Chicago, June 2011

Last weekend, Mike and I made a quick trip to Chicago. I got to speak at a library instruction assessment symposium at University of Chicago, and we were able to spend some time in our favorite Chicago places together and we visited some new places, too.

As you may know, Laramie is a somewhat remote location and it takes a while to get from here to . . . anywhere. So on our departure date we drove for two hours to Denver, parked and took a shuttle to the airport, had a two hour flight to Midway, took the train into the city, dropped off our stuff at a downtown hostel (more on that later) and THEN took a bus to Chicago Pizza Kitchen and Oven Grinders, home of the best pizza we've ever eaten (and we go there every time we visit Chicago). In other words, we left home at 8 a.m. and made it to dinner at about 5 p.m. and we both agreed that it was totally worth traveling all day long to eat that pizza. Yum!

After dinner we saw the play "The Gospel According to James" at Victory Gardens Theatre. It was a fantastic show, and as a bonus one of our friends from Utah State, Chris Martin, was in it. We got to chat with him a bit after the show.

We stayed two nights in a hostel near the downtown public library in Chicago. We had never stayed in a hostel before, but our funds for the trip were limited and this hostel was less than half the price of a downtown hotel. It was also recommended by the librarians at University of Chicago, so we went for it. Here's a photo of our room:

It was narrow, to say the least, and kind of like staying in a dorm room, since we shared bathrooms with the other people staying in our suite. Overall, it was not bad. The location and the price were definitely right!

My presentation at University of Chicago went really well. I won't bore you with too many details, but I presented on a mixed methods study I'm still working on this summer that attempts to measure the impact of library instruction on student achievement through focus groups with graduating seniors and a transcript analysis of a large sample of UW students. There were some great presentations at the symposium and a keynote address by my librarian hero, Megan Oakleaf.

The University of Chicago campus is really beautiful. Here are a couple of photos:

This is the Quadrangle Club, where we ate lunch during the symposium. (This is the fancy faculty clubhouse. Feels like a men's club, with lots of dark wood paneling and tweedy professor types.)

This is the reading room of the Mansueto Library, which is a brand new robot-powered library. It looks like a greenhouse from the outside, with that glass dome, and 3.5 million books are stored in the basement. You can call up a book by typing your request at the front desk, and a robotic arm gets the book for you. It's pretty cool, and obviously a popular space for students to work.

While I was conferencing, Mike went to the Adler Planetarium and to Millenium Park:

Here's a view of the museum campus, which includes the Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum, and Adler Planetarium. Maybe you can tell, we had beautiful weather for our 3 days in Chicago. It was warm and humid, but overall pretty nice.

Millenium Park

Mike and I met up at the University of Chicago and had a refreshing beverage at a cafe just off campus. All the servers were wearing t-shirts that said, "Obama Eats Here." The Obamas do, in fact, have a house in Hyde Park, which is the University of Chicago neighborhood. We went from the University to Navy Pier specifically to see the stained glass museum there. (I really wanted to go because I recently read a historical novel about the women who worked for Louis Comfort Tiffany in the first years of the 20th century, designing and creating stained glass windows and lamps. The book is Clara and Mr. Tiffany and I highly recommend it.)

Here's a stained glass window designed for a Chicago home, meant to go in a staircase.

And here's a Tiffany window. Honestly, the room full of Tiffany windows made all the others in the museum look a little bit dull. The colors are so brilliant and the landscapes so evocative.

Also at Navy Pier we enjoyed some Garrett's popcorn and the view of the city skyline.

If you visit Chicago, you must visit a Garrett Popcorn Shop and order the Chicago blend. It's caramel and cheese popcorn mixed together, popped fresh, and it's sooooo delicious.

On our last day in Chicago we visited the Art Institute, which is another of our favorite places. Last time we were there (two years ago), the modern wing was not yet open, so we were excited to have a chance to see it. The new space has an awesome, open design created by architect Renzo Piano. Here are some of the interesting pieces of modern sculpture we saw there:

Venus de Milo with Drawers by Salvador Dali

A set of sculptures by Constantin Brancusi

Chicago is our favorite city. Public transit makes it easy to get around, the architecture of the place is fantastic, and the Midwesterners who live there are pretty darn friendly. It's a fantastic place to spend the weekend.

American Library Association Conference in Washington, D.C.

(No, that's not really Obama. It's Faux-Bama!)

I just spent 4 days in our nation's capital with 20,000+ librarians. ALA is the biggest conference of the year, with all kinds of librarians attending: public, school, academic, etc. I attended my committee meetings, went to some interesting discussion groups and programs, heard Toni Morrison give the keynote address, and talked to vendors about their products. I also met up with friends from graduate school, ate good food, and saw some of the sights! I'd never been to D.C. before, so I was particularly excited to do some museums and monuments. See all the photos I took here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14784472@N07/sets/72157624387631896/

Where all the cool kids hang out

(found at librarian.net)

The Presidential Politics Edition: The Good, the Bad, the Funny

Hello to our faithful blog readers. This is Mike, composing a few thoughts on the race for the White House. For those of you who know M & M, you know we're both interested in politics, so you had to see this one coming.

Let's start with the funny. By now, you may have seen the video of Chuck Norris stumping for Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. If you have seen it, come on, you know you want to watch it again! If you haven't seen it, here it is for your viewing pleasure.


I don't want to dwell too much on the bad (there's plenty of that to go around when it comes to politics), but I'd have to say that the worst part of the presidential race, so far, has been the media coverage. How many times have we heard that Mitt Romney needs to make a "JFK-style speech" about his religious beliefs? The fact that reporters keep making the comparison between Romney and JFK without much analysis highlights the shallowness of media coverage of the campaigns so far. (I did hear some in-depth reporting on the Romney-JFK connection on NPR a couple of days ago, after Mitt made his long-awaited speech. Here's the link to the story I'm referring to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16981132.)

Like I said, I don't want to harp on this too much, but I've also been frustrated by the way the media uses the language of fist-fighting and boxing to describe candidates' disagreements, and I'm tired of the media's constantly emphasizing "top-tier" vs. "second-tier" candidates. Listening to, watching, or reading the news, you almost feel like it's a foregone conclusion that the general election will be between Rudy Giuliani and Hilary Clinton. Sometimes it feels like reporters forget that it's up to voters to decide who will win their party's nomination.

Where's the good in all this? Allow me to quote Barack Obama. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes, "a polarized electorate isn't good enough. What's needed is a broad majority of Americans - Democrats, Republicans, and independents of goodwill - who are reengaged in the project of national renewal, and who see their own self-interest as inextricably linked to the interests of others" (40). Is it possible for citizens who are sharply divided along party lines to unite for the common good in some way? I hope so, and I'm very glad to see at least one candidate who is talking about cooperation and unity across party lines. Whoever wins in 2008, I'm hopeful that the "project of national renewal" Obama refers to will become a reality. Until then, enjoy the circus of Election 2008!