Z666.7.L364 (www.jenniferlang.net)

• No Momma’s Boy
  Dominic Carter’s book about his relationship with his mother who was diagnosed with chronic paranoid schizophrenia.
  (tags: mental_illness schizophrenia)

I’m running for Vice President/President Elect of the New Jersey Library Association. I’m not sure exactly when the ballots will be available, but here’s a little information about me (this is the information I prepared for the ballot):

About Jennifer:

Jennifer Lang is the Electronic Resources Cataloging Coordinator at Princeton University Library, where she has worked since 2004. She earned a bachelor of music degree in cello performance from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, in 1984. After receiving her degree, Jennifer worked as a professional cellist in Dallas and maintained a small teaching studio. She performed in as principal cellist in several orchestras, including the Mantovani Orchestra, a touring orchestra that made several concert tours to Japan and China, in addition to touring extensively in the United States.

Jennifer moved to Cincinnati in 1993 and, while continuing to work as a freelance cellist, enrolled in the University of Kentucky’s School of Library and Information Science. She began her library career at the University of Cincinnati Libraries in 1997, shortly after receiving a master of science degree in library science from the University of Kentucky. At the University of Cincinnati, Jennifer had the opportunity to wear many hats, including cataloging serials and electronic resources, loading large files of bibliographic records received from vendors, and managing the library’s ongoing quality control program and outsourced authority control work.

In April 2004, Jennifer moved to New Jersey to be the electronic resources cataloger at Princeton University Library. At the beginning of 2008, Jennifer assumed a new role in the library, that of electronic resources cataloging coordinator. In her current position, Jennifer is the cataloging and metadata services department’s primary contact for all issues related to cataloging of electronic resources. She reviews bibliographic records to be bulk loaded for electronic resources packages, manages links for print monographs with electronic versions, and reviews subscriptions to electronic resources to ensure bibliographic access is kept current. In addition, she is chair of the library’s Electronic Resources Cataloging Committee.

Jennifer is a part-time lecturer in the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies at Rutgers University and also the School of Library and Information Studies at San Jose State University. She is also very active professionally. As a Library of Congress “certified” trainer, she presents workshops across the country on cataloging electronic and internet resources, metadata standards and applications, and metadata and digital library development. In August 2007, Jennifer presented a poster session on Web 2.0 technologies and their impact on libraries at the 73rd IFLA conference in Durban, South Africa, in addition to presenting a paper on electronic resources management systems with a colleague.

Jennifer was recently appointed to the editorial board of College & Research Libraries and is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Library Metadata. She is chair-elect of ALA’s Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) Electronic Resources Interest Group and is finishing a two-year term as secretary of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. In addition, Jennifer is preparing to serve the last of a three-year term as a member-at-large of ALA’s Library Research Roundtable.

Locally, Jennifer has been an active member of NJLA since shortly after moving to New Jersey. She is currently president of NJLA’s Technical Services Section (TSS) and has presented several cataloging workshops sponsored by the TSS. Jennifer is also a member of the College and University Section and serves on the Executive Board of NJLA as secretary.

In her spare time, Jennifer continues to perform professionally as a cellist with such notables as Linda Ronstadt, Anne Murray, k.d. lang, Smokey Robinson, Dionne Warwick, and Aretha Franklin, to name a few.

Statement of purpose:

“Since becoming involved in NJLA, I’ve seen how vibrant an organization it is—supporting libraries and librarians from all types of libraries. Indeed, I think the Association’s unrelenting advocacy and its commitment to professional development are evidence of its dedication to the profession. Unfortunately, it is my sense that many academic librarians in the state don’t realize how much NJLA has to offer. I think many academic librarians consider NJLA an organization for public libraries. I know there is much that can be done to attract academic librarians to join NJLA and become as active members as their public library counterparts. To that end, I would like to be Vice President Elect in order to 1) serve by example and 2) to work more closely with the membership committee and other constituents in an effort to increase representation in NJLA from the academic library community.”

Here’s my complete resume.

It was at around this same time of the morning six years ago that I got the call. I don’t remember who called me, but that’s another story. (Whenever I tell my mother I can’t remember a particular person, place or thing, she says it’s because I’m “not trying to remember.” Perhaps…)

Daddy had just died. It wasn’t a shock — he had cancer, and I knew the time was coming. I’d been home to visit him about a month earlier, so I had made amends (or tried — I’m not sure how much he understood, or even if he knew it was I by his bed) and told him that I loved him.

My youngest sister was probably his favorite. She’s the one who looks the most like him and her antics could always make him laugh, except for the time when she was quite little and she danced around the kitchen in her new patent leather shoes while eating the entire top off (bit by bit, piece by piece) of a cake he had just baked.

My father had his flaws, some quite big, but he loved his family. He was never the touchy-feely type, and I can probably count the times he actually said “I love you” to me on one hand. But I know he loved and was proud of all of us.

After he died, my mother and I were going through a metal file box (for letter sized files) in which he kept all of his important papers. That he could keep everything in one file box is another story - he was quite economical when it came to space and clutter and not collecting things. Anyway, in this box was a file folder for each of his daughters. I looked in mine and there were programs from concerts I’d performed in when I was much younger and other assorted memorabilia that he’d saved over the years. I didn’t know he had kept these things.

My favorite memories of my father are:

• his cooking Sunday breakfast (country style) for the family while playing easy-listening music on the radio
• his telling us stories of when he and his brother were little (my father was quite mischievous, apparently)
• his cleaning out my car (I didn’t inherit his neatness) when I’d visit (he’d do it without my knowing it!)

Roy and Mae Washington
Christmas 1993

Roy Lee Washington
June 14, 1928-April 29, 2002

Rest well, Daddy. I love you.

As I was walking to work this morning, I passed the same landscape workers, restaurant employees, nannies, maids, and construction workers that I pass every morning. Some I greet; others don’t make eye contact. As I entered town, I passed by a worker collecting money from the parking meters. He was an older man (but what is older? I’m older; this man was probably not more than 10 years older than I ), and he was pushing his “money holder thingie on wheels” and he looked at me, smiled, and said “Good morning.” He looked like a really nice man.

I was reminded of my father for some reason. This man didn’t look like my father, and my father didn’t collect money from parking meters for a living. He was a letter carrier (i.e., a mailman). Anyway, as I passed this man, I thought about my father getting up every morning while it was still dark to get ready to go to the post office to collect the mail for his route, and I wondered about the word “professional” as it relates to what we do for a living.

Aren’t these people, these people who show up for work EVERY day to do the jobs some of us wouldn’t consider doing, professionals?

But, when I looked up the definition of “professional” –

• engaged in a profession or engaging in as a profession or means of livelihood; “the professional man or woman possesses distinctive qualifications …
• a person engaged in one of the learned professions
• an athlete who plays for pay
• engaged in by members of a profession; “professional occupations include medicine and the law and teaching”
• master: an authority qualified to teach apprentices

(Source: http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)

Based on these definitions, I see that people who have jobs like the man this morning or my father aren’t professionals. I understand the distinction, really I do. I chose to go to graduate school and get my single master’s degree. Some of the people I see every day may not even have high school degrees — I don’t know.

On the other hand, some of them, like my father, may also be college graduates. Some, like my father, may have had dreams and hopes of being a “professional” and doing something more with their lives. Some, like my father, may have chosen not to compromise certain personal principles and, as a result, ended up doing something else.

I never knew the full story (my younger sister is the “keeper of the family history”) but I do know that my father graduated from college with a degree in education and that he wanted to be a teacher. The part I’m fuzzy about is why he didn’t become one (something to do with a shady superindendent and a not-so racially harmonious time period).

So, my father, with a family to support, took the civil service exam, became a letter carrier, and to the best of my knowledge (and I say this because he never really talked about it but I’m sure he thought about his lost dreams often) never looked back.

Was he not a professional? He shined his shoes every night, made sure his uniform was clean and pressed, and showed up for work, even when he was sick. When he retired from the postal service, he had accumulated two years’ worth of sick time. Not too shabby for 35 years of service.

But in society’s eyes, he wasn’t a professional. The fact that he received commendation after commendation for safe driving doesn’t matter. The fact that he demonstrated to his children that it didn’t matter WHAT one did for a living as long as one did it WELL: “If you are going to be a garbage collector, be the best garbage collector that you can.” And don’t get me started on the fact that he actually worked two jobs for as long as I can remember - it’s expensive to raise four children. After getting off work from the post office, he’d go to his evening job of cleaning office buildings. Yes, CLEANING office buildings. Toilets, floors…you name it.

I’ve been feeling depressed and sorry for myself lately because I’ve painted myself into a corner with the ridiculous amount of work I have to do and the fact that I’m not doing any of it well or on time because I’m over-extended. Yes, I’ve learned my lesson, but it doesn’t feel good. Plus, I fret about the fact that everyone I know is going back to school to work on doctorate degrees. I can’t even think of a good research topic.

Now I’m rambling.

I guess the point I wanted to make is that in my mind “professional” is more of an attitude about one’s work rather than the work itself. Not all letter carriers are professional. Some lose mail, steal it, or pack it away in their car trunks or basements for years.

But my father was a professional.

You rocked, Daddy.

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