the lyrics to probably hundreds of songs. I seem to have a knack for it. People used to joke that I could pull out a song for any occasion. I know the lyrics because when I’m alone in my car, or with my daughter, I sing constantly. However, I *highly* doubt you’ll ever hear me singing in public. Last year at Internet Librarian, I was positively mortified at the thought of doing karaoke. Well… until I saw Stephen Abram’s video.

11. If I had my way, all schools, offices, government buildings, etc. would start their business day at 10am, not at 8. Starting the day at 8am is just uncivilized.

12. I am addicted to coffee. And no, I don’t see it as a problem. I have done the research and as far as I can tell the one Mocha I have to start each day is having very little negative effect on my health. I keep it pretty strictly at one Mocha a day. If you see me drinking a latte in the afternoon or evening, look out– I’m getting ready to party!

13. I am gaming librarian partially because I feel it is a professional obligation. In truth, while I enjoy games, I really don’t feel like I have enough time to be gaming a lot. However, I do enjoy Civilization IV to the point where I have to watch myself from being sucked in for 2 days straight.

14. I love technology, but I don’t think it’s nearly as important as being nice to each other, having clean air, providing affordable health care, etc. Perspective, people, perspective!

15. I grew up in an extremely backwards Pentecostal church that not only believed that the world was going to end in 1989 (it didn’t) but hated homosexuals, people of color, etc. To this day, I am pretty suspicious of religions.

16. Because I didn’t fit into my surroundings as a child, I spent hours and hours and hours in the library. Eventually my reading habits caused me to be kicked out of the house. I left home at age 17 and slept under the bleachers of my high school football stadium. I went to school every day and work every night because I knew education was my future. I graduated from high school with honors.

17. Although I’m an old school punk rocker from the 80s, somehow I ended up going to about 8 or 9 Grateful Dead shows before Jerry died, and I’ve been to more Phish shows than I can count. I don’t like to just be stuck in one box—musically, or otherwise.

18. I spent about 10 years of my life essentially “homeless”. During this time I was neither destitute and most of the time I was not miserable. I was exploring the possibilities of alternative lifestyles and gathering material for writing. I’ve slept in abandoned buildings, tents, caves, in trees, vacant lots, you name it. I met an amazing array of people and traveled almost all of the country during this time. I took temporary jobs in whatever town I landed in– often day labor positions– and learned about a side of America few understand.

19. Despite my amount of traveling, I have never been to “the South” other than (grudgingly) Texas and Florida.

20. I grew up during the height of the great 80s punk rock scene. I saw Black Flag, Naked Raygun, Big Black, the Circle Jerks, MDC, Operation Ivy, and a slew of other bands in tiny little clubs. I used to party with the Smashing Pumpkins when they were nobody. Still to this day I can’t resist getting into the mosh pit when a good band comes around– I just do it wearing a black suit instead of a spiked leather jacket.

21. I rode a skateboard daily from age 9 until age 25. I used to be pretty good– just on the edge of competition quality until the 90s broke open a whole new class of tricks. A couple of years ago, I pretty much gave it up. It hurts a lot when I hit the concrete now and between that and my bad knees and ankle it’s just not as much fun anymore.

22. To make up for my loss of skateboarding, when I moved to Colorado about 9 years ago I took a job at the local ski resort for the first winter before I went back to a “real” job. I learned to snowboard and in one season progressed from a total novice to a back-country junkie. I still love it, although I’ve slowed down a bit and stick mostly to ski resorts and the blue and black runs.

23. When I was 18, my Grandma (who was not a part of our crazy church and did her best to expose me to other things) took me to what is now the former Yugoslavia for my high school graduation present. Her parents had come to the U.S. in the early 1900s from there and spoke Serbo-Croatian in the home. We both wanted to see the place our family came from. It was lovely, and the people were kind. But when I spoke to the young punks and anarchists over there, they warned me that trouble was brewing. Two years later, the country was torn apart by civil war.

24. One of the most profound experiences of my life was getting off the plane in communist Yugoslavia and realizing that the people, and their way of life, were really no different. To this day, I remain stubbornly unconvinced that capitalism is always “good” and that communism is always “bad”.

25. Although I always expected to be a writer. I found that the truth is…. I hate to write. I feel like my vocabulary is poor and my ideas predictable, and I just hate making myself sit down and slogging it all out. That’s why my blog is lonely and this list took forever. =)

Tag! You’re it!