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This website is an informal communication forum for staff members of the University of Oregon Library Staff Association. Contents and opinions expressed herein or on linked personal or external pages are those of individual authors and do not represent official statements, policies, or positions of the Library, the University of Oregon, Oregon University System, or State of Oregon.

The amazing impossible question

"Mom?"

"MOM!!" (as I got there, apparently not fast enough)

"Mom, what's that thing called again, when you multiply by the same number and then again and again?"

"Exponents?"

"Yeah! Exponents. Have you noticed that exponents you keep multiplying, the same way that multiplying you keep adding? But the multiplying over and over makes the number really big really soon."

And thus began another bedtime conversation with Spencer, age seven. Somehow I hadn't planned on explaining the difference between a linear and a geometric progression quite yet. Actually, I hadn't planned on doing so at all, figuring school would get to it in another 6 or 8 years or so. I don't know how it was that I wasn't paying attention to see this coming, since this is the same child that routinely beats the pants off me at puzzles involving pattern identification and prediction--and I'm pretty good at them.

I wonder what it is about lying in bed that makes my kids have burning questions right when I am about to drop and at a time of day when caffeine ingestion to sharpen up a bit would be a remarkably bad idea. Actually, more than that, I wonder why their response to the bedtime mental meanderings is different from my own. I remember as a child thinking all sorts of deep thoughts in that quiet time, warm in bed, not asleep. It always took me forever to fall asleep, because I was busy working out things like the mechanics of how those agencies that advertise to feed children in Africa actually spend their money. I mean, presumably they buy in bulk, but do they really give 37 cents per day worth of rice or gruel or whatever to the specific child you sponsor? Or do they divide it up among all the sponsored and unsponsored? Because it would of course be cruel to feed only the sponsored, but then again it would also be cruel to feed everyone a fraction of what they need. Who decides these things? And what if you send extra? Does "your" starving child get extra helpings? I actually wondered about this when I was… around eight, I guess, since we still lived in Wisconsin. But anyway, I always just pondered. I certainly did not bellow for my parents to come answer the question (although in retrospect I guess I would have gotten a lot more sleep by employing the bellowing method).

This is, in any event, an aspect of parenting for which I found myself poorly prepared, and about every time I think I've got a grip, I find I'm just wrong. Books about babies and parenting tell you all sorts of measurable things. I relied heavily on such books, probably ten thick tomes, since I never was much of a babysitter and I didn't yet have any nieces and nephews, or kids of friends, upon whom to practice. We're not even going to talk about how many people found the book approach on my part to be hilarious and noted that no wonder I work in a library. Anyway, they tell you about how to introduce one food at a time, about immunization schedules, height-to-weight charts, and so on. The trouble is, the manual pretty much runs out around the first birthday, and also along about that time, the baby's personality and individual learning curve and style become so very individual that it starts to get hard to generalize. But I know for a fact, nothing in those books ever said what to do what your kid starts asking impossible (by topic, age, or time constraint) questions, and I also know that nothing about my own childhood prepared me, because, as I said, I wasn't a bellower; I was a ponderer.

Entries in the impossible questions category include:

• Why do people use drugs if they know it's bad for them? (kindergarten, after the school presentation) (leading to a discussion of addiction, because a shorter answer wasn't accepted as complete).
• Is it wrong to steal if you really need something? Followed promptly by, Well, what's the other choice? (leading to a completely difficult discussion about ethics and decision-making, cost and benefit).
• (synthesizing the above two, some months later) So if a person is really addicted to drugs, then he thinks he really needs them, right, so what if he steals to get them? Is he wrong?
• (one of my favorites; I think he was about six) If an odd plus an odd equals an even, and an even plus an even equals an even, and only an odd plus an even makes an odd, how come there are just as many odds as evens? There are the same number because every other one is odd, but there are twice as many ways to make evens.

This month's bellowing question came from my younger son, now five, who having observed the older one's preoccupation with privacy of late, was being attentive to anatomy. Upon asking and learning what his testicles were called, then he wanted to know what he used them for. Ack. My first try at an answer ("Nothing, right now; they are for when you are older") did not turn out to be acceptable to him as it did not contain any information. This question is impossible not because of any lack of factual understanding on my end, but because you just never know how much information is too much, and how much will wind up upsetting other parents when your child opts to share it with a bunch of other five-year-olds on the jungle gym.

And the thing is, you repeatedly find yourself in the middle of a conversation trying to explain something like where and how the concepts of justice, ethics, obligation, and personal choice intersect (likely a fine upper-division final exam essay in any of a number of disciplines), and you are A) wondering how you got here, and B) realizing that you have never attempted to clearly articulate this before, and certainly not in language that works for your 8 year old. It would seem that experience has in no way helped me to steer clear of these entanglements, either. They keep happening. You know this is very bad when you find yourself greatly relieved to have avoided the topic of patricide when your child (then five) wants to know how, why, and under what circumstances a local 15 -year-old opted to shoot at many of his peers.

It's gotten to where I actually look forward to the occasions when the question at least has an answer: Mom, why is it you blow candles to take the fire off, but you blow on the fire in the fireplace to make it bigger? This, of course leads to insane follow-up questions such as, "so if we had a giant birthday cake with giant candles as big as a person, would we be able to blow them out?"

Dang. No wonder I work in a library!

--Lara N.

Diversity and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King dreamed of building a society in which justice and human rights are freely available to all citizens. The University of Oregon's Martin Luther King, Jr. awards recognize employees who have worked toward building harmony on campus through their work, projects, and personal example.

Two officers of administration and one committee received the 2001 Martin Luther King Jr. Awards in a special ceremony Jan 25. This ceremony capped the university's 2001 celebration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr.

The ceremony, including an hors d'oeuvres buffet, was scheduled from 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. in Gerlinger's Alumni Lounge

This year's Officers of Administration recipients were James Florendo of Multicultural Affairs and Laura Blake Jones, Associate Dean of Students.

This year's classified recipient was the Library Diversity Committee!!! Past and present members of this committee were recognized and include Leslie Bennett, Charlotte Conlin, Michiyo Goble, Mary Grenci, Joni Herbst, David Landazuri, Linda Long, Diane Sotak, Laine Stambaugh, Bruce Tabb, Rose Thomas, and Carrie Yates.

Congratulations to all!!

Scroll down for photos!!

Rose Thomas, Daphne Wang, and David Landazuri fill their plates.

 

James Florendo speaks after receiving his award.

 

The Library Diversity Committee receives their award from Dave Frohnmeyer.

 

Dave Frohnmeyer speaks during the ceremony.

Diane Sotak speaks on behalf of the Library Diversity Committee.

 

All of the award recipients together after the ceremony.

DIVERSITY DOINGS

The Library Diversity Committee is pleased to welcome four new members:

• Audra Loyal, Library Technician/Billing Coordinator
  
• Mark Mimnaugh, Night Supervisor--Current Periodicals
  
• Heather Ward, Humanities Reference Librarian
  
• Kaiping Zhang, Business Reference Librarian
  

It was a real surprise and honor for the LDC to receive the University's 2000 Martin Luther King Jr. Award. The work that we have done would not have been possible without the support of the now retired University Librarian George Shipman, who started this Committee over four years ago, the Interim University Librarian Deborah Carver, the rest of the Library administration, our supervisors, and our co-workers. Thank you all for attending our events and being understanding when our members take the time to serve on the committee. The awards reception was very lovely and we were touched to see many of our co-workers in attendance. We look forward to making more contributions to the diversity efforts on campus and within the Library. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any suggestions: ldag@oregon.uoregon.edu.

FROM THE FACT FILE: ANNOUNCING THE WINNER

Lyrical Librarian

Our January Fact File, "Singing for Your Supper," brought a number of you to the table to recall the missing lyrics the dozen songs we quoted. More than one reader inquired about the words to "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off", which many remember as "You say potato, and I say potahto…", rather than "You like potato…" Indeed, it has been sung and recorded that way (by, for example, Harry Connick Jr., heard in the movie, When Harry Met Sally.) When we consulted several published editions of the song, however, all of them gave Ira Gershwin's lyrics as follows: