Sorta Prose,
Sorta Poetry:
Announcing Library News
at the Annual Meeting, 2003
Now it's time to talk about HBLL transitions, new positions, migrations, mutations, modulations, a strange range of changes, alterations, variations, the moving and grooving behooving some of us to discuss how we made refinements, adjusted alignments, or changed assignments. Or may-bee had a baby. Or tarried to get married.
And with good memories inside, we should mention with pride those who went over to the other side: Chad for goodness Flake, and Roy Daniel in the Daniel's Den. And then there are other things that we the living under-went, which I shall now present. Time is not ample for me to give more than just a random sample.
Erva has always been in a Rieske business, but now she will take a trek across the LAO deck within the bibliotheque from being Secretary Exec to helping with Human Resources, that's a euphemism for Employment Forces, a term inspiring that means hiring and firing.
Heybron, the master of the phrase and the quote, gave himself an antidote for all that inquiring by retiring.
Since Bob Maxwell got together his facts well, having written a guide on how to abide with authority work, (though it's easy to see, many rebel against authority), anyway what I'm trying to point toward is that Bob received the Highsmith Library Literature Award. This honor happened one day real pronto at the ALA in Toronto.
Olsen, comma, Chris, we shall miss, as he moves from Interlibrary Loan to a more northerly zone, He's going to get his professional kicks in a place we used to call Ricks. At BYU of Idaho, he will oh-versee the production, reconstruction and lye-po-suction of a program for library use instruction.
Roger McFarland has moved himself and his recollections from part-time in Special Collections, to a full-time slot he got in Access Service, a euphemism that should make you nervous. No way he can relax: his job is to manage the stacks.
I know not if Sorensen, comma Ti'Ata, drives a Miata, but she is moving smartly from partly-time to full-time, earning an extra dime from the LAO budget miser as the new ILL Borrowing Supervisor.
Och hvad ska vi säga om Dorie ThomSEN (Assistenta i Departmentet av Circulationarna)? Hon ska gå från Provo till Salt Lake City-OH till Chicago till Norge...Oh, excuse the French in which I'm intrenched, I meant to say something about Norway; Dorie Thomsen with her husband, who's in the department of Communications, (Departmentet av Kommunikationarna), will circulate this Fall to a fjord, where we hope she won't get bored.
He who manages the circulating of each book was given a second look by the BYU Evening MBA program.To the library Andy Spackman will come back, man, but not in the PM every per diem the normal way, ‘cuz he's studying for the MBA.
The department Assistant for Excess Services, Jennifer Stoker, married some bloker named Hope less than a week after the demise of one of those great guys, Bob Hope.So are things hopeless now? Nope! Jennifer will tell you, there's always new Hope. Hopes springs eternal. The Hope name reminds me: one of our former catalogers, Anne Hope, is now in Illinois, mother of a girl and mother of a boy. And has found professional joy.
Marv Wiggins, whose first bicycle was built by JC Higgins, went on a tear as Social Science Department Chair, and that lasted 17 years. It's over, so now we can shed our tears. But there are always new mountains to climb, so he shall do the thing divine: become Interim Coordinator of the Information Literacy Section and Chair of the LIIL Committee. He's never been toBarbados, but this year he survived Nebraska tornados.
Brian Champion this October will fly on over to Oklahoma, which is between Sonoma and Roma, where he will hold forth and hold fifth on "Creation of the Covert Iran Contra Air Supply to Central America". Why dig up this scandal, the political vandal? Okay, mistakes were made, but no politician ever paid. Every day, Brian drinks at a steady pace ½ case of Pepsi, which can lead to carbo-sucrose-pepsi-lepsy. If you're not convinced he has a seamy side, you should read the Encyclopedia of Murder and Homicide, in which is a particle of his article.
If Tom Wright seems uptight, it's only his fright, it's only the plight of becoming a troglodyte, I mean, becoming new Department Chair, so beware. Annually Tom sails a boat about on Lake Michigan and backpacks Havasupai in the Grand Canyon. This proves him a true Junior Ranger, since (switching it around) sailing on the Grand Canyon or backpacking on Lake Michigan might present a degree of danger.
Connie Lamb has a plan. The plan is for a symposium in an auditorium, she'll bring the fling next spring and with it an exhibit on 20th Century Mormon Women. Since according to the moon and sun we're in Century 21, this will require the retrospective fun of looking back at least four years , but not all the way back to the pioneers. Connie has a tortoise named "Teddy" who is always and ever ready to eat her garden produce, such botanical abuse, but I deduce if she can wait ‘til the season is late, Teddy will hibernate in a Tortoise bed under her shed this winter.
Brenda Harrison, on the Office Professionals Advisory Committee (o-p-a-c) reminds us: OPAC is an acronym and synonym for more than just an online catalog. Brenda endured the building of another home with builders straight out of Mad Max and ThunderDome.
Management and Econ has undergone change, whereupon, Jared Howland became Department Assistant, coexistent and equidistant from Science Ref, where his wife Shiloh puts on a similar show to and fro. Jared will stress progress toward the MLS by studying through the online nexus of the University of North Texas, and hopes by being utilitarian to grow up to be a real live librarian.
Speaking of real librarians who are also committee experimentarians, Kirk Memmott took a trek, oh my heck to UCLA, USC, and Cal Tech to get the specs on what is an "Information Commons," and learned from librarian grammarians that it is politically incorrect and not a fair jab to call it:"a glorified computer lab."
Dianne King is serving full swing as Federal Relations Liaison for ULA; I can't say what a Federal Relations Liaison does, but she has been happily married for 43 years. She gets her kicks from picnics and Mexican food, and so for her the perfect lark would be chimichangas in the park.
What's the mystery behind family history? Howard Bybee was an artiste at attending conferences in the East and then he flew without further ado to the debut of his son's wedding in Oahu. Diane Parkinson lectured twice, very nice, at the BYU Genealogy Conference, and, people talk that she's been moving 30 tons of landscape rock with barely a squawk in a 5 gallon bucket all summer and spring. Hey, if that's her thing, you can just call her the "Rock Lady" or "Rocky."
Kayla Willey was ULA President this year.The topic she picked for the ULA conference was: Catch the Big Information Fish @ Your Library... (use hand gestures) Some of the related slogans that she wisely rejected included the following: (1) "It Doesn't Take a Brain Sturgeon to Know Library Users Want Caviar;" (2) "Reel In Those Spotted Surf Suckers With Internet Access;" and (3 )"If Something is Rotten in the State of Librarianship, There is About Zero Doubt Your Information Trout Have Been Out on the Shelf Too Long."
Janet Bradford endured some cure and grew back her coiffure and went on tour with the Mormon Tabernacle Jazz & Blues, Gospel & Inspirational choir this summer. (With a straight or a bent instrument her husband can blare with the Orchestra there atTemple Square). She also presented a paper at Mountain Plains Music Library Association in Lincoln Nebraska about BYU Film Music Archives' that was so good, so full of apropos-hood, everyone agreed she should and could take and make her words shake and bake for the sake of the national meeting, so next year she'll belt it out inside the D.C. beltway her way.
This fall, David Day will not stay with us every day, nay; his task, per se, will be to survey and weigh each dossier he's filed away on his disserta-tion. A habitué of the research way, he will display the cachet of a true multi-word soufflé, a buffet of things musicological to say.
Myrna Layton works in Music and Dance, and cares to enhance her finesse with an MLS to be gotten from the University of Wisconsin. There is a latent tendency for Laytons to be librarians, for daughter Nancy also works at one of the positions that makes Acquisitions.
Sherry Wadham's time in Music and Dance is expiring, as she will be retiring at the end of October and moving over to a life of ease, if you please. For library perspective, it would be effective but scary to talk to Sherry; her fix on library politics goes back as far as 1956.
Now let's talk Science, which deals with ions and sea lions and environmental non-compliance and dandelions, you know, Science. Danielle Lawson, who's awesome, is moving on up to the ominous Information Commonus.
Christensen, comma, John, whose alter ego is Kenobi, comma, Obi-Wan, and who often flies unseen to the planet of Tatooine, has agreed to assume responsibility for the Sampler Room.
Richard Jensen, I should mention, is simply overjoyed that the Reference Team Report has gone into the void, that is to say, the Reference Team Report, not particularly short, can now cavort without further committee support inside a file to be extracted when its needs are most impacted.
Randy Ward wields a dandy sword against greed in our nation in the business of publication with his take on Scholarly Communication. An article of his sings the blues in College & Research Libraries News, and it might well adhere to the phrase cavalier: "I shed no tear for Elsevier."
Willie Baer has been spun and spinned by the Information Commons whirlwind, enough to rotate him off from Strategic Planning (sometimes known as Futuristic Gold Panning or Lifetime Career Spanning). He's also been involved in a caper involving a white paper on scholarly communications.
And now the time is near for you to cheer to the ionosphere the most sincere and endearing news of the year! Ta-ta-ta-da! It's so exciting, I couldn't even find a word to rhyme with the new department name:"General Services." No longer need we plead for less specificity, less authenticity, more simplicity, more elasticity than "General Reference."I know you'll say: it's an umbrella, fella, under which a number of things can occur. I concur. So now we can refer specifically to "General Services."
Don Howard was tired, so he retired, and will have no problems with lumbago in San Diego.
Thereupon, Sandy Tidwell did well to replace him as the Reference Specialist.
And Maralyn Harmston from her own room will assume, you bet yer sweet patootie, most of Sandy's 1st Year Writing duty.
Cyndee Frazier is the trayzhur who was insistent on becoming Department Assistant last November. Remember?
Meanwhile, Keith Stirling, a whirling dervish, has moved beyond database yields to greener fields.
As this presentation further unravels, let's talk about...travels.One of the scoops is Helen Hoopes' vacation in Nigeria.She wasn't suffering from deliria, but went to Nigeria as the ultimate answer (believe it and weep, this stuff is deep) to Ask a Librarian.This particular Nigh-jairian, a neo-Mormon good and true, now works in the library at BYU with Scott Eldredge's digital crew. That's what I read, I hope it's true.
In May, they say, Linda Hutchings left behind four cats to visit the habitats of the Big Dappled Apple, the Grand Pomme to some, we're chattin' ‘bout Manhattan, and she even saw a show or two, but that's nothin' new: in NYC town everywhere you go, there's always some show.
This year, Allyson Washburn made a virtual commute, and it was a beaut. She traveled to and fro from here to Buffalo, bottom line, she assigned herself to a course online intertwined with the topic:"Marketing Information Services."
Speaking of travel, Liz Litster, now Liz Brimley, has gotten more than her share. On military leave, I do believe, she is now in Baghdad, a tropical town where folks never frown, where she can sip her lemonade in the shade of a palm during the calm of a summer's eve. Or else spend her summer armored in a Hummer. Unless my instinct errs, I think she could use our prayers.
For a conference, Mark Grover traveled to Trinidad & Tobago. His conference, his hotel, his pad, was in Trinidad, but when he got hungry, for the coup de grâce, he poured on a lot of Tobago sauce.
Dick Hacken's second cousin was just buzzin' with laughter, okey-dokey, when he sang Karaoke in Vienna, bass not tenah, making nobody rave while Elvis turned over in his grave. And then at the Salzburg fest, which we know from the Sound of Music best, he was interviewed by Austrian TV who wanted to know why he would come all that way to see with standing room only the Everyman play in front of the cathedral? He gave a knowing stare, and said: because it was there.
Okay, I'll ask ya, who went to Alaska?I know at least two of Zion's daughters went cruisin' through those waters: Marsha Broadway took that waterway, and that's where Irene Halliday spent her holiday.
Some drove themselves (not crazy, just drove themselves). James Fairbourn was road-worn after touring the Great Lakes, for tourism sakes, driving 5600 miles in 12 days. He bought gas for a nickel and a dime to visit 7 states for the very first time. Mary Chapman, with hubby and are-we-there-yet bubbly kids, traveled 5,000 miles and twice as many smiles to Michigan, Toronto and back with a lack of SARS, while consuming numerous candy bars. .Lyn Clayton and his wife added buckskin to their life, by attending 3 mountain men rendevous in Wyoming and in Idahoo.
Speaking of Lyn, let's talk and spread blame, about what's goin' on in the Periodicals game:
Lyn is now charged with the large concatenation of Bindery Preparation. Lanell Rabner, everyone is now grabbin' her to help them with Electronic Licenses and Resources, the area she now reinforces. Kathy Johansen, one of the prodigals, is now Librarian for Periodicals.And the now existent department assistant, fast as a springbok, tall as a hollyhock, colorful as a peacock: Linda Murdoch.
An MLS, maybe I'll try it, is the motto of Derrik Hiatt, who soon will learn library etiquette at the State University of Southern Connecticut.
If you hear, like,a total Swiss yodel, it may well come from the Scera Shell, from the warbling vowels of Andrea Howell, where the sounds of the Alps are tingling scalps, each Friday in a mighty rendition of Heidi. Her next dramatic attack will be in the HFAC, and then some day, Broadway!
While some of us deal with words, Kimberly Ha'o watches birds. It gave her a shiver near the Bear River to spot Pink Floyd, a boyd who has enjoyed 15 years of freedom after a short tarry in the Tracey Aviary. In Utah it's a strange change to see a flamingo in pink, I think.
The consistent Department Assistant of Humanities and Divinities, Department of Profanities and Infinities, Department of Vanities and Vicinities, Department Assistant Joanne Wessel was a strong enough vessel; yes, Joanne began her clan, with daughter Amelia joining the mix on July #6. Now she and the babe are getting stronger, but she works for us no longer. Bishop, comma, Christina, became the new queen a' the department.
What other insanities in the area of Human-inanities? Well, for a whileJulie Williamsen had no space and thought she might have to stay in the former place of Jimmy Hoffa's. But she finally did get an office. And as a reaffirmation, Gail King's son David went through confirmation. And let's make a referral to the Juvenile mural, on which a complimentary supplementary documentary is shortly due on KBYU.
And take a peak at what Annick and Chris Ramsey have been writing with a lot of fuss in cooperation with Russ, Clement – it is a book, and look, the time for it to appear is near. It's a bio-bibliographical marvel, oh yeah, on the Symbolist Followers of Gauguin.
As you might expect, you'd be correct in reckoning that offspring of librarians are now serving on missions: in foreign climes like Korea and California, some in Tacoma and Brazil running up and downhill, one in Tennessee, one in Calgary, one in the area of Bulgaria, others in Virginia and Taiwan, an Island where Basil Yang has gone, and the list goes on: missionaries in Britain where Queen Liz is sittin', some in Mississippi or New Mexico, and for all I know, some in Lisbon and in Tokyo. For any that I missed, I expand the list to the western hemisphere and the east, the southern and northern at the very least.
And then some of us without fail, generally those more female than male, grew large with child which was genetically styled and internally filed in a CPU until the child came due and then popped out, no doubt; and one more sprout was added to the salad of life.
Alisa Ellingson, a thicker but wiser Approval Supervisor, has either extended her worth by giving birth or else the boon will happen soon, and she'll be back to the book stack, Jack, before you can even hoot, "Oh, isn't your baby cute!"
Chelsea of Circulation Desk fame, has given up the library game, terminated her employ for two bundles of joy, taken the spin to have twins. On August First, in a burst of activity marked by a proclivity for reproductivity, she had a matched set, you bet, a duet able to wet twice the quota of Pampers.
Amanda Davis was manager of the Stacks to the max until the impacts of pregniosity moved her to say, "The first Day of September is my last blast from the HBLL past." Then she will produce a little woman or little man, if all goes according to plan.
Gordon Daines had sympathetic labor pains as he and his wife gave new life in May, you could say that way they had their first inspection of a new Special Collection.
John Finlay walked around thinly while his wife took on a load that growed and growed and become a jumble of joy, a baby boy, Joshua, born in January. John, Joshua, January.
But the list of acquisitions can not be stopped, for Mike Hunter did adopt, extending his family tree by three, two swirls and a goy, correction, 2 girls and 1 little boy.
Annalee Zeidner also had a baby insiden her, and that baby girl came out named Miriam, who was received with happy delirium, and Annalee no longer does our designing, but instead she was resigning, and she and hubby Tim, that is, she and him, or him and Annalee, moved to Tennessee. And so now, Dave LeSway will Web Design the web his way, now that he has graduated as anticipated. He and Holly can jolly well wait until December, which comes three months from September, to welcome a daughter or a son, their child number one.
Now that about covers a portion of one generation of regeneration, it reproduces a listing of one year's reproduction (excuse me if I missed your son or daughtah, as I should notta oughta)... and please don't make me make a list of grandkids, each of which is smarter than the median, and is always obedient and is sure to set the record for cuteness and astuteness. Please don't make me make a list: I estimate more than two hundred... so go and tell your neighbors and friends without end about your genetic prosperity as displayed in your very own posterity.
And as for those of us without little kids... That has certain benefids.
And now... what fun...that we are done.