Bryce Moore's Blog, page 42

Movie Review: The Map of Tiny Perfect Things

I just got back from a trip, and you know what that means: movie reviews! These days, I take some time before I leave to download movies that look like they’d be interesting. I typically grab around 5-10, so that I have a choice up in the air. This time through, I came across The Map of Tiny Perfect Things on Amazon Prime. Basically, it’s a teenage version of Groundhog Day, except instead of being alone in the day that keeps repeating, Phil and Rita are both trapped in it together.

With a premise like that, how could I say no?

I’m very pleased to say that the movie delivered on the premise. There are a growing number of time loop movies out there, and one would think the territory they can explore is fairly limited. So far, that’s proven to be wrong. This movie takes the well-established trope and injects enough new stuff into it to make it feel fresh and original. Yes, it’s still a romanticomedy, but if that’s what you’re looking for, what’s the matter? It would be like complaining a Snickers tastes too Snickery, when what you really wanted to eat was a Snickers. Does not compute.

When you get down to it, a time loop movie needs a few essential elements. First off, it needs to establish how the main character(s) are dealing with the loop, and second, it needs some sort of a way out of the loop. (I suppose you could have a movie where they’re just stuck in the loop forever, but that sounds more like an art film, and who wants that when you could eat a Snickers?) This movie does a great job of showing how two different characters would approach a time loop differently.

As with most time loop movies, however, explaining too much of the film would likely get in the way of actually enjoying it. So I’ll leave it at that for now. I gave it a 9/10, and I heartily recommend it.

Need a bit more of a hook? Here’s the trailer:

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

A Trip to Baton Rouge

I’m back from Baton Rouge, where I spent the weekend at the Louisiana Book Festival. This was a noteworthy trip if for nothing other than the fact that I made the entire trip without any significant problems with the travel. My planes were on time. My connections were smooth. Nothing went wrong, which left me wondering what sort of cosmic balance the trip was endangering.

I don’t remember the last time I’ve made such a quick trip. I flew down on Friday afternoon, getting to my hotel at 10:30pm. I was back on the plane on Sunday morning, and home by 7pm, so the whole thing was about 48 hours. I got up in the morning, had a bite to eat, and had my panel and signing, and then I had the afternoon free to explore Baton Rouge.

The panel was early, and it was pouring rain, which tends to keep numbers down. Still, it went well, and I had a good time talking about the research that went into Don’t Go to Sleep, as well as some of the things that surprised me about New Orleans during that time period. (The biggest takeaway for me is almost always that people were people. It doesn’t matter when they lived. They still acted the same as they do today.) After that, my signing was very well run. They had plenty of books in stock. and people started showing up in bigger and bigger numbers. I left by signing around 25 copies of books that hadn’t sold yet, and I’m pretty confident those would have sold by the end of the day.

Really, I was impressed with the amount of time and effort that went into the event. They had something like 200 authors who came in to present. They had vendors from all over the state, filling three large tents with their wares. They had activities for children. Tons of volunteers. I was really happy to see how it attracted people from all across Louisiana. Not just librarians or teachers, but people from all walks of life. I would love to see if Maine could follow suit somehow. It would be a great way to connect book lovers.

As for Baton Rouge, I really liked the city. I was staying right downtown, and it was easy to walk around and see much of what was there. My hotel was right on the Mississippi, and there’s a long path that follows the river. It was lovely to be there at sunset. Plus, there was good food, which is always a plus. (I went to an old root beer place that still makes its own and sells root beer floats. Delicious. And then I had a po’ boy for dinner, along with some great bread pudding.) Would there have been enough to keep me busy for much longer than a day or two? Debatable. But for an afternoon, it was great.

Anyone know of any other state-level book festivals?

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Off to the Louisiana Book Festival

I’m leaving in a few hours to head off to Baton Rouge. I’ve been invited to present at the Louisiana Book Festival, which runs all day tomorrow. As I’ve been looking into it, I discovered that there’s a whole application process to get your book featured at the festival. This is definitely one big advantage of having a traditional publisher. I didn’t do any of the work involved in submitting my book (and knowing I could submit it in the first place), and Sourcebooks is covering my trip costs, as well.

Of course, as is typical for me, the closer I get to an actual plane ride, the less I want to get on the plane. This trip’s going to be especially quick, as I’m flying out this afternoon at 4pm and arriving back in Portland on Sunday at 5:30pm. I essentially land, go to my hotel, get up, go present at 9:15am, have a book signing after that, and then check out the rest of the festival before going home Sunday morning.

That said, if you’re in the area of Baton Rouge tomorrow (as I’m sure you all are), and you’d like to come say hi, I’ll be presenting on “Ain’t Misbehaving: Young Adult Tales from Jazz-Age New Orleans” at 9:15 on the fifth floor of the state library. My signing will be at 10:15 in the book tent. So come on out and hear about the writing and researching process for Don’t Go to Sleep. Or just heckle me from the audience. That’s always an option.

I’m actually very interested in going to see this first hand, as I’m always up for more ideas for what libraries in Maine could be up to. This book festival draws around 200 authors a year. I want to see how it runs. If possible, it would be lovely to replicate something like it in Maine.

In any case, I’m off! You can follow along with all the excitement on Facebook. Here’s hoping the trip is smooth. (Knock on wood.)

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Tomas Update: Week 3 at the MTC

Here’s Tomas with another update and more pictures:

Hi everyone! Feels like only a few days ago that I wrote the last one of these, but I guess it’s already been a week! The days are kind of slow here, but the weeks are honestly so fast. To give you an idea, here is our usual schedule:

6:30 wake up

7:00-7:15 plan the day a little bit

7:15-7:45 breakfast

8:00-8:30 study language a little bit before class

8:30-11:30 morning language and teaching class (both how to be a missionary and teach people and practice and learning in Slovak)

11:45-12:30 lunch

12:45-1:15 study the scriptures with my companions

1:15-1:45 another half hour of language study

1:50-2:40 volleyball, spikeball etc

3:30-4:30 personal scripture study time

4:45-5:30 dinner

6:00-9:00 evening class

10:00-10:30 journal

10:30 go to sleep

And that’s a regular day here. As I’m sure you can see, it is pretty packed and we really don’t have much time at all outside of everything, but that’s probably for the best so that we stay focused. Some days it gets to be a lot, but most days it’s actually kind of nice to always be doing something. It will be very different in Slovakia though – no more classes to go to since we are technically the teachers.

It snowed here for the first time! The mountains are so pretty when the tops have snow, and I am loving the colder weather here – 70 degrees in October is unreasonable. However, we can’t play sand volleyball anymore really, or spikeball for that matter. Indoor isn’t quite as fun because you can’t dive like you can on grass or sand. 

Slovak is coming along so well! We teach a practice lesson with a returned missionary in an actual teaching setting (she pretends to not know anything and we teach her as if she was a real investigator) in Slovak. Then we kinda go over the recording and see what we could have done better. Just a few days ago we compared our first and third attempts with her, and I have come so far since I got here that I was surprised. I’m much more confident speaking, know more words, and can listen and respond so much better. The other day I even went an entire 3 hour class without speaking any English outside of a few words and an accidental sentence – and I spoke the whole time. I love how much I get to speak here and I am so excited to serve in Slovakia in just a few short weeks.

Finally, I managed to find someone else who played fiddle music! He left this Monday, but we managed to get in a little time to play together on Sunday. We actually only had one tune in common – Swallowtail Jig – since he was from Missouri, but it was so nice to play with someone else again. I also continued the tradition of Miata Spotting so I guess I will try and do that now, although I can’t make any promises on how many I’ll see in Slovakia. 

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Artificially Intelligent Authors

No, I’m not talking about actual humans who are just “intelligent.” Rather, I’ve come across several articles recently about people programming artificial intelligence to write stories, essays, and more. I’ve mainly encountered the articles from an educational viewpoint, because if students just have to type in a few phrases into an online AI platform, and out of that they get a complete, original piece of writing (that won’t set off any plagiarism alarms, because it’s new and unique), then using take home writing assignments to make sure students are learning something suddenly becomes . . . kind of useless.

Naturally, I couldn’t read about this without giving it a whirl. I mean, why should I keep writing blog posts when I can just plug in some basic information into a program and have it write the post for me? I’m including a few of these at the end of this post, for illustration, but I wanted to talk a bit about some thoughts the process generated for me.

First off, the writing isn’t what I’d call “good,” but it’s also not what I’d call “bad.” It doesn’t look like it’s been written by a computer, and its biggest problem is really a tendency to be repetitive and jump around a bit when it comes to the topic. It looks better than a lot of college level writing I’ve seen, though no college level writing that got As or Bs, if that makes sense.

I’m not worried about suddenly being out of a job as a writer, and I also don’t think I’ll be using AI to write my blog for me any time soon. However, this is also AI writing in its early years. Give it a while longer, and then things might change. I would imagine that if the AI had a whole ton of my writing to sample, then it could eventually do a pretty good job of coming up with something that sounds like it was written by me.

That’s . . . disturbing. Still, I think there’s a difference between sounding like a particular author and coming up with original content. Then again, if someone starts using AI to write short stories or books, the flood of self-published content we have right now will seem like a drop compared to the firehose that could start coming out. You could full automate the process and then posts the books directly to Kindle, relying on sheer quantity to make money even if the quality is questionable. This would make finding something to read that much more difficult, which (I would imagine) would lead to more people turning back to traditional publishers, just to have them act as gatekeepers.

But in the meantime, I think the largest issue is probably in education. If I were a teacher or professor, I’d start relying on in-class essays and presentations.

Here are some writing samples I had Moonbeam come up with:

Prompt: “Toy Story Movie Review”

Toy Story is a beloved Pixar movie that has entertained children and adults for years. The story follows a group of toys that come to life and embark on exciting adventures. These characters are lovable and relatable, making it easy for viewers to connect with them. Toy Story is an enjoyable movie that can be enjoyed by people of all ages.

The story of Toy Story is about a group of toys that come to life and go on an adventure together. Woody, a cowboy doll, and Buzz Lightyear, an astronaut action figure are the main characters. They have to work together to get back to their owner, Andy. Along the way they meet other toys who help them on their journey home. The movie is full of humor and heartwarming moments. It is sure to make you laugh and feel happy all at the same time!

Woody is the favorite toy of 11-year old Andy, and Buzz Lightyear is a new toy that Andy’s older brother has. Mr. Potato Head, Rex, and Hamm are all toys with removable body parts that children can customize to their own liking.

The Toy Story Movie is a story that is sure to entertain. The characters are likable and relatable, and the humor is appropriate for all ages. The visuals are impressively realistic, and the voice acting is top-notch.

In conclusion, Toy Story is a great movie for all ages. It’s a classic story about friendship, loyalty, and courage that will leave audiences feeling happy and satisfied. The characters are lovable and relatable, making the movie enjoyable to watch. The animation is top-notch, and the visual effects are impressive. Overall, Toy Story is an excellent film that everyone should see at least once.

Prompt: “Harry Potter and the Trip to France”

When Harry, Ron and Hermione learned they would be able to go on a trip to France, they were overjoyed. Although they had never been before, they were sure it would be a fun adventure.

The trio’s trip to France was full of new experiences and lessons. They learned a great deal about magic and themselves while there. For example, when Ron accidentally turned himself into a rat, he realized that even though he knew everything about magic, he still had much to learn.

One of the most important things the friends learned from their visit to France was that sometimes it is better not to try something new – especially if you are not prepared for what might happen. This was certainly true for Hermione when she tried out some advanced spells in an attempt to help them find the Snitch during their Quidditch game against Beauxbatons Academy of Magic.

Although the trip was full of excitement and laughter at times, it also taught them valuable life skills such as being patient and working together as a team (even if everyone occasionally wanted to do things on their own). In the end, all three friends came away with more understanding about magic and themselves – something which they could always use in their future adventures!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Sick-a-palooza

Maybe it’s just me, and maybe it’s just confirmation bias, but I’m sitting at home sick again, and it seems like kids are much more sick than usual this fall. I know that with MC, it feels like she’s been home sick more often than she’s been at school.

I suppose this makes sense. Kids went for so long either isolated at home or masked at school, that now that they’re all back together and unmasked, germs are just having a field day with everything. But then again, that leads me to a larger topic: masking.

I had very much hoped one of the lasting effects of the pandemic would be that Americans would start to mask when they were sick. I’m not talking about masking all the time because there’s a chance you might be sick. I just mean that when you’re actively coughing, sneezing, have a sore throat, and/or blowing your nose all the time, that it would be courteous to have a mask on, just for the sake of not spreading those germs to the people around you.

Instead, we’ve somehow ended up more or less right back where we started. I see people around me actively sniffling and wiping their noses and sneezing, and they’re blissfully unmasked. So maybe we’re not quite back where we started, because back then, I didn’t think about those things. And I got sick.

I’ve been wearing a mask at home around my family while I’m sick. Why? Because I love my family, and this is miserable, and if wearing a mask will help them to not get this, then I’m all for that. But I think when I’m out in public, I’m either going to have to start getting used to just having a mask with me and putting it on when someone sick decides to start sharing my air space, or else I’ll just wear it as a kind of default setting if I’m going into areas that are particularly crowded. (Probably more during the colder months, as that’s generally when more illnesses are kicking around.)

Or maybe I’ve just become a germaphobe over the past two and a half years. What’s your take on all of this? If you’re sick, do you think it’s courteous to wear a mask, or do you not think it’s a big deal? If you’re around someone who’s sick, are you actively annoyed/disappointed if they’re not masked?

Inquiring minds want to know.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

TV Review: The US and the Holocaust

This is by no means a quick watch, or an easy one, but I made my way through all three episodes of The US and the Holocaust over the last week, and it really made an impact on me. There’s a story we like to tell ourselves about America and its history. How we’re essentially the good guys, out there making the world a better place. And when you bring up anything from history that casts that into doubt, some people get upset. As if by not being 100% good, we’re somehow 100% bad. Or that it’s unpatriotic to look at the mistakes we’ve made over the years. It’s a sentiment I’ve never really understood. Only by acknowledging our flaws can we overcome them. If we choose to consistently ignore them, we’ll have no chance of correcting them.

I think this Ken Burns series should be required watching. I consider myself fairly well informed when it comes to the Holocaust. I lived in Germany for two years. I’ve read and watched multiple documentaries and accounts of what happened, but none of them brought to light many of the things this series focused on.

For example, I hadn’t realized how much Hitler had viewed America as a role model. We’d done such a good job with Manifest Destiny, shoving the Native Americans to the side as we focused on ourselves first and viewed them as subhuman. We’d also successfully treated Blacks as less than equal in the south, banning them from restaurants and public facilities. Seeing the “No Jews” signs all around Germany and then connecting them with the “Whites Only” signs from our history made the connection clear.

I hadn’t realized how much our immigration policies had been crafted to specifically minimize the number of Jewish refugees that could come to America during Hitler’s reign. Watching how the Holocaust unfolded, and how desperate so many people had been to escape, was just heartbreaking. Yes, our closed doors mirrored the doors of many others, but for a nation that prides itself as the “good guys,” we fell far short of the mark. It’s easy to point the finger at Germany and blame them for the Holocaust, but when you then consider that America could have gone a long way toward making that Holocaust so much weaker, it doesn’t feel as clean cut.

The fact is, Hitler and the Nazis didn’t want the Jews in Germany. They purposefully made life difficult for them in an active effort to get them to leave the country. And many, many Jews would have left, if they’d had a place they could go. The rest of the world had essentially bricked them into a burning building, and that’s tragic. Does it excuse the Nazis? Not at all. But it’s important to realize we had a hand in history, as well.

I don’t have time or space to go into everything the documentary highlighted. It’s over 7 hours long. But it did a tremendous job connecting America’s past before WWII, its role in WWII, and its current state today. I blamed Trump for fanning the flames of racism in America, but after watching this, it’s clear what he did was more turning over a rock to let the creepy crawlies run around more freely. Like I began with: we can’t get better at something until we acknowledge we have a problem to begin with.

And America definitely has its share of problems, even eighty years later.

10/10. Brutal, but so important to watch.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

How to Fix Instant Replay in College Football

I’m a big fan of college football. I love watching games each year, and I prefer it to the NFL. I like seeing how teams have to constantly change and evolve year after year. It puts an element into the game that really appeals to me. The strategy’s great. There are tons of exciting plays to watch, and it moves along at a fairly good pace. (Up until the last few minutes of each half, of course.)

But.

While I’m a fan of instant replay, I hate hate hate the way it’s carried out in college football. Some games, it feels like all I’m doing is watching the refs watch a screen. A close play happens, and then for the next ten minutes, we’re all just waiting to see what the final ruling is. At the same time, I also don’t want to go back to the days of yore, where blatantly bad calls were allowed to stand. (Recognizing, of course, that there are still blatantly bad non-calls that stand. Such is life. It’s a part of the game.)

In my opinion, the answer is to institute a replay clock. Just like teams only have a set amount of time to make a call, the referees should have 60 seconds to make a decision one way or the other. Sure, maybe the timer doesn’t start until the ref is at the monitor and can start actually looking at the replay, but once that’s set, they need to make a call one way or the other. If they don’t say anything after 60 seconds, the call stands. The end.

Honestly, if there are calls that are so close it takes ten minutes of analysis of ultra slow motion footage to determine if it’s a fair catch or whatever, then I’m fine with those calls just staying however they were on the field. Almost always, everyone in the stadium and at home sees the replay and knows one way or the other which way the call should go.

Will there be wailing and gnashing of teeth? Sure, but it’s worth it in my book. Some games tack on an extra half hour with everyone just waiting for the refs to make a call. Imagine that. 30 minutes of time. If a million people are watching the game, that’s 347 days of wasted time between them all. Almost an entire year evaporated. You might as well go out and sit in traffic, for as much good as that time’s doing you.

There should still be a set number of times anyone can challenge a play. Just because it doesn’t take forever doesn’t mean I want each and every play to be reviewed. But with this small change, I think the games would be faster paced and ultimately even more enjoyable.

What do you think?

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Tomas Update: Week 2 at the MTC

Here we are at another week! I told Tomas that last week his email was a bit on the short side, and asked if he couldn’t provide a bit more context. He delivered this week. So without further ado from me, here’s Tomas:

Hey everyone! I’ve officially been a missionary for a whole month now! The first while was pretty slow, but each passing day seems to get faster. The language is coming along well – we are teaching practice lessons in Slovak and each one is so much better than the last. It’s also fun to see the differences in Czech, and for one meeting we had a Polish sister pray and I could vaguely understand her! We also got to meet the resident senior missionary couple that is going to our mission – they were very nice and they head out this coming Monday. I’m having a great time here despite the stresses of learning a language and being busy all the time! It’s great here, but I can’t wait to be out in Slovakia. 

Everyone says the food here is bad, but I’d say it’s more 50/50. I definitely miss Mom’s cooking, and there are certainly things I will not be choosing to eat again, but if all else fails at least there is cereal. Pretty sure that chimichanga was really just a tortilla wrapped around a cheese stick – I came back to the table to find one being dissected to find out its true nature, and I would include the picture but it is truly terrifying to behold. 

The Christmas lights are all up here as well. Not sure how I feel since we haven’t even had Halloween yet (not that it will be anything special), but I guess since I won’t be here by actual Christmas I can deal with it. No Christmas music yet, thankfully, and at least the Tree of Life looks all pretty lit up out front.

We set a new record for cleaning bathrooms yesterday. Every week we have to clean a little bit on Tuesday mornings, and we did bathrooms last week. We thought we went pretty fast, but our supervisor said we were average and the record was 4/5 floors in the time we got. Obviously the six of us couldn’t let that slide, so we made an actual pencil and paper plan and managed to clean all 5 floors (25 bathrooms total) and become the first set of missionaries in recent memory to make it to the fifth floor. It was pretty funny, but it also showed the effectiveness of a good plan – something I have a hard time making and sticking to. You really learn in the weirdest ways. 

Finally, if you want to write to me, email me, or mail me a box full of rocks, here’s my current address (I am only here until November 22nd or so)

Elder Tomas Randall Cundick 

11-22 CZE/SVK

2005 North 900 East Unit #39

Provo, UT 84602

tomas.cundick@missionary.org

Okay – hope that isn’t too much. Just want to end with saying I know that I was called here for a good purpose, and I know that I am doing the right thing with my life right now. For anyone that’s on the fence about serving – do it. It is the best decision I have made so far, and I’m not even actually in the field yet.

Love you all,

Starší Cundick

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

An Exciting Look into the Thrilling Life of a Library Director

I’ve been busy the last . . . half year? I have no idea. I’ve lost track, really. I’m at the point where I don’t know what day it is, or what week it is. All I know is I’ve got my life written down on my Google Calendar, and as long as I look at what’s coming up in the next few hours, I’ve been able to stay on top of things. (More or less.) I keep thinking this busy-ness is going to ebb soon, but I keep being consistently wrong. (Some of that can be seen by how sporadic the blog has become the past bit. I do think I’m getting back to normal on here, but apparently it’s going to still take a while.)

It’s not that I mind being busy. I prefer it, actually. But I also really like having some time now and then to breathe. To have a few days where I can just sit there and think things through. Plan for what’s coming. Organize. I am, after all, a librarian.

So for today’s post, I thought I might show you one of the things that’s keeping me busy at the moment, since it’s something I imagine most non-librarians would even think of. (And it’s a process that I have often wished *I* didn’t have to think of.) What is it? An RFP for a new ILS, of course.

If you’ve been around larger libraries for a while, that sentence likely makes perfect sense. Since you haven’t, let me phrase it differently. A Request For Proposals for a new Integrated Library System. That’s still not clear? Perhaps some history will clear things up.

Back in the day, libraries organized everything in those wonderful card catalogs. There was no such thing as digital. You looked things up by author, title, or subject, and you had to be in the actual library that held the book in order to find it. With the advent of digital, we were able to broaden our horizons. In Maine, a group of like-minded librarians Voltron’ed up to form URSUS, a joint catalog between the University of Maine System Libraries (Orono, Portland, Fort Kent, Presque Isle, Machias, Farmington, Augusta, and the Law Library), the Maine State Library, the Bangor Public Library, and the Law & Legislative Reference Library. The goal was simple: be able to search one catalog to find the books in any of the libraries.

To do that, you need an Integrated Library System. This is basically a platform that allows libraries to do all the things they need to do in order to buy, organize, and circulate materials. It has the public interface (the library catalog you search when you’re looking for something), but it also has modes for cataloging, purchasing, managing serials and electronic resources, and more. Often, each library will have its own. In a system, it’s shared (which makes things more complicated, as it means you have to have all the libraries agree on the rules of the system. What checks out to whom and for how long, how late items are handled, what cataloging standards you’ll have, etc.)

URSUS has had the same ILS (more or less) for decades. It’s approaching end of life (it won’t be useable a year or three from now), so we need to replace it. Enter the RFP. We drew up a (long) list of the requirements we’re looking for from a new ILS, and we sent that out to ILS companies, who took a look at what we were asking for and figured out what it would cost for them to provide it. (There aren’t really a lot of ILS providers. There have been many buyouts over the last few years, and the market has consolidated a ton. These days, there are no more than a handful.) They sent those proposals to us, and now we have to decide which one to go with.

To do that, they’re presenting the ins and outs of their ILSs to us. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, and Friday, I’m in 4 hours of Zoom meetings that are basically non-stop demos of what each platform can do. You might think that sounds like a good time. You would be very, very wrong. There are around 70 librarians in the Zoom sessions, each of us with different specialities. You’ve got the catalogers who want the ILS to do awesome cataloging things. The circulation folks care about how well the ILS handles check out and check in. The reference staff want to see how easy and accurate it is to search. To make things even more complex, the academic libraries generally want different things than the public libraries in each of these different areas, so multiply the opinions by two for each.

Once these presentations are done, the library directors are each handed a Bat’leth, a curved, bilateral Klingon sword that can decapitate its victim with a single stroke. We then go into a giant fighting arena fifteen stories beneath Fogler Library at the University of Maine in Orono. Many directors enter, and 1 exits. And that director is crowned High Ruler over all of . . .

Just kidding. That’s way more exciting than what we really do, which is Zoom and email for a few more days and weeks as we collect feedback, weigh costs, and come to a consensus about what the heck we’re going to do. (Theoretically. We haven’t actually gotten that far yet, so I’m keeping my Bat’leth handy. Just in case.)

Of course, you have to remember that while all these meetings are happening, the rest of my normal job is moving forward to. Without me. Which means I have to scramble to catch up to it in all of the extra time I just have lying around.

In any case, that’s about the size of things. I have no idea if you found this remotely interesting. (Probably about as interesting as I find 4 hour Zoom meetings), but if you’re wondering why my eyes are looking a bit baggy, now you don’t have to ask . . .

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If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.