Mid-Continent Library has hired a new CEO. I’m marginally intelligent, yet fairly simple and I read the press release on the hiring and I have no idea what they told us. I think Library’s should have such a simple mission that it slaves me a bit to see how complicated that it has been made.
I was not surprised that they utilized “collaborative” and “engage” in the introductory release. Those words are triggers for me. Basically, it means that they have lots of meetings and stuff, with coffee and whiteboards. I generally collaborate with a cold beer.
The library has closed down the Smithville branch for “maintenance” the last couple of months. I am not a big fan of closing a publicly funded entity for maintenance, but if your revenue comes in automatically, open or not, I guess it’s a simple decision.
The release did say that the new director had held a variety of positions in his previous work with a library in Cleveland that included “assisting customers as a branch staff member and business reference librarian.” That’s two experiences that he brings to the table that far overshadow anything related to collaboration, in my humble opinion.
It is obvious to the casual observer that the library system is in cultural and philosophical battles, and it will be interesting to see if the new director can navigate those battles to provide a more grounded service to the patrons of the library that are paying for all of this.
Not one time was the Dewey Decimal system mentioned in the press release. That made me sad.
I just read a little history on the Dewey Decimal System. It has been criticized for being biased to the Anglo-American world view. I’m not making this up. The dang Dewey Decimal System is racist. Proceed with your library search life accordingly.
I’m a little embarrassed to tell you guys that I sometimes did not put those little cards back in the card catalogue file at the correct spot at my school library. I’m not sure the penalty on something like that 50 years later, but I’m ready to take my punishment.
I think my school librarians are deceased at this point, but I feel bad about taking those cards out of order and then just stuffing them back in the drawer. They probably died mad at people like me. They probably spent hours getting those things back in order.
While I’m at it, I sometimes did book reports on books that I did not completely read.
Life is about admitting your faults and transgressions and repenting. I’m here for all that.
Get your checkbook out. You’re getting ready to buy the Kansas City Royals a new baseball stadium. I’m basically old and don’t like change, so not real excited about this. The good thing is that the interest will be about double what you would have paid for a new stadium back when the Royals were good. Maybe that’s not good, but it’s good for the bankers and such.
I think it would be funsies to tie the vote on a new stadium to the win loss record of the Royals. This “baseball village” has been said to cost $2 billion. LOL. Two billion, I can’t quit laughing about that. Two billion. That is 2,000 million-dollar bills, in case that provides any additional perspective to those of you that have ever seen a million-dollar bill.
Listen, I’m a problem solver.
Here’s my proposal. Let’s say the taxpayers/customers will throw in $10 million per win over the next two years. So basically, if they continue to be bad, they will get about 120 wins over that time frame and that would give them $1.2 billion. If they are decent and win 160 games, they get $1.6 billion. We could put a big sign by the Broadway Bridge, like a food drive and keep a tally during the season. “We’ve raised $200 million to build the Royals a new home” type thing.
Let the smart people work out the details, but this is a winner idea; somebody check my math, these are numbers bigger than I’m used to.
(Guy Speckman can be reached organizing a protest of the Dewey Decimal System)