feeling like a neophyte

So, even though I've been on flickr for ages, I must confess that I've never really played much with the apps or enhancements. I think I browsed them, briefly, oh so long ago. But they mostly seemed to deal with searching more efficiently. And, hello? I'm a librarian. I spent much too much of my graduate school career working the Boolean operator and thus I think of myself as a pretty decent searcher.

Seeing how you can play around with images though? I'm all about it. I'm thinking that the color fields pickr might be useful when I want to do some decorating. Because I have these random postcards of lucha libre over my sink and, as much as I love them, it might be nice to look at something else when I'm doing the dishes. And the calendar maker could be handy at Christmastime - how old school is it that I can distinctly remember having one of these made for my mom one year at Kinko's?

Today though, I'm feeling artsy. And I hear that the NYLA conference is going on right now. I didn't go this year, perhaps obviously, but I did have a great time there last year, when it was held in ever so lovely Saratoga Springs. One of the things I noticed about that town is how many great old motel signs were around, just begging for a retro-fiend like me to glory in them. This particular sign was right by the much more modern (and not nearly as full of character) hotel where I was staying and we walked by it everyday as we were going to meetings and such. To commemorate, I've Hockneyized it and am pretty pleased with the results.

Interesting to note: when I first read about this particular exercise, I was very keen to learn how to add notes and captions to their photos, as seen here. After lots of app searching and googling, I realized that it wasn't an additional application but an option right from your flickr photo page. There is probably a lesson there about learning all the built-in features before you go looking for outside toys, or maybe just in not making things more complicated than they have to be.

i've got your history right here

When I first transferred to Glendale, one of the things I was geekily excited about was the opportunity to work in a building with a nifty heritage. Which isn't to knock the functional-60s era-government-building aesthetic of Central - at least not entirely. But, I'm one of those girls who likes things to have a history. I shop at thrift stores. I can spend hours at a time browsing used book and record. I love coming across old notes and photos and, as such, think that found magazine is one of the greatest things ever. If I ever get to that grown-up, buying a house stage in my life, I totally want a cute little Craftsman cottage.

Thus, the idea that the physical building where I would be working day in and day out would have a rich history, of which I would play the smallest of parts, was very cool. While Glendale isn't a Carnegie building, it was opened in 1936 and the construction of it was a WPA project. Hadn't I spent hours online, looking at the WPA posters digital collection? Do I not love stories from that historical period? Could I not look at old pictures of the original librarians in this building and marvel over how different they seem and how foreign they would find much of our daily procedures, whilst also noting how remarkably unchanged our mission and regular activities are? Yes, yes and yes.

And now, a year and change later, I still get excited about that stuff. Sure, working in an older building doesn't come without it's difficulties. The occasional leak, odd placement of this and that, the challenge of updating pipes and phone lines and what have you. But those difficulties are far outweighed by the pleasure that comes from discovering a hidden nook, gazing at the lovely interior beams, eating lunch on the front steps, and many other small, daily joys. And, most significantly, I love that I am constantly reminded of the way I fit in with the great tradition of this building, of this neighborhood, of this city and of this profession. It's an admittedly small role, but incredibly satisfying one and I've learned that that sort of thing counts for quite a lot.