Author: Erica Firment

Erica Olsen Firment is an omnivorous mammal of the genus Ailurus, having an endothermic physiology and a long, furry tail. Erica's range extends to both deciduous and coniferous forests, and can often be found working on software user interfaces and creating information architectures in Silicon Valley.
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Spring! Drunken Students!

Flowers and Fishnets my dearies, spring has come to my Eastern College Town, and the windows of the library have been covered with plywood to protect them from the ravages of Drunken Students! Having done my undergraduate degree in a school where Drunken Students have the regular habit of burning police cars and smashing shop windows, I’m not entirely surprised.

Here at Cornell, there is some annual “let’s all get schnokered and come throw up on the reference desk” type event coming up here on Friday. I’ll be your entrenched reporter, with my ringside office window.

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Revolting Librarians Redux

The section of the library dedicated to books on librarianship is located outside my office door. I thumbed through a few of them this morning. I was curious what a book on librarianship looked like, since I never really saw that many at “library school”.

Most were from the 70s and 80s, and were dedicated to some pretty abstract stuff, but nestled among the monographs on school librarianship, I found the 1972 classic Revolting Librarians. I’m amazed by the number of librarians and libraryworkers who aren’t familiar with what is the most radical, most groundbreaking, and most hilarious book ever written on the subject of librarianship. Fortunately, it’s in the public domain (because librarians rule), and also fortunately, there’s a sequel due out this fall, edited by the indelible Katia Roberto and Jessamyn West.

I contributed a piece of doggerel whose rhyme scheme should make English majors wince worldwide. Hopefully my library will buy the thing so I can walk by it in the stacks every day and feel all smug.

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Small town conundrum

One of the Cornell campus bus drivers sells homemade maple syrup out of a box next to his seat. I see him about one out of every ten times I ride the bus, which usually launches me into this cycle of feeling like I should buy some just to support the weirdness of the endeavor, but not actually wanting any maple syrup.

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Librarians Without Borders

Horrible dreams about the Baghdad library early this morning. Which got me wondering if there even was a library in Afghanistan left to be destroyed. What about a Librarians without Borders program to build and promote threatened libraries?

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Holi and Hanging Chads

I am covered from fur to fingernails in colored dye-powder because it is the Hindu festival of Holi. My friend Clay & I partook of the cultural wackiness this afternoon on the Ivy League University (TM) campus. Colored dye-powder, I have discovered, does wonders for fine, bodiless hair. I looked rather styled-up by the time we were all done tossing the stuff at each other. Must remember this for my next formal occasion. Girls! Got limp lifeless hair? Get a nice South Asian gentleman to bean you with a handful of Yellow #5!

The nice thing about no longer being in school, by the way, is I’ve occasionally been having moments where I DON’T think about libraries or Library Issues.

Hm. Speaking of Library Issues, I’m taking issue with the fact that it takes about fifteen times longer to vote for the ALA council than it did to vote in the last Presidential election. Wouldn’t you think the ALA might consider alphabetizing their lengthy list of candidates? Alphabetization is what we’re known for, after all. But hey, what problems could a confusing and awkward ballot cause?

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I graduated… where’s my houseboat?

First of all, and lets just get this out of the way: a full-time job is actually a pretty shoddy reward for 2.5 years of graduate school stress. Yes, I’m grateful and all, glad to be here, nice to meet ya, etc. but frankly, I think I was looking for something along the lines of “congratulations on your degree, here’s your houseboat, now get out of here you scamp.”

I suppose having a stable schedule and slightly-more-realistic paychecks is reward enough, but lately I’ve had to face what seems to happen any time you put enormous effort into something. Which is, a rather slow transition into something different that requires enormous effort. Like learning not to scream when someone suggests you attend the Metadata Working Group Meeting.