January

Welcome...

mash — Sun, 04 May 2008 10:16:29 -0600

I have been writing a weekly newspaper column since 1987.

For 3 years, it ran in the Greeley Tribune. Since then, it has run in various subsidiaries of the Douglas County News Press. I still have most of my columns in digital format.

For many years, I only gave myself one rule: try to work the word "library" into every piece. My intent was to think in public about just what librarianship means at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st.

January 28, 2010 - the mind changes the brain

Jamie LaRue — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 07:21:53 -0700

For a long time, scientists believed two things about the brain.

The first was the idea that you're born with a set number of neurons -- "brain cells." Then, you lose them all your life.

The second idea was that there are "hardwired" parts of the brain. Various experiments showed that one region was involved in visual processing, another in movement (controlling the arms or legs, for instance). If you went blind, the part of the brain set up to handle information from the eye just sat there, dark and quiet.

Both of these ideas, we now know, were wrong. And that's very good news.

January 21, 2010 - reading is both science and magic

Jamie LaRue — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:11:22 -0700

I'm a pretty fast reader. Because of that, I usually only read one book at a time. (That also helps me keep the characters and plots straight.)

But last weekend, I broke the pattern, in part because the formats of the books were so different.

One book was "The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science," by Richard Holmes. It's a non-fiction title. The other was "The Alchemy of Stone," by Ekaterina Sedia. It's a fantasy novel.

January 14, 2010 - what's 'it' all about?

Jamie LaRue — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:28:07 -0700

You may have noticed, over the past several months, teasing posters and ads around the county talking about a mysterious red-lettered "it." Now the mystery can be revealed.

This little campaign, done very much on the cheap, and depending on the generosity of our many community partners (all sworn to good-natured secrecy), is about ... the Douglas County Libraries.

Yes, we are it!

Why bother with a library campaign? Well, it's not just to grow use. We know how to do that. Recently, I reviewed trend lines of virtually every service we offer. They all have been climbing sharply over the past twenty years -- consistently outstripping population growth.

January 7, 2010 - build your business at the library

Jamie LaRue — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 08:51:43 -0700

Byline: The BizInfo Librarians at the Douglas County Libraries

One year ago, Douglas County Libraries launched a service called BizInfo as a way to support the business research needs of entrepreneurs and small businesses in Douglas County. “This initiative is one of the ways that Douglas County Libraries is demonstrating its commitment to adding value to our communities in measurable ways,” says Rochelle Logan, Associate Director of Douglas County Libraries and the project lead.

January 29, 2009 - government needs moral sanction, too

Jamie LaRue — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:05:02 -0700

At the beginning of last year's campaign season, I attended a fundraiser. It was for a good local man, running for an important office. I put more of my own money into the little basket than I ever had before for a politician.

Then I had a chance to chat with him, along with some of his other supporters.

After a while, he said he had to make a little speech to the party faithful. And what he said astonished me.

Almost the first words out of his mouth were along the lines of "Of course we all know that government is incompetent and inefficient." He then went on to praise the can-do efficiency of the business world. Remember that this was just at the time we were learning about the lending crisis, and a host of other private sector misjudgments, over-reachings, and dubious ethics.

I couldn't help but notice that I had just paid this guy to insult me. Working for an independent library district is working for government. As it happens, I'm proud of that work. And I put the library's efficiency, competence, and integrity up against any organization's, public or private.

January 22, 2009 - when bad things happen to good ideas...

Jamie LaRue — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:33:41 -0700

"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof." - John Kenneth Galbraith

Isn't it the truth? Every single one of us has held onto strategies that have been clearly demonstrated not to work. Women trapped in situations with abusive men finally get themselves out -- only to immediately hook up with another one.

Business owners persist in plans that focus firmly on a long-gone past (think the American automobile industry) or demonstrate the most incredibly cynical and short-sighted greed (subprime lending, for instance).

Politicians -- whether it's fostering Great Society welfare dependency, or proclaiming the gospel of market deregulation up to, and right past, the point of public health or industry collapse -- just can't accept the fact that negative results disprove really bad ideas.

Every day we find out that things we just know to be true, aren't true at all. And even though our erroneous premises cause us direct damage, we pull ourselves together and bravely ... stay the course.

Maybe if we just try harder... If we just BELIEVE...

January 15, 2009 - are we rational?

Jamie LaRue — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:10:01 -0700

Since way back in grade school, I've been enamored of the scientific method. The idea is that we are rational creatures, delighting in growing our understanding of the marvelous natural world.

True, we often start out with ideas that are a little looney. They don't fit the facts. But that's the whole point of the scientific method: you frame a hypothesis to explain some phenomenon, then you test it. If the hypothesis is wrong, you throw it out the window and come up with one that does a better job of standing up to the evidence.

It's a powerful thing. Using the scientific method, we have pushed back the darkness of human ignorance, and made incomparable gains in everything from our own ability to survive, to remarkable works of civilization.

I've also long been a fan of science fiction. What young person -- or any person of imagination -- wouldn't want to sail out into space on the starship Enterprise?

But there are frontiers that are closer to home: the study of our own brains.

January 11, 2007 - Read to Your Children!

Jamie LaRue — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:34:18 -0600

Recently, library staff began work on a handout for parents to help them select books for their children. I just got the latest draft of it from Andrea Logan, one of our Youth Librarians, and I thought some of the research she cited deserved a broader audience.

January 18, 2007 - Libraries are Workshops for the Future

Jamie LaRue — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:34:18 -0600

Not long ago, a provocative opinion piece by author John J. Miller appeared in the Wall Street Journal. In essence, he was alarmed when a nearby library removed a book by Hemingway because nobody was reading it.

Finally, he concluded that today's public libraries were "welfare programs for middle-class readers who would rather borrow the hot new potboiler than spend a few dollars for it at the local Wal-Mart." Not surprisingly, the article generated a lot of conversation among librarians.