The Information is in the Details

Have we lost our curiosity?

I remember the red. We sat on the floor -- 20 five and six year olds -- staring up at the pull down screen. The film projector whirred and clicked behind us, the light from the image catching the dust in the air. It was my first time. REVOLUTION. AMERICA. RED COATS. Funny outfits. Fascinating outfits. They were a long way way in time from my saddle shoes and yellow yarn hair ribbons. They were a long way in space too. My Long Island home seemed very far from this New England.

The second time...that I remember at least...my fifth grade teacher suggested that I go visit a mansion for sale in her neighborhood. "It's old. I think you'll like it. Ask your parents to take you." Not surprisingly, it was the details of the library in that old house that I remember. Books lined every wall. Columns punctuated corners. There was light streaming in from the windows at a perfect angle for any reader lucky enough to sit in the lemon yellow reading chair in the corner. The smell of mold permeated. "That is the smell of old," I thought. "People lived here and now they are gone. Who got to read in that chair?"

Slowly throughout my childhood I took in the details. The dust catching the light of the movie projector was the same dust that got caught up in the sunlight of the old house. It was the same dust I saw when I hung upside down on my parents bed to look at the ceiling. Books were everywhere. (It helped that mom brought me to the public library every week to help develop my healthy appreciation of books.) Reading was everywhere. I read signs and cereal boxes. Signs of life and ideas were everywhere. Someone had written a symbol in the wet cement of my childhood driveway when it was first poured. It was there before my family. "Why did someone put it there?"

The details of the pines at Lake Massabesic in Manchester, NH
are inspiring. It's the details that awaken our curiosity.

My curiosity drove me to look for the information in the details. Curiosity lead to more curiosity and eventually discovery. But now, I am beginning to wonder, is our first stab at life in the 21st century killing our curiosity? Do we notice the details any more? Have our kids ever noticed the details? I watch people walk by informative signs every day. I watch readers power through or struggle with passages without picking up another resource that helps explain the parts that are not understood. I watch spring flowers pop and hear the birds chirping. I stop to listen and look for more. The information is in the details. The learning is in the details. Do other people stop to look and listen?

Information resources can be like the whipped cream on top of the sundae. It adds a little extra something sweet. OR, information resources can be the chunks of chocolate deep within the ice cream of that sundae. When you dig, you find something extra special.

I think that we may be forgetting this. I think that many of us are not teaching our kids this. My kid is creating creative videos and doing a lot of writing on a tablet these days. Despite how awesome it is that she is creating, we require her to come up for air to go for nature walks, play ball, visit a museum or just play outside. I may be one of the biggest fans of digital information tools and social media that I know, I am still concerned about losing "real life" and a real sense of history to it. I am worried that my kid does not get enough of it.

I think that we are forgetting that it is worth digging beyond the surface sweetness to find the true nuggets that make our lives meaningful and connect us to our communities of the past, present, and future. In my field, "who lived here before me?" is only adequately pondered when striving to take in the details. I don't care who built this house if I just live here. That is, many of us don't care who lived here unless the basement floods. Then we wonder, "what crazy person built the home on a flood plain?" Instead, I'd rather ponder the question every day. "Who looked out these windows before me? Did they hear the birds singing too? Were they the same kinds of birds?"

To understand information and its value as a whole, one needs to be curious about the details. We gain that curiosity by paying attention. We are taught to pay attention by our encounters in life. If our children bury their noses in iPads all day, they don't get a chance to encounter life. What information are we then losing? What sense of purpose are we losing?

Recognizing Your Sense of Place

The catalogs have started coming in the mail, shaking me out of those feelings of frozen isolation. They remind me that, indeed, spring is coming. It may not be here as soon as I want it to be, but the soil I like to run through my fingers is sleeping and preparing itself for me. The yard that I have grown to love so deeply because it is MY yard is still there. Winter makes me feel off kilter sometimes, but when I remind myself that the place is as it should be and that it is growing and changing with me, I feel more stable. I now have those gardening catalogs to help remind me to hang on to that gardener identity and remember what is important to me during the ups and downs of the season.

I am honestly tired of looking out the windows of my home to see the evergreens holding their needles tightly and the rhododendrons curling their flat leaves into long, thin finger like protuberances. I am tired of gray and snow. I feel done with the smell of cold. (Do you too know that feeling that gets into your nose and tickles it until you swear that cold does have an odor?) On a snow day home from school two weeks ago I lit a fire in my fireplace and kept it blazing all day long, with a blanket on the recliner, a cat on my feet and computer in my lap. For once, I was glad that my MacBook tends to run hot. Hot coffee is extra appreciated when you wake up and the thermometer reads -2 degrees fahrenheit. But, it's those catalogs -- no, it's the thought of those catalogs -- that really helps me get through it all.

Last week, I bought some frost damaged plans at Home Depot. Large, beautiful plants were on sale for $5. With a pretty good green thumb, I knew that a little pruning was all that was necessary to turn them right. I brought the greenery -- beautiful symbolic greenery -- home and trimmed it up. I have kept the new plants isolated from my old for about a week now to make sure I don't have any bugs or diseases that can contaminate the rest. I was right. The plants are luscious. (Is that the right word?) I'm heading back to Home Depot for some more. This time, I hope to gather up some $5 plants to decorate my school library. My assistant suggested adding plants for a more homey feel and she's right, that's exactly what this place is missing.

I have lived in three houses in my lifetime. I have lived in two dorm rooms and four apartments. They became "home" as soon as I hung a picture on the wall and as soon as I brought a plant into the space. That's what makes me feel at home. I like homes with views of greenery. It can be a public park or a manicured yard. I like work spaces with books and art. My office must have a picture of flowers. I love flowers because they make me feel grounded. They make me feel like me. I recognize that wherever I am, whatever time of year it is, I can focus on that feeling of being connected to a space. Then, I know I am alright.

It is when I un-tether from our surroundings that I feel out of sorts. I try to bring my sense of place with me. Where are those flowers around here? Where is the art work and books? Where are the signs of nature mixing with man's hand that remind me of communities and my role? I have done so much reading, thinking and writing about sense of place that I now very consciously seek it. I recognize it wherever I go. I can find it whenever I need it. I seek to mold the idea of my surroundings to what I need it to be. Recognizing my sense of place makes me feel part of something bigger. It ties me to the history and communities to which I have dedicated my life as an archivist and information professional.

I wonder...What do you recognize as integral to your own sense of place? Do you have times that you feel detached and out of sorts? Does paying more attention to your surroundings help you shake the winter doldrums too? 

Young Adults, Sense of Place and Archives

ArchivesInfo has always promoted the idea that archives provide a foundation for building a sense of community. Using information as a resource for social connections and understanding can be applied in any environment. My school experience is a reflection of this in action.

I spent much of the first term as the new information specialist at a local high school, building a sense of place. Sense of place does not always come naturally. Sometimes it needs to be molded and focused, and cultivated to reflect this idea. To begin to create that feeling in our library, I've re-arranged the room a bit; I've hung posters and created exhibits aiming to get students to think about our library as the heart of our community; And, of course, I've started a school Archives.

There is A LOT going on in this very busy environment at the physical center of the school. We are building tech opportunities as well as focusing on the "traditional." But my focus here is on building a sense of place -- with a goal to make the physical center the metaphorical heart of our education.We aim to create a comfortable, enriching environment. This, I believe, adds to a feeling of community and certainly to the sense of place. In addition to trying to provide educational opportunities in diverse forms all around our room, we fill our display cases each month with exhibits focused on building community.  (Let me know if anyone is interested in the "educational opportunities" aspect and I can talk more about that specifically in a future post.)

• In September our first exhibit involved using mind-mapping to envision the library as a community space. 
• In October, we built an exhibit about Archives Month that introduced the idea of school archives. 
• In November, we focused on food traditions and encouraged students to dig up their own food memories and recipes. 
• In December we introduced a pen pal project with the Teen Center in Botswana where we will be connecting our community with one in Africa to explore a different culture and get to know people from across the world. 
• We are now focused on our favorite books. In December we encouraged teachers and students to create a holiday chain that listed their favorites. I've made a list of them, have ordered ones we don't have here, and made an exhibit with the help of my staff. With the help of this current project, and through surveys and collection development, we have added materials for all levels of library users. We are aiming for diverse educational resources to tap the needs, and spark the interests, of as many students as possible.

We aim to reflect the soul of our community and that's where the archives really shine. An archives committee, currently made up of just a couple of students and staff, is working to build a collection that focuses on our building. The building was constructed in 1965, so we are preparing for a 50th anniversary celebration. We are collaborating with the local historical society and have visited their collections to get a sense of where we, as a school community, fit in our larger town community. I'm trying to have students think of our school as just one ring among all the communities in which they participate. An alum contacted me about a blogging project his graduating class is building. We will be reaching out to them. We plan to conduct oral histories and ask the people in the town about their memories of the school and to see if they have materials related to the high school's place in the community. I hope that the project will spread to other schools as well and I will meet regularly with other school librarians to tie our respective educational communities together on an informational resource / sense of place level.

I have a sign on my office door that says, "Libraries are in the curiosity business." I hope that when one enters a space encouraging exploration that also reflects ties to the past -- a place that shows its roots AND a forward movement -- that one feels energized. I leave little "sparks" around the library with the hope that I can ignite students' interests, whatever they might be. I aim show them that no matter the subject in which they have an interest, there are learning opportunities to grasp. I want students to remember this place as one where they felt safe and free to learn beyond the classroom and that their experiences here will help them build an enriching life where they recognize opportunities for lifelong learning. The long-range plan is coming and this will continually be a work in progress.

Sense of Place: Disorientation, Excitement, Nostalgia

Yesterday, I served as the moderator of a session titled "Creating Your Career: Alternatives to Traditional Employment" at the autumn New England Archivists' conference. I was excited to be returning to the school from which I received my Master's 20 years ago. I hadn't been on campus in 15 years. In fact, when I was last at Simmons College, they didn't really have a campus. I was familiar with the main building and a parking lot that was a constant cause of consternation. Parking was precious with not nearly enough space to accommodate the student body. Though I knew that Simmons had a great school of management and other programs in different buildings, it was as if those schools were not really part of my own since we were separated by architectural design.

I pulled into the underground parking lot and found a space with ease. The trip down from New Hampshire was smooth, though my sense of direction was not. Everything looked different. New businesses and construction confused me and I ended up driving out of my way to get where I was going. I was already feeling disoriented when I exited the parking garage and went up the elevator to a quad area. Simmons actually has a real campus now with buildings for the different schools connected by an outdoor area. A shiny new building greeted me for my conference across the way. It was clean, light, and full of glass. "Wow! This is MY school." I felt proud of the leaps my "little" school has taken in the past couple of decades. But I also felt a little old and disconnected. I realized that there was a definite generation gap between current students and my generation.

Having arrived early, I worked my way up to the library. It was basically my second home for one and a half years. I took an elevator up, admired the archives on display outside the information center and wandered in. Computers were everywhere, which was not unexpected. Comfortable sitting areas, clean tables, carpeting, and more showed off the best side of library science. Unlike MY Simmons library, this one comfortably combined resources for all of Simmons' schools. I wondered how students could really get the full impact of a cataloging class by sitting in such a cushy space. I was nostalgic for the hard tables and chairs surrounded by shelves of Library of Congress cataloging guides.  I had a deja view moment when I passed a copier. Something was familiar. Was this part of the old design? (Having a lousy sense of direction and less than stellar spacial relation skills, I couldn't be sure.)

Simmons College graduation day, 1993.

The student body seemed very young. I was the youngest person in the program when I attended Simmons. It now seemed like everyone wandering the halls was in her/his early twenties. That is, everyone looked young until I passed another woman looking as dazed and confused as I felt. "Wow, this place has changed," she muttered. She had the poised, intellectual look of a well-informed librarian. She was working her way through the conference with a sense of professional grounding, I think. I knew that she was seeking a few pointers that she might have missed along the way. She was not bouncing from program to program quickly taking as many notes as she could to figure out who she wanted to be and what path she would follow to launch her archives career. "When did you graduate?" I asked. "1992," she responded. "Hmmm...do we know each other?" No. But we both knew that we shared the same sense of place. We were part of the same Simmons community with a sense of place that differed from many others at the conference that day.

Then, I reached it. I stood in the main entryway of the old Simmons building that I knew so well. It  looked virtually the same. The old architecture greeted me with open arms. I felt markedly more relaxed and thought, "I'm so glad they left you intact." This was/is MY Simmons. This was the hall that held my memories and I could practically hear the voices of my generation beating from the walls. I welcome change, but I am once again reminded of the importance of memory and sense of place. They are so intricately woven into our sense of self. They are part of the thread of our history. Sense of place is a delicate thing. Markers reminding us of where we have been help ground us and let us walk confidently into our future.

I entered the lecture hall. I was ready to share what I could to help this new generation, with their new sense of place, to find their own confident stride.

Understanding My World through Curiosity

Curiosity is part of human nature. We can feed our curiosity
and build our understanding of the world by pursuing
information in a wide variety of formats and fields.

While listening to NPR this morning, I was intrigued by a story about the Mars rover that is set to touchdown on Monday morning EST, next week. Aptly named, "Curiosity," the rover will expand our understanding of the universe, life and the context of our lives in that universe.

Adam Steltzner, the entry, descent and landing team leader for the rover mission, was highlighted in the radio program "Morning Edition." Below, I've pasted some copy from the Crazy Smart:When a Rocker Designs a Mars Lander story transcript. Steltzer discusses his teen years when he was a less than stellar student and was told by his Dad that he wouldn't "amount to anything but a ditch digger...." 

Finding Purpose In The Stars

But then something happened. As Steltzner tells it, he was on his way home from playing music at a club one night when he became fascinated with the stars, especially the constellation of Orion.

"The fact that it was in a different place in the sky at night when I returned home from playing a gig, than it had been when I'd driven out to the gig," he said. "And I had only some vague recollection from my high school time that something was moving with respect to something else, but that was it."

As crazy as it sounds, that experience was enough to motivate him to take a physics course at the local community college. That did it. He was hooked.

The fog of sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifted. He had to know all about the laws that govern the universe. The rocker wound up with a doctoral degree in engineering physics.

"I was totally turned on by this idea of understanding my world," Steltzner said. "Engineering gave me an opportunity to be gainfully employed [and] really understanding my world with these laws and equations that governed it."

Finding Purpose in Life through Information

Earlier this week, on my new office door in the school library, I posted two signs. One says, "Libraries are in the curiosity business." The other says, "Curiosity and creativity are cousins." As I looked for ways to describe my library vision to my students, the word "curiosity" has come up again and again. I realize that, no matter what lights a spark for a person, it is that person's curiosity about the subject that will propel them to learn more about it. 

I asked a teen who was helping me shelve books this week what his areas of interest are. He told me that he likes working with motors. I told him about my husband who recently took apart bits of his motorcycle and rebuilt it. I told him about the plane that he is building. He began asking questions. He was curious. I was working to make the connections between bits of information that he might be able to use to better understand and appreciate his world. I am prepared to help him find books on the subject during the school year should the opportunity arise.

The idea of finding a subject that would "motivate" a rocker to become an engineer and that would "hook" him, has inspired me. How do I get across the idea that information is fun? How do I motivate teens and help them realize that research can be a key to finding purpose in life? Maybe as an information specialist I am not motivated to take apart an engine, but I am excited by someone else's excitement about it. I am excited about finding the information that will help someone succeed. I am excited about connecting a person to the information that helps one better understand himself and his world in any productive way that is possible. 

With expertise in archives, my understanding of my world is usually guided in some way by my interest in primary sources. How do people leave their marks on society? How do we share our thoughts and ideas? How do others use our thoughts and ideas? What do we learn from one another? How do we pass on our knowledge and the culture that we develop from it? How does material culture reflect our attempts to understand who why are and why we are here? How have others helped mold my world? What have earlier communities set up for me so that I can make my own mark on society?

I am fascinated about how we each "understand" our place differently. Yet, sense of place, sense of purpose, and sense of self can be found in any study of culture, science, arts, or mathematics... Despite the diversity of information, it is all is connected. "Understanding my world" involves finding a pursuit that leads one down a path guided by curiosity.