Goodbye Fogelson

Summer 2009

My last day at Fogelson Library was last Friday.  It has been a long and winding road and I can finally write about some of the things I have experienced.  

I remember taking the job seven years ago, and talking to someone who was offering me career advice and I remember telling her - this is going to be a job - I don't think I will do much and I don't know if I will learn very much - I just want a regular library job.

In 2008 when CSF began closing procedures, everything changed.  In the summer of 2009 I was working alone in the library 4 hours a day - in the evenings - Sunday-Thursday.  Since the future of the college was very tenuous, there was no sense in planning or preparing for the future.  I kept the doors open and helped people on occasion, but I spent a lot of time alone thinking about librarianship...  Here are the notes I took at the time.

Things I am learning at the Circulation Desk this summer.

It is strange to be the only employee at a library.  It makes organization seems less important - yet in the silence of working alone - I realize why - if there were even one other person working - organization is really important.  You have to keep track...

Opening the library this summer is like opening a lemonade stand and trying to get customers.  I have sent out emails.  The doors are propped open.  I have a sign out on the sidewalk when the library is open to draw people in.

What I hear....

I hear a crow cawing over and over and over.

I hear a bugler alarm ringing from across campus.

I hear traffic roaring on a far off street

The fire alarm.  It was blaring when I came in on July 5th during the holiday weekend.

The absence of a gentle humm.  The copy machines were fried in a power serge we had in early July.  All 3 are broken.

Yet another message on the library's phone that there has been a security breach in the middle of the day - in zone one - the front doors.

I see lightening, I hear thunder - and then I hear the alarms on the campus buildings sounding.  When will they stop?

Things I am doing.....

Watering the plants.  This is much more time consuming than I imagined.  Since the plants are all over the library, it is something I can only do when the doors are locked.

Vacuuming glass.  No one is around to vacuum up the glass from a broken window. 6.8.09

Standing in the dark.  All of the light bulbs in the upstairs restroom are burning out.  They are really dim and flickering, it feels like a haunted house. 6.8.09

Making friends.  Everyone who walks in is a conversation I want to have.

I am making friends with the security guards.

Capturing birds.  A bird flew into the library.  It tried to fly out the back windows and was stunned.  After some effort, I was able to pick it up with a piece of cloth and put it in the bushes in front of the library.  I think it will be ok.  6.10.09

Keeping people happy.  The internet connection in the computer lab has been off for 3 weeks.  Even if the internet were working - the lab's printer is broken.  No printing available on the second floor.

On July 5th we discovered that because bills haven't been paid we do not have access to a database we rely on for cataloging.  Other databases will soon disappear.

Dinner in the library.  My friends and former colleagues come to the library to have dinner with me several times this summer. 

The police moved on to campus.  There are some officers living in the student apartments across from the library and some of the city police have moved into a building on campus.  They need the space and the campus can use the extra protection.

Finally it is seeming a little normal again.  Some people want to check out DVDs.  It feels like I could have a normal library job - but I don't.

Today I heard big moving trucks outside - I thought it might be some of the big diesel trucks that  bring in things for the movies being filmed at the campus' sound stage.  Then two firefighters in boots and suspenders walked through the front door and wanted to know if everything was ok.  I said everything is fine - what is happening.  They said an alarm was going off in the library.  It had to be going off silently because I didn't hear anything.  They looked around a little, gathered my name and position title for their report and they left.

Three Years

We are coming up on the three year anniversary of our learning/understanding that the college would close (October 9, 2008).  Three years ago today if someone had told me I would still be working at the college, I wouldn't believe them.

It has been three years, but many of the events that occurred still feel like they happened yesterday.  There were so many painful things that happened, and many of those things I am still working to get over.  Now, I am grateful for days that feel like they are normal days, but like a normal day after you have lost a person you love - I still feel guilty about feeling like a day is normal.  I miss my coworkers.  I miss what was.  I miss feeling secure.  I miss knowing no matter what everything will be ok.

I was reminded today of one of the events we had in the library for the staff in the last days the school was open, and we were still a fully operating library.  Here is part of an email I wrote in February 2009:

We had a party at the end of the day yesterday.  We had coffee and Kahlua (I had decaf tea in preparation for good sleep) and we ate chocolate.  Someone brought up a turntable from the basement - it was donated to the library last year - a giant console from the 1960s.  The LPs actually sounded BEAUTIFUL on it.  Then when the music stopped, Bill got out his guitar (which he just started teaching himself to play) and passed around words to the song Under the 59 Street Bridge and we all sang along as he played. 

We talked about our job searches and how life sucks - but not in a super downer way.  I actually left work happier today than I have been in months.  So I leave you at 4am this morning with the 59 Street Bridge Lyrics....

Slow down, you movin' too fast
You gotta make the moment last
Just kickin' down the cobblestones
Lookin' for fun and
Feelin' groovy____________

Hello lampost
Whatcha knowin?
I've come to watch your flowers growin'
Ain'tcha got no rhymes for me?
Doo Bee Doo Doo,
Feelin' groovy____________

Got no deeds to do
No promises to keep
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep
Let the morningtime drop all it's petals on me...
Life, I love you,
All is groovy_____

Closing the Office in Santa Fe

The big layoffs were a year and a half ago. The remaining employees moved into this smaller office until the lease ran out this month. The office was torn apart last week.





Joel and Elaine locking the office door for the last time on Friday night at 10pm.

The Last Game

When I was thinking about the legislative efforts to save the College of Santa Fe in February, I felt like it was a football game that we might not win unless we were really lucky.

Well, we weren't lucky, and the legislative session closed before the bill that would save the college made it through the Finance Committee (or more accurately, the Finance Committee refused to hear the bill despite an outcry from students and community members - and the session closed).

Tonight the Santa Fe City Council will vote on the purchase of the College. It feels like the last game in a long and painful season. It feels like the quarterback was injured early in the season, the crowd stopped buying tickets, and the team never pulled together because the owner decided to furlough everyone except the box office manager and a couple other manager-type people.

I am actually very optimistic about the outcome of tonight's meeting. I can't help it. Despite a loosing season, I think we have proven we can bear the pain and the single-minded goal of the box office manager and the couple others is heading for the goal and creating an entirely new sporting event.

Santa Fe City Council will be broadcast live online at this link. Just click on Chanel 28 Live around 6pm to hear the beginning of the game.

Changes

Joel and I have both had really strange weeks.

Yesterday we unplugged everything in the library. When I left the library, it was dark and I looked around. Most of the computers have been put away, and for the first time I really saw how the library looked in 1971 when it was first built - just books, and no technology. The building was quiet - sleeping.

From the library I went over to Joel's office. This week they have been shutting down 2/3 of the office space - including the space Joel has been in for the last 8 years. Below Joel is standing in the space where his desk used to be. When the office first opened, and Joel started working here, the office was so crowded he shared his desk on a swing shift with a guy who had worked as a presidential secret service officer. After the layoffs in January, most of the office space has been empty.

All of the furniture is being redistributed to other offices in the corporation or donated.

Physical Manifestations

This was the scene when I arrived at work today (you can see the library in the background). These are pictures of the College entrance being destroyed. I knew this was coming and I thought I would be upset, but actually it was so gratifying to see the physical manifestation of what we have been experiencing for the last several months. Today I am loving these pictures.

Here is a link to the entrance a couple of weeks ago.

A List of Good Things

This list isn't a day-dreamy list. I have given this list considerable though as I try to look for the good things among so many bad things as the College closes. I think one of the most discouraging realizations I have had in the last couple months is that hard work, positive thinking, hope, prayer, and passion by a group of really good people doesn't guarantee the outcome you might want. I think I was learning this last year when the hail storm hit, and many of my plants were injured and died. At the time knew that storm was so upsetting to me because it was tied to my thinking about the College's future (even at that time).

I actually remember quite clearly a day in 1990 when I was in college, and I had the realization that hard work does pay off (I didn't think hard work was important in high school). I was sitting by myself in the library studying for an English exam. I had the realization that if I continued to study, I would do well on the exam. It was a guarantee. I realized I was going to do well on the exam, and I was filled with a real joy. It was the first time I remember thinking I had control over my circumstances by working hard. I have held on to that moment in different ways for the last 20 years, and I think it has served me well. But here I am faced with failure following hard work.

To combat these feelings of pessimism, I started working on this list. It is an honest list, but not without an equally long list of negative realizations (that I may never write down).

List of Good Things

Humbling. The experience has been humbling, not in a destructive way, but an eye-opening way. I feel more sensitive to what other people are experiencing in their lives. I feel less important and my actions feel less important in some ways, and in some ways this is a relief.

Good people. There have been so many good people. People I don't know have had lengthy email conversations with me and have been supportive. Former colleagues, friends, and family have also been supportive - it helps to have good thoughts from all of these people. And it has been helpful to hear real-life stories from people who have experienced a wide variety of difficult times in their lives. Having good thoughts from people from all times and places in my life, is a source of strength.

Hard Work and Success. I don't think my lesson is "don't work hard." I am thinking right now that hard work is worth doing, and when success comes it should be appreciated for the amazing thing that it is. Success, when I see it again, will be all the sweeter.

Faith. The realization once again that the world is bigger than just me and the community in which I live. There are larger reasons that things are happening the way they are, and that requires a faith in the greater good.

Perfection. I have learned that there are different levels of perfection and that I have a level of perfection I strive for in my professional and personal life. This expectation is sometimes good, but it is also very important to recognize when "good enough" is perfect. There are lots of times when true perfection (or my version of perfection) is not required.

Small things. I have been noticing the small things, and I feel more grateful for the small things. I feel grateful that I am grateful for small things.

Empathy. I have a new empathy for people experiencing difficult times, especially illnesses. I feel like what we have experienced is a community illness. All of us have been struck with this illness, and all of us have had personal reactions to it and have dealt with it in very personal ways. The illness is within the community, but the battle is individual. I think these emotional trials and feelings of isolation are similar to fighting a health related illness.

Stress. Stress is a motivating factor. It shouldn't be hated, but appreciated and used to my advantage. But when the stress is too much, it is best to just let go of it, because things will fall into some order or some place no matter what you do or don't do.

Conversations. I have had the great opportunity to have real conversations with people I don't know very well - or may have never known very well. For the last 5 months when I am at work and I ask someone how they are doing, I get a real answer and that answer always requires a good conversation.

Happiness. Even within personal stress and disappointment it is a joyful relief to feel genuine happiness for other people as they achieve new things and move in new directions.

Nothing is easy. There are no easy answers in difficult situations, and if you believe you have found an easy answer, it probably isn't the whole truth. This has become exciting to me because trying to find the logical best answer to questions I have, has been an ongoing quest in my life. I like that the answers are not easy.

Enjoy. It is possible to enjoy misery when you have hope that it will end. Bad, bad, bad things happen - and when they do - we should be good to ourselves, accept help from others, and enjoy the ways we can can be good to ourselves in difficult times.

Entrance Gone

Last week they started tearing down the College's old entrance. The first picture was from March 2008 and I took the lower picture last week.

In Search of Sugar

Today I got home and screamed. I did. My throat still hurts from screaming. There is nothing poetic or beautiful about screaming, but sometimes it is necessary. All I could do at the end of the day was scream.

The day started off with yet another call, "so what is going to happen to the library's books when the College closes?" The caller, dissatisfied with the only answer we currently have (we don't know who owns the books in our library, the College or its creditors), asked to be put in touch with my supervisor (who will tell her the same thing, "we don't know").

If we had half the calls and inquires asking, "so what is going to happen to the people when the College closes," I think my rage would be muffled or maybe non-existent. But as it is, it is a daily onslaught of questions and calls about the books. Honestly, I don't mind these questions from the students and faculty. We are all in shock. I think asking questions about the library (a place that they have felt at home) is a normal part of anyone trying to put their mind around the end of the College of Santa Fe. I have had lengthy conversations about the library and the library's books with our students, and they have been healing conversations. But the calls from the public -- and even sometimes more distasteful -- the calls from fellow librarians, these are hurtful calls.

I love books. I love everything about books, so I don't say this as someone who has no compassion and no concern for the books in the library. But calling a library that is closing and asking about the books is like calling your neighbors down the street after you notice their house has burned to the ground and asking if you can borrow some sugar. It is inappropriate, disjointed, greedy, and really a downright mean thing to do when the people you are calling on the phone are losing their jobs, their careers, their incomes, their friends, their extended families, their home.

Velveteen Rabbit

With the College closing in May, we are making lots of final arrangements for things. As exciting as I thought it might be to tell vendors "sorry we can't pay you thousands of dollars for this tiny overpriced service, because we are closing!," I am finding that I am really pretty sad.

Today I canceled all of our periodical subscriptions. The library gets about 250 subscriptions. Managing subscriptions to periodicals is like herding cats. They arrive when they arrive. Sometimes they never arrive. Sometimes the arrive out of order. Sometimes they are never published and then they are suddenly published years later. This year one of our main suppliers of magazines had a glitch and about 1/3 of our subscriptions were sent so an address in Texas. They are random. And when you do something like cancel them, it throws everything in to chaos. For instance, if there is ever a school at this address again - I think it might be really difficult to receive subscriptions. Periodicals have a life and character of their own. As the periodicals arrive in the mail they seem to "know things" but they know all the wrong things, and with this address being marked "closed" to our subscription suppliers - I am thinking that may never be able to be erased.

Yesterday I was working the circulation desk and thinking about the school closing and the cancellation of all of these periodicals. I was struck with a wave of deep deep sadness and tears came to my eyes. Very unprofessional, to be crying in the library. But the incident reminded me of the story of Velveteen Rabbit and becoming real. I never wanted to be a librarian, and I have never considered myself a REAL librarian, but when you shed more than a couple of tears over the cancellation of periodicals - I think that means you are a real librarian. Maybe you "become" a librarian. Maybe, "it takes a long time."

Here is what REAL means in the Velveteen Rabbit.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

This is the "anxious times" image from the book.

So This is What Happens when a College Closes.... Part 3

Dreams

On the nights I sleep, I have had some really interesting dreams.

Last night I had a dream a colleague and I were sitting in the kitchen in the bottom floor of a classroom building. As we were sitting and talking, we saw a person rushing into the building with a canister of tear gas. We knew that the person was getting ready to release tear gas to save everyone in the building from a dangerous person on the second floor. Even though we knew the tear gas was going to be released, we were not allowed to leave the building because if the dangerous person saw us leaving the building they might create more trouble for the person with the tear gas and we would all be in danger.

So we had to wait, knowing the building would soon be filled with gas that would make it difficult to breathe.

At the end of the dream, the person was able to release the tear gas and everyone on the second floor exited the building safely. My colleague and I stayed through the release of the tear gas and waited for everyone to leave. Just before we left, we leisurely went to the refrigerator and got our sack lunches. We calmly exited the building without chaos or stress and no harm from the tear gas.

I don't know if the dangerous person was captured.

So This is What Happens when a College Closes.... Part 2

Since there will be such a large number of people laid off at the college in May - and since we apparently seem more worried about being unemployed than other industries - the New Mexico Unemployment Office and New Mexico Workforce Connection came to give us a pre-meeting about unemployment yesterday (they will officially come back closer to our lay-off date).

I had been looking at this meeting as an interesting opportunity to learn more about something new - but by yesterday morning I began to dread the meeting -- like you dread going to a funeral. In the end, it wasn't as sad as a funeral, but it wasn't interesting either.

They gave us some basic information about how to apply and how the process will work once we are in the system. One disappointing piece of news was that it does not seem we can take classes in lieu of proving we are searching for work. According to the presenters yesterday, if you have a Bachelor's Degree you are considered "educated" and so you can't take classes or earn additional certificates and have the classes count as "searching for work."

While I certainly will be searching madly for a job, I was hoping I could solidify my "proof of searching" by taking legal research classes and working on a paralegal certificate. I still have some research to do on this, but the basic answer to working on a certificate or a degree while earning unemployment seems to be "no" (because if you aren't taking classes you have to be available for full-time work).

I had a realization this morning. Maybe there will be so many really smart people on unemployment this year (people who are searching for work, but also frustrated by a system that does not work - or does not work for everyone) that these smart people will take their extra time and reform the unemployment system.

So This is What Happens when a College Closes.... Part One

In the 1990s Joel and I would occasionally drive by a college campus in Milton, Wisconsin as we made our way from Joel's family home to Cornell College where we were attending school. The campus we passed on our journey was the small quaint campus of Milton College.

The Milton College campus was silent. Abandon. The school had closed in the early 1980s, and as we passed it on our way out of Wisconsin, we were often struck in to silence too. How did a college like Milton close? What happens when a college with grand brick buildings and a courtyards stops teaching classes and the students leave? What happened to the college to leave these structures standing as headstones to what had once lived in Milton, WI?

I have thought about Milton College a lot in the last 2 years, and now I think about it every day. At the time it closed its doors in 1982 it was the oldest operating college in Wisconsin (echoing the College of Santa Fe's position in New Mexico).

My sister was laid off from her job working for big national company in January. The office in Albuquerque closed and all of the employees lost their jobs. When my sister lost her job this year and the office started its close-down procedure, she talked to me about having these realizations, "oh, so this is what happens when an office closes."

Now the College of Santa Fe will be closing on May 22nd - either for the summer or indefinitely. Everyone at the College will loose their jobs on that day. Like the job losses I have experienced with my family in corporate America, the College must prepare for its closing. With the college closing certain things must be arranged for students, faculty, and staff. These arrangements have been both horrifying and comforting. Life will go on.

The closing of the College is pretty strange. I have tried to anticipate some of the things that will occur, but even in my mental preparation I have been surprised that the sadness is deeper than I anticipated. I was not at all prepared for the ways uncertainty and confusion leave deep wounds. And like my sister, I too am struck almost daily with the realization, "oh, so this is what happens when a college closes."

As much as possible, I would like to share some of those experiences. I think many colleges will close in the coming years. There were lots of college that closed in the 1980s along with Milton College. I think we have reached another point in the ebb and flow of our economy where these changes and losses are inevitable. It is just the beginning of the suffering for small liberal arts colleges in America.

Here is a link to an article published in 1997, remembering how Milton College closed. For now I will let this quote from the article about Milton College speak for the College of Santa Fe's current situation:

"We all were crushed. Devastated. We couldn't believe it," Koeffler said. "It was so sad to watch people you knew loved teaching and this college to be let go. It was watching people suffer."