librarypunk - 112 - Day in the Life of Sadie

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

We let the ADD take over this episode.  Media Mentioned https://newsguild.org/scholastic-workers-walk-out-to-protest-glaring-hypocrisy-by-the-childrens-publishing-powerhouse/ Join the discord: https://discord.gg/AJHpwx946 

Let's go. Bat rave time. It's bat rave. I'm doing a bat rave. I wonder if I could put this on my microphone stand. Hell yeah. If I can do it. Let them speak.

But it's not close enough to the camera for people to see. Let them speak. What do you have to say? Justin, what does the bat have to say? Enlightening. Thank you. Speak your truth, comrade. See, what else we got here?

Got a goose? An animal. What's the fuck? fucking like the game, the toy you get as a kid. Yeah. Like the cows is. You know, those. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Is that an alligator? Yep. Hell yeah. Oh, this is a fun game. Let's do this with guests. Hell yeah. Let's do the fucking speak and stuff.

I watched Discovery Channel and Animal Channel so much as a kid. I would ace this test. That's a Puma or something. Yeah. kind of big cat. It's a buffalo. No shit. I already feel the test. I met a buffalo one time. There's a lot of

them in Antelope Island, north of Salt Lake City. I also have been to Yellowstone. I have a very strange selection of animals on this board. We get rhino. These aren't ones you think about their noises. I want to hear a rhino. Let me hear the rhino. Just that kind of snores. Sounds like it had too much Taco Bell.

Uh, got a hyenas. A little mouse. A mouse. Angry cow. Let's just do this for an hour. That cow is in the revolutionary vanguard. It's for total liberation, liberating itself from the slaughterhouses with its cow comrades.

What would a good, like, cow revolutionary name be? Like cow Guevara or something like that. Fidel Kaustro. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Captain Thomas Sancaura Sancaura is pretty good actually

Sancaira is pretty good yeah it's Tomava I don't know I'm using the built-in sound boards or the community sounds and I was like do they have like a the one that

I add that to my board okay listeners are finding this room yeah So my student workers have figured out that I've got a stupid library podcast. And one of them, and I won't say their names, but one of them wants to be a recurring character because they're like my, they're like half German and they like grew up in partly in Germany, partly in the United States.

And they're like, they're a bitch and I like them so much kind of kind of person. They're my, they're mean for me. and they're like, I'm going to be your like, mean, German, like, guard dog student worker recurring character. I was like, okay. I've been saying that they're my like KGB dog, like my East German, like. Yeah. Rent lowering gunshots. Hell yeah.

Just moved to where I'm in Boston and there's loud music all the time. It's one of the only areas in Boston where you can still hear, like, people play music outside. I mean, people will, like, listen to music on the public transit without headphones, but that's just, like, people now. People play in some, like, old, like, I heard some Lincoln Park today driving by. Oh, hell yeah. I heard, I heard this country song. I don't know the name of it, but it was, uh, it was like a good, if I've heard it, it's at least a good 15 years old. It was like a modern country song.

Was it a guy? Was it a guy? Was it a cool? is guy. I couldn't place the song, but I was like, I've definitely heard this. Was it Garth? It was definitely old. It wasn't Garth. I would know Garth. You know Garth. Yeah, I have a neighbor who's living in a trailer in the backyard of another neighbor. And we call him trailer park Chad Kroger because they get drunk on random nights. And he just turns up his radio super loud and sings along with it drunkenly. And like, houses are close enough together that it's like, I can hear all of them.

bit even though it's two houses down. So we're like, oh, trailer park, Chad Kroger is out tonight, having a good time. It's better than when him and his girlfriend are like screaming, it's obscenities at each other. Yeah, that's the thing is, like, sing in my house. I've always, like, sang really loud when I'm, like, bored because that's how I practice singing, right? And I was in a puck band and I'm pretty loud. Yeah, no, I've done karaoke with you before. Yeah.

And so now that I'm like not, because I wasn't a duplex. So I'd always go to, like, the farthest wall. when I was doing that. I would always sing in my living room. But now I'm still like, I think our houses are still too close together, but I'm not going to stop. Yeah.

That's just what it's like living near other people. You just got to deal with it. Yeah. I found that I do not get trick-or-treaters. I was super depressed about it. I got to hand out a little bit of candy to some children. Yeah. Tell us about that, actually.

You were at the bookstore. Yeah, yeah. So we had like a new member training. on Sunday and one of the members, like when you shift like your first couple times, they don't want you by yourself, right? Because it's like, you know, you got to learn the ropes and what if somebody calls and you're like, I don't know what to do. So they're like, you know, have you shipped with some people.

And this person like doesn't get off work until like has like a nine to five kind of thing. And wanted to come by the store and like read for at least a couple hours. And the person who normally works this on Tuesday is there one. to seven, and this person wanted to be there after that, was like, well, I'm not doing anything. And, like, I can come to the store and keep it open and hang out. Because we are, we can open whatever we want. You know, we get the key for the code for the key, so we can literally just go and hang out and open it, whatever we want. It's like, yeah, I'll hang out and stay with you. And the area of Boston I'm in, like, I, this is in Jamaica Plain. If listeners are familiar,

very large Dominican and otherwise like Latino population, very large like Spanish speaking section of Boston. And like the businesses, like they have to put signs up if they're not giving out candy because children will just walk in and be like, candy. So you kind of have to be prepared, quickly learn. So I had to like run to the stop and shop. Because it's like we had like dorky postcards and like hand stamps of like the hammer and sick. and like stickers that said Nazis fuck off. But we didn't like... I mean, like, people were like coming in the store because we sell children's books.

You know, we sell children's books about like Palestine and like gender and, you know, stuff like that. Did the ABCs of Revolution or whatever it's called? Yeah, something like that. Like we've got like a small children section. But children and their tiny, like in their cute little Spider-Man costumes like Cat Coton and be like, the trigger tree caddy. And so I had to like walk to the stop and shop and buy like $20 worth of the like last candy they had. Oh, God.

And then so then we had some candy out. And so yeah, kids were like coming in and with their sticky kid fingers. And I was like, I better buy some candy corn because there will be that one kid or parent who's like, candy corn. And everyone else will hate it, but they will be happy that I bought it. And sure enough. Candy queen is good. It was like, yes, one parent was like, you got the candy corn. I was like, I knew someone would appreciate my thinking of.

I'm here for you, bud. Yeah, I'm like, I got you, buddy. Candy corn is one of those weird ones that gets better after you have a couple. Yeah. Yeah. I might as well. I'm already here. So it's coating your mouth and sugar and you're like, hmm, yeah, I'm really truly like

sinking in now. Yeah. Can you look a handful. So we were just like handing out candy to like sticky, children that came in. I'm listening to like the funk music. It was pretty dope. A good, good way to spend Halloween.

After all of my student workers read me for fucking filth and dressed like me for Halloween, even doing my sideways part and like doing the smile where like I like don't smile, but I like do that. You know, I like purse my lips together, the white people face. You do the white people face, yeah. I do the white people face so much. I'm not. It's like my concentrating.

face. And so, yeah, they all read me for filth by, like, dressing in black and wearing long, flowy things. One student, they all had boots. They all had boots. One of them was even like, I should have wore my Karlmark shirt today. And I was like, hell yeah. So I was, I was going to cry because I was like, aw. Because it was like, I had to give like a big important presentation for work. And they were like, how do we support you? Oh, we know. we're all going to dress like you for Halloween. And I was like, they're not all going to do it. And they all did it, every single one of them, even the one who's like really shy and

like doesn't like talk much and stuff. Kay showed up, like wearing all black. I was like, oh. Precious. It gave me the warm fuzzies. So, yeah, all in all, a very good, solid Halloween over here. Got to have my student workers make fun of me. and I got to hang out at the radical bookstore and give candy to sticky children for a couple hours and listen to funk music.

So it's like pretty solid night. Yeah. Like that was a good way to spend Halloween. Like when I got there, there was like a family, like a mother and her daughter. And like she was hijabi. And came in because we have like a Palestinian mural outside of the. the store and we have had it for like a couple years and they saw the mural and came in and like asked like what resources we had and like there were some like zines this person had made and was

giving away and we like showed her like the kids books that we had for her daughter um and like other resources and like organizations in town and everything that was like as i was coming in that night so it was good yeah there was a drag event i wanted to go to as a fundraiser for food not bombs. I think Vino Bums is coordinating it, but I was laid up with COVID vaccine. I got side effects for the first time. I still haven't, which makes me worry that they don't work on me, but I know that's not true, but I'm like anxious about it. I wonder if I got a different brand of vaccine this time. Yeah, I've gotten the, what's the one that's not Moderna? Pfizer. I've gotten the Pfizer one every single time.

So I think I got the Pfizer a couple of times. And then I got a Moderna and then I got side effects. I think I did get Moderna this time and I got Pfizer before. I wanted NOAAVX, but he wouldn't give it to me. They had the NOVAVX, but they wouldn't give it to me. I kept asking, you know, like, we need five people because there's five doses and they can't open it. If there's just five people, I'm like, you're a CVS and a target. There's not going to be five people at the same time.

And even the guy, the guy, the pharmacy tech was like, you can put me on there and I'll be the second person. And he was still like, no. That was the one I was talking about. But one in each arm. Yeah. Shoot me up twice. I don't know. Double fist, the vaccines.

That was the one who I was talking about Patai with, because he brought up. Batai fall. He said he was going to grad school and he was in the middle of reading The Stranger by Camus. Hell yeah. And so we just started talking about. but we're reading. Yeah, I think he was hitting on me. It was one of those kids I can't tell if he's just like really excitable or was hitting on me.

Or both. Possibly both. Give it my number. I'll fly to Texas. It's very goofy guy. Yeah. That's why I wasn't sure. Anyway, we've got a little news.

Scholastic workers are on strike. The unionized ones. I don't know if it's all of them. But today, so we're recording November 1st, so come out next week. But they are doing a one-day strike today. over the siloing of titles at the book fairs that were focused on race and queer themes. And also, they want to get paid more. So good reason to strike.

Yeah, I was down near the bottom. It's like, oh, by the way, they've been trying to negotiate for a year and a half. Their contract expired in May of 2022, and they still haven't gotten a new one. Like, what the fuck? When I was at UNH, we were in negotiations for like three years. that's such how how is that even allowed like when you're not allowed to strike yeah you know you have no power when you're not allowed to strike basically and you don't have to have a contract to employ people i don't have a contract yeah i work at the uh there's like a word it's like the the at the pleasure of the president or something like that at the discretion of the president or whatever you're like a little rimp boy over there or something a kept boy I put it, I put, when I emailed the president's office one time, I put that as the sign off. I was like, at your discretion, just to be a little bitchy about it.

He just bounced the email to my boss, his bitch move. Write me back, coward. So, I don't know how many of the U.U workers of Scholastic are unionized. It's not a very long, it's just on the union page, which is News Guild. It says 82 members, but I don't know how many of that is of the total employees. Yeah, I assume this is like their corporate office. Hot strikefall. Their union was formed in 1937.

Oh, work, bitch, yeah. What a time to unionize as well, like, middle of like the new deal. Hell yeah. All right. That was the news. The brief news is that like Massachusetts, there's one of those like e-book bills trying to go through that like Maryland tried to get, I think. Yeah. And they are like, they're trying to argue like the reason that the Maryland one failed was that it was trying to force like the sort of like force to sell the ebook kind of thing.

And that was why it failed. So in here they're like they're not forcing that. But like if an ebook is sold or like if someone buys the, if a library does buy the ebook, it has to be at like a reasonable price. But there's not the like forced to sell kind of thing. And so they're trying to do that tax. to make sure it gets through and not sued, even though the, is it the Authors Guild,

this fucking bitches, that are the ones that are always like, this is awful and is taking our money. The Association of American Publishers, probably. Authors Guild, I think, are pretty cool. The Authors Guild have, like, pulled some shit, too, I'm pretty sure.

Maybe they've turned around. Probably. Yeah, I shared it in the Discord. I didn't put it under good news or bad news. I just put it under the episode discussion because it's similar to stuff we talked about with Kyle Courtney. I believe, as well as some stuff with Corey Doctor O.

But yeah, so hopefully that light goes through and then sets a precedent of like, you know, don't do the thing where it's like forced to sell even though that would be cool. But if you are like if a library does buy from you, then it has to be under like these conditions or something. Anything's got to be better than the bullshit that's happening now. Yeah, yeah. Like they were saying like the Massachusetts Library Association was talking about how like the Boston Public Library, that the need for e-books has surpassed the need for physical books, but that the budget can't keep up with that cost,

meaning that sometimes I'll go to get like a book and hold is like months, right? On the e-book, even though there's like 12 copies of it, right? Just like with the cost of it. So I think the thing was that they have to like have it at the cost that they would sell to a consumer or something. I'm not sure. I'd have to reread the little article, but we can link it in the notes. But yeah, so that's going through. There's still the publishers or whatever that are like, but the people in the state

government are doing the rhetorical thing of like, this was what was wrong in the Maryland. Was it Maryland? Yeah, the Maryland one. Yeah, Maryland and New York had one, I think. Yeah, like the Maryland one failed for specifically this reason. And ours doesn't have that. So ours pointing out, like, what, like, ours doesn't do this clearly. illegal thing that's against whatever law we talked about.

So ours is fine and there's no reason to fight against it besides being dumb. It's kind of their argument. And clever, you know, state politician words, but, which is like a clever move to be like, theirs went wrong in this way. Ours isn't doing that. So therefore ours is fine, I guess. Yeah, so hopefully that goes through. Especially since the Boston Public Library, like, just did the thing that the Brooklyn Public Library did of, like,

opening up all of its e-books for kids all over the country. Okay. Then that was the news. Bat, do you have news? Let the bat speak. Bats, bats, bats, bats, bats. Bat news. Those bathers.

Thank you for the news, bat. I saw Leslie post that they and Kate went to a party where they had live bats that were being rehabilitated. Yeah. Kate shared the picture of those bats in the Tinder Subtited. object discord. Hell yeah. You should bring more bats to parties. I love bats.

Bats are very good. I want to hold a bat. I know. My uncle had a bat for some reason. I don't know why. That just makes it. I fell out of a tree. He just was keeping it in a box.

It's fine now. My mom did that with a wild bird one time. I tried to just keep it as a pet. And I was like, I just let it out. So today we're doing Day and Life of Sadie. Welcome. Sadie, who are you? So what's, I don't know, you want to your job title or?

No, because it's like a dead giveaway if you know, like. Yeah, to what I figured. I like some amount of anonymity. Basically, I'm a, I'm a cis admin with slightly. You're cis. This is to me. This is a slur. Systems administrator, which is, incredibly vague, but covers a lot of shit, specifically for network and operations. So I don't

fuck with desktops much anymore, though I have in the past, which like Windows is kind of a nightmare. So I'm good with that. When you went from your last job to this job, did a lot change? Like when you move jobs, have you been like aiming for different things? Kind of. This jobs a lot more specific than my previous one. The previous one was pretty much Jack of all trades, anything vaguely IT related, fell under my umbrella, and this one is more segregated out into different teams. So I don't deal with the desktop stuff. I don't deal with a lot of application stuff. I mostly just keep servers up and running and make sure the internet doesn't go down. So, but yeah, there's, it's really funny how the titles in IT don't make a whole lot of fucking sense half the time.

Because I've had like two or three different titles that all were doing basically the same job of cis admin. But not only one of them was actually cis admin. So it's kind of one of those things where it's, you really have to look at the specific like job description to see. what skills are necessary for it because it could be anything from incredibly vague from like IT specialist to something incredibly specific like database developer or something and you know have similar but not quite the same skills if that makes sense yeah people don't make sure that their job titles are accurate it's annoying no I feel like every two or three years yeah totally forgot what I was saying actually so

Every two or three years. Oh, every two or three years, it goes to, you know, somebody goes through an organization and goes from manager, director, to supervisor or whatever. So, yeah, don't trust the job titles. How did you get into library IT specifically? I think we talked about this. Yeah. Long time ago. It was a while ago.

I started as public service. And I wanted to make decent money without having to do six years of school to get an MLI. M-L-I-S and I went, hey, maybe I should look at the job scale for my library system and see who's near the top. And it was IT. So I decided to go back to school and look at IT stuff, specifically so I could stay in libraries. But, yeah, so two-year degree versus six-year's degree to become a librarian. So it was very opportunistic. And you're not stuck doing like a university's IT or the city's IT. You're actually in a library IT environment. Yes. Yes. County, I work for a county system that stands on its own. So I don't, yeah, have to deal with a multi-layer of universities or, yeah,

city or whatever, which is really nice. So we get to decide our own budget and all of that stuff. So it's like as long as the board approves, we're pretty much good to go. We can have a lot more flexibility than from what I hear about other library IT departments. So, especially at universities, which I always hear just suck. If they have them to begin with, like when I was at UNH, we had library IT. And then like during one of the things that happened during COVID was that it got restructured so that IT got centralized to just be university IT, which that always sucks. Library IT requires some specialized. understanding of like how library resources interact with shit.

Our easy proxy server is currently like just dead. Oh no. We have locally hosted easy proxy. I've run that before. I don't need, do they even offer locally hosted easy proxy anymore? I don't think so. Yeah, you have to just like have WorldCat do it for you now. Yeah, everything's moving to hosted like that, which is really super fucking irritating in my opinion.

Yeah, but since we have Fremo doing the authentication, it's like not an issue, but I was using the easy proxy because I can easily make a bookmarklet because Taylor and Francis, whenever you're logged in and do a share link, it doesn't give you one that has the proxy stanza in it. So I was generating, yeah. And we use those in a lot of classes. So you want a link to like a specific chapter. And like the students are probably going to be off campus when they read it. So it needs to have the proxy in it. So I was inserting the easy proxy stanza into it with a bookmarklet. And then I was like, someone emailed me and they're like, it's not working.

And our web developer was like, oh, yeah, that server's like dead. I'm still trying to get them to fix it. But yeah, we have library IT guys, but they're mostly like the desktop guys. Like they set up the desktops and workstations and computer labs and stuff like that. And then we have a web developer who does way more than just web development. Of course. Yeah. And we have two systems guys.

Neither of whom I know what they do. I have no idea what they do day to day. One of them, I assume, doesn't even work there. I've never met him. He was head of the web committee last year. I talked to him a maximum of 30 minutes, and I'm on that committee. Does he, like, do a lot of, like, configuring stuff with, do you also have Alma? Yeah, I don't know what he does.

Yeah, so, like, although, like, is there, like a system? I mean, does he do your discovery? Like, does he do what I did in my previous job? I don't know what he does. He's on the Brownsville campus. I've never met him. I don't know if he does any work. I mean, I didn't never do any work, but, you know,

sometimes you just have to sit and do no work for four months, and then you get possessed and do all of your work in like two hours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I didn't do a whole lot of work this, this week. But I did get a call from. my boss of all was picking up groceries. And I was like, I'm on my lunch break technically. Sadie, have you ever worked in IT

outside of a library? No. I don't ever want to. Yeah, because I was like, I wonder how it compares. From what I understand, you get paid a lot more

and your stress level is fucking skyrocketed. Like, I pretty, I frequent the Reddit cis admin threat or page quite a lot, because sometimes there is actually like really interesting and useful stuff there and sometimes it's just the same

people having the same bitches over and over again. Same bitches. The same bitches. Same rants. God, I'm trying to remember what it stands for now, but it's, it's an MSP, which is basically a company that does IT for other like businesses and stuff. And there's a lot of them. And people are always like, oh yeah, like, if you learn so much working at it at,

MSP. And then I actually talked to somebody who worked their one. And they're like, yeah, it's because it's a fire hose and nobody knows what the fuck's happening with any of it. And you have customers screaming at you all of the time. And I'm like, oh, okay, so it's a learn trial by fire kind of bullshit, not actually like fun or instructive in any way. And they're like, no, but I made good money. And I'm like, I will take low library money and low stress over that side of things. So yeah, I don't, I don't ever really want to. to work outside of library IT because, well, I don't want to sell anything for anybody. So even if I did, it would probably be a school district or something. But yeah, no, it sounds way more stressful than what it's worth for me, at least. Yeah. I'm just looking at our cis-admin. Yep. Someone is just talking about how someone scammed their HR department and sent their paycheck to a scammer.

That's happened. We had somebody get a hold of somebody's credentials and go into one of our internal systems and try to change their direct deposit to a different bank account and almost worked. And I believe in the past, it has worked. And it happened to the library director, which like yikes, library director didn't get her paycheck. Skill issue. Skill issue. She retired after that. Couldn't be me.

Yep. It's so weird that I'm a library director. That's bullshit. I should not be a library director. One of the people I worked with in grad school, he was like a director within like two years of graduating. Oh yeah. That happens to most dudes who go to library school is they just like go be the director

of a public library immediately after graduating. Like I knew several guys at the University of Illinois that happened to. That's wild. Did me transitioning turn me into a library? director. Is that what happened? We heard it here first, kids. Yeah, that's how you jump up the corporate ladder in Liberian ship. Just trans yourself.

It works every time. Go into the woods and try and turn super sand. Justin, we'll have to do that when you visit for, you'll have to, you'll have to show me how to go super sane in the woods when you visit Thanksgiving. It's about getting really, really angry. until Dragon Ball Super when they said and they changed it to something about your back muscles

because once a woman figured out how to go super-saian, she was like, yeah, it's just like back muscle control. You don't have to get like super-fist, which was very funny. That was a lot. Yeah, I mean, mostly. What's the interview process like for library IT? Is it like, they still make you do really long interviews,

or is it quicker? It's quicker. I think the longest one I ever had was an hour, and half of that was basically a written test to make sure that you actually had the IT knowledge. So yeah, usually, I think the last one that I had was a Teams interview, and I had two people and answered mostly customer service-ish questions and like, how do you deal with this situation kind of stuff? And then afterwards, I sat on camera with one of the two people doing the interview and filled out basically a make sure you have actual networking knowledge kind of thing and sent it sent it in. And that actually might have been. That's the only interview I've had where I've actually had like a written portion. No, actually, I take that back.

I've had two that had a written portion. So yeah, expect somebody to actually ask you to fill something out. I guess. I crammed before both of them because I suck at remembering acronyms and stuff. Librarians do love acronyms. IT loves them more. Really? Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. Sometimes the same acronym for two different things, it's wonderful, especially in library land because there's SIP protocol that like I think OCLC created and like

SIP2 and most ILSs use it and stuff. and then there's SIP that the rest of the IT world uses, which is the standard transmission protocols or standard interchange protocol. But they're two different things. So if you're a library IT person and you're talking about SIP and talking to a non-library IT person, it's like this doesn't make any fucking sense because they're actually two separate protocols, but they're both called SIP. Take a fucking sip. Yeah. Gotta love that. Take a fucking sip, babes.

Take a fucking sip, babes. Actually, don't because it's a terrible protocol that's completely insecure because it was created by librarians. Yeah. And we're going to insist that it's right. We're working on getting Open Athens right now. I don't know what that one is. I think that's Sammel. I don't like Open Athens.

I just feel like Easy Proxies easier. We didn't like Easy Proxy because it didn't give us a dashboard. And we didn't want to have to, like, constantly rely on OCLC to change things and to, So I get a dashboard. I don't even have to rely on my own IT guy. I can just be God. Nice. This is what I want in life.

I am a control freak. And I like having my own little stupid little dashboard. And also analytics comes with Open Athens. You have to pay extra for those in easy proxy. That sounds like OCLC. We got it because we had to differentiate out med school students. And we were also providing library services to another unit. university that we split from.

Yeah. You can do that with Open Athens. Yeah, that was what, that was why we got it. Because we needed different levels of access so that we could provide it for the community college that we split from, but when they created our university. So we still had a contract to provide it with library services. And then they, like, didn't agree to something. And so we just, like, cut them off last year.

And I don't think they have a librarian anymore. So I'm like, I don't think they have a library at this community college. Oh, no. Can you even get accredited that way? Yeah, there's some. Oh, yeah, yeah. There are people who, who basically consult for accreditation purposes for libraries, for universities that don't have libraries.

So you go in, you fix all their shit before they get accredited, and then you get paid as a consultant, and then you leave. Do you get paid well doing that shit? Yeah, as an individual, yeah, I think so. I've looked into it. I don't know how to get into that game. Yeah. Sadie, what's your least favorite?

library-related tech thing to work with. I want to hear your hot takes and opinions. Least favorite. Specifically to library tech? Yeah. Anything having to do with mobile printing. That market is a fucking mess. At my previous library,

we were going to launch a mobile printing project, and I did a ton of research and passed it off before I left. but basically none of it actually works the way it's supposed to, even from like big companies, like envisionware that is like a huge player in the market in terms of like library software. And it's still like, it's still only works like maybe 75% at the time.

They're just, part of it is just because printers suck in general because they're a million different brands, a million different like ways that things happen. There's so many places it can like fall apart. part and part of it is just that library software tends to suck ass too. Yeah. But yeah,

so I think that that combination of sucky printer shit and sucky library software shit just collides into, I don't think I've ever heard anybody talk good about a mobile printing solution they've had. When I was doing research, I was like, are you satisfied with this? And they're like, it works well enough, I guess. Yeah, that's my hot take. Just fuck, if you hate printers, you'll hate this more. Yeah.

But also, luckily, at my job, I don't have to deal with that. We're trying to get paper cut systems set up. And we don't have mobile printing, but as a way to sit, because we have like free unlimited printing right now, which the students love, because they, sometimes you have to print off a score that's like 100 pages. It would suck if they made students pay for that. And especially when their professors are constantly telling them print this out and bring it to class. Like when your, when your teachers are telling you to print off a huge chunk of stuff

to bring it to class, it would suck to then charge a student for that. But we're trying to see right now, like how much do students actually print to sort of do a limit of printing is free until you reach this point. And so they've put like paper cut on the library printer to see. And then that will be used to limit printing, I think, eventually in the future. That makes sense. no printer cut was one of the ones when I was researching for my previous job that I was like this one might actually be okay so yeah that's what we have I had the it's paper cut yeah and it works pretty well yeah okay that's good to hear we call it like three different things so it's called B print bind me printers and then I finally saw in like I'm reading this IT article which is like the worst formatted article I've ever fucking seen in my life look at

Welcome to my world, baby. Everything's indented weird. I don't understand why. Oh, I hate this. Oh, I hate this. We should get Anaya to look at this and tell us how bad it is from an accessibility standpoint. Oh, this is incredible. You see how the note, the second note that is like six indents for no reason.

Oh, God, this is bad. It's indented under one, two, three, four levels of indents. And God, what is like this fucking knowledge-based software that all these universities have that's like impossible to navigate? I hate that shit.

Yeah, because it's tied into their ticket system. Yeah, it's sure. I'm going to build my own ticket system. Actually, I'm thinking about building a ticket system in Airtable. Oh, yeah. Once we start doing like research support services, I'm thinking about building a ticket system. I'm thinking about getting

a chat set up in teams and maybe having like a Microsoft Forms thing so that we don't have to pay for shit. There's like that Mibu one, me chat, whatever, it's a free one. But my IT guys, I have an IT guy and I'm already asking him to get subjects plus set up on a server for me so we don't have to pay for Lube guys. I don't want to burden him too much. But I like set up another free thing for me on a server. They need a library.

Yeah. You're setting up library services. It's true. Let's do the daily walkthrough. Like, Sadie, what does your average day look like? You can fabricate, put them together. It doesn't have to be any particular day. Yeah.

Now, what does today look like, Sadie? The day was exceedingly boring because we have a major project going on right now that I am not a part of. So I'm just kind of watching it from the sidelines. My team in particular does a lot of morning checks because we oversee most of the, non-desktop systems. So usually the first bit of my morning is going through and making sure things are actually turned on and working. All of the lights are blinking if I'm actually in the office. And it's really, it's, that doesn't take very long. So just make sure everything's up and running. If something's not running, I have to turn it into a ticket and then figure out why it's not

running. And usually devolve from there, there have been many mornings where I've walked in and like started doing something and then completely forgotten, I needed, to do my actual checks, but yeah, it's easy to get sidetracked. And then I usually check the ticket queue. We get emails for them, but it's easier to actually just go to the help desk software and look at it in there. We get a lot of spam tickets. So if somebody reports getting spam or phishing, they get passed to us so we can check and make sure if they're actually like legit emails or I see a lot of spam. And we have a lot of, since we're like basically in.

infrastructure. We have a lot of recurring tasks that happen at like every month or every week or every six months or something. So it's like creating and installing security certificates for certain things. You know, exchange email. We don't really do the website certificates. That's a different team. But, you know, so like we have to make sure those stay renewed and we double check to make sure like things stay updated, that's always a really big one, is just making sure everything's actually updated, including our, like, our IT systems that we use, and also just like third part, any sort of third party app. So like even making sure that like Chrome and everything is updated on everybody's computer is a giant, giant chunk of just tracking down why things haven't

automated the way they should have. You spend all this time to automate something and then you spend half the time that you spent automating it, figuring out why it's not automating the way it would, it should. So, which is actually fun. I don't want, I don't want that to sound like tedious. That's actually my fun, the fun part of my job is when something's not working the way it should. And I get to dig my little dirty little IT fingers into it and figure out, uh, figure out how to make it work again. And then if there's any project work going on, usually a good chunk of my day is taken up with that either in meetings about the project or doing actual like work for the project, you know, figuring out, writing out the steps that need to be taken or

doing testing to make sure that it actually works the way that the documentation says it works. So much reading. I do a lot of, a lot of Googling and a lot of reading documentation. So even before you start doing a project, I, you know, will read five or six different art. articles, especially Microsoft. I work a lot with Microsoft stuff. So I'm like, have the giant like, you know, two dozen tab window open that I've had open for three weeks because I'm trying to figure out how, like, how to deploy Microsoft 365, except they now call it four different things. And so I have to figure out what the difference is between those four different things. And yeah, for the ongoing professional development part of it, it's like you never actually stop learning

things because for one, it does move really fast. Like a lot of the times there's, you know, different protocols that come up or like you're bouncing between vendors who all who use different things. And you just pretty much, you never stop learning. And you never will. And I think that's, that's probably the number one thing that I hear people in IT say they like about IT is that they never actually stop having to learn new things because it's always changing. So that's probably how most people know that they're ready to retire or move into a different sphere is because they go, I don't want to learn a whole new fucking firewall system all over again. And that's, you go, okay, I really, I really got to leave. But yeah. So I think half of my

bookmarks are just links to the different documentation for the different systems that we use. So constantly, constantly finding new resources to read or to rely on. And I just, my brain just turned off. Yeah. So a lot of learning, a lot of self-directed professional development. So like my boss will be like, all right, what are you, what are you learning about like right now kind of thing? And I'm like, well, I've been reading about this. You know, I've been reading about this thing in Microsoft.

And I was, I was researching this for the Wi-Fi system. and, you know, putting in tickets with vendors. There's a lot of dealing with vendors, which when Justin was like, yeah, let's do life of Sadie. I'm like, cool, I can bitch about Microsoft for an hour because. Hell yeah, do it. Yeah. But, yeah, so that's, so as a daily thing, that's kind of basically dodge between those two things or those

several things, you know, researching something, testing something, tickets for something. and project planning and execution stuff. And that, of course, varies wildly, like, throughout the day or the year. I'll have two or three projects going at once that I'm working on. And then, you know, two months later, those are wrapped up. And I don't have any projects to work on. So I just do a whole bunch of tickets. Like, I'm the one who's picking up all of the tickets that come in kind of thing.

So there's definitely an ebb and flow to it. But yeah, that's kind of the general gist. Are there any like productivity workflows or systems that you have tried or liked or found a success with or hate? Because I know like a lot of the ones I know about come from the like software development or IT sphere. So I didn't know if you dabbled in those at all. I've dabbled. I had a con bond board at my old job for a while, like a, a dry erase board, I turned into a confine board.

And I used it for a little bit, but then it just kind of, I didn't have the project management level at that job that would really benefit from that sort of thing. So it just, I just kind of fell out of using it. There's a lot of that stuff like agile or, oh God, what's the other one? A lot of the stuff falls more on the managers because they're the ones who are doing the actual project management part of things. for personal stuff I generally I use OneNote which is like the most basic uninteresting thing possible but I use it because I can do it on my phone and also on my computer I need that I need that like synchronicity because if I'm out at a branch doing something I need to be able to take

pictures and store it somewhere where I can then get it later or or take notes so I can remember what I was doing if I, you know, don't have a laptop with me or don't have internet because I'm troubleshooting something that's wrong with, you know, connectivity. But yeah, I basically, I keep a weekly journal. Well, I say keep very loosely because I think I actually, the last one I did was in February. I just have not been doing that lately. But yeah, I keep a weekly journal where I just basically write down everything I've, everything I've worked on that week in bullet points, because that's how my brain works. So I can go back and reference things if I'm like, can't remember exactly what change I made

or what exactly what week something happened. And I highlight things depending on. So if there's a big critical incident, like a major server goes down or something, I'll highlight that in bright red. So when I scroll through that month later, I can see kind of at a top level glance exactly what were the big emergency things and then kind of elsewhere. are like in there because I don't. It's very bullet journaling, I guess, is how I use it.

It's like bullet journal combined with cheat sheets. I have a lot of PowerShell notes and commands that I can never remember kind of like a kind of thing. So giant sprawling one note. Yeah, I've come to like OneNote a little bit mainly for the fact, for my work stuff, not for my personal stuff, but mainly for the fact that we're like a Microsoft. Canvas. So it's like we have Outlook, we use Teams. And so it's like I can like, if like IT sends an email to me in response to something that's relevant to my student workers, I can just like have that email and like send it directly to the like teams like general channel for my student workers so that they have it. And I also, for my like work computer, I had them get me like a surface so that I can like have my weekly check in with my graduate fellows at my student workers. and have it so that I'm like, cool, Riker in the chair writing the check-in in my tablet in our OneNote instead of having to like sit there and be typing and everything so I can like write down

things too and like do annotations and stuff. Yeah. It's growing on me. I hate it. Yeah. The compatibility between Sweet's, it's kind of funny that especially as we were just talking with Cory Doctor about this is like that's how they, that's, that's how they, that's how they get you. Like, this only, this works so well, but only with this. And, you know, and it's

even worse. It's a library vendors too. Yeah, library vendors, but like Microsoft is like, has a product for like almost literally everything. And it's like more and more at my current job, it's like, oh, we're going to get rid of this system and replace it with basically the Microsoft equivalent because it all integrates together and it all makes, you know, it all makes it easier. like, you know, but then it's all also in the cloud, a lot of it. So you lose that certain level of control. And yeah, there's a lot of moving parts there. And you think that it would be easier, but even Microsoft doesn't know what's going on in Microsoft half the time.

That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, we used to use. There's so many Microsoft products that, like, we don't use. But IT is always like, you know, why don't, like, we were trying to like get in a local installable mecca. like, can't you use a Microsoft product for this? I was like, Microsoft doesn't make exhibit software. Like, there's no front-facing thing.

Yeah. And the thing is, we're lucky we got that, that I thought for that, because otherwise we wouldn't have a self-hosted of Mecca because eventually B-Press launched a software, an exhibit software, and they would just be like, just buy it from, we would have had to just buy it from B-Press. And it would be expensive because it's all severe. I'm trying to pull up office right now.

actually because I want to see how many. I think my last job, we used the chat system, but I can't remember what it's called. I mean, it's just in teams. It wasn't Teams. It wasn't Skype.

No. Yammer. Yeah, like yammer or something. The one that's like a social media. The one that's like your social media where it's like you like share posts, you do posts. Is that what yammer is?

I've never ever looked at it. Yeah. It's stupid. That sounds. Yeah. Teams is growing on me too. I kind of like Teams. I installed the shifts app and I can control all my student workers

shifts that way and share it with them because they're part of like the library teams that I made for us. And then they can like request time off and like switch shifts with each other without having to fucking email me first. They can like handle it themselves. But it's also like a good way to like just to keep track. And like we get like our own little shared one note in the teams. And they are like, they take little notes in there of like, oh, the printer did a stupid thing. And I figured out how to fix it. So I'm going to put it in here so that later we know how to troubleshoot and like put this in an FAQ and stuff.

I'm like, oh, no, we like this. I'm having an inventory right now by having like an inventory. TXT file uploaded in our teams and SharePoint. And they just like, we got like Microsoft tablets. and adapters for our barcode scanners to plug into the tablets. And it's just a .txti file that they have in SharePoint. And they like update it in our little teams channel

of like, I ended at this call number today. And so the next person knows where to pick up. And I'm like, oh, shit, this is working really well. They've gotten like almost 10,000 things scan. So far, we've been doing this for like two weeks. Holy shit. Oh, man. Once you get WMS, the inventory is so much easier.

Yeah. Just scan the barcode. It's like inventory. Inventory in MWS is so nice. Yeah, we're just like doing it like you have to put it in dot txc file because then I'm going to put it into open or fine because we still like our barcodes are not all the same style. Some of them are shorter.

And I have to put in our coha, they're all the new kind. It's just that those old ones then got the prefix put on them. and Koha. So what I have to do is I have to then take this dot TXD file and put it in opener fine and add the prefix on the ones that don't have them. And then I can upload that to Koha and go, call can go and tell me which ones aren't in that list. True.

Barcodes are wrong. Yeah. That's stupid. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So there's something called Kai Zala. That's not so dumb.

Simple and secure mobile chat app for work. And this is a Microsoft project? Yeah, I'm looking at the list of Microsoft stuff. I'm looking at all of our, I'm in Microsoft 365. I'm just looking at like what's going on in here. And it's not a third party app because I think that... No, this is definitely a Microsoft app. It's Microsoft Kaizala.

K-A-I-Z-A-L-A. Microsoft Bookings is kind of nice. How did you spell it? K-A-I-Z-A-L-A. What the fuck is this? It's got analytics. What's busy? And just know for every single one of these things, there is like a 16-hour training that a Microsoft engineer will walk you through for every single little thing.

I've been through so many of these Microsoft, like, this is how you create things in SharePoint. This is how you, like, when you have a contract with Microsoft, they want you to use it. it. They want you to occupy the reimbaires for better or for worse. Half the time it's not even like that useful. But yeah, what the? They also have planner and project. Project is actually good. So they charge you extra for it.

Yep. And then planner is like a piece of shit. Planner is just Trello. Yep. And they also have a to do list, which is just planner. Yeah. Which project, it shows up in our apps, but we don't have a license for it. Yeah, I try to get a license.

I think I do have a license for me. I think I did get access at one point because I was doing a class on project management. And then I realized that project management certification takes so long that I would never actually become a certified project manager. Yeah. Where are you looking at PMP? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that one's a full-time job. Yeah. I'm having my student workers use planner right now for, like, it's working really well for, like, I made, like, a little board for, like, art. displays where I have like, like, they can put like make a card for like an idea and tag it as like, this is up a composer, this is a holiday. And they can move it to planning and then I can review it. And then they can put it in the pulling item stage. And then, oh, it's on display.

And then past displays. And also for inventory just so that they can have a master tracking of all of the, all of the stuff. And there's also Viva insights, which is the spy where the. Yeah. tracks how often you send an email into who. Yep. Power BI is nice. They tried to push Viva on us at one point.

We've got Viva. I don't like it. The only thing I like it about it, they don't do anymore, which I used to send you an email and be like, does this need a follow up? It would be like a snippet from an email. And I'm like, oh, shit, I do need it. That's really useful. We're like to text action items and stuff.

Yeah, and it doesn't do that anymore. I don't get those emails anymore. I get different ones that are like, you spent 10 hours. and focus time. I'm like, I don't fucking care. This is not useful for me. And I kept every, when they rolled out that feature, I was

like, this is great feature. Thank you. I kept like, upvoting it. And then they got rid of it. It's like, God, damn it. I knew that it was going to happen. Oh my God. Do we also have Kazala? It shows up and all. It'll probably just show up whether or not you actually have a license to it. Yeah.

What the fuck is lists? Is this just signal down the Microsoft. Apps rabbit hole. I'm so sorry. My lists. Track work, relay information, and visualized data. Start with an Excel file or from scratch. Oh, it's like air tables.

Oh. List is because our previous library. Yeah, it does look like air table. Yeah. Excel wasn't good enough. I guess not. Oh my God, do we have Keizala? I cannot let my fucking IT find out that we are paying separately for airt

table. There's negative tells keys lists. Thank you for being my nightmare on that, Justin. That's called Shadow IT. And they don't like it when you do that. I know. I'm special. You all are.

I mean, look, they can check the, they can check the procurement logs or whatever to see what we're paying for. Sadie, what's your like, what's some library software you actually do like? or library tech bullshit or whatever. Library, specific to library tech. Yeah. Arthur, what do you think? Oh, I really should have, for your previous question of least favorite, was the print management. Yeah, well, but very specifically the Cassie software.

I hated every minute I had to troubleshoot that at my old job. It was awful. I actually had one of their developers tell me, well, that would be too hard to implement. And I was like, excuse me, this is something that's basic in like every other session and print job management software in the library world. And you just straight up told me it's too hard to implement. Like, are you a software developer? It's too hard. And it was really cheap, which was why we used it.

So that's what you get. That's why. But favorite thing, I was a Polaris ILS person for a very long time. previous to my current job. And as far as the library software goes, they could be worse. They were better. But they have now been bought out by innovative,

which was bought out by Elsevier or some bullshit like that. So it's just progressively gotten worse the longer I've worked with it. But I don't anymore. But I did like working with the ILS stuff. It's always fun. Yeah. Databases. Mostly it was because I got to play around in the databases.

create fun sequel reports and do all kinds of spend hours doing one thing that one person needs twice a year kind of thing, which is actually remarkably fun. But I don't get to play in sequel anymore, which makes me sad. I was futzing around in sequel for a little bit because I am a control freak and like to figure out things myself. So I also, I got like, I just tried to get subjects plus up on like a local wamp. thing on my own computer at work just to see if I can get it up and running because my IT guy was having trouble getting up and running and I was like, I want to see if I can do it. I know how to get up instructions. And I did, I did get it up and running. So I had to futz around and sequel in PHP admin for a bit and that was fun. I'm just like, let me get it up and running. I'll do it. Just let me do it. Just give me a server in my office. I'll do it. Just let me at it. Just let me do it. I can read instructions. I can figure it out. It'd be great.

What could go wrong? Give me a limited power. Yeah. Just give me a hypervisor, like a host server and let me go nuts on creating and destroying as many VMs as I want. Yeah. Yeah. I don't see the issue here. No. I know I am not illiterate about tech things. know how to use Docker, you know, that's more than most people can say. I can read instructions. That's probably why you're your IT guy's favorite. Yeah, he gave me admin, full admin control on my own computer, so I don't have to ask him to give me permission for things. He's like, I trust you. So I just do it. I was like, I was like my guy, please, just, just give me admin permission. Nothing that will happen, I promise. I know how to do things. And he's like, okay.

That's how you can tell you're definitely somebody's favorite. Yeah, I tell people, my students all the time, I'm like, listen, you're going to work in the library. First two things you need to know, be best friends with IT, be best friends with facilities. Third thing, the printer will always be broken. That's what you need to know. Have an in in IT and have an in in facilities and you'll be golden. Oh, yeah. If anything goes wrong, you got them on deck.

I'm glad that growing up my dad worked in IT because he, I got to like learn a lot about like as soon as I was old enough to like be on a computer by myself and like I don't know when I was like eight or something he like taught me how to do my own troubleshooting by basically be like see this is what an error code is now search it on the internet because you're not the first person who's got that error code before and someone else will have figured out how to fix it. They like taught me how to do stuff on the command line when I was young. So I'm like, I feel very thankful that I grew up with someone who could teach me that stuff. And that was just always instilled in me and using computers was just like, just figure it out yourself. Yep. Because now I'm just like, my guy, just let me do it. I'll do it.

I'll figure it out of spite. I'll figure it out of spite. I will learn it out of spite. I will do it. I promise. Yeah. I learned JavaScript out of spite just because of fucking primo. I will learn it out of spite has been pretty much my whole IT career.

It's really fun. I don't get to do it as much anymore as a library director. I don't work in techie stuff as much anymore. I'm like, just let me get into something. I want to play with it. Let me do it. Let me get, you know, let me hyper focus on a GitHub repository for a couple of days. It'll be fun.

That could go wrong. Absolutely nothing. Just give me a server in my office. Sadie, tell my IT guy to give me a server in my office so that I can put library. I love you, Jay, but I won't. I just give me the server. Our computer science department, I bet it's a fucking nightmare to deal with because there's spinning up servers left and right to just run shit.

Just give me one. It's very funny. Just give me one. I'm playing with Microsoft lists. So I'm trying to import my air table data into it. It doesn't have the same. It's not as good as air table. Ours, we, the previous library director made a couple lists that,

are like for like, are like, DEI and like diversity like repertoire so that people can go in. It's like, I want things for trumpet that aren't written by dad, white guys. And then you can like narrow it down and be like, cool, here's the call number.

I'm like, that's useful. One thing I don't like about lists so far, it's like a pan-ass to edit. It has a thing, it has a type of column called people. And it just pulls from your organizational data. So that means... Tokyo drifted on my desk.

Oh, yeah, I don't like this. Because it associates with their Microsoft profile in the database and the table. Which is useful if you're using it for work. I mean, yeah, but it's also a CRM, which is like, it's already got privacy issues by the fact of being a CRM. Yeah. All right, I guess stop playing with that. Or just like fucking around. That's my job.

I kind of will go into Microsoft 365 apps and just play around with something. And then I'm always like, it doesn't work as good as the other thing I like. I totally love using PowerBi. It's really fun because it will make shiny diagrams for me that I can be like, look, I'm a library director and I can make fancy presentations about budget stuff because I totally know what I'm doing. Look, I need a Microsoft about it. Look, look at it.

Microsoft sucks, but that's fun to play with. And it does look good. I hate SharePoint, though. But it won't do the thing I want it to do, which is usually it'll make me do the thing it wants to do. Yeah. Yeah, SharePoint is a nightmare. I hate SharePoint. SharePoint is also like the underpending for like 70% of Microsoft products.

Yeah, I was sputzing around at the like the sites. I hate that. Yeah, I was in list. I was in whatever that thing was, I just closed. And I went to the settings, and then it changed from Microsoft lists to SharePoint at the top left. Yep. It's like you're in SharePoint now, by the way. All roads lead back to SharePoint, unfortunately.

Yeah. Sadie, if you could... You had a million dollars. If you had a bajillion dollars, no, it's a... I guess I have, like, my two-part question is, like, what advice would you give for our listeners who might be interested in getting into library IT. And then what advice would you give to our non-library IT library workers for how they can make your life easier?

Let's see. Okay. If you want to get into library IT, that one's kind of hard just because there's so many aspects to it. Like it depends on what kind of library system you're working for. It depends on whether or not you want to code versus you want to, you like, like, like networking stuff, if you want to be a systems librarian, do those still exist? Systems librarians still exist, right?

We have two and I don't know what they do. Okay. That or sometimes you get to be a discovery librarian and then that's, yeah. I only have two sculpt on librarians. I would say whatever, whatever aspect of IT you find interesting is definitely the one that you should stick with. So if like if you really like coding, you can go down that path. If you really like databases, you could stick with that path, just whatever it is because there's enough wiggle room in library IT depending on, you know, system and, you know, level and all of that stuff. You could

probably work whatever skills you liked creating into skills that is something that a library IT can use. So like, if you really like database stuff, I really liked database stuff, I really liked database stuff. That's a lot of the stuff, the reason I got into library IT's because I like playing around in databases. And now I don't actually even do database stuff anymore. Like SQL? Yeah, SQL. Because most librarians will think like EBSCO. Yeah, yeah. And you say databases. Librarians use a lot of database stuff. But also like our application developers use a lot of it too. So whatever the skill is that's interesting, stick with that because if it stays interesting to you, then you can continue to use it to get where you want to be in library IT, if that makes sense.

Like, stick with your interests because if it's interesting, it'll never stop changing. But at the same time, it's an in. And a lot of these skills are actually far more transferable than the sort of the general IT world might make it seem. Because there's so many very specific like career paths and certifications. And, you know, it all seems very hyper-specific and insertion. areas of it, it can be, but in library IT, there's always, almost always going to be a certain generality to it. So do what you like, learn what you like. It'll never stop changing so you can continue to learning it. And then just keep in mind that those skills will carry you into IT

and then keep carrying you through IT if that's where you continue to want to be, I guess. That makes any sense. for non-it library people, what you could do to make my life better is please put in a fucking ticket for it. I am so guilty of this, AID. I am so sorry. I would just message my guy on teams

and it'd be like, cool, submit a ticket. I'm like, okay. Yeah. And like that's, I'm half joking because like, yeah, like most of the time IT can just create the ticket for you, like depending on how they're structured. My previous job didn't have a ticket system at all. And it was kind of a nightmare to

manage because I never knew who was doing what or who was emailing who about what. And that even happens in my current department where I'll have one of our application developers start asking me stuff. And then I find out the next week at a team meeting that he's actually asked all three of us the same question. And we all gave him different answers. And we're all looking at different aspects of it. And like, it's like, if we could, if you could have just, even in IT, it's like, if you could have just put in a ticket for that, there would have been a lot less like, but, uh, yeah, please put in a ticket when they say put in a ticket because it's not just so we can look at it in the queue and disregard it, which I feel like a lot of users think it is. It's actually,

it's fantastic for tracking, even if it's not the most convenient thing for a lot of people. And it just, it helps a lot, especially if you. you have multiple, like, teams within your IT department. Getting it to the right person is, like, half the battle. So please put in the ticket. The other thing I would say is, and actually I talked about this a little bit with the Library Freedom Institute crash courses is, like, Jay, you've got your IT person on deck. You want that.

You want to be, like, not be nice to them because that sounds like you have to be nice to us for us to do your jobs, like we're not fucking cops. but um but like if you if you want to get in with IT you know like ask what projects they're working on don't just ask them for stuff don't just be like I have this problem and I need you to fix it which even though that is actually most of our jobs it's always nice when somebody's like oh you know like what kind of thing are you working on that's really cool or you know am I doing this right how can I make it like easier for you? Like when we get drive by people who actually walk into our department and are like,

I'm having this issue and we're like, please put in a ticket for it. If they're like, oh, okay, cool. And like no, I don't know. Trying to think of how to phrase this. I just want to say be cool. Just be cool. But that's not quite it. If you can build a relationship with an IT person, even if it's just like a, hey, dude,

how's it going? how are the printers hanging on for you today kind of like thing? Generally, when shit goes bad and you need to know something, that person will turn around and do it for you. So it's like just as important to build relationships with your IT people as it is to build with, you know, your students or your patrons or anybody else. Because we like to talk about this shit. And if you give us the opportunity to just go fucking ham for 10 minutes on something.

even if you don't understand half of what we're saying, we will remember that and we will like you for eternity. So, yeah, so you don't have to understand. You just have to listen. Yeah. One thing I do, oh, sorry, go ahead, Sadie. This is how I make friends with the custodians. Oh, yeah.

I also do this with your custodians. Me and my facilities guys are, like, we're tight. Yep. Yeah, no, when I, uh, anytime I get like at the beginning of the semester, when I get my new student workers, the first thing I do when they have their first shift is I walk them up to IT if my guys, because we have an IT person. And so like if he's in there and not in the meeting, I like introduce them and I'm like, hi, an IT person's name here. This is insert student's name here. Most of the time I, the student won't need to go up there. Like, they'll just call or like send

an email or something, but it's like, this is where this person is. And if you need to get them and hi, I want you two to know who each other are. and everything. So it's like, I don't know, like, I try to like. No, that's fantastic. Yeah. Doing that. Here's where they are. Yeah. Yeah. Here's where IT is. It's like, it's like, yeah. And it's like when I have them email, I have them do it from the circulation desk email. But it's like, you know, this is my student who like if, you know, the printer is broken for the six times that day and my IT guy has to come down to the library. And so it's like, no matter what

students working, it's like there's that like working relationship now, like between my student and the IT person too. Like make sure your student workers are also on good terms with IT. Like, make that that's also a working relationship. They're like, like, I also always like credit IT and like if like something's gone wrong and I have to like send out an email after it's been like, you know, fixed or something. I don't just say it's fixed now. I'm like me and, you know, this person in IT. Like I give. I give. them credit. I'm like, it didn't just magically get fixed. It's like this person with a name fixed it. Yeah. Don't do the royal we. Yeah. Yeah. And that's always nice too because a lot of times

people only really notice IT when it goes south or when something's broken. And like kind of boring. I was just joking about this with my boss. It's kind of boring is what we aim for because that means that everything's actually working the way working the way it's supposed to. That means your labor is invisible and people treat you like shit. Yeah. Yeah. So be nice to your help desk people.

They're going to be doing their best job. Don't be afraid to request that something get escalated if it's interrupting your workflow. Like you can't do your job. Then let IT know that. Because we don't always know what interrupts. What looks like something, a broken printer to us is like everyday shit. But a broken receipt printer to you.

you may actually stop you from being able to do like half of your job tasks. So like letting us know when something is a work stoppage or not is really useful. But yeah, shout out to all the library directors who credit their IT people. Thanks, Jay. Maybe I am a good library director after all. Yes. I actually am not really a library. I mean, my job title is library director, but I'm just a solo librarian. They just have to call me that. It still counts. I guess it does still count. It's weird. I'm 30. I should be a library great director. That's fine.

I sent a letter for one of the IT people who set up Omeca, and he was, like, shocked that I offered. Because, like, if you're hourly, you have an evaluation. You have to put in documentation for it to get above, like, a certain level rating. You have to provide documentation to get, like, above average. Oh. So you need, like, letters of support. And it's so stupid classist, because I don't have to do that.

I don't get, because I don't get assigned a number. I just have to write a paragraph. for whatever about how I did my job. But if you're hourly, the evaluation form is different. And if you want to be above average, you have to have supporting documentation for it. That's bullshit. But you're not for offering it. Yeah.

I know a lot of faculty who, like, once a year will, like, go through people and just send them out. I just try and do it, like, right away. Because otherwise I'll forget. Yeah. I mean, also library school students listening, when you are working with someone in a thing, in like a project or something, as soon as that project's done,

go like, hey, would you all mind writing me a thing? That way you've got that in your back pocket. Or like, hey, like, if I need to have something written for me in the future, would y'all be willing to do that? Like, ask that right away. And also offer that to people you're, like, I always am like, hey, I will be willing to offer to, like, write you whatever you need me to write.

Like, I'm already telling that to my student workers and they're in the first semester. You know, like, I will write you whatever letter of recommendation, you need and you haven't even been working for me for like four months yet but it's a good habit to get into yeah the only time i ever uh i've never refused but i did like say like okay but i'm giving you a lecture about how you have not been doing your job very well it's like i'll do this but but first i'm going to tell you that if i'm going to give you a recommendation you need to not be fucking up the way you've been fucking up it's like i am so chill

I mean, it was COVID. Everything got weird. It was just, yeah. At least you don't have student workers saying faggot at the desk. That's what I know of. The amount of times I've had to tell him not to. He knows I'm not going to, like, fire him and get rid of his scholarship over that. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.

I saw a great comic that was like, guess what my costume is? And it's just like a bunch of sticks, like, taped around his... taped around the middle of his torso. Oh, God. Oh, incredible. Use that for next year's gay Halloween memes. Yes. Like, going to a gay Halloween party.

That was a funny meme. Just a bunch of faggots. Yeah. I'm a orthodontist, and it's just like a blazer underwear and like a little thing. I'm an orthodontist. There are some really good ones. Like, what do you mean you're the butch, uh, niche, uh, truck repair lady from TikTok? That's like I hate gay people.

What do you mean you're the, uh, telephone pole from hereditary? That's a good one. That one's me. Listen here, you little shit. I am your mother. We stay on Tony Colette. this house. All right.

We've gone long. You've totally just derailed. My liquid uterins out. So I'm a little off today. All right. Thank you, Sadie. Thanks for coming on.

Thank you. Thanks. I'll be here next week. Come on, whatever. Oh, shit. Hell yeah. Oh, hell yeah. The show.

Just doing gas light. Like. Gaslighting Sadie to think they're not a host of this podcast. I've never been here. What do you mean? Did you listen to the seriously wrong Halloween episode? There's a bit where every person they talk to it,

oh, they've been dead 20 years. That's a good one. And they go up to this guy's house and they're like, oh, we should really thank him. Like, oh, what do you think he's been dead 20 years though? I'm like, that would be pretty funny. And they're off the door and the lady opens it. It's like, he's been dead 30 years.

Like, ah, we called it. We called it. Oh, he called it. That's pretty good. I've been listening to the nine hour long HV Halloween episode still. I listened like 20 minutes of it while I was hanging up the bats. And then I did something else. Yeah.

I think I'm a couple hours in. They're on Halloween number four. Sadie, if you're not aware, HV, their Halloween episode this year is about every single Halloween movie. Like the Michael Myers Halloween movies, every single one of them. Yeah, Halloween movies. All of them. I can see any of them.

I don't think I've seen any of them here. Can we watch Halloween? Oh, I guess I shouldn't say that on air. Can we watch Halloween on the Discord? Yeah. Why can't we say that on air? I don't know. We don't have the license for that.

Who cares? It's a private server. Legally acquired. Cops. Legally acquired Halloween. Legally acquired Halloween. Legal Halloween. Good night.