Gone playlist

I have it on good authority that creating quirky playlists based on my metadata counts as digital humanities work. This list might best be described as a case of accidental digital humanities. I was looking for a particular song (Now she’s gone by The Marshall Tucker Band); and the resulting list of songs containing the word “gone” made a pretty awesome playlist. What’s not to love about a playlist that has The Kingston Trio and Eminem? Plus there’s a slightly obscure Dylan song, just like on most of my more carefully curated playlists.

• Tuesday’s Gone : Lynyrd Skynyrd
• Something Gone Wrong: Chickenfoot
• Already Gone : The Eagles
• Now She’s Gone: The Marshall Tucker Band
• Gone : John Hiatt
• Long Time Gone: Crosby, Stills & Nash
• Where Have All The Flowers Gone?: The Kingston Trio
• (Long) Gone: Kenny Wayne Shepherd
• Gone Going: Black Eyed Peas
• When You’re Gone: The Rolling Stones
• Gone: Ben Folds
• Now You’re Gone: Buddy Guy
• Gone: Golden Smog
• Gone Again: Indigo Girls
• Four Days Gone: Buffalo Springfield
• Gravity’s Gone: Drive-By Truckers
• The World Gone Wrong: B.B. King
• The Thrill Is Gone: B.B. King
• Gone For Good: The Shins
• Katie’s Been Gone: Bob Dylan & The Band
• Now That You’re Gone: Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
• Never Been Gone: Carly Simon
• Too Far Gone: Emmylou Harris
• NYC – Gone, Gone: Conor Oberst
• Gone Daddy Gone: Gnarls Barkley
• Good Man Gone Bad: B.B. King
• Done Gone Blue: Los Lobos
• The Animals Were Gone:Damien Rice
• Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On): Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
• The Child Is Gone: Fiona Apple
• Long Time Gone: Dixie Chicks
• Long Gone Blues: Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra
• Since You’re Gone: The Cars
• Now That You’ve Gone: Chicago
• When I’m Gone: Eminem
• Get Gone: Fiona Apple
• When We’re Gone Long Gone: Emmyloun Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt
• Joshua Gone Barbados: Tom Rush

This was not Plan B: My #altac story

There are eight million stories in the Naked City, and probably just as many in the academy. There are stories warning you not to go to graduate school, and stories warning you not to pay attention to stories that warn you not to go to graduate school (I like the latter stories better). And there are great stories about people who went to graduate school and chose an alternate career path (dubbed altac).

This is my story.

First things first: This altac career path of mine was not Plan B. Taking a job as a social science librarian as I finished up my dissertation, then staying on for more than 10 years now in various library jobs, was not a fall-back* decision because I didn’t think I could cut it on the tenure-track market. I applied for my original library job because it sounded like interesting work that I might be good at. I have accepted subsequent jobs and promotions within the Stanford Libraries, and am committed to a career in academic libraries, for the same reasons — I think the work is important, interesting, and challenging; and I think I have something to offer.

I came to Stanford to pursue a PhD in Sociology because I didn’t learn everything I wanted to learn in college, or in the 10 years after college. I went to a very good school for my undergraduate education (and paid for it by selling my soul, and many years of my life, to Uncle Sam, but that’s a story for a different blog post), but I was a really crappy student. I needed a B average to keep my scholarship, so I did exactly as much work as I needed to, and not a bit more, to earn that 3.0. Years later I realized that a 3.0 GPA at Duke puts you in the bottom half of your graduating class. Thank god I’m good at standardized tests.

Anyhoo … after doing fairly well at regular Army officer type jobs for 4 years (and helping us win the Cold War), I was fortunate enough to be selected to teach at West Point. The assignment was preceded by an all-expenses paid two-year trip to the University of Maryland for an MA in Sociology. A bit of maturity, a lot of fear, smart and passionate fellow students, and the incredible support and patience of my advisor Mady Segal, combined to ensure that I actually took graduate school seriously. And lo and behold, I liked what I was learning, and I liked the process of learning. It turns out you can learn a whole lot more if you actually go to class and do the reading. Talking to other students and to faculty helps too. I honestly didn’t know that as an undergrad.

Those 2 years at UMd were personally transformative for me. I learned how to think critically, I became a feminist, I started (slooowwwly) questioning my sexuality. And then, just like that, the 2 years were up and off I went to West Point to teach leadership and sociology to future Army officers. Those 3 years at West Point were awesome and awful in approximately equal measure. And when that assignment was done, I knew it was time to get out of the Army and go back to graduate school.

I pursued a PhD in Sociology because I wanted to learn more and grow more and challenge myself intellectually in ways that I had been challenged in my MA program at UMd. I wanted more of that. I had enjoyed the teaching part of the West Point assignment, and thought maybe that’s what I would do when I finished my PhD. Along the way, it became clear that I was actually supposed to want a very serious tenure-track job at a real reasearch university. And while I toyed with that idea from time to time, I never actively pursued it.

Starting in my 2nd year of grad school, I worked part-time in the Stanford Libraries’ Social Science Data and Software (SSDS) group, doing statistical software consulting. I always worked at least 10 hours a week, and when I didn’t have other funding, I worked 20 hours a week, and 40 hours a week during summers. I was a single parent by now, so I was basically working as much as possible, because graduate student stipends are calibrated for very very frugal, single, childless people.

As a grad student in SSDS, my job included individual consulting with students and faculty, teaching workshops, and (as I became more senior), planning and leading our consulting, teaching and outreach services. I had gotten a pretty good taste of leadership as an Army officer, and knew that it was something I liked and was good at. I quickly realized that whatever I did after graduate school, I wanted it to be something that allowed me to leverage my academic training and my leadership skills.

Towards the end of my 4th year of grad school, my dissertation advisor asked me if I wanted her to recommend me for a tenure track job in a top-tier sociology program, at a public university a little south of here.  The fact that I had yet to have a serious conversation with her about my plans for going on the job market was probably a pretty good clue to both of us that I was likely not headed in that direction. But I appreciate that she asked, and I figure she must have thought I would be competitive for such a job.  Around the same time, one of my colleagues at SSDS asked me if I had considered applying for the social science librarian job that was open right here in the Stanford Libraries. As soon as I realized that the only thing making the tenure track faculty job seem at all appealing was what other people would think, while the content of the work and the people I would work with were what made the library job appealing, the decision was easy. The rest, as they say, is history.

That’s my story. It is likely neither particularly unique, nor especially generalizable. But it is true. And I do know that there are plenty of others for whom an altac career path is not plan B. Add my story to the dataset.

* My fall back job is junior high basketball coach. I did it for 1 season as a high school senior and we won the league championship. So I got that going for me.

Why I’m Leaning In with library colleagues

We started a Lean In Circle at Stanford Libraries recently, and while I am very excited about it, I am well aware that the whole Lean In thing has its critics. Some of the most compelling criticisms of Lean In I’ve read to date are:

• that it is “a manifesto for corporatist feminism, career advice for the distaff side of the 1%”, with zero to say to the 99% and nothing to offer in terms of tactics for dismantling the structural barriers to gender equality.
• that it “assumes that the feminist question is simply, how can I be a more successful worker?“
• that it is only for women who can cry at work (i.e. white women).

Even though Sandberg goes to great lengths in both the book and in her talks to add all the right caveats about how not everyone wants it all and that’s OK, and to applaud those who are working on the structural side of the problem; I feel that her rhetoric often displays a kind of tone-deafness to those with different goals and values, and/or those who lack the privileges of class, race, and sexual orientation that she enjoys.

So why am I so excited to have started a Lean In Circle at Stanford that I even agreed to gush about it to the San Jose Mercury News? Well, some of the answers to that are in our Stanford Libraries news article about it:

Although librarianship is a female-dominated profession, women are still under-represented in leadership positions relative to their numbers in the profession. This is especially true in senior leadership roles at top research libraries. Moreover, as libraries become more digital and more reliant on technology expertise, our organizations are affected by the well-documented problems of gender inequality in the technology industry.

We at the Stanford University Libraries believe that our organization and the library profession at large are most effective when all of us are able and encouraged to contribute based on our skills, talents, passions and ideas, not based on our gender. Providing opportunities like the Leaning In @ Stanford Libraries Circle is one way we are activating that belief: by empowering and equipping our staff to talk about and overcome the obstacles we all face in the workplace and at home.

Lean In circles are kinda like a book club, but with a focus on equipping and empowering people to combat gender inequality and bias as they encounter it. They can be mixed gender groups, but we decided that our pilot group might work best as an all-female group. Our group decided to meet on a monthly basis, alternating between Educational meetings and Exploration meetings. At the Educational meetings, we will employ a flipped classroom approach. Before the meeting, each of us will watch one of the 20 minute videos from the Clayman Institute for Gender Research’s Voice & Influence curriculum. We will then use our meeting time to discuss the topic raised in the video and practice putting what we have learned into action. At the Exploration meetings, group members will share real-life challenges with each other, providing us all the opportunity to learn from our diverse experiences and insights.

I get that branding our Circle with the Lean In brand implies a certain level of agreement with Sandberg’s perspective; but I can tell you from our experience so far that the women in our group are too smart to buy into anything so uncritically. We’ve already had some great discussions of the many criticisms of Lean In, and I am certain we will continue to explore a wide range of perspectives on the issues. While we certainly could have started such a group before Sandberg came along, the sad fact is that we didn’t. The whole Lean In phenomena provided not only the impetus for the group, but also a layer of legitimacy that forestalls any open questioning of why we’re even talking about gender.

Sandberg’s book tells her story and provides her advice. Our Lean In Circle allows all of us to tell our own stories, so that each of us can take what we want from each others’ experiences. But more than just providing a forum for women to support and validate one another, it provides a space where we can learn together what social science research has to say about how gender and gender bias affect individuals and organizations, and what we can do about it individually and as leaders in our organizations.

Do I think Lean In circles are the answer to sexism and gender bias in the workplace? Nope. But I do know that for the women in my Lean In circle, having a supportive network where we can discuss our own diverse goals and how gender affects our ability to reach them is very much appreciated. And having the enthusiastic support of senior leadership to do this is incredibly powerful.

We have 14 women in our initial group, and every one of them is excited and grateful to have the opportunity to be a part of this. We also have dozens more men and women who want to participate in subsequent groups. Sheryl Sandberg certainly didn’t invent the idea of women and our male allies forming supportive networks, but at this moment in time she has sparked a renewed interest in it and support for it. And despite (or maybe because of) my concerns that Lean In misses lots of marks; I’m not willing to pass up this chance to facilitate just such a group with some of the awesome colleagues I have at the Stanford Libraries. And that is why, with all kinds of conflicting, complicated thoughts and feelings about it, I’m willing to Lean In with my colleagues and see what we can accomplish.

No streaking in the library

Last month, Stanford Libraries and Stanford’s Department of Public Safety stopped members of the Columbae co-op from walking naked through the library during finals week. Predictably, many disagree with our actions and think the Columbae run is a tradition worth keeping.

I am on record as being a fan of many of the ways in which the Library is seen as a social icon on campus, and the nude run fits that notion in some ways. But I think we made the right, though unpopular, decision in this case.

We put up with some student traditions and pranks in the library — the book-slamming exercise that was part of New Student Orientation this year, for example — but we draw the line at activities that cause damage (Band Run) and activities that violate the Fundamental Standard.  The Columbae nude run is problematic for the simple reason that some patrons and some library staff are uncomfortable with being approached by nude students. We have a responsibility to provide a safe environment for all students, and to make sure that our staff and our patrons are not placed in a situation that creates a hostile environment. The rights of students and staff to not be approached by nude strangers outweighs the dubious rights of the Columbae residents to streak thru the library.

If an individual slammed a book in the Lane room, we would simply ask them not to, but we wouldn’t throw them out of the library. If an individual stripped in the library and then started handing out candy to patrons, we would certainly ask them to leave. In fact, we have over the years responded to complaints from students of other patrons in various states of undress, and we have responded appropriately to protect the right of our patrons to study in an environment free of harassment. And although it may sound prude, it is not such a stretch to say that being offered candy by a naked stranger is a form of harassment. The fact that the Columbae run is a tradition that consists of a group of students rather than a single patron makes little difference in our responsibility to our staff and our other patrons.

My suggestion to the Columbae co-op is that they find a way to keep their tradition alive in a space where others are free to choose whether they want to be a part of it. The library is not that place.

My stint on the JLA Editorial Board: A few clarifications

Seems like a few clarifications about the story of my short stint on the JLA Editorial Board are needed. In no particular order:

• I’m female. Some of the follow-on stories refer to me as “he”. I get it. It’s a gender-neutral name, and I guess if you googled me for a picture, that might not clear things up. But I am female. I figure if I write “Chris Bourg is female” here, future bloggers can google me and get it right next time.
• I do not speak for the former Editorial Board of the Journal of Library Administration. My post about my stint with JLA is my own story. I thought that was obvious in the original post, but apparently not.
• My crisis of conscience in the aftermath of the tragic death of Aaron Swartz was my own and not the board’s. I’m pretty sure I never even mentioned Aaron’s death or my feelings about it in any conversations ever with the Editor of JLA or any of my fellow board members.
• Even after my crisis of conscience, at the time, I decided to stay on the board, and to submit the article I promised. Judge me if you will. Later, when negotiations with T&F went nowhere, I resigned along with the rest of the board.
• Any connection between my crisis of conscience, Aaron’s tragic death, and the board’s resignation is tenuous and indirect at best. I suppose my hesitation to submit my article counted as one more piece of data adding up to the board’s conclusion that the restrictive and confusing licensing terms were making it difficult to attract quality content.
• It is my opinion, and was my hope, that the terms negotiated by the authors of the articles in the special issue on Digital Humanities in Libraries should have served as a model for a new standard author license for JLA. I think Micah Vandegrift and the rest of the authors in that issue deserve enormous credit and praise for both the quality of that issue (which was hugely influential in my decision to join the board), and for their persistence in negotiating an amended license, and for doing so publicly. I just didn’t, and still don’t, think every potential JLA author ought to have to go through the same lengthy negotiation process.
• As former Editor Damon Jaggars has stated: “Open Access writ large was not the fundamental issue in this disagreement.” I characterize it as about open(er) access and about author’s control of their own work.
• And just for good measure, I am female. Always have been, always will be.

3/29/13, 6:30pm: Edited to make timeline clear and to reiterate that we all remain resigned.

My short stint on the JLA Editorial Board

In the Fall of 2012, I was persuaded by Damon Jaggars to join the Editorial Board of the Journal of Library Administration. This week, we all resigned.

When I was asked to be on the board, I warned Damon that I had actually never published anything in library literature, and that I was generally critical of the quality of much of the literature in the field. He convinced me this would be a chance to do something about it, and that he had some good ideas for publishing a quality product. Damon is a pretty persuasive guy, and I figured it was time for me to stop grousing about the problems with library literature and try to be part of the solution. So I signed on.

Later, Damon asked me to write an article about our Library Concierge project for JLA, and again I said yes. When Damon contacted me later with an actual deadline for the article, I told him I was having second thoughts. It was just days after Aaron Swartz’ death, and I was having a crisis of conscience about publishing in a journal that was not open access. Damon reminded me (gently) that not only had I agreed to write for JLA, but I was on the Editorial Board, so this could be a problem. More importantly, he assured me that he was working with Taylor & Francis to try to get them to adopt less restrictive agreements that would allow for some form of Creative Commons license. He told me his strategy was to work from within to encourage change among publishers. Once again, Damon’s power of persuasion worked.

So, I worked on the article, and just recently submitted it. In the meantime, Damon continued to try to convince Taylor & Francis (on behalf of the entire Editorial Board, and with our full support), that their licensing terms were too confusing and too restrictive. A big part of the argument is that the Taylor & Francis author agreement is a real turn-off for authors and was handicapping the Editorial Board’s ability to attract quality content to the journal. The best Taylor & Francis could come up with was a less restrictive license that would cost authors nearly $3000 per article. The Board agreed that this alternative was simply not tenable, so we collectively resigned. In a sense, the decision was as much a practical one as a political one. Huge kudos to Damon for his persistence, his leadership, and his measured and ethical stance on this issue.

So, if anyone has an opening on an editorial board of a journal with less restrictive author agreements, I just so happen to have some free time. I’ve also got a fairly decent article about our Library Concierge Project all ready if anyone wants to publish it.

(3/23, 5:43pm, Edited to correct some spelling and add a link. CB)

 

Crossdressing for Equality: Butch in a dress

I promised to post a photo of me in a bow tie when we reached $100 and a photo of me in dress when we reached $150 in our #Mad4Equality bracket challenge. Thanks to generous donations from some of my awesome co-workers, we are now at $160 (not counting my own donation or those of Bess Sadler or ButchWonders).

I promise to post the bow tie photos as soon as I master the art of tieing the dang thing, but without further ado, here is the cutest picture of me in a dress you will ever see:

You weren’t expecting something contemporary, were you?

And here is something a bit less dated (and noticeably less cute):

Helping my wife shop for wedding dress, 2009

There is still plenty of time to enter the Men’s bracket before first game on Thursday, and the Women’s bracket before games begin on Saturday. Go to the ButchWonders site to make your donations. If we reach $500 total, who knows what I’ll do?

This year, let’s go #Mad4Equality

This year, instead of my usual Mad Librarians bracket challenge, I’m teaming up with ButchWonders and Bess Sadler to co-host a bracket challenge for charity. For a $10 suggested donation per bracket , anyone can enter the Mad4Equality challenge (we even have a Mad4Equality Men’s group). To enter, just sign up for a free ESPN account, fill out your bracket, and join the Mad4Equality or Mad4Equality Mens group. The Womens’ brackets will be open on Monday night (3/18) and need to be completed before the first game on March 23.  The Mens’ brackets are open now, and need to be completed before Thursday’s first game tips off.

PayPay links are set up at ButchWonders for both tournaments. Local folks can just give their entry fee/donation directly to me or Bess.  Feel free to chip in more if you feel so compelled. If none of those options work for you, just email me and we’ll work something out. And also, please spread the word — the more entries we get, the bigger the pot and the more money goes to these awesome charities.

Check out that form on the jump-shot!

At the end of the tournament, the winner gets 1/3 of the money collected, and the remainder of the pot gets split between the  Trevor Project and the Campaign for Southern Equality.

The Trevor Project is “the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth.”

The Campaign for Southern Equality “is a national effort to assert the full humanity and equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in American life and to increase public support for LGBT rights.” Their work is focused on communities across the south, “taking a new approach, building upon a rich legacy of civil rights organizing in the South and working in close partnership with other LGBT and civil rights groups.”

I am thrilled that these are the charities we are supporting this year. I have been a basketball-loving dyke forever — I mean just look at these pictures. But while I have never felt compelled to deny my love of hoops, I spent a lot of energy over many years trying to deny my own sexuality. Being gay or lesbian as a teenager in the 1980s was a scary, scary thing. Unfortunately, it is still pretty scary for many kids today. The Trevor Project does some awesome work trying to make life easier for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning kids.

I was a big NC State fan at just the right time. David Thompson & Monte Towe were my favorites.

I also grew up in the south (Virginia), and spent many summers and four years of college in North Carolina. I love the south. I’ve been out here in California for over 15 years now, but I still know that tea is cold and sweet, barbecue is picked from pigs, and cornbread is better when fried. But the sad truth is that the south is not always a very comfortable place for folks like me. And except for Maryland and DC, there is no place in the south, especially not in my beloved North Carolina, where my marriage would be recognized. But I’m not willing to give up on the south, and I’m glad that  The Center for Southern Equality isn’t either.

So please, pitch in your $10 (or more) and join our #Mad4Equality bracket challenge.

We even created a group for the Men’s tournament, cuz we’re all about equality and stuff.

We will also be giving various prizes for creativity, best trash-talking, etc.; so don’t be shy about entering your best theme-based bracket. I’ll probably enter at least one based on counting up the number of exes and other people I don’t care for who went to each school, and picking the school with the lower number to win (yes, sometimes I can be a very small and very petty person).

Trash-talking is highly encouraged, here in the comments, over at ButchWonders, or on Twitter with hashtag #Mad4Equality. Side-bets are likewise encouraged. In fact, I’ll put up $25 extra to the charity of choice for anyone (especially any UConn fans) who wants to wager that their team will advance farther than my Cardinal. And I’m calling out Bess Sadler right now to put up another $25 against my bet that my Blue Devils will dance longer than her Tarheels. Go Cardinal, Go Blue Devils!

“BOOM! Victory!” and other nice things they say about us

Steps of the Bing Wing. Photo by Kathryne Young.

Walking back from lunch yesterday I passed a couple of students sitting on the steps in front of the library, and overheard one of them say:

I looked it up in Google and nothing. So I asked a librarian and BOOM! Victory!

This immediately became my new favorite quote from a happy patron, barely beating out these past favorites:

The libraries are enormous magnets for prospective freshmen, graduate students and professors. Some from each have said that when they went into the stacks, their decision to come to Stanford was made.

The libraries are the heart of the institution and one of the very most important parts of my own satisfaction at Stanford. Librarians and library resources make what I do possible. The comprehensiveness of Stanford’s collections, the creativity in its special collections curating, and its broad accessibility have combined to make me marvel. I love what you all do. Please keep it up.

I especially want to thank you for introducing me to the wonders of the library. Seriously, I never realized ever in my life how satisfying and fun it could be to do research. I would look for one book and end up coming out with five every time I went to the library. Thanks for helping me develop the skills I need for research in the future.

But to be honest, my own personal all-time, never-to-be-topped favorite is this one from a student I helped find sources for a paper about heteronormativity in video gaming. In an email with Subject Line “My paper thanks you dearly and homosexually”, he wrote:

I don’t know how you work your mysterious librarian ways, but the resources you helped me find provided super useful information on the larger gaming community. I ended up writing about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of video games in promoting homosexual acceptance and understanding, analyzing Second Life, Sims 2, Fear Effect 2, among many others. Again, thank you for being an awesome librarian, but I’d have to say you’re more like a library fairy to the rescue.

One of these days I really am going to get that printed on some business cards:

Chris Bourg
Library Fairy to the Rescue

Jesus, that’s some playlist

Album covers are metadata, right?

In honor of the announcement of a new Pope, here is a quick playlist of all the songs in my iTunes collections with Jesus in the song name. Not a bad set of tunes:

• Jesus Is Just Alright, The Doobie Brothers
• Plastic Jesus, The Flaming Lips
• Jesus of Suburbia, Green Day
• The Rebel Jesus, Jackson Browne
• Jesus’ Chariot, Neil Young & Crazy Horse
• Jesus In New Orleans, Over The Rhine
• Jesus (Don’t Touch My Baby), Ryan Adams
• Jesus On A Greyhound, Shelby Lynne
• Property Of Jesus, Sinéad O’Connor
• Jesus Children of America, Stevie Wonder
• Jesus, Etc., Wilco

Enjoy!