Monday, January 23, 2006
week 2
One of my first jobs (about 20 years ago) was working for a nursing agency as a staffing coordinator. I had about 3000 time slots a week to fill. Many of the slots were on going, fill the position once and the staff member kept the spot until the job ended. So, really after filling the on going slots I had about 1000 to fine personnel for. After hours if someone called out from their assignment or if a nursing home or hospital needed staff they would call my office and my answering service would beep me. I would find a phone when the beeper went off I called the service and then call the appropriate person or begin to call available staff members, sometimes going through 100’s of names. This is before the age of cell phones. So, when I was on call I had to stay home. If I had, had this job twenty years later it would have been a nice job to have, with the invention of the cell phone. I could have still had a life on the weekends.
Moral Systems and Values: war and military values. War and military values have changed greatly over the last 60 years, and I am not sure if they have changed for the good or not. Back in World War II we, (the United States )entered it officially after the attack on American soil, we had, had secret small military groups working with the British for years before Pearl. But as a country we became involved only after we were attacked. The Humanitarian in us did not get involved when we heard and read reports of what the Germany government was doing. We ignored the trains that we had knowledge of loaded with Jews, we thought it wasn’t our problem. There wasn’t anything there we wanted so why get involved.
As Russia rolled into countries, we told them to get out. But we kept our distance as a country and secretly helped the forces to try and defeat them. We didn’t help the little countries in what use to be the USSR when it broke up and they were destroying each other. For the most part most Americans didn’t care or were happy that the great super power was falling apart. We let a little known country called Iran take Americans as hostages, and the only way to free them was to give their captors arms. For the most part all of these events we stayed out of unless we our selves as the country was attacked.
But then our values of war changed, Iraq rolled into a Kuwait. And we decided to act, not because they were killing thousands of people for no reason. But, because Kuwait has oil and we need it. So, we entered Desert Storm and chased Iraq out of Kuwait, we gave the Iraqi people hope of freedom, and abandon them. We protected our oil, but once again like the very beginnings of World War II did not protect the people, with us gone he again murder thousands of his own people who wanted the freedom we had promised. But our oil was safe. When September 11th happened, it was then that we decided to act before we were acted on again, or so our government says. We changed our Morals and Values of war to act first so we are not acted upon. But the art of war also changed, instead of destroying everything and everyone in our way and pounding the enemy until he surrender. We chose targets, as if winning a war or surviving a war can be done in a nice way. We became the aggressors but not with an aggressor’s attitude.
I am not sure if our Morals and Values of war have changed for the better or not. I guess time will tell.
As to why I chose library service as a career, when I was 16 I worked in a Jewish Nursing Home, I learned so much about what we have as Americans and what the rest of the world does not. Like the ability to go to a library. One of my nursing home friends told me that when she was 9 she went to school one day, her teacher gave her a book to read and write a paper about the what the author was trying to tell people in the book. She couldn’t remember the title. The next day the Germans closed the school and the library near her house. A week or so later she and her family were taken to a camp were they remained until the Allied forces freed them 5 years later. She never saw a book, during that whole time. Then she went to Poland, and then eventually came to the United States where she was adopted. She read every day, only nice stories were no one ever died. She said that the freedom of knowledge is one of the most important things anyone could ever ask for in their life, and we don’t value it until it is gone. She then would rub her forearm where her identification number was. She must have told me the same story over and over again at least 100 times over the 3 years that I knew her. So, I guess she is why I chose to work in the informational field. I chose first to be a teacher, but I only had 22 children in my class and I wanted to reach more, to make an impact on their lives like Ida had made on mine. I think she would have been happy to know that I give children books everyday.
Moral Systems and Values: war and military values. War and military values have changed greatly over the last 60 years, and I am not sure if they have changed for the good or not. Back in World War II we, (the United States )entered it officially after the attack on American soil, we had, had secret small military groups working with the British for years before Pearl. But as a country we became involved only after we were attacked. The Humanitarian in us did not get involved when we heard and read reports of what the Germany government was doing. We ignored the trains that we had knowledge of loaded with Jews, we thought it wasn’t our problem. There wasn’t anything there we wanted so why get involved.
As Russia rolled into countries, we told them to get out. But we kept our distance as a country and secretly helped the forces to try and defeat them. We didn’t help the little countries in what use to be the USSR when it broke up and they were destroying each other. For the most part most Americans didn’t care or were happy that the great super power was falling apart. We let a little known country called Iran take Americans as hostages, and the only way to free them was to give their captors arms. For the most part all of these events we stayed out of unless we our selves as the country was attacked.
But then our values of war changed, Iraq rolled into a Kuwait. And we decided to act, not because they were killing thousands of people for no reason. But, because Kuwait has oil and we need it. So, we entered Desert Storm and chased Iraq out of Kuwait, we gave the Iraqi people hope of freedom, and abandon them. We protected our oil, but once again like the very beginnings of World War II did not protect the people, with us gone he again murder thousands of his own people who wanted the freedom we had promised. But our oil was safe. When September 11th happened, it was then that we decided to act before we were acted on again, or so our government says. We changed our Morals and Values of war to act first so we are not acted upon. But the art of war also changed, instead of destroying everything and everyone in our way and pounding the enemy until he surrender. We chose targets, as if winning a war or surviving a war can be done in a nice way. We became the aggressors but not with an aggressor’s attitude.
I am not sure if our Morals and Values of war have changed for the better or not. I guess time will tell.
As to why I chose library service as a career, when I was 16 I worked in a Jewish Nursing Home, I learned so much about what we have as Americans and what the rest of the world does not. Like the ability to go to a library. One of my nursing home friends told me that when she was 9 she went to school one day, her teacher gave her a book to read and write a paper about the what the author was trying to tell people in the book. She couldn’t remember the title. The next day the Germans closed the school and the library near her house. A week or so later she and her family were taken to a camp were they remained until the Allied forces freed them 5 years later. She never saw a book, during that whole time. Then she went to Poland, and then eventually came to the United States where she was adopted. She read every day, only nice stories were no one ever died. She said that the freedom of knowledge is one of the most important things anyone could ever ask for in their life, and we don’t value it until it is gone. She then would rub her forearm where her identification number was. She must have told me the same story over and over again at least 100 times over the 3 years that I knew her. So, I guess she is why I chose to work in the informational field. I chose first to be a teacher, but I only had 22 children in my class and I wanted to reach more, to make an impact on their lives like Ida had made on mine. I think she would have been happy to know that I give children books everyday.
week 1
To understand ethics we must first define it. There are several questions we can ask; what do we value? What is good? How we ought to live? What makes something the right thing to do? What should our goals be? Our values in life are our goals, and actions of our goals lead to us to our values. So if one of my values in my children’s room is free and equal access to all patrons, rich or poor, male or female, disabled or able body. Then my action would be to allow anyone who wants to use the collection to use it. I think the ethical dilemma comes in when the system we use states that all patrons can take out 50 items, and we (the library staff and board) limit the number to, two items for patrons living in shelters. By doing this we are not given them free and equal access. If we did then instead of losing 2 books when they move to a different shelter or city, the library would lose many more. But, then I who tend to like to always see the other side, say… "What about the patrons who have a permanent address and don’t bring back the materials?’ Aren’t we losing just as much?" The answer at my library is, "Yes" for those of you who are wondering. For every 100 books that leave my children’s room I will not get 32 back! It’s the nature of the city that we serve.
