In This New Year

Over a year has passed since I posted about Lodi and in that year, my mom, Eleanor Henrietta Peterson passed away.  She died of Alzheimer's disease on August 31, 2010 at age 96.  This is the photo she chose for her obit, looking quite librarian-like with those glasses on a chain.  I loved my mom and am finally addressing my grief in a support group for people who have lost parents.  Thank goodness for the wonderful folks at Pathways Hospice for sponsoring these groups!   

Check out the LibGuide for Alzheimer's disease to find information for caregivers, students, and researchers.  I created it as one way of working through my grief. 

Cheers to you, kind readers, and raise a glass to your loved ones, where ever they might be!

Lodi, California

Happened upon the Lodi Wine & Chocolate Festival this weekend on my way with Linnea to see the Sandhill Cranes and Tundra Swans at Woodbridge Ecological Reserve. Saw hundreds of cranes, even more Snow Geese, and at least fifty Tundra Swans in flight.

Staten Island is the place to be for birding around sunset! The sound is amazing and there are birds in the sky overhead and afar. In the photo, that's Mt Diablo in the distance.

Drove around the Lodi area, including Locke, another amazing place. Next year want to attend the Wine/Choc Fest, including M2 winery. Stay overnight in cute little Woodbridge, bird, visit Locke, take lots of photos. Every time I come to a drawbridge, I will cross it and see where I wind up.

Back on the trail again

Hiking season has started for me, and it's time I got back on the trail. My absence thereon is a major marker of how far I have strayed from my own true self in the last few years. B and I had the good fortune to arrive at Coe when the mouse ears were at their height up the mountain, and we even saw one way down Manzanita Point Rd, in a grassy meadow. As Henry David T. said, "in wildness is the preservation of the world," and it surely is a saving grace for me. Even the PO was beautiful yesterday.

Spring Break

It's spring break and yesterday we had two important meetings.  Aren't we supposed to be recharging, revising, reviewing, and taking a few relaxed breaths in preparation for the rest of the academic year?  

No meetings during spring break!

I love SB: the campus is empty and so is the library.  There's time to yak a bit with colleagues, to get to the bottom of those piles of paper from the first week of the semester, and to think about what's going right and what needs a tune-up.  

I baked a sockerkaka this everning (Swedish cake) to create a celebratory mood tomorrow and to thank S. for all the wonderful Meyer lemons she has brought in for me.  My mom's recipe doesn't call for lemon flavor, but I started adding it last year and the zing level went up ten notches.  Do you think I should taste a slice tonight, just to make sure it's OK?

What a difference two years make

Been a while since I posted and now we have a new president who believes in science, that torture is evil, and in job creation. Meanwhile, we all have inherited a decade of spending in the wrong arena with neglect of our bridges and levees. What next?

Presidential Library?

The proposed George W. Bush Presidential Library, if built at SMU, is controversial. First, the land will be acquired by eminent domain, displacing homeowners in the University Gardens condo complex. Second, building costs are estimated at $2-300 million.....a lot of moolah for a library that wouldn't be housing any real books......

According to the New York Times, at a meeting on Jan 16, "close to 150 faculty members raised concerns about the project and formulated what became 35 questions for the university president, R. Gerald Turner, on the relationship between the university and the Bush library and policy center. The questions included, "How would the institute affect the intellectual integrity of SMU?"

The Library is actually proposed as a complex of three parts. First is the library itself which would hold all the presidential papers. The second is the museum, which would present Bush and his administration in its best light. The third part would be the Bush Institute, a "think tank" where scholars would write articles supportive of the Bush administration. Help!

There are a number of presidential libraries dedicated to men whose politics and practices disturb me and some to men who I admire, but most disturbing is this latest vision of "library" as temple to historic revisionism, even as we are in the middle of it.

Fall and Winter 2006

Fall semester was busy with lots of instruction. Good to re-acquaint myself with the Biology dept again...old friends and (the mark of a true librarian) a wonderful database, Biological Abstracts. I remember when it was in paper, that rotated index in the back that no one wanted to use. As a matter of fact, I remember using it as an undergrad....rather, trying to use it and leaving the SF State Library in frustration. Never dreamed in 1968 that I would work in libraries! My occupational goal was to hike in the woods....my son Emil has realized my dream, see his friend Leslie's blog about a day in the life of a forester www.happyadventurer2.blogspot.com
My OT class was great this year. Students inOT are wonderful folks, working to bring occupational equity to all kinds of people. I required a telephone consultation this time...spent at least one hour on the phone with each student and really got to know them better. Online courses are convenient for a lot of reasons but I miss the one-to-one time.
I will be on sabbatical during Spring semester and will keep up with SJSU Library through this blogging thingie.