Going Back to My Old School in 2023

I am in the midst of my National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) project. This year, instead of writing a work of fiction, I've decided to work on a nonfiction project focusing on the political ideologies - the Isms - that define the American worldview.

In order to do it, I need decent research, and the best place for nonfiction research is an academic library.

So, I took a vacation day from work to drive up to Gainesville FL and visit the University of Florida libraries - arguably atop the public university system in the state - to find what I could for references for my writing.

This was also a homecoming of sorts for me. Since this is where I went to college to study for my journalism degree from 1988 to 1992. And it was a special homecoming because the library was where I spent most of my college life.

When did they add palm trees to the Plaza of the Americas???

During my journalism classwork I worked part-time, getting employment at the library itself in their cataloging department handling the book spine labels getting printed and applied. I enjoyed working the library more than working towards that degree (it didn't help that my grades were middling, I had to take Basic Reporting twice which was not a good sign). So it shouldn't be too surprising I ended up a librarian instead of a reporter.

While I've spent most of my career as a public librarian - working at the county/city level - my dream had been to work as an academic librarian in a university system, where the research demands were more intense and challenging. And the library I wanted to work at was at UF.

And in 2003 - twenty years ago - I got my wish. I was hired on to work at Library West - the main business / humanities / political science / general academia branch - as their Evening (tech support) Librarian.

And... it didn't last. Part of it was because the building itself went into a massive expansion / renovation to improve the floor space, which sent the West staff to work in a wing of Library East where almost none of the students visited - other than to check out DVDs - and it quickly jaded my experience. Another part was that I just didn't fit in, and I ran into a personal conflict or two with fellow staffers that led the HR department to hint that I should go find work elsewhere. By the time Library West reopened, I was looking for employment back closer to my parents and friends in the Tampa area, and I left in 2006.

I'd been back up to Gainesville from time to time: Whenever brother Phil (a fellow alum) went up to see football games with his sons, I would tag along to some of them; I had visited pre-pandemic to a SwampCon and walked the campus from Reitz Union to the library and back; and had driven by on recent swing-bys when I went to Tallahassee to advocate with the Florida Library Association's lobbying every year for funds.

But this would be the first time to visit the library and campus during a school day, and it was going to be - unavoidable - a nostalgic trip back to when I was in my early 20s, and a reminder of half the regrets I carry with me.

This video was in the early Tuesday morning, which is not often the busiest class day - class cycles were Mondays-Wednesdays-maybe Fridays, or Tuesdays-Thursdays - and relatively early enough that not every student was heading to class ("Never before 11!"). This was in the Turlington Hall plaza, between the main campus buildings for Turlington (where most of the humanities/social sciences were taught) and Marston (where some sciences - especially computer tech). The Century Tower is across the street. This plaza at midday is one of the centers of student life, where odds favor you bumping into half of your friends between sessions (the Plaza of the Americas in front of the main library is next, and then Reitz Union).

You had two main methods of getting across campus back in my day: By foot or by bike. Maybe skateboarding if you were cool enough. This visit I spotted a reasonably high number of scooters, apparently the technology - and collapsible steering rods - has improved.

The library itself hadn't changed much since the 2005 renovations, although they've moved equipment rooms around, and instead of copier machines they now use scanner trays which can email PDF copies to you (no more cash or student debit cards!).

Never try to walk and use a smartphone camera while turning a corner...

The welcome desk for the staff floor. You'll still get students asking "where can I study?" while standing in front of that sign.

When they renovated, it was to install the closing - accordion-style - shelves
to expand shelving in a limited space. Even then, UF libraries has so many books
they had to split branches by subject - Arts, Music, Education, Science, Journalism - just to give the main library room for history/literature/humanities/business/social sciences.
Even with this, UF has to maintain an off-campus storage for all the other books they need to keep.

Ahh, there I am.

I had published my short story collection in 2005, and donated copies
to the library for inclusion. The natural lifespan of a book by an unknown author
in a public library could be 5-10 years. An academic library by its nature
has to hold onto books as long as possible for research needs. In 20 years, depending on the circulation, this will likely go to Off-Campus Storage... say, 2025... /sigh 

I ventured back over to Library East, which is the Special Collections building.

Used to be the Cataloging department I worked in was on the third floor. That's been taken over by the Latin American collection that used to be on fourth (it was pretty cramped up there when I left in 2006). There was an elevator for East I had to use getting work as a student labeler, but it was sooooo slow I would take that stairwell (of which I took that photo). When I was 20, I could run those stairs to third floor without a problem. At 53, old and fat, there is no fucking way
I can run those stairs again.

I wore a Nirvana shirt to signal my Gen Xness in case the graying beard and aged eyes didn't give me away.

There is a spot between Librarys West and East where a fellow could sit, either before the library opened for work, or during the day on a snack break, and it was at this spot I would rest.
If it was early enough in the morning, some of the squirrels would be brave enough to approach me and beg for the candy M&Ms I would eat. I did share, but I worry now that I gave those squirrels diabetes.

The walkway between the business classrooms that take up the original (northeast) corner of the university, going through the Plaza en route to Turlington. This was in the mid-afternoon between the final round of the day's classes. I didn't want to take pictures of it being too busy because I wanted to avoid close-ups of people who wouldn't want to get photographed by a stranger.
You might notice there's one older brick path in-between two newer paths. There were SO MANY people biking and walking this path between the major parts of campus that the grassy areas along that original path wore down into dirt. The campus HAD to expand the brick pathway to accommodate
that traffic. The benches are super-new, though (I noticed memorial nameplates on several, so it's apparently a new fund-raising gimmick for alumni).

The Plaza of the Americas is the "official" spot to hold protests and political gatherings, and they seem to have an ongoing protest by the local Jewish student groups about the kidnapped hostages in the current Hamas-Israel Gaza War. It was quiet for now, no counter-protests by the sizable Middle-Eastern / Muslim student groups that are also on-campus.
My previous experience as a student - and library staffer - was that the on-campus Jewish and Muslim groups behaved themselves (because they shared a common enemy with the frats). I dunno how they're both handling the nightmare of war in Gaza right now...

On my way back from Library West to the Visitor Garage at Reitz, back through Turlington, one last look at the infamous rock statue locally known as "The Potato" (no lie, the Pokemon Go gym spot labels itself that).
I know it looks lumpy like a potato, but c'mon people, do you notice that large bump on that one side of the rock formation? I swear that's a thumb, and the statue is really a lumpy glove. IT'S A GLOVE, PEOPLE. Why am I the only one who sees it...?

Going back to where I had been 30 - even 20 - years ago brought back a lot of quiet memories, and a lot of the regret I know I carry with me. Above all, the regret that I did myself poorly not being more social and active while a college student. I didn't do much other than be with a science fiction club that struggled to reach more students, I did nothing to find a dating life among the young women that populated half the campus, I made few friends from that time and haven't kept up much with the ones I did.

A lot of physical changes had happened to the UF Campus - and to the businesses and eateries across the street, ye Gods the Pita Pit was gone??? - but there was still a lot that reminded me of how it was when I was a young man with his whole life still ahead of him. It's just... I wish that young man enjoyed his time in that moment a lot more...

Been Thinking About the Places I've Worked

I was chatting up a co-worker at the Bartow Library tonight about how things were at the other libraries we've each worked at, and I got to thinking about the ones I used to work at in Broward County.

I've posted before about being at North Regional in Coconut Creek.  But one of the things we did as a regional library was cover for the smaller nearby community libraries whenever their staffs were on vacation or short due to sickness/emergencies.  That was one of the advantages of working a large county-wide system: the chance for a change of scenery, different libraries and different patrons, different questions and different collections...

The surrounding north-and-northwest libraries were places I'd go to help as a Reference librarian, or in some cases as a Librarian-In-Charge (someone with the authority to panic if there was a crisis).  I'd go to branches like Coral Springs, a busy mid-sized library before it was replaced by its own Regional (Northwest Regional, where I would work as a full-timer for awhile... but that is another story).  I was a frequent LIC at the smaller Northwest (no relation, this was NW Pompano Beach city) and Margate branches.  I went twice to Beach branch (Pompano), one of the smallest libraries I had ever seen, with an absolutely beautiful view of the Atlantic Ocean right across the street.  I covered the Reference desk about four, five times at Pompano Beach branch.  There was another library somewhere in the middle - not Lauderhill, but nearby - where I had to cover once, but I can't recall specifically which it was.  Might have been Tyrone Bryant.  Ah well.

When I went to work at South Regional for a year, I didn't cover other branches as much.  I was at Pembroke Pines community library once.  This was back in the older SR library building and not the newer regional library standing on the Broward College South Campus.  I still tell stories of that fateful summer Saturday afternoon where that college student sitting at Lab Computer #4 lost all his work to a thunderstorm brown-out and screamed the scream of the eternally damned...

Talking about the years I worked at Broward made me wonder how things are down there now.  I hadn't worked there since 2003, twelve years going on forever it seems.  So I looked at the website and checked out the map to see what was different.

I knew some of the buildings had changed.  South Regional, years ago, that old building was leaking every rainstorm so they needed a new place and got one.  West Regional when I was there had been built just before the need for public computers everywhere, so that was a smaller place one-story structure than the county residents deserved.  They replaced it with a larger two-story place, which looked nice the time I visited a few times.

I heard that tiny Beach branch finally closed: a storm in 2005 wiped out the Pompano pier  across the street, and the library itself was damaged.  They built a newer one further inland - which isn't far, seeing the Intercoastal Waterway is about a mile from the Atlantic - that looks like double the size.

The community Northwest looks like it has been replaced.  The old building was small, barely four rooms.  The photo on the locations page looks like a fancier, larger abode.  Pity they don't have more photos of what it looks like inside now.  Did they get a larger Children's room?

The photos of Margate look the same.  It was a good-sized library for the area it served, just needed more room for public computers.  The Pompano Beach building looks the same on the outside, I dunno if they revamped any of the interior.  I think someone mentioned to me when I visited North Regional for their anniversary that Pompano was due for renovations...

I noticed on the map that two libraries are no more: there were both a Tamarac Reading library and a West Atlantic (Blvd) Children's library.  The Tamarac Reading was meant to be a temporary location while the old Tamarac library phased out for a newer building, and the West Atlantic was meant to relieve some of the checkout demands at Coral Springs.  But they were both in major population areas - the suburbs - and when I left I heard their neighborhoods were fighting to keep them.  I thought at least the West Atlantic place would remain standing: partly because if you look at the map there's a need for a library west of Coral Springs Drive on Atlantic Blvd, partly because I knew the Northwest Regional up the road was one of the busiest and stressed-out libraries in need of some circulation relief.  Side note: if you look at that map - I can't add that as an image here due to formatting - the county needs another branch or two in Coconut Creek towards Parkland and somewhere off Sheridan and State Rd 7.

Ahh, I do miss a few things from South Florida... some of the co-workers I knew as friends... the occasional drive down the beach between Pompano and downtown Ft. Lauderdale... movies at Sawgrass... watching Bucs games at Hot Shots off University Dr.  Hmm, memories.

A Librarian-Jedi-Writer-Pirate-Geek Looks Back at 45

It's one of those round-to-five birth years again.  And another day of waking up, going to work, and regretting just a few of the things I still haven't gotten around to doing in life.

Not to say I should focus only on the regrets.  There's a few things I've gotten done with my writings and a few things I've done in my life worth doing.  I may miss my old friends, I do miss Tehya and Page my kittehs... but I don't regret having met new friends, and I don't regret having Ocean and Mal wiggle their way into my life.

So here I am at 45 years of age.

There's still a lot left to do.