QuoteHunt. And a surprise: women.

I was reading this story, "Libraries vital to our community," when I read this quote attributed to Andrew Carnegie:

"Andrew Carnegie instituted a free library system throughout the country because he believed in giving to the 'industrious and ambitious; not those who need everything done for them, but those who, being most anxious and able to help themselves, deserve and will be benefited by help from others.'"

And I thought, wow, I don't remember hearing that "not those who need everything done for them" part before. And so I wanted to find the source for the quote.

I googled the quote and found a Wikipedia page with a link to the original essay, "The Best Fields for Philanthropy" from The North American Review Volume 0149 Issue 397 (December 1889).

Andrew Carnegie, pp. 682-699:

The individual administrator of surplus wealth has as his charge the industrious and ambitious; not those who need everything done for them, but those who, being most anxious and able to help themselves, deserve and will be benefited by help from others and the extension of their opportunities at the hands of the philanthropic rich. It is ever to be remembered that one of the chief obstacles which the philanthropist meets in his efforts to do real and permanent good in this world is the practice of indiscriminate giving; and the duty of the millionaire is to resolve to cease giving to objects that are not proved clearly to his satisfaction to be deserving.

So if this essay can be applied to public libraries as the author of the above article concludes (with the help of Wikipedia), then librarians are meant to use their wealth to assist the deserving, which is something with which I'm not sure I entirely agree... Oh, I'm just pulling your leg. I agree completely.

To every lazy person who has every approached and said, "do it for me," and especially the ones who snap their fingers and say, "come here and do it for me," and especially, especially the ones who say, "come here, snap my fingers for me and then do it for me," I say... oh, crap, I forgot what I was going to say with all this typing... but I'm sure it was cutting.

So I read a little from Carnegie, I check the Table of Contents for that issue of The North American Review and see this, "The Incapacity of Business Women" by Marion Harland. It's not related to anything, but I thought it might cheer you up.

Here lies the defective spot in the claim for equitable wages for working women. Physical disability apart, they do not work as men do. A man grasps his business with both hands. If his hands are not strong enough, he clamps it with his feet, and, rather than let it go, seizes it with his jaws. It is his life himself!
A woman, even when the daily bread of herself and her children depends upon a clerkship, or employment in a factory, or the teachers place in a public school, regards her labor as the means to an end. It is the ladder reared against the height she would win. A mans chosen craft or profession is the central stone staircase, built into the solid structure. Men work by the job, concentrating every energy upon the task of perfecting that which must pass or be rejected upon its own merit. Women go out by the day and watch the clock! Men have ambitions; women have hopes. The reasons assigned for these radical differences are led off in most essays on the subject, and pertinently, by the fact that women look forward to marriage as a definite means of support, and hold but loosely that which they may be called upon at any moment to give up.

Wow. I didn't know women were such poor employees. 100 years ago. And yes, Marion is (was) a woman. Google her.

Pound for pound, women a better value.

There's a government survey out on salary comparisons between men and women for the period from 1979 - 2007. And congratulations, ladies, you're worth only 20% less than a man for comparable work!

But given my weight and the weight of my girlfriend, pound for pound, at 20% less money, she's a much better deal as a potential employee than me.

And with Halloween and Thanksgiving around the corner, her value should keep going up as I become a super-fat holiday bastard.

The article says, "The women's-to-men's earnings ratio among 35- to 44-year-olds, for example, rose from 58 percent in 1979 to 77 percent in 2007, and the ratio for 45- to 54-year-olds increased from 57 percent to 75 percent."

This is really nothing to celebrate, since women still make less than men, except it explains why Maude is no longer on TV.

SWM seeks successful F blogger

The NYT has an article about female bloggers, "Blogging’s Glass Ceiling," (by KARA JESELLA Published: July 27, 2008), where they mention how one guy quit his job to stay home and manage his wife's blog.

Where can I get a piece of that action?

My girlfriend started two blogs, but quit early. I keep trying to convince her that she has something useful to say about a few truly niche issues. But she won't bite. I can't even get her to write a book even though I'm sure she could.

So I'm still trying to teach her dog to write my blog. I decided that content isn't as important as meeting a deadline; if the dog could manage to trod on 100 keys, if only random letters or even to compose a message on something she truly cares about, that would be good enough for me to click "Publish." She's not a political dog; I don't expect her to promote an agenda. Anything would be fine.

When I started blogging, I noticed that there were fewer men blogging about library issues that women. It's simple math; there are fewer male librarians. For the first month or two, I intentionally wrote as either gender because I was worried that women wouldn't want to read my blog. I'd seen a lot of "grrl blogger" and "blogher" banners and I was a little afraid that I wouldn't be accepted. But the ones who "discovered" my blog didn't care.

FYI, this was one of the posts that encouraged me to continue blogging, so again, thanks to Library Talk for the early good words.

And if you think this blog sucks, blame her.

I love white women.

AL is on a tear about ALA Pres. Loriene Roy. I'm sure I have an opinion on this, having read some of the Diversity Counts report a while back:

Though the institutional charge of the library historically has been to meet the information needs of users efficiently and equitably, contemporary library and information science (LIS) research provides compelling evidence that services to some user groups are greatly impeded by socio-cultural divides.

There is something inherently wrong with a statement like that.
If I provide a service, and you do not want me to serve you because of our "socio-cultural divides," then you have a problem because you have a prejudice. But unfortunately, this is America, so in reality, I'm the one with the problem.

AL says:

This time we learn more than that librarians are mostly white women and that
this is a bad thing.

When the message is that there are too many white women in the profession, do you think white women are going to feel confident about becoming librarians? I'm glad for white women. I don't think there were ever enough men interested in becoming librarians to fill all the libraries that we have today. So without these women to fill all these jobs, would I have even had a local public library in my neighborhood when I was growing up?

I'm happy when I hear that anyone wants to be a librarian. And if the future of libraries is online services like chat and email reference, why should anyone care what I look like? (But for the record, I am totally hot. Yeah, totally.)