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Published by the Library Staff Association of the University of Oregon Library System
No. 21, May 2000
Notes from the Underground
MIND THE GAP!
The voice on the loudspeaker was testy. It angrily blared out the same warning every time a train pulled in, but what was the use? People rushed heedlessly about, running on and off the trains at full tilt, never stopping once their feet were on the ground. No one paid any attention at all to the gap, the yawning void between the train and the platform. There were warning signs all over the London Underground, signs with skulls and crossbones, stylized electrical bolts, hapless stick men falling under trains. Signs warned of pickpockets and buskers. No one had time to heed these signs, it seemed; no one but we three.
What are buskers? I wondered, uneasily gripping my handbag. Were they worse than pickpockets, stealthier, trickier? Did they target your passport and wallet, or did they go after something more lucrative, say, a liver, or a heart?
Mom, Tod and I had just arrived in London the previous day. We found the Underground bewildering. Milky white fluorescent lights illuminated tiled halls and dingy train platforms. The trains rushed out of dark tunnels, blowing newspapers and trash ahead of them, and stopped briefly. The doors swished, bells rang, the trains accelerated with a loud hum and whisked into the darkness ahead. We watched in fear and fascination.
Commuters, all dressed in black for some reason, hurried in large mobs down the escalators. Like the voice on the loudspeaker, they appeared to be angry all the time. They paced tensely until the cars slowed just enough so they could jump on and start crowding each other into tightly packed, yet anonymous groups. These groups, swaying together intimately as the train picked up speed, seemed to seethe with unspoken resentment and hostility.
We quickly learned that the greatest sin in the Underground is taking up too much space. Innocently relaxing on the escalator, for example, can result in your elbow straying into the passing lane on the left. People running pell-mell down the escalator on the left hand side then crash into this obstruction, which causes them to be delayed slightly in plunging downward. We learned to pull ourselves in compactly, and to let the stronger and faster commuters run past us.
Another bad habit of the uninitiated is obstructing the flow. This happens anytime someone stops to get his bearings. Reading the map on the wall, for example, can cause a blockage in the traffic flow. This could very well lead to a commuter aneurysm, resulting in masses of people milling around angrily. Fiddling with your ticket at the turnstile can also cause an instant buildup of frustrated commuters. The sound of gnashing teeth fills the air.
We were at Piccadilly, the station with the longest downward-plunging escalator. This useful machine happened to be out of order the whole time we were in London. Traffic was routed onto an incredibly steep two story high flight of stairs. It was like climbing a cherry picker facing the wrong way, at top speed. We hugged the right hand side and kept moving. "It's so steep" Mom panted. "Don't look down--keep your eyes on your feet" I said. I had started out by looking down, but I quickly became so dizzy I had to grab the shoulder of the man in front of me. He shot me an outraged look. "Sorry!" I gulped, and clung to the rail tightly.
At the bottom, Mom would have liked to rest, but of course that was out of the question. We hurried over to a wall and flattened ourselves against it. As we caught our breath, we heard an accordion playing a lively tune on one of the platforms ahead of us. I marveled that anyone could fight their way into one of these tunnels and still have the heart to play. The music went a long way toward mellowing the ceaseless rush of the crowds and mitigating the glare of the subterranean lighting.
The disembodied voice didn't like it, though. At that moment it piped up pettishly:
PLEASE DO NOT GIVE MONEY TO BUSKERS! IT ONLY ENCOURAGES THEM! THEY TRULY ARE A NUISANCE!
"So that's what a busker is!" said Tod. Just then, the music stopped. We found our platform and climbed on the train, which had just pulled in. I looked out of the window as we pulled out of the station and spotted our busker. She was a robust girl of twelve, dressed in jeans and a tattered black leather jacket. She was sitting sullenly on top of the accordion case with her chin in her hands. A pack of cigarettes peeked out of one of her coat pockets. An empty coffee cup lay crushed at her feet.
Over the next two days, Tod and I perfected our Underground technique. When Mom was with us, we avoided Piccadilly station, preferring to detour widely and backtrack if necessary. On our own, we could handle it. We found that capturing the proper rhythm was crucial. Tickets had to be taken out of the pocket and held in the hand ten paces in front of the turnstile. Then a broad, under-and-over sewing motion was used for inserting and retrieving the ticket, while walking smoothly forward and through the turnstile. Without breaking step, we continued to the long flight of stairs, squeezing thoughtfully to the right hand side while moving downward with a steady, clipping step.
Looking around slows one down. This explains why so many commuters plow through with their heads down, taking no heed of their surroundings. The people taking note of their surroundings, especially the ones standing in the center of the steps on the escalators, were nearly always Americans. We smiled and waved at them.
The object to moving through the Underground, we discovered, was to move as quickly as possible, with a minimum of wasted effort. With the right amount of momentum, it was possible to get down the stairs, to the platform and onto a train without pausing at all. On the train, the point was to get everyone on before the door closed, and to travel at high speed standing up, gracefully swaying into each turn, anticipating each acceleration or breaking without stumbling or falling into anyone's lap.
We'd made the classic tourists' mistake of viewing the Underground as a form of attraction, instead of a means to the attraction. Once we stopped ogling it, the Underground became the prompt, efficient public servant it was meant to be. After a few trips, we no longer heard the grouchy voice of the announcer. The gap disappeared, too. Nice things began to turn up. Late at night after a hellish day of sightseeing, I spotted a large Cadbury chocolate bar dispenser on the wall of the northbound platform of the Central line. Tod and I fell on it ravenously, like a pair of polar bears on a lame seal.
Every morning, the Underground swept us away to places we'd only read about in books: The Thames, Westminster Abbey, The Tower, Buckingham Palace. Every night, it brought us home again to our very own station, Knightsbridge. And, every night, the last thing I heard the loudspeaker's prim voice say was:
GOOD EVENING! HAVE A SAFE AND PLEASANT TRIP!
--L.R. Sexton
Closer to home:
Be sure to visit the website for the "Track & Field Exhibit" on display this month.
The Library Diversity Advisory Group (LDAG) invites all Library staff to attend a guided tour of the UO Museum of Art (1430 Johnson Ln.) on Thursday, May 11, 2000 from 9:30-10:30am. Guided by Charles Lachman, Associate Professor of Art History, the tour will highlight the Museum's outstanding collection of Asian art. Please meet us in front of the Knight Library at 9:25am and we will walk over as a group to the entrance at the back of the Museum. Supervisors are encouraged to grant their staff release time to attend this event. Hope to see you there!
Library Administration presented Library Staff Association treasurer Kathy Wittwer with a check for $261 last month. This was for matching funds the Administration pledged for LSA dues collected before Dec. 31,1999. Many thanks to the Administration and to Dennis Hyatt, who pioneered the matching program.
Welcome New Staff!
Terry McQuilkin accepted the Library Technician 3 position in Music Services in April.
Mark Mimnaugh accepted the Library Technician 2 position in Access Services/Stacks: he starts today, May 1.
YOUR STAFF ASSOCIATION NEEDS YOU!
Our efforts to recruit library faculty and staff to serve on next year's LSA committees are now in full swing. If you haven't already signed up, we hope you will decide to join us very soon!
What's the time commitment? It varies from committee to committee, and from year to year. The newsletter is published every month, but the editors do most of their work on email and rarely have in-person meetings. Other committees typically meet three to five times a year.
When do the committees start? We would like to have everyone signed up by early June, but aside from a couple of LSA-wide organizational meetings over the summer, the committees don't really start their work until August or September.
Here are some of the tasks we need your help with:
- Taking new employees out for coffee and welcoming them to the Library (LSA pays for the coffee)
- Writing stories, articles, reviews and staff profiles for LSA News. Perhaps you would like to try out a digital camera and spice up our newsletter with some more photographs! Or how about contributing a regular (or irregular) column, such as Mark's Fitness Corner? Some web publishing experience is helpful, but not necessary.
- Maintaining the staff lounge. House committee members organize monthly, short-duration cleaning parties, and will also follow up on the staff lounge survey that this year's committee conducted
- Organizing a variety of (usually non-controversial!) social and educational events--see our Events page for some examples from the past couple of years
- Conducting our dues drive, and keeping track of our budget and how we are spending our money
- Creating flyers to help entice people to our events
For more information, see the committees page and follow the links to learn what they've been up to, or contact Lisa Sieracki or any current volunteer.
Diversity Now: People, Collections, and Services in Academic Libraries
In the beginning of April, I attended the first conference sponsored by
the Big 12 Plus Libraries Consortium
Much information was shared and presented over two days and the main topics covered were:
- recruitment, retention and mentoring of a diverse library workforce.
- residency programs for new librarians of color (how existing programs were established and how they have fared).
- defining diversity and how that affects the direction of diversity committees and initiatives.
- diversity committees - their actions and approaches to diversity issues.
- developing collections and other resources (primarily web sites) to support diversity in the curricula, campus diversity initiatives, and to be more inclusive of the different groups that make up the academic community.
- library outreach services for diverse students and faculty.
My overall sense from the sessions that I attended is that, while much progress has been made, academic libraries are still struggling to increase numbers of employees from underrepresented groups. ALA's Spectrum Initiative, which is in its second year, seems to be a promising avenue for attracting people of color to the library profession by providing some financial support as they pursue MLS degrees. Fifty Spectrum Scholars are supported each year.
Please contact me if you would like to know more about this conference.
Been to an interesting conference? Send us a brief report for publication in the next newsletter. Thanks!
News from the House Committee
Based on the responses to our survey, we've compiled the following list of items we could use in the staff lounge:
- a firm couch
- one or more chairs with good back support for around the table
- an air filter/purifier
- salt and pepper shakers
- forks, spoons and serving spoons
If you have any of these items and would like to donate them to our lounge, please contact Lisa Sieracki.
Some of your coworkers would also like to see any used but current magazines you may have at home. You can bring those in any time.
The committee decided to no longer collect cans and bottles for the deposit income. We found that the money we make on this just isn't worth it any more (about $4 for 30 minutes of work), and it was a job that no one wanted to do. From now on, please place all cans and bottles into the receptacle provided by Campus Recycling. If anyone has a use for the brown plastic trash can with the hole in the lid, please take it away!
Air quality update: Don Neet from Facilities Services confirmed that the air filters are working correctly and are changed frequently. He is unable to increase the amount of fresh air entering the lounge, which he said is the reason it may seem stuffy at times. So there isn't much else we can do. If someone wants to donate an air purifier, we'll be happy to see if that makes a difference.
We asked Valley Vending to upgrade our snack machine to one with a dollar-changer, and they did! Enjoy!
Kudos!
Leslie Bennett was recognized with a 2000 Officer of Administration Recognition Award on April 11 in Gerlinger Hall. Congratulations on this fine achievement!
Linda Ivy, Systems Department, has been accepted into the PhD program in Clinical Psychology here at the UO, and will start this fall. She will continue working at the Library until mid to late September. Way to go, Linda!
A tip of the academic cap goes to Bob Felsing, who secured a grant from the Association of Asian Studies to produce an electronic journal aimed at a K-12 audience.
Congratulations to David Landazuri, who has accepted a promotion and joined the Catalog Department's English/West European Languages Team