[Alumni-chat] puff n stuff

[Steven Duffy]

What follows is part puff and part stuff......from Duff.   from the front
desk of the Big Olive (Kettering Library) and written while I am working
so it will be grammatically
crazy......but we are just chatting, eh? Grammar nazis...go home!!

Some vignettes and then some texts from Joe Cali's memorial
service....scroll on and be patient..

In spite of the fact that my boss and friend, Joe Cali  (with whom I
worked 39 years or so) just passed away and that  Antioch will be
celebrating whut would have been my freshman advisor's 100th birthday
(Nolan Miller) I work in an environment where
intelligent and interesting students rejuvenate me on the woist of daze. 
So I stay young-ish.   What a blessing!!!
Even when young hormones take over .....Antioch is a swell place.  

Wonder if Nolan could get tenure in this oh so p.c. age? or Louis?

of course I am not Ruth Churchill (for those of you  from that era) ...so
whut you get will be purely anecdotal and you can either digest it or
delete it.

The College Community is way smaller than in some previous times but it
has amazing people who do amazing things....

you could almost strike a conversation with about anyone and they will
tell you some pretty good stuff.

One student who sorta amazes me looks kinda like a beach boy....from
California, of course...Mill Valley.....

usually quiet and someone who hangs out in the computer lab or the alcove
near the circ. desk (where the big screen and

faster dells are)   One day I was walking past the alcove and a picture of
whut looked like paradise caught my eye...


"What is that?" I said...

"It's a little project I have been working on"

then he let a slide show roll on that computer and it was absolutely
awesome..turns out that he had been travelling throughout
Central and South America stopping at Botanical gardens and other places
and had been gathering seeds of sub tropical
and tropical medicinal plants....  

then some kinda way he  had bumped into French developers in Panama...and
might have worked on helping landscape upscale
ocean estates.....and when that didn't work out managed to wind up with a
large plot of deforested land that had been used
for cattle raising (could it have been for  your transnational big mac?)..
he and some friends then proceeded to plant 50,000
trees, set up an irrigation system similar to what Mayans used to use.
(chinampas?) ..and also planted all those medicinal plants..

How many 21 year olds  in coillege have had that much adventure?

Breathing O2 every day?...might be from some of his project in Panama!!

     Horace would be smiling.

A student working with me this morning had a great co-op in DC working
with inner city kids and has has already spent
a season in Europe  AEA.  2nd year

the other student with me at the desk this AM is doing pre med ...has
worked as a freshman in a nuclear research job in
New Mexico and will be working in a clinic in Ecuador in the fall.

I know current Antioch folks are all over the planet ..I will get an email
from a student...who is trying to use databases online and
has forgotten their barcode..... and in sending them their barcode...I
will say.  Hey, whatcha doing/  Then I will get answers
like...I am at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand.....or I am in Sweden
doing research about South African immigrants there.
btw I later found out that that particular person had just received a
Fulbright....hmmmph

or I am at Antioch's ecological program in Curitiba, Brasil teaching
faveleros about how to recycle and make some money
from it.  or I am in Poland, Russia or Tuebingen.  on and on and on.

I also get tons of cell phone calls and emails from McGregor
adults....their's are usually from their cars or work...busy multitasking
adults in search of a piece of paper that helps make their lives more
upscale.   They are interesting too ..but I am college-centric,,
McGregor students are commuters    ours are 24/7/365.   way more intense 
..a gourmet meal vs., a pre-packaged gourmet box lunch?

In between saving the planet and its varying societies students continue
to discover themselves and the world in the usual
passionate and hormone filled ways.   Sex, race or class issues ...we
always have our "deconstruction helmets" on.


Students are as aware as I have ever seen them  and ocasionally almost too
passionate 

I tease and tell Steve Lawry and others that most college's have Freshman
"writing well" courses but an animal like this
College really needs to offer Freshman "Conflict resilution" as a
staple....cuz when you are programmed to go
out and win a Victory for Humanity or think you are in the Bootcamp for
the Revolution......you will almost certainly run into
walls of ignorance and or emotions...yours or theirs...

and don't fool yourself!!! students read like crazy and study very
hard.......our library has a third of a million volumes now, a great
journal collection....and through OHIOLINK access to 30 million volumes,
14,000 journals and much more.     Folks though
have to take time to "adopt" a librarian.....and also need the ability to
think 2 daze ahead cuz ILL takes a whole long gruesome
two daze for things to arrive.  Y'know  this microwave age.. Whadya think
I got all minute?

I know a freshmnan  student who has used 300 books from the college and
OHIOLINK in two terms.

   

I am losing some steam but will get back to yall....

If you surf the web...check out the College website and scroll down to
MORE NEWS...and read the message board
connected to memories of Joe Cali....some are a hoot and a half..

     and remember also there are many dedicated faculty who will
eventually be the the next Fillers, Millers and Calis.

Next round I will try to tell you about Joe's memorial...but for now will
add a coupla documents connected to it.

One is from a current student..who is working right now at the library
circ desk   .a great poem ...and the other is from another Librarian in
the area.    Here goes...first from my fwspie (Federal work study student)

The Girl’s Alright

Here’s the scoop. Check the lights 
every half an hour in the basement stacks.
They’ve got to see that people work here. 
Are you Awake? Follow me. 

Der Spegial is shelved under “S.” Look,
it’s marked; see under “S” Der is an article.
Don’t they teach you anything? 
You’re the stupidest person I’ve ever seen.
Follow Me.

Don’t move a muscle. I had the boy 
clean up the newspaper so make sure
the January 13th issue is there.
Put these in order and tell me 
which ones are missing. 
Follow me

Ok.  Now don’t fall down now. Ok. 

also
  THIS IS FROM AN AREA LIBRARIAN.....
March 24, 2007
REMEMBERING JOE CALI
Jean Mulhern, Director, Watson Library, Wilmington, OH
Chair, SOCHE Library Council
Vice-Chair, OPAL
Participant in the OhioLINK Private College Advisory Group

Hello!  My name is Jean Mulhern, director of Watson Library at Wilmington
College.  Joe was my library colleague and my friend for 25 years.  I am
here today representing the fifty or so Ohio academic library directors
with whom Joe worked to make a success of three library consortia:  Most
importantly, Joe was a founding librarian of OPAL, the Ohio Private
Academic Libraries.  He wanted to be sure that electronic management and
resource access could become a reality for Antioch.  He also took personal
interest in the library councils of SOCHE, the Southwestern Ohio Council
on Higher Education, and of the OhioLINK Private Colleges Advisory Group.  

Because I became library director at Wilberforce University at about the
same time that Joe became director of Antioch’s library, we met and began
sharing our joys and challenges at SOCHE meetings in 1983.  The SOCHE
Library Council rotates the chairmanship and every time we nominated Joe
for any office, he turned us down.  He attended the meetings but he would
not lead the group officially.  Once we even tried to vote him in as
honorary chair, guaranteeing that all he would have to do was bang the
gavel.  We tried; Joe refused with his famous chuckle.  “Are you kidding;
you guys must be nuts!”   Later, when I learned more about forms of
leadership in consortia, I understood Joe.  He focused his energies on
Antioch’s library and knew that his strongest contribution to SOCHE was
through his expertise and referent power.  Joe was THE guy for anything
“serials” and we trusted his input and experience.  We librarians also
knew that Antioch was the go-to library because of its excellent
collections, its careful binding of serials, its retention of older
editions of reference works, and because of Joe.  Those strengths in the
Antioch library collections continue today as Joe’s legacy to scholars
everywhere.

I have a couple of stories to tell about Joe and the OPAL group.  One, the
only action I could find in the OPAL minutes initiated by Joe was when he
made sure than OhioLINK and OPAL were on the same page for providing
database access to all Antioch patrons around the country.  Joe was taking
care of business, watching out for Antioch.  I do remember that not a
meeting went by when he did not speak up about his concerns for proper
serials management and more than a few OPAL directors probably learned
more about serials from Joe than they did in library school.  In OPAL, we
are thankful that Joe hired great people to work in his library and that
he generously enabled them to contribute to the work of OPAL.  Joe would
say that his favorite moment in OPAL was when he discovered that the
Lourdes College director, now retired, was Sister Thomas More Ruffing,
close relative of Red Ruffing, New York Yankees pitcher in the 1930s and
1940s and member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Joe made sure he sat next
to the good sister and they had a great time whispering during meetings
about their common interest in baseball.  

Joe the librarian showed the rest of us how to combine classic
librarianship with the latest in modern library service principles.  He
didn’t learn that in school; he kept ahead of the service curve by
focusing on meeting his patrons’ research needs.  Joe was the librarians’
librarian. Current library literature is beginning to show revived concern
for print collections and their access.  Joe respected that for sure.  Joe
took seriously the educator role that academic librarians have.  The last
time I was here in Kelly Hall was to hear Stephen Jay Gould speak about
evidence of evolution.  When I mentioned later to Joe how much I enjoyed
that experience, Joe told me that when Stephen was a freshman at Antioch,
he came to Joe, who was in charge of serials and the music library at the
time.  Stephen told Joe that he didn’t know anything about music but
wanted to learn.  Joe told me that he replied, “No problem.  Come here,
sit down at this turn-table, put on these headphones, and start with ‘A.’
By the time you are a senior, you will have completed the alphabet!” And
that is how Stephen became a fixture in the library, studying next to the
record collection.  

Joe also practiced patron-centered service, making the library a “third
space” on campus, personal branding with the Joe posters, energy
conservation (all those dark stacks in the basement), music in the
library, and my favorite, walk-about reference.   He was “walking about”
long before proactive reference hit the news.  

Once, when I was taking a course, I asked Joe if I could observe his
library for a field study.  I told him that I wanted learn how students
used his library but really, I wanted to see how Joe ran the library.  My
project for that course ended up being entitled “Joe’s Place.”  I
concluded that Joe ran the Olive Kettering Library just like the owner of
a popular East Coast Italian restaurant. I’m married to an East Coast guy
and I’ve been in few of those restaurants.  Joe worked the door, greeting
his guests.  “What are you doing here? What do you want?!”  He chatted up
the customers as he led them to the right area.  “Come here, don’t waste
time.”  He served up just the right combination of resources and often he
convinced his patrons to try a new resource from his menu.  Finally, he
asked about patron satisfaction with the resources and service as they
left.   “Did you find everything you need?”   

When I left Joe’s library, he always called after me, “Don’t fall down.” 
I thought that he had heard something about me.  Now, I have learned that
Joe said that to everyone.  I have my own interpretation of “Don’t fall
down.”   Joe cared about each of us and our success.  He could make sure
he had done what he could to help us along but ultimately, we each are
responsible for our own successes, to keep on keeping on.  “Don’t fall
down,” Joe said.  In my view, Joe never fell down, not as a librarian or
certainly not as the wonderful and fascinating person that he was.   

JKM March 24, 2007


Gotta go for now....

Don't forget awesome Antioch needs any help you can muster (and we so
deserve it)....

   If you remember Joe......there is the DON'T FALL DOWN FUND set up by a
host of eighties' grads. Check the website!
   Think about giving it some oil.   and then if you wanna honor Joe's
legacy you would follow up
    by hounding the Office of Institutional Advancement to ask " How are
you spending this"


     and you could also hound them with the Louis Filler method ....I want
 all your "References and Examples"


After a horrible and snowy February, March is ending with 70 degree
days...campus grass is looking like grass from Easter
baskets and thunderstorms are possible almost any day for the next week.

One day a coupla summer's ago when we had an end of the day thunderstorm a
female student on the porch couldn't wait
for the storm to let up and didn't want her shirt to get wet.   well, 
when you are young and exuberant you know
what happens...      a mad dash past the pine trees in the pouring rain 
with one's favorite shirt tucked savely away..

eventhough I am a terrible prude it sort of made me laff......it's great
to be young every day.   and well maybe that is also
what keeps folks like Joe  and some of the rest of us keep going like the
energizer bunnies.

in a land of young folks, rebellious and sometimes free enough to wander
in barefort any time of year...Joe would sometimes
tease them and say " Hey, you're gettin'  the floor dirty"

Take care....
from the somewhere between Utopia nd where you are.

Duffy '77 at the Circ desk 

Wanna a fun three day getaway   forget Myrtle Beach try Mellow Springs. 
Reunion?  or anytime!