Presentations, part 2

I had no idea of the depth with which libraries can contribute to urban renewal and gentrification. The presentation provided the right mix of pictures and facts to effectively communicate their topic's nuances. I have two observations: They should have emphasized the beehive like atmosphere of the Salt Lake City Public Library and its subtle cues to that state's predominately Mormon population. They also should have engaged the controversy of gentrification a little more heartily; I have little compassion for homelessness but only slightly more for people who object that wealthier Americans are buying cheap properties, fixing them up, and enjoying a bohemian bourgeois lifestyle in an area formerly populated by working class whites before industries moved outward/southbound/overseas and colored folks moved in. Yes, property taxes are going up. If you own your home, sell it. If you rent, do you really care where you live anyway? Madison living space ordnance prevents the building of new homes and flats downtown and compels developers to buy out entire blocks to construct massive apartment buildings and create such population density that it gets even harder to find a place to sit down on the bus. I'm curious if the compassionate souls fighting gentrification would prefer urban/suburban sprawl instead?

I have no comments about the banned books presentation except that time shortage compelled me to skip my unwritten (but still scripted) portions pertaining to the role of librarians better arbiters of fact and truth than a partisan educational body and that no one knows how to pass books along to the rest of the class. I got to look at Heather Has Two Mommies but none of the others because they were immediately passed back or, in the case of And Tango Makes Three, read by a single person.

By the time the Big Box Store/Coffeeshop segment came I was too anxious about their time crunch to pay much attention. Rachel was too dismissive of Coffman, as evidenced by at least two members praising aspects of his essay, and was too flamboyant for the time allowed. Even with Sara pushing her along after her PowerPoint mishap she kept going, and going. I've told her that she is wayyy too in to being Jewish. Her pronunciation of "Coffman" as "Kauf-munn" and "tawlk" instead of "talk" are just two examples of needless flourish that helped put their group past time. Granted they had only 35 minutes to begin with but they still went 5 minutes over their allotted time. The third to last presenter, if you include Rachel's allegedly abbreviated conclusion, was painful to watch as he struggled to communicate his topic. I'm still not sure what it was, actually. Their last non-Rachel presenter, just like Karl in Banned Books, was gracious and quick without sounding dumb. Clearly he had more to say but couldn't in good conscience subject us to a longer class.

I was very frustrated for the entire class because I knew we would run long or have to shorten our presentations. Three peers took Alan's call for constructive criticism to the Nth degree and held up class for another 7 minutes after everyone else turned theirs in. My attempts to guilt them to finish, namely shouting for anyone who cared to hear "Don't think that because you already presented you can hold up the rest of us," seemed to stall them further. Based on conversations with my classmates, I'm confident the surveys have a lot in common and therefore extra effort on their part meaningless. A less wasteful way to survey would have been filling out the forms during an extended break of 15 or 20 minutes rather than the 15 minute survey time and the 10 minute break we ended up getting.