Episode 586: So, Now What?

New Year's-- do you have your resolutions? I wrote some resolutions.

Great.

And if it's OK, I want to share them with the audience so you guys can support me.

Are you confident? Are you confident you're going to keep your resolutions?

I didn't put that as a resolution, so no.

OK.

You are listening to WREK Atlanta. And this is Lost in the Stacks of the research library rock and roll radio show. I'm Charlie Bennett in the studio with Marlee Givens, Alex McGee, and Fred Rascoe. Each week on Lost in the Stacks we pick a theme and then use it to create a mix of music and library talk. Whichever you are here for, we hope you dig it.

Our show today is called-- OK, let me get the right tone here. It's called, "So, Now What?" Is that what you're going for?

Is that the right tone, Fred?

So Now What?"

That's not the right tone either, Fred.

So, now what?

OK, you got me.

It's January 5, 2024. And we are starting a new year of Lost in the Stacks.

And just as a reminder, here are the titles to previous New Year's episodes of Lost in the Stacks. "In the year 2020," 2021 "AF", 2022 "The Electric Boogaloo--"

A favorite of mine. MARLEE GIVENS: And "WTF" in 2023. CHARLIE BENNETT: "What's the Future."

Yes.

So today's title does not match the pattern.

Let me explain. I think the pandemic scrambled our expectations in 2020. And as we moved into 2021, 2022, and even 2023, we described each year as, quote, "getting back to normal," unquote. Then this fall, normal came back with a vengeance and tested all that work-life balance we'd cultivated in the aftermath of the pandemic. And when I say "we," of course I mean "I." So now, what do we do?

That is, how are we going to handle things in the future-- strategies and expectations, but no-- and because we got burned on this, I think, no resolutions and no predictions.

OK, we'll see. We have a guest host in the studio with us, Alex McGee, university archivist at Georgia Tech.

Glad to see you, Alex. Thanks for taking Lost in the Stacks on a test drive.

Well, I'm glad to be here. And this is really exciting for me because it's my first scripted line in the Lost in the Stacks episode. Ooh, you can cross that off your bucket list.

Wait, this is scripted? Oh. Our songs today are about personal growth and reflection--

That part wasn't scripted.

--interacting the world and our information practices. So let's start--

Fred, hold on just a second.

OK.

I'm sorry I interrupted you earlier, but I'm going to do it again. I know it's no longer Christmas season.

Thank goodness.

No, I kind of miss it. And also, I didn't get to do a live LITSmas or anything.

That's right. Yeah.

So I was just wondering if you could do something a little Christmassy, just a little more Christmas right here.

You're not done with Christmas.

Just to finish it off.

Just to finish it off. OK. Yeah. I do have a song here that's about Christmas. We can throw that on instead.

Cool.

It's about how-- it's about deciding how you're going to handle things in the future. So it fits the theme.

I like that.

And it gives you a little bit of leftover Christmas. CHARLIE BENNETT: Thank you, Fred. I appreciate it. So this is "You'll Never Be Alone Again on Christmas" by Sun Season right here on Lost in the Stacks.

That was "You'll Never Be Alone Again on Christmas" by Sun Season. It's a very California tune. This is Lost in the Stacks. And our show today is called "So Now What?"

That was it.

OK, good. Thanks. We're going to talk about how we plan to approach the new year, how we will prepare for whatever's coming.

How we will approach opportunities and obstacles.

Maybe even what we hope to learn. It is a school, after all. We'll start with the individual and personal. Then we'll talk culture. And we'll end with the professional.

Alex McGee, university archivist at Georgia Tech, is in the studio as guest host. So we're just going to get her into the mix as quick as we can. Alex, how are you going to approach the new year?

Yeah. So I actually think the way I started 2024 kind of set me up for success. I spent all of New Year's day on planes, trains, and automobiles.

And so I wasn't even really thinking about it being a new year. I was just thinking about getting home, and what time will I get home, and how mad will my cat be. And so I didn't even think about it being 2024 and what I wanted for 2024 until January 2. And so I think that that's kind of what I'm leaning into-- space, grace, flexibility.

It's some kind of mindfulness, right? Present moment, not--

But not setting huge expectations. I think just being open to what's to come.

Do you feel like that's not how you have done things? Or is that sort of a continuation of what you hope for as a person?

I think I'm somewhere in the middle, to be honest. Sometimes I do really have big goals for a year or things I want, that I want to accomplish. And other years it's, well, let's just get through the year and see what happens. And I think, for me, I'm happier if I'm in between those things. Like I like to be a high achiever, but I also like to float through life a little bit.

OK. Center Lane McGee. How about you, Fred?

Well, this is a big year odometer-wise for me. The odometer turns over, and I turn 50. CHARLIE BENNETT: (LAUGHING) Yeah, and your warranty runs out. Right. The warranty has already expired. Things are already starting to fall apart. It's bad. So this is the year I turned 50. I know Marlee and Charlie, you guys have already gotten there. So, look to you as my guiding lights how to navigate. CHARLIE BENNETT: Don't do that right.

And so I'm thinking-- I think a lot about things like, well, what if I just bought that new electric guitar or something like-- or started that new punk rock band or something. And I'm looking at those things. I think about them from time to time as a almost a 50-year-old. I'm thinking like, oh, man, this is a midlife crisis action that is gripping my brain.

They're pretty sneaky, aren't they?

Yeah. But also, I don't want to think that, well, I can't just, now that I'm 50, I can't just sit in a corner and just wait to die. I'm also still existing as a human and doing new things. There's like a balance there. CHARLIE BENNETT: The common wisdom is that it is never too late for a fresh start. OK. So no matter what I do, it won't be classified as a midlife crisis.

No. There's a couple of folks who will be in midlife crisis. Yeah.

Nothing you've mentioned so far is on that list though, I don't think.

OK. So like going out and buying a new guitar as a 50-year-old-- MARLEE GIVENS: Very within bounds. That's within bounds?

Yeah, absolutely.

OK, great. Yeah. I'm going to tell Zoe. I'm going to tell my wife that. Yeah.

It's totally legit.

I cannot quote Marc Maron's thoughts about midlife crisis because I don't know how to censor it enough to get the meaning across. But you should track down what he has to say about midlife crises.

OK. Will do. Will do. Marlee?

Well, my midlife crisis has to do with my failing memory.

Oh, no.

And I started this year-- it's very funny. I've been seeing some memes online about starting the year and forgetting what it is that you do for a living-- not quite like that. But I mean, I had that experience of coming back and looking at my upcoming calendar and going, why did I schedule that meeting? And-- CHARLIE BENNETT: You mean literally-- Literally. CHARLIE BENNETT: --what's the purpose? MARLEE GIVENS: Literally, like what-- what was I hoping to-- yeah.

Yeah. And I have the same experience. If I make a calendar event in a hurry, and I just put something like just some random letters-- MXY meeting. And then two or three weeks later I come back, it's like, the MXY meeting-- what is that? Because I've put nothing in the description. So, yeah, I have to do the same. I have to put in the description either the agenda or what it's about or it's gone.

Yeah.

And if it doesn't exist as a calendar event a few weeks after it happens, it's gone from my memory too. I have to be able to go back and look, oh, that's what I met about.

Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: It's so universal. I think we have to trust that it's OK that it's going on. I am trying to listen more and talk less. So this is Lost in the Stacks. We'll be back with more of how we're going to handle the new year after a music set.

File this set under E169.12.T63.

You'll get a hang of it.

That was "Siva--" "Siva?" S-I-V-A by Smashing Pumpkins. And before that, "Scratch" by Morphine, songs about personal growth and reflection.

This is Lost in the Stacks. And our show today is called, "So, Now What?" It's our New Year's episode. As you said, Marlee, no predictions or resolutions. We're talking about strategies, expectations, and obstacles.

And I scripted this episode, so I feel comfortable saying that those might be just sort of pedantic differences between the predictions and resolutions and strategies. But let's just go with this. OK, we talked about the personal. So now let's talk cultural, which is just a fancy way of saying, hey what are you looking forward to? What are you going to listen to? What are you going to watch? You know? What's cool out there? And sometimes I feel like the answer is nothing.

I don't know. I think-- and this may come across as a resolution. But I think I would like to pay more attention to what Fred is reading because Fred always seems to be reading something really cool.

Right now I am rereading-- I finished my book on eels. [LAUGHS] And I'm rereading-- this is pretty on-brand. I'm rereading Please Kill Me, the oral history of punk rock by Legs McNeil and I can't remember the co author's name. So not as exciting as a book about platypuses or something like that or wasps. But--

Are you going to follow it up with Our Band Could Be Your Life?

I've read that two or three times, so maybe.

That's a really good pair.

Yeah.

But if you read those too much, then you start-- you're the kind of person who reads People's History of America every year. You gotta go read other stuff.

Yeah. I don't really like to reread stuff. So on my nightstand, underneath Please Kill Me is a book called Super Fly, which is about the life of houseflies. So that's next after I read-- after I reread Please Kill Me.

Marlee, what was that adjective you used about Fred's reading? Did you say he's always reading cool stuff?

I did say cool. Yeah.

Fly is a word for cool.

I think it's super cool.

Super fly. MARLEE GIVENS: Super fly, exactly. Right.

All right.

We're getting off of the track Charlie wanted to be on.

Yeah, yeah. Here's my strategy. I have had to accept that I cannot-- not only can I not read, watch, or hear everything, which is obvious to most people. I can't even read, hear, or watch everything I want to-- not enough hours in the day, not enough resources, not enough knowledge. I'm still completely split between having a very superficial survey of everything, just like what comes-- OK, cool, let me see that-- or trying to get into a narrow lane and really understanding it completely.

I think that when it comes to modern culture, my kids are showing me how out of touch that I am. Because when my kids talk about what is new, what they're watching, it's words that I don't understand. Things-- my daughter will say things like, oh, this is a reference from Jujutsu Kaisen, which is a TV show, I think.

I thought you just made that up.

Hatsune Miku, which is some sort of online character but not really a TV show.

The daughter you're talking about, she has a lane, right? She's in that lane, and she knows a lot about Japanese culture and Japanese pop culture.

Korean-- yeah, Korean pop culture and things like that. And I just feel like, with anything that my kids bring up, I feel like I'm really out of it. And they'll say something. They'll say, you don't get that reference, do you, Dad? It's like, you are just so old. Like, they will literally say that to me.

You are living up to your almost 5-0 age.

I guess I am. Yeah. It's appropriate. Yeah. My midlife crisis is going to be like getting into all the Japanese animation shows. Right. Yeah.

My kids aren't old enough yet to really wipe me out. They don't have enough. They can't buy their own CDs. They definitely don't have access to YouTube.

CDs?

Right.

Well, I'm 5-0, remember?

I know.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Well, I would never let them have internet access unsupervised at this point in their lives. So they can't do streaming. And I don't think any of them really understand not to put their fingers on the LP itself, so it's all CDs for them. We don't have a cassette player. Marlee, you've got a smile. I'm just grinning at that image. I don't know.

Yeah, same. They just watch what they watch, usually on their own device and not in a communal area in the house.

I have not really taken many recommendations from my kid yet though. I get most of mine from the people around me, my colleagues around here, and occasional things online, New York Times and so on.

I think it's impossible to really get recommendations from young people once you're old or of any definition of old. When I am here in the studio, and someone starts talking about music, I either have no frame of reference or they're saying stuff like, yeah, this record I found, it's by a guy named Iggy Pop. I don't know if you know who that is. And then I just stay quiet because what possibly could I do well if I answered that question. So I think just the frame of reference is different.

And we've already determined that you're off "Goodreads," right?

Am I off "Goodreads?

I feel like that was the outcome of that episode.

I try not to use it like a social media.

Marlee is referring to "Goodreads Must Be Destroyed," which is an episode we did previously.

So I won't talk about my Goodreads book goal for this year, I guess.

Do it. Do it. That's a good way to finish off.

Well, I have been very slow and steady with-- I shoot for 25 every year. I've been going over. I look back at the last three years. I've been over, like, three to four books every year. And so I've decided, you know what, Alex, you can do 30. So I've upped it to 30 books this year.

Last question for the segment-- do you feel anxiety about hitting your numbers? Does it help to read by having a number? What does it do?

Well, so actually my friends and I started a book club a couple of years ago. And so right there, that's 12 books I've got to commit to.

Nice.

I'm not a big audio book person. But I did listen to a couple of audio books last year. So that also-- I think they count. So I added those to my total. But I don't-- I don't think I worry too much about it. But also, when I see other people reading like 87 books a year, I'm just like how? How do you watch TV? I love watching TV.

My numbers are padded by graphic novels and comics collections.

Also, are those 30 books already predetermined, or are they--

Oh, no, no, no. Yeah.

OK. You don't already know which ones. OK.

Yeah. We'll see what can I get from the library when I get it. You know?

You're listening to Lost in the Stacks. And we'll ask ourselves now what one more time on the left side of the hour.

This is Michele Casto from the DC Punk Archive at DC Public Library. You're listening to Lost in the Stacks on WREK, Atlanta.

(SINGING) Drink deep. It's just a taste. And it might not come this way again.

Today's show is called, "So, Now What?" On the occasion of our New Year's show, we are talking about how we might handle what the world is throwing at us in 2024. Really, we're just talking about resolutions without using those words. As is becoming tradition in these self-reflective shows, I'd like to read you a bit from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, the second century philosopher and Roman emperor.

(SINGING) It's a nice world to visit.

That was "Real World" by Pere Ubu. And before that, we heard "It's a Nice World to Visit But Not to Live In" by Lee Hazlewood and Ann Margaret?

Yeah. It was a weird set all around.

Those were--

Those were--

What were those?

I told you about my memory-- songs about the frustration of trying to interact with the real world.

This is Lost in the Stacks. Today's show is called, "So, Now What?" We are three librarians and an archivist in a radio studio at the beginning of 2024. Spring semester is about to start. How are we going to handle our professional lives this year? Has everyone done their annual review package, the thing that I have not yet started?

I haven't started. I'll be with you.

Mine's all done.

Oh, Marlee.

I'm sorry. I--

Boo.

It's I thought that it was due earlier. So I rushed it all. Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: Well, so Marlee, this is going to be a lot about you then. Did you find anything in the review or in the writing of the review that kind of pointed to how you were going to do things this year? No.

No?

No. Not writing the review itself. Writing my goals for this year, yeah.

So if anyone's not familiar with this process, the annual review is essentially a letter to your supervisor with some very strict formatting that says how your year went and what you thought of yourself and of things and then goals, SMART goals, S-M-A-R-T. And if you don't know what those are, you're lucky. So we'll just say you've got to say what you're going to do and how you think you did last year.

Yeah. And I think I've been doing this long enough that I get very realistic about my goals. So, yeah. The one thing is, really, I mean, strictly professional service, service that I do with the organizations and societies in our profession, I think I need to just relax about that. I'm on two committees now. I think I'm just going to roll off of one and not try to replace it with anything.

What would be the benefit to doing that? I mean, there's the obvious, less work. But what's the good thing about that?

I think it makes me feel like I'm not really hustling anymore because I'm literally not hustling anymore since I have been promoted to the degree that I can be promoted. And I don't need to. And I think I was kind of on that train for a while and still had some momentum going for the first year as a librarian 4. And now I'm like, OK, I think I can probably do more, maybe, mentoring people here, get more involved in things closer to home if I get off that train.

Like, the next level for you, if you want to keep going, would be administration. And that's not a goal.

Exactly. Exactly.

Which you took the tiniest step into.

I mean, I did.

Well, I guess. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it basically just means that I have dedicated time to work on projects. That's how I'm treating it anyway.

Alex, you were nodding a lot while Marlee was talking. But you were in a completely different position from Marlee.

Yeah. I mean, it's funny. I don't think about the start of spring semester as being super meaningful. Like, yes, my work is very much tied to being on a university campus. But I'm less beholden to classes or-- it's more just what am I trying to do with this year, with the budget, thinking about the resources we have. What are the people I want to talk to this year? What's the kind of progress. I want our department to make, and how can I help move us forward?

Yeah. Stuff you'll get for the archives, the university archives.

Yeah. So it's less about instruction numbers or meeting certain classes or anything like that and more just about access, getting things open and accessible to folks.

The semester reset is forced upon you. It doesn't--

Yeah. It doesn't really mean much for me.

Yeah. I was so happy when I erased the final instruction session of fall off my whiteboard. You know? And then I look at it now, and I'm like, OK. The emails are going to start coming in. They actually already have. But when I first looked at that whiteboard the first day back in the new year, I thought, OK, I'm starting again, which I don't know if that's the best way to think about the next semester. I don't know if it matters even to have that sense of reset about instruction.

It could be liberatory. I could see that though, if you felt a certain way about the past semester, shaking it off. But, yeah.

No. I don't think of it as a reset either. The only reset that I have is in the same sense as Marlee, like, well, it's time to write those goals again because that's what I'm required to do. And so that's the impetus to think about the coming year. And you know, like Marlee, I've tried to make it more realistic. Like, oh, I'm going to submit and publish this article I've been working on, just like simple-- I'm going to test this software for thesis submissions, test and upgrade.

Over the past couple of years, I've recognized a change in how I think about what I'm going to do. I used to be very mercenary about it, used to be very much like what can this do for my CV, what can this do for my promotion, because I thought I had to think that way. I've been kind of scared straight by my first five years as an academic librarian. But I've been switching to the mode of trying to think more about what am I doing for the other person or what am I doing for the team.

I mean, if it was about some sort of Japanese show, I could get my daughter in here. She could converse with you. But, yeah.

OK.

That's like the only modern culture thing that I-- CHARLIE BENNETT: The way you talk about how she talks to you, I don't want to talk to her. I'm very fragile. I think she would take me down way too many notches.

Oh, man. Well, you are listening to Lost in the Stacks. It is time for some more music.

File this set under Z675.A2-- no dot-- S72.

Nicely done.

CHARLIE BENNETT: You're listening to "Garden of My Mind" by The Mickey Finn, and before that, "Eating Information" by Soul Hat. Those were songs about aspects of information as a professional practice and a mental practice.

This is Lost in the Stacks. And today's show is called, "So, Now What?" And it's the New Year's show. And I made a big deal about have no resolutions, no predictions. And I don't even know why I bothered to do that. So lightning round-- let's do resolutions or predictions or some version of that, whatever you want. Fred?

I'll try to make more puns in future shows for you, Charlie.

Nicely done. Marlee?

Learn more about jazz.

Alex?

Watch-- well, finish The Sopranos. So-- CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, my goodness. I hope Tyler is listening because we have been stuck at season 4, and we haven't been able to move forward because he isn't ready. But I am ready.

The quotation marks around "ready."

We're going to finish it.

Come on, Tyler. Get it together.

Exactly. I hope you're listening, Tyler. Charlie, what about you? CHARLIE BENNETT: Well, once again, my resolution is to not make it all about me. So, Fred, roll the credits. [PUBLIC ENEMY, "GIVE IT UP"] Two, three, four-- Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library, written and produced by Charlie Bennett, Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens, and perhaps soon in the future, Alex McGee.

Legal counsel and, well, how about one more translation of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius--

I need them.

--were provided by the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group in Atlanta, Georgia.

Special thanks to Alex for joining us on this panel show. And thanks, as always, to each and every one of you for listening.

Our web page is library.gatech.e du/lostinthestacks, where you'll find our most recent episode, a link to our podcast feed, and a web form if you want to get in touch with us. MARLEE GIVENS: Next week's show is another in our occasional series on citizen archiving. We're going back to the Fulton bag and cotton mill.

Right on. It's time for our last song today. We've talked a lot about what we hope to learn and the opportunities we'll have in the new year.

Did we?

Um, "Now What?" I guess we'll come back in December and see how it all worked out, probably using WTF in the show title, I'm guessing. Until then, we're just all optimistically sitting on top of the world. So let's close with "Sitting on Top of the World" by Sam Chatmon right here on Lost in the Stacks. Have a great weekend, everybody. And happy new year. CHARLIE BENNETT: Happy new year, Fred. Happy new year, Charlie.

(SINGING) I worked all the summer and all the fall.