We get angry when we see someone violating values that we hold dear.

I value things like hard work, consideration, kindness, a clean and simple space, honesty, responsibility, and self-discipline.  When I see people violating these values, I get angry.  It took examining my anger over a long period of time to come to this realization.

In fact, I have used my anger as a trigger point to help me be aware of what I truly value in life.  When I see someone being inconsiderate of a friend’s feelings, I get angry at them.  When I see myself slipping on my responsiblities, I get angry with myself.  When I see libraries offer bad service to users because we’re lazy, it makes me furious.  But that’s because consideration, responsiblity and hard work are my values.

Sometimes it is inappropriate for me to force my values on someone else (I won’t tell someone else to clean their house before I visit, for example).  Sometimes values conflict with each other and must be carefully balanced (sometimes you can’t deliver both fast and in-depth service to a Reference Services user!).  Sometimes you have to discuss your values with friends/family/coworkers to iron out anger and conflict.  Sometimes you have to recognize that your values are yours, and then you can let small, trivial anger go.

Look at what makes you angry.  What are your values?  What are your institution’s values?  How can you use your anger as a driving force for growth?

After that I presented Crafting the User-Centered Library. I recorded myself in the session and have created a slidecast:

After my session, I had a great lunch with friends and spent the afternoon watching the Pecha Kucha session. As always, the conference was a blast, and seeing some of the leading thinkers in LibraryLand was a true delight. Thanks again everyone for a great conference, and I hope to see you all again soon!

Join me on Thursdays from 7-8pm at the Aquinas Center in downtown Valdosta, Georgia.  The Aquinas Center is just down the street from Hildegard’s.  Jennifer and I will be teaching East Coast Swing over the next ten weeks, starting Thursday, January 31st.

Swing on by!