The Questioning Librarian

A few days ago I read with some level of interest that the anti-gay American Family Association is asking its members to refuse to either use or accept mail with the new Harvey Milk stamps, honoring this country's first openly gay elected official. The abject pettiness of this should be obvious to anyone, but I find it strangely encouraging.  This incident seems to represent the current state of the anti-gay movement in this country; having been losing every major battle for the past two years, they are reduced to bickering over stamps. A hollowed-out movement, the organized, anti-gay bigots of this country, while still strong enough to, disturbingly, block important legislation like anti-bullying because it might just encourage people to be nice to gay students, are increasingly on the defensive. They are a movement that is loud and belligerent (the faux online encyclopedia "Conservapedia", for instance, refers to Milk as a sexual predator), protesting the rise of mar...

Why do I write? Why do I take the time to write things down that a handful of people will read...and in the case of my writing outside of this blog, at best one or two other people will read? Some days when the writing is hard, when the words just won't come and even a sentence is a struggle to piece together, it seems better just to give up and go read. But I always come back. So why do I do it? A few years ago I read a book about our need to tell stories, The Storytelling Animal  by Jonathan Gottschall. It was a fascinating read, other than a completely unwarranted and baseless attack on the Sherlock Holmes stories. To tell stories, in Gottshall's rendering, is to be human. It's what we do. Everything in our lives is based around telling stories. A little thought on our history is enough to support his thesis; from cave paintings and oral storytelling to Shakespeare, Wilde, and YouTube web series and social gatherings, our lives revolve around telling and hearing sto...

Last week National Geographic  released video from what is being hailed as the first simulation of the evolution of the universe. In what must have taken thousands of hours of work, this depiction of the universe shows the evolution of early galaxies, beginning a mere twelve million years after the big bang occurred. Take a look: One can hardly help but be moved by the sight of it, of seeing the universe unfold before our very eyes. No simulation is perfect, of course, but as a representation of the best science available at present it still carries with it a great majesty. Seeing the passage of such an immense length of time is humbling; it reminds us of the brevity of our own lives and puts the hubris of humanity firmly in its place. This is one of the joys of science, the ability that science has to convey wonder to us, from the evolution of the universe and the images from the Hubble Telescope to the sense of deep time that comes from looking at the rocks and fossils ...

I think I only just noticed on Friday that it was spring. Yes, there have been a few warm and sunny days this past month, more than welcome after the endless night of winter, but they seemed illusory, like it was too good to be true just yet. When I left the apartment that morning, there could be no doubt that the season had arrived. The scent of the air, the small warmth of the breeze, and the morning sunshine meant spring, for certain. I noticed how green the grass was, how without noticing it the trees had all started budding and blooming. My drive north to State College for a meeting was an endless panorama of mountains turned green, with brilliant dots of purple, scarlet and white revealing the blossoms of spring among them. I finally planted flowers today, turning a desolate patch of weed into a more attractive plot of ordered flowers, and while my back aches from the work, I always feel at home when I'm working with plants, rare though that may be anymore.  For over ten...

Last week I attended a meeting of the local historical society. There was a wonderful meal followed by a talk by a local historian about a park in the area. When he stood up to talk, and I saw his topic was a park I'd never heard of much less been to, I immediately began to think of how bored I would be. I was delighted to be proven wrong on that account; I hardly noticed that an hour had passed before he finished, and everyone else in attendance seemed to have enjoyed it as well. For many, the history of the park, which started out as a trolley park, must have brought back memories of their youth. At least one person talked about how their class always went to the park at the end of the school year, and how they looked forward to the rides and the experience. Some of the readers may remember that my first professional job was working as a genealogy reference librarian, overseeing a collection of local history and genealogy resources at the Uniontown (PA) Public Library. While...

I have an unfortunate habit when it comes to the written word. Not only do I acquire more books than I can expect to read, I tend to let magazines I subscribe to pile up until there is nearly a year's worth; I then, sometimes, start to read them one after another until I am finally caught up. I'm attempting to get better on both accounts, mostly to diminish the amount of things sitting gathering dust in my apartment. All this is a long and winding path to get to the fact that I'm currently working through several years of old Astronomy magazines. I no longer subscribe or purchase that magazine, not because I don't enjoy it but because there isn't enough time to keep up with every magazine I'd be interested in reading, while still being able to read the books I choose. In one old issue, at the beginning of 2011 (yes, they have piled up for quite a while!) the author wrote about what we can look forward to in the next decade as far as space missions. It really wa...

On Friday I found out that an old friend of mine had passed away after a long illness. We hadn't been in touch for quite a while; he was a very private person and had told me the last time we talked that he was having some health issues. While it was nothing I needed to worry about, he assured me, it made regular conversation difficult and he would be back in touch when things settled. Of course they never did, and the pain of loss was magnified by the fact that I hadn't spoken to him in so long. It's shockingly easy how people, even ones you care about, can pass out of your life with hardly a whisper. It's easy to get caught up in the business of life--in work, appointments, hobbies outside of work--and forget about the things that make it really matter, the connections with other human beings who are on the very same journey that we are. It is beyond easy to postpone a phone call, email, or whatever method of communication to those we care about but may not, for what...