Book of the Month: Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholicism By: Douglas Brinkley & Julie M. Fenster

It is a well-researched book that reads like a history book. I didn't find it particularly well-written, I could not be drawn into the story as easy as I had hoped, yet I was intrigued by this book and read it in bits and pieces. At a young age the calling was so clear to Father McGivney he just knew this was his path. He studied hard and struggled to maintain his spiritual strength and be a responsible son; It was difficult for young men to leave their families in the 1800's and become priests. At this time numerous families were falling on hard times. Working in the manufacturing towns was a risk, so many male heads of house would die or be permanently injured. This most certainly caused several families to struggle for survival. Upon the death of their husbands or fathers many families fell apart as a result of financial despair. With very few options mothers were forced to send children to orphanages becoming the burden of the state. Those children lucky enough to remain home became employed in the factories and too suffered from the hazardous conditions. It was an endless circle of despair.

There was a tremendous amount of prejudice against Catholics in the 19th century when Father Michael McGivney became a priest. Being the leader of a Parrish was not easy. He had to endure the endless negativity and prejudice and be the shining light for his Parrish. It was rather easy to like a man as outgoing and charming as Father Michael McGivney. These attributes certainly helped him maintain the trust of his Parrish community. Father Michael McGivney may have been a joy to be around but he was also man with a will to do good. His compassionate heart could not ignore the suffering he saw. Watching the community fall apart was something he would not let continue further, he came up with a solution, a way to keep families together and instill a bit of hope into their lives. His idea to create a fraternal benefit society to provide aid to members and their families was ingenious. The result of this organization was two fold. It would save families from falling apart, stabilize the community, bring in men with families to the church and enhance Catholic fidelity to the Parrish.

I recommend that you read this if you are Catholic or are interested in social work. His social ideas have saved the lives of many Catholics in this country, as well as in others. Learning about this fraternal society and how it began will certainly amaze you. To think that the Knights of Columbus started out as a small organization serving the needs of one small Connecticut Parrish to one day became this multinational organization that has provided assistance to millions is remarkable. We all can learn from the compassion and determination of this man, Catholic or not.

The Tango Campus Technology

Okay, so maybe that's a little too obtuse of a "Rent" reference, but I'm too tired to do better.

I just spent the most irritating ten minutes at the Campus Technology "help" desk (more like "Go Away" desk) and I thought if anyone would appreciate how irritating they can be, it would be you fellow library employed folks. Three out of five of the public computers in the lounge area of the Student Union were not working - one won't turn on and two are frozen. It's like that every time I go in there for day long meetings: at least one, if not three of the computers are crapped out. I thought, "You know, WildLibrarian, all this internal bitching about Campus Technology being about as useful as gills on the Wicked Witch is, well, about as useful as Campus Technology." hahaha!

So I decided to go let them know that they have actual work to do. I was very polite (although more by rote than by design, as I can't really bring myself to complain without being polite). The girl at the desk was dismissive and irritated, bordering on surly and jerktastic. I wish I wish I wish there was a way to complain that would be heard by the people who need to hear it, be weighty enough to incite action and change for the better, and would not ultimately just be another instance of the blame game, which inherently leaves someone feeling wronged. I'm sure that many of the people at Campus Technology work very hard and take their work seriously. (Okay, maybe it's just some rather than many... there's got to be a couple, right?)

This girl claimed that someone checks on those machines everyday, but that just can't be! How are they getting frozen and crappy so quickly?? Yarg. I deeply dislike unnecessary confrontation, but I felt so justified and then so thwarted and I didn't feel any guilt at all about being rather terse with Campus Technology "Unhelp" Desk Girl, and ending the conversation with a very perfunctory "Well, thank you very much," in incredulous response to her curt reassurance, "Yes, I'll inform the lab manager."

Now I'm in the science library. Campus Technology better not be responsible for the machines in here, because the first two I tried were either logged out (and unlike my library, you can't just restart them to relog in) or off-line. I feel like Goldilocks and Three Attempts To Get University's Infrastructure To Live Up To Its Name.

Okay, that's all the venting there is. Thank you for listening, erm, reading... I'm going to go finish reading my article on the many uses of library assistant training programs for my report tomorrow.

It died

Our tape duplicator died and this is my email announcing its triumphant end:

"Friends, Romans, Countrymen...Today I want to take a few moments to eulogize the passing of a very important member of the Access Services Team, who not only was my personal favorite piece of equipment, but who served as the role and fashion model for our entire team. Now let us remember the good times we had with this wonderful piece of history....err....equipment. Let's now have a minute of silence for the Telex tape duplicator.

The tape duplicator officially died today at 4pm after courageously duplicating the human physiology lecture. She held out long enough to copy the first half of the lecture only to give us her last breath and die. So as it goes we are in the midst of finding another means of duplicating the lectures onto tapes. For the time being we are going to be patient and optimistic."


The duplicator has been in use longer than most of my students have been alive, wild isn't it? The machine is 25 years old and was used almost every weekday. Impressive! The durability of electronics made today cannot match the lasting power of the older machines. We are sad to see this reliable piece of equipment leave. Thankfully our digitization project is almost ready, online is the way to go, why did it take us so long? Of course that will not reduce the number of complaints that will be coming. This is going to be an interesting ending to the term. Students are going to be very unhappy. Hey at least most of the year was covered, I thought all students went to class EVERY day and took very detailed notes, there really is no need for these tapes. HaHaHa.

Working the night shift

As I sit here and notice how quiet a Friday night in the library is my mind wanders. Fridays here are so quiet, the hard-core dedicated kids are here actually studying. They know that this is the best time to work since all the typical trouble makers are busy killing brain cells at the local bars. I remember when I used to work nights at the 'ol University, in a land far from here, and saw the most interesting things. Generally it was quiet, hardly anything exciting but when stuff happened it was crazy.

Like the time the Cross Country team decided to streak the library one very cold fall night. 25 people, both men and women, ran throughout the library, all floors, and back out as if it was a normal victory parade. It was charming.

Then there were the kids that were making publicity posters for their student group's fundraiser. There were rumors about naked photos being taken in one of the study rooms on the second floor. Thankfully this happened several years ago, otherwise the evidence very well may be prime for a MySpace posting. Fortunately for those kids posting photos on websites was a skill many lacked.

My all time favorite:
The biology department honor society kids and the physics department kids fist fighting over study rooms. Now that's dedication. This fight was huge, an academic turf war. Several students became involved and luckily it went outside before others got hurt. Still, it made for a very interesting night. Several jokes were heard all over campus about the "Bio-brutes" and the "Physa-crushers" having a row. That was classic.