Conference season is upon us, and that means one thing … new clothes for presentations. Now, those of you who have met me could demurely agree that I’m not the average body type. I’m a little shorter and a little rounder than the average, uh, bear. And I am an absolute cheapskate when it comes to shopping, especially for clothes. So the idea of going to a fancy department store instead of a big-box store that sells two t-shirts for seven dollars is anathema to me. Still, one likes to look good when presenting in front of her peeps, right? But I hate shopping and traipsing the whole store to find a sweater in one department and pants in another. And then to take the stuff home and shorten the hems? Blech. Let’s just say I have more than the average number of to-be-altered “bargains” hanging around.

So I took my sister’s advice this time around: I scheduled an appointment with a Nordstrom personal shopper. Nordstrom’s personal shoppers are FREE. And tailoring is included unless the garments are on sale. Free is good.

Holy moly, what a fantastic experience. I walked in, and there was a fitting room full of stuff that looked exactly like I would wear (though slightly less rumpled or faded). In fact, I owned duplicates of a few things hanging there. I tried stuff on, we’d decide if it fit, and she’d run get another size, another color, another shape, another brand. AND she brought me a Diet Coke. Not in a to-go cup, not in a little can. A big 20 oz. bottle. With a cup of ice.

Needing to replace my ubiquitous black Danskos? No problem. She brought me Danskos — no stilettos, no sneakers, no boots. Just Dansko (ahhh). I wanted machine-washable stuff to cover up my bad habit of spilling things wherever I go? Nothing she brought required dry cleaning. She pulled up inventory, called other stores, and finally called the tailor to hem things up. I could buy Danskos anywhere for the same price I could get them at Nordstrom — but why go through the hassle when one can make an appointment and let someone else browse the store for you?

Fab-u-lous.

Did I mention the Diet Coke?

And … maybe could I look at watches? She called down and had someone meet me at the bottom of the escalator.

Fab-u-lous. (Now my new watch matches the brushed metal of my new MacBook Pro, which I hope people recognize is a fashion feat I’ve never quite achieved before.)

I was happy. I had a pair of shopping bags that contained items that were going to help showcase me — just a slightly less rumpled, better-fitting version of myself.

On my way out of the store, I saw this purply cape-like jackety sweater thing. It was cute. It had pockets my Kleenex would fit in. I whipped off my cardigan and put it on. I liked it. (At this point, I could have probably put on a paper bag and felt good about it after the day’s experience.) A salesman hustled over and threw a scarf around my neck.

Wait. Did I ask for that?

No I did not.

Nor did I ask, when I mentioned that I liked the idea of wearing it as a sweatery jacket, for him to tell me that under no circumstances could I wear it that way. In his mind, that item was a CAPE and could NOT be worn indoors. Did he mean I’d have to take it off when I came inside? I asked.

Yes.

Huh. I had absolutely planned to wear it inside. It had little seams under the arms. It was a flowy artsy kind of jacket, in my book. I asked the same question a few more times. Each time, I was told emphatically that it was a CAPE and had to be worn OUTDOORS.

Now, I get that some salespeople have our best interests at heart, and this guy might well have been thinking he was doing me a favor. But in truth, he was shooting down my excitement. I mean, I had already started mentally giving a (very good) presentation wearing it. The cameras were rolling inside my imagination.

And here’s the other thing. This particular Nordstrom salesman was wearing a women’s sequined eveningwear blouse. I wasn’t so certain he, of all people, should be so blunt that I couldn’t wear clothes the way I wanted to. Surely he modeling just what I wanted to do: repurpose a wardrobe item that, in his case, was designed for other, more nocturnal occasions.

So I said, “OK, I won’t get it, then,” and reluctantly put it back on the rack. He turned away.

Then I got steamed.

Wait, I thought. Am I, or am I not someone who took graduate-level costume history? (That’s true - I can tell you a gusset from a gore and a peplum from a pinafore, and you better believe I know a cape from a sweatery-jackety thing. It’s all in the SIDE SEAMS.) Who was he to stand in his sequined glory (I’m no upper-crust gal, but I thought we weren’t supposed to wear sequins until after sunset) and tell me what I could not do?

I went back to the rack, got it, and went to the next department to ring it up, mumbling, “Sc— him. I’m going to do what I want. And I sure as heck am not giving him the commission for it.” Maybe I didn’t say heck. I went to another department, where the salesperson had the good sense to tell me what a nice choice I had made as she rung me up (and pocketed the commission).

Then I started thinking … when I was a practicing school librarian, I wanted to be — or, at the very least, to be seen as — the Nordstrom personal shopper. Except when I’m not.

We all want to be uber-helpful to our patrons and making them feel even better about themselves and their visions and dreams. We want to help refine their knowledge and skills. We want to build a relationship with them and have fun doing it. We are falling all over ourselves to be “valuable,” “the center of learning,” “value-added,” and “indispensible.” We are running around, knowing all the information options, able to pull needed resources at the drop of a hat. We want to show off our new, fun stuff. You said you wanted jeans, but now you want Danskos? We can do that. We are happy to be of service and know we are contributing to The Big Picture of Learning. And, in response for our great service, people like us and keep us around.

And a lot of times, we’re successful at it.

But sometimes, we are the Sequinned Salesman. In our zeal — and I say OUR because I know I have been guilty of this more times than I wish to admit — to support our students and teachers and help them achieve and become even more wonderful than they are now, we think we are doing them a “favor” by pointing out the instructional “mistakes” they are making. Or we push ideas, lesson plans, or materials that we think will “improve” learning, though our colleagues perceive it as “interference.” Think back 15 or 20 years at the “mistakes” we as a profession have counseled against, all in the noble pursuit of doing our patrons a “favor”: Google, open Web, Wikipedia, bird units, cut-and-paste PowerPoints, Sparknotes, cell phones in the classroom, and poster boards. And while you’re at it, use at least one book in your research project.

Guess what our patrons do when we go heavy-handed on them (and again - I use OUR because I realize my great culpability and complicity in this)? They bypass us and go somewhere else that will “let them” do what they want. Because they’re just as ticked off as I was today, and they’re just as eager to say, “I did it without you, and it turned out fine.”

One of the great things about last year’s “Nudging Toward Inquiry” columns in SLM was the number of folks who would make suggestions about strengthening faculty relationships before suggesting instructional changes. So simple, and yet not often the first approach I would take.

And one of the many great gifts I have in co-teaching a course this year is teaching with someone who repeatedly urges me to hold back my own judgments, instead deepening the classroom conversation and letting students think things through. He inspires through relationships, not dictations or edicts. (I won’t confirm or deny that I once said, “Yeah, but then after that, can’t I just really really tell them what’s wrong?”)

So as we librarians continue to go forth together in our own unique roles as cheerleaders for instructional excellence, let’s leave our sequinned blouses at home. And if you see me wearing mine, will you suggest I change? (After all, do I or do I not own a terrific sweater-jackety-capey thing that I firmly believe I can wear INDOORS?)

“Nudging Toward Inquiry” is our collective column in SLM. Please share your expertise for the next issue - on searching and finding information - or the form below - or for future issues on information extraction, notetaking, synthesis, and more. Bring your best personal shopper tips — and help me keep my Sequinned Salesman at bay!

As a school librarian (which is still my first instinct to call myself these days, though “professor” is more accurate), I, like you, have spent a lot of time hearing about how K-12 schools are broken.

But take a look at this comment by a man representing a company privatizing libraries, including a financially-stable library in Santa Clarita, California:

“A lot of libraries are atrocious,” Mr. Pezzanite [of the privatization company] said. “Their policies are all about job security. That’s why the profession is nervous about us. You can go to a library for 35 years and never have to do anything and then have your retirement. We’re not running our company that way. You come to us, you’re going to have to work.”

Seriously? Have I been living in a cave that I don’t see librarians who “never have to do anything”? Librarians who don’t work? Libraries that are atrocious?

Seriously?

Seriously?

Has he ever been to a library 15 minutes after the middle or high school down the street has let out? Has he ever been to a storytime with close to 100 wiggly people attending?

Maybe I’m lucky. Southeastern Michigan, where I live, has tremendous public libraries with amazing collections and a strong inter-library loan network. Sure, some librarians are less friendly than others, and less service-oriented than they should be (sadly, most of us can name an example, and as a student of Joan Durrance, my “Willingness to Return” project showed this to be true).

But atrocious? Not working? And not just one library, but “a lot of libraries”?

It’s one thing to say libraries are struggling financially and restructuring will preserve services in a time of reduced funding. But for a vendor to come out swinging by calling libraries — and that’s plural — atrocious or “sacred organizations” is just mean. I sure hope those quotes were taken bizarrely out of context. Because I don’t want someone mean running our libraries, especially in areas that are already underfunded (which, as the article explains, Santa Clarita is NOT, but many other privatized libraries are).

Salaries can be adjusted; but meanness stays mean.

Methinks I have the vapors and must take to my bed. For those of you who haven’t yet hyperventilated or swooned, the quote comes from tonight’s New York Times article. Read the rest by clicking below.

As L.S.S.I. Takes Over Libraries, Patrons Can’t Keep Quiet - NYTimes.com via kwout

Seriously.

We’re now in Day 2 of Banned Books Week.

A few days ago, The New York Times invited teens to comment on whether or not books should be banned in school libraries, especially after a Missouri management professor wrote indicating his belief that Laurie Halse Anderson’s now-classic Speak was equivalent to soft pornography. (You can read the author’s response here.)

I returned to the Times blog post today to see what kinds of responses students had made. (You can do the same by following the link below.)

Most don’t agree that books should be banned.

That’s good.

But it’s not the whole story.

That’s bad.

Why do some teens (or commenters posing as teens) not believe in book banning?

BECAUSE THEY DON’T USE THE LIBRARY. It’s not their place, so it’s not their issue. It just doesn’t matter to them.

We’ve got teens who somehow make it to the New York Times Web site (so there’s some reading going on in their lives, or parents/teachers pushing them to the site) WHO DO NOT FEEL CONNECTED TO THEIR SCHOOL LIBRARY and don’t care what happens there.

If you’re reading this, you’re more-than-likely a school librarian. And if you’ve been reading this blog for a few years, you know this issue of teens articulating that the library isn’t their place has been discussed before.

Last spring, we wrung our hands and mourned the loss of many more school library jobs around the country. In our moments of greatest pique, we (and I mean the universal we — “we” as a profession) pointed fingers at small-visioned administrators or unsupportive parents.

Now it’s fall and we’re settling into our new realities. Some of the pique has been forgotten. We’re soldiering on. But now is not a time to forget that advocacy is an everyday activity … or that we may have teens in our libraries who would say exactly what the commenters in the blog post say: the library isn’t a place that matters to them, so who cares.

Who are the teens in your school who say they’d rather go to Barnes and Noble than your library? Who say there’s nothing in your library worth reading? Those are the folks we need to be reaching out to.

A thought: set yourself a goal this week to reach out to at least one non-library student this week. Let us know how it goes.

Are There Books That Should Be Banned From Your School’s Library? - NYTimes.com via kwout