[MUSIC PLAYING] MARLEE GIVENS: I still think it's worth doing. And I will say that, personally, I feel so much more rewarded as a librarian with these bespoke and deep connections with a handful of people. And it is harder for me to really measure the value of these other things that, as you mentioned, learning modules, video tutorials, those kinds of things, the self-service that we're putting in place. And again, why am I trying to measure any of this, when I should be happy? CHARLIE BENNETT: [LAUGHS] [MUSIC PLAYING] You are listening to WREK Atlanta. And this is Lost in the Stacks, the Research Library Rock'n'Roll Radio Show. I'm Charlie Bennett, in the studio with Marlee Givens and Cody Turner. It's a chill summer, reduced staffing kind of day. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: Each week on Lost in the Stacks, we pick a theme, and then use it to create a mix of music and library talk. Whichever you're here for, we hope you dig it. MARLEE GIVENS: Our show today is called Slow Train Coming Up Around the Bend. CHARLIE BENNETT: That's a long title. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. Well, it's a quote from a Bob Dylan song, called "Slow Train," and that is the refrain of that song. CHARLIE BENNETT: [LAUGHS] MARLEE GIVENS: Now that I have said slow at least twice, if you're a long-time listener, you've probably already guessed what this episode is about. CHARLIE BENNETT: Marlee and I are returning to a topic that we discussed twice on the air in 2023. MARLEE GIVENS: It's amazing. CHARLIE BENNETT: Probably a ton off air for the past five years. MARLEE GIVENS: That's true. CHARLIE BENNETT: Slow librarianship. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. So Meredith Farkas, Faculty Librarian at Portland Community College in Oregon, is a key figure in the construction of slow librarianship, inspired on the one hand by the slow food movement, and on the other by Julia Glassman's article, "The Innovation Fetish and Slow Librarianship-- What Librarians Can Learn From the Juicero." CHARLIE BENNETT: And let me interrupt you there for just a moment. I can't tell anyone what to do, but I can say I think every librarian ought to read that article at some point. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. So here's part of Meredith Farkas' current definition of slow librarianship. CHARLIE BENNETT: Internally, slow library culture is focused on learning and reflection, collaboration and solidarity, valuing all kinds of contributions, and supporting staff as whole people. Slow librarianship-- I just heard Cody go "hmm," so I think we're on the right track here. Slow librarianship is a process, not a destination. It is an orientation towards our work, ourselves and others that create positive change. MARLEE GIVENS: We will not lean into the current research and ideation on slow librarianship today. We already did that in 2023. CHARLIE BENNETT: We've covered that territory. MARLEE GIVENS: Right, in our shows "Pump the Brakes" and "Quietly Refusing to Quit." What we want to do in this episode is check in with each other. How have we applied principles of slow librarianship? Is that going well? Are we happy? CHARLIE BENNETT: Are we happy? MARLEE GIVENS: And what should we do next? CHARLIE BENNETT: I feel like only one question is really important. MARLEE GIVENS: Oh, yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: Our music theme today is pretty straightforward-- work and slowness, or slowness and work. One core value of slow librarianship is recognizing the work as a process, a regular thing that doesn't need to be stuffed with innovation to be successful. You are driving, the job's not driving you. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: You're behind the wheel. So this is "Get Behind the Wheel" by Neil Young, right here on Lost in the Stacks. [NEIL YOUNG, "GET BEHIND THE WHEEL"] MARLEE GIVENS: That was "Get Behind the Wheel" by Neil Young. This is Lost in the Stacks, and our show today is Slow Train Coming Up Around the Bend. CHARLIE BENNETT: Have you figured out whether we're the train or the bend? MARLEE GIVENS: Oh. Hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: Or some other thing? MARLEE GIVENS: No. CHARLIE BENNETT: Is the train coming at us-- MARLEE GIVENS: I hadn't even thought about it. CHARLIE BENNETT: --slow, or? MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: [LAUGHS] MARLEE GIVENS: I don't know. I mean, I guess the bend is always there, right? CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah. MARLEE GIVENS: There's always something coming up around the bend. And I think, now that you've forced me to think about it, that we are, as practitioners of slow librarianship, may be better able to handle the bends in the road. CHARLIE BENNETT: That's really good. I like that. MARLEE GIVENS: I know. CHARLIE BENNETT: We've played a lot with the metaphor-- MARLEE GIVENS: I think, yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: --of the train. MARLEE GIVENS: I think so. I think so. Charlie, what do you feel has changed for you since our last show in 2023? CHARLIE BENNETT: So the end of 2023, November, I think, was the last show, Quietly Refusing to Quit. Which came from a lot of the, they call it churn, I think, in corporate America? We'd had some at the Georgia Tech Library. I went back and I looked over a few of my performance reviews to try and set myself in the headspace of after our shows. And it turns out I was at the very end of a rope. I did not know this was coming when we finished the last show, but it came very fast. I had a performance review with my department head and my associate Dean, and I was told flat out, you are teaching too much. Which is kind of a crazy thing to hear, because isn't that something good? Shouldn't I be doing a lot of it? And I also know that that's kind of like saying, well, two cups of coffee made me feel great. So six cups of coffee will make me feel fantastic. CODY TURNER: Charlie, was that the first time you had heard that? CHARLIE BENNETT: Not the first time I'd heard it, but it's the first time I had heard it from someone in a position to review me. CODY TURNER: Right. CHARLIE BENNETT: I've said this many times before. I took an irrational pleasure in people saying, "how do you get everything done, you're doing so much, you must work very hard," all that kind of stuff. So that's where I was at right as we finished the last show. I was at the cusp of a reevaluation of how much I was doing, and why. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: Where were you? MARLEE GIVENS: So I think that was the year that I had gotten a small promotion as a team lead. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, we kind of joked about that a little bit on the show. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. And so I guess I was just maybe thinking a little bit more about the team. And I think I was just up for talking about slow librarianship-- CHARLIE BENNETT: [LAUGHS] MARLEE GIVENS: --at the time. What's changed since then is that I've gotten a bit more of a promotion. CHARLIE BENNETT: I think you should be very explicit. Some people don't exactly know what you're talking about. MARLEE GIVENS: OK. CHARLIE BENNETT: We're both in the same department, academic engagement. MARLEE GIVENS: Yes. CHARLIE BENNETT: And you are currently? MARLEE GIVENS: I'm currently instruction manager for academic engagement. And so now I supervise three people. And now that same person who told you you're teaching too much is now telling me what I need to be saying to folks on my team. And we have a lot of conversations about just distributing the work. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah. MARLEE GIVENS: Our manager, obviously, has been in the position for over a year now. And I think one of the things that they've done really successfully is an idea that they brought in to that position, was we need to be doing more stuff as teams in our department so that we can more equitably balance that work for everyone. And people can learn those skills that we don't need to have. The two people you mentioned, the Associate Dean and the Manager, the Associate Dean, especially, used this term of independent contractor, or independent operator, something like that. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah. MARLEE GIVENS: I mean, basically what she was saying was we don't need to have any rock stars in this department. And we don't need to be setting that expectation for new people coming in, that they should be hustling and they should be developing a niche, and they should be the point person and the subject matter expert for a certain thing. And so there's been a period of breaking that, I think, they felt like maybe they needed to break that for you. And they needed to break it for at least one other person in the department, to say, look, you are now going to teach a couple of other people to do what you do. CHARLIE BENNETT: I can follow up on that. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: It was a very kind version of this. But what I was told, and what has come to fruition, was, hey, quit. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: You have got to stop pushing yourself in one particular area. You've got to open that up to everybody, and you've got to open yourself up to more. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: And I did not take it personal, which I think some people might have. I took it as a surprise. I've been trying to be the "Fred". This is my job. I should do what the people who gave me the job want me to do, not what I think will make the job something else. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah, but not as a passive, just tell me what to do and I'll do it. CHARLIE BENNETT: No, no, it was guidance. It was new track that they'd laid for my particular train. MARLEE GIVENS: [LAUGH] CHARLIE BENNETT: And I did. I decentralized my one-man shop of podcasting instruction. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: I taught 86 or 89 course integrated instruction sessions in 2023. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: In 2024, I taught 44. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: And that was the most explicit change. And also, I just kind of relaxed a little bit. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: All right, this is Lost in the Stacks. We'll be back with more on slow librarianship. I think we've set the scene, and now we're going to drive right into it after a music set. MARLEE GIVENS: File this set under HD69.T54.A454. [THE BEATLES, "SLOW DOWN"] THE BEATLES: (SINGING) --love to last Ow! Woo! MARLEE GIVENS: Woo, Indeed. That was "Slow Down" by the Beatles. And before that, "Stop the Train" by Mother Earth. Songs about needing to slow down. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is Lost in the Stacks. And today's show is called Slow Train Coming Up Around the Bend. So we talked about slow librarianship almost two years ago, the last time. Why are we thinking about it again? CHARLIE BENNETT: So there's a little transparency here. We were always going to be just you and me in the studio MARLEE GIVENS: Today. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, because Alex and Fred have a thing to do. Thank you, Cody, for being on the board this time around. So then asking ourselves, well, what should we chat about? MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: It was clear we should continue the slow librarianship conversation. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: And I think there are a few reasons. The one that comes to my mind immediately is that we went through a departmental shift in 2024. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: We got a new department head, and an internal candidate became department head-- MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: --which is a very special thing-- MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: --when you have someone who's been in the department, who has been living with it, and is in discussion with admin, then becomes department head. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: It can go very badly. This time it did not, though. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. It can, you're right. I wouldn't say that it went badly the previous time. CHARLIE BENNETT: I'm not thinking of the previous time. MARLEE GIVENS: No. OK. CHARLIE BENNETT: Thinking a couple of times back. MARLEE GIVENS: All right. CHARLIE BENNETT: [LAUGHS] MARLEE GIVENS: But it was the first internal candidate as a permanent head of the department under a whole new library leadership group. And that library leadership group, I think, ushered in more of a cultural shift. Also, we were at the end of the whole library next phenomenon, which was all about going fast, innovating, making a splash, doing something that could get us noticed. CHARLIE BENNETT: And if I can sum up one of the things we learned about that. If you hire a bunch of people to be innovators, once you're done innovating and need to go to maintenance, they're tired-- MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: --and don't want to do it anymore. MARLEE GIVENS: Right. It's interesting for this conversation, I think, because there was a group of people who were brought in to innovate. And then they were told, now you need to stop and slow down. Or now you need to stop or slow down, I guess. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah, I think that was an interesting shift. I was kind of surprised to hear that coming from our leadership at the time. CHARLIE BENNETT: Surprised because you didn't think it should happen, or surprised because you didn't expect it to? MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah, because we'd been on such a fast train, really. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah. And I was part of that train-- MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: --a little bit on the side. I've always made sure that I wasn't responsible for anything. I had long conversations. I would discuss design with architects. But I made sure I was never in the meetings that someone would say, are we doing this? Yes, we are. Everyone vote. And partly that's because I was just a librarian, too. It's not like I was supposed to be in charge. But I talk a good game, and that got me into a few meetings. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: And I was burning out, too, but kind of on my own terms. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: As opposed to in a job that people said, "innovate." MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: "Be a go-getter." MARLEE GIVENS: Right. CHARLIE BENNETT: So there was a cultural shift. And also, I think right now I feel vulnerable because of how the American project is changing. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. I know, thinking of new leadership and cultural shift, writ large, as we say. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah. Grand declarations of how things ought to be seem to leave out innovation in education, seem to leave out creating the kind of free, open space of research and learning. MARLEE GIVENS: Right. CHARLIE BENNETT: And to imply everybody should be learning a trade. It might be a more computer-based trade, or it might be a little fancier than blacksmithery. MARLEE GIVENS: Right. CHARLIE BENNETT: I feel like it's possible that my niche is being reduced. MARLEE GIVENS: OK. Yeah. Just because of higher ed these days? CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah. Because I was in a place where I could provide an idea and run with it. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: Because most of the things I came up with, I made sure, well, let's make sure I don't have to ask for money. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: Because I'd seen a lot of people go down in flames because they had to ask for money. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: So bringing my move fast, break things innovation, leave behind an interesting conference presentation kind of style, I think that it will not fly anymore. Or we're coming up on a moment when it will just absolutely not fly. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. We underwent our own kind of corporatization during library next, because we brought in formal project management. And now the things that you need to get if you need to get something done at the Georgia Tech Library, you have to do it within that system. CHARLIE BENNETT: You present an idea to the portfolio. The portfolio gets voted on. The project gets built, da-da, da-da, da-da. MARLEE GIVENS: Your project gets some scrutiny. CHARLIE BENNETT: Status reports. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah, status reports. And also this idea that now that we're five years into the outcomes of Library Next that we're taking a look at all of these things that we created, and determining whether they're still doing what we want them to do, if they're still the things that serve our users best. Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: If we were a restaurant, we would be doing a review right now. Because some of the dishes that we're making don't taste good, and no one orders them. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: There's some spaces in the library that we programmed that are just kind of absent. There's some services that we planned on that have not happened, have not gained traction. MARLEE GIVENS: Right. CHARLIE BENNETT: And so slow librarianship does seem to be A, a defense against that kind of thing. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah, I can see that. CHARLIE BENNETT: And B, a more successful strategy in a time of reflection and refinement and reduction. MARLEE GIVENS: You're listening to Lost in the Stacks. And we'll talk more about slow librarianship on the left side of the hour. [MUSIC PLAYING] JEFF HETHERINGTON: Hi. I'm local archivist extraordinaire Jeff Hetherington, and you're listening to Lost in the Stacks on WREK Atlanta. Good thinking. [MUSIC PLAYING] CHARLIE BENNETT: Today's show is called Slow Train Coming Up Around the Bend. Marlee Givens and I are continuing our years-long conversation about slow librarianship. For a mid-show break, I'd like us to listen to an excerpt from the book, How To Do Nothing-- Resisting the Attention Economy, by Jenny Odell. You'll hear Rebecca Gibble reading from the book, and maybe a little extra something that I added to the mix. REBECCA GIBBLE: "Nothing is harder to do than nothing. In a world where our value is determined by our productivity, many of us find our every last minute captured, optimized, or appropriated as a financial resource by the technologies we use daily. [MUSIC PLAYING] We submit our free time to numerical evaluation, interact with algorithmic versions of each other, and build and maintain personal brands. [MUSIC PLAYING] For some, there may be a kind of engineer's satisfaction in the streamlining and networking of our entire lived experience. [MUSIC PLAYING] And yet, a certain nervous feeling of being overstimulated and unable to sustain a train of thought lingers. Though it can be hard to grasp before it disappears behind the screen of distraction, this feeling is, in fact, urgent. We still recognize that much of what gives one's life meaning stems from accidents, interruptions, and serendipitous encounters-- the off-time that a mechanistic view of experience seeks to eliminate." [MUSIC PLAYING] CHARLIE BENNETT: File this set under PS3551.T49R63. [KACEY MUSGRAVES, "SLOW BURN"] That was "Slow Burn" by Kacey Musgraves. A song about being slow, and liking it. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is Lost in the Stacks. Our show today is called Slow Train Coming Up Around the Bend. Marlee and I are talking about slow librarianship-- MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: --which we've been talking about for a long time. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. First time as a train, I think. CHARLIE BENNETT: That's true. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: But we are trying to assess what has happened less than trying to figure out what are we going to do, or what can it mean. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: So I feel like right now we have a few areas wide open for us to apply slow librarianship. MARLEE GIVENS: I think you're right. CHARLIE BENNETT: And I wonder, have we, are we, and will we? MARLEE GIVENS: Uh-huh. CHARLIE BENNETT: The thing I want to throw out first is teams-- MARLEE GIVENS: Right. CHARLIE BENNETT: --just generally-- and not Microsoft Teams-- MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: --but the idea of a team. Because for a long time, I was one person doing a lot and trying to stay out of the way. As I said in the segment before, I tried to stay out of the responsibility rooms and work much more in the, "hey, what happens if" rooms. And I'm not doing that much anymore. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. Do you feel like it's an idea that you used to resist, and then you came around? Or is it just like you weren't even really thinking about it, and then you had a chance to do it, and you're like, oh, this is pretty great? CHARLIE BENNETT: I am going to sound like I'm just sucking up to admin right now. But previously, the way the administration and departments worked when there was a lot of different personalities than there are now, it was easiest to be like, I'm good to go. I'm going to go do this thing. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: And they were happy to be like, OK, good. I don't have to worry about you. I have to worry about budgets. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: I don't have to worry about you, I have to worry about two departments that are fighting because they used to be one department. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: And they split along ideological lines. MARLEE GIVENS: Right. CHARLIE BENNETT: Things like that. So it was simpler for me. But now it's not. It's not simpler to be alone and isolated. It's much easier to take on a task like decentralize this instruction session, train some people in order to do it. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: What do you think? MARLEE GIVENS: Well, I'm thinking about the fact that I haven't really had to experience that yet. I think I'm going to this coming year. CHARLIE BENNETT: Why? MARLEE GIVENS: Because of something that we discussed in another show about the liaison model. CHARLIE BENNETT: It's just a big discussion. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: Lost in the Stacks is just us working it out. [LAUGHTER] What was it that we said? MARLEE GIVENS: Well, I think we were talking about the fact that it used to be a one-to-one, or a one-to-many model, where if you are a Georgia Tech student or professor, you had your one librarian you could turn to for all of your research and teaching and whatnot needs. And we're going to be introducing this idea that if you're a Georgia Tech student or professor in college x or y, you have a team that you turn to. And you may not get the same person every time. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah. But you get the library-- MARLEE GIVENS: You get the library. CHARLIE BENNETT: --very time. MARLEE GIVENS: Exactly. And how it doesn't really matter to the user, probably. But I think it's going to matter a lot to us, and we're having to work things out like, how are we going to triage requests that come in? And for me, I think maybe in the back of my mind I am a little worried about sharing what I do. CHARLIE BENNETT: See, that's the thing right there. So part of the slow librarianship description at the top of the show was collaboration and solidarity. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: And the one thing that makes that really hard-- I mean, I think we all play well with others, and we like our groups and our teams. But academic librarianship allows you to do a lot of special stuff just for yourself. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: You get to build a course session that you walk in and teach. Or you get to do a research project with a faculty member who wants you to find a citation for a speech given in 1813. MARLEE GIVENS: Right. CHARLIE BENNETT: That kind of thing. And it can be very fun. And it's kind of rewarding to be not mainstream. MARLEE GIVENS: Right. CHARLIE BENNETT: To not be the expected thing. But then you isolate yourself. MARLEE GIVENS: That's true. And I think that ultimately it will be rewarding to be able to pass on that knowledge. And I'll admit that I am not overwhelmed with demand from the schools that I serve. But I know that on the team I'll be serving schools that maybe are a little more demanding. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah. And by going to a team model and reinventing the liaison role, part of that is us selling that more. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: Delivering it out to more, because we can take on more. MARLEE GIVENS: Right. CHARLIE BENNETT: The individual boutique service is very fun and very rewarding, but it does create a limit. And it's not thinking about the library as a whole. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: We have a ton of other stuff we could talk about. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: But I want to end this segment with us asking each other, so professionally, are you happy? MARLEE GIVENS: I am. Are you? CHARLIE BENNETT: Me, too. I am super happy. MARLEE GIVENS: Oh, good. CHARLIE BENNETT: Having the release from some of that cognitive load of having to do all of the podcasting instruction on my own, feeling more like I am serving the larger picture and having that acknowledged and validated by my team leader. Yeah, I'm happier. This is the most relaxed I've been about work since the '90s. MARLEE GIVENS: Oh, wow. CHARLIE BENNETT: And much of that relaxation was internally inflicted. MARLEE GIVENS: OK. CHARLIE BENNETT: I guess that's it. This is Lost in the Stacks. We've been talking about slow librarianship today. And we ended with, are we happy? And I'm delighted to report, sure thing. MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. File this under BF632.L635. [ALANIS MORISSETTE, "YOU LEARN"] "You Learn," by Alanis Morissette. And before that, "Suggestions," by Small Factory. Songs providing a little advice about enjoying life and being happy. [MUSIC PLAYING] Today's show is called Slow Train Coming Up Around the Bend. And before we roll the credits, I was wondering, both of you, is there another area of your life where you think about fast and slow? Charlie? CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, I'm hitting that with media consumption now. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm. CHARLIE BENNETT: To put it simply, I can't read every book I want to read. I can't see every television show I want to see. I can't see every movie I want to see. I can't listen to every record I want to listen to. I can't even listen to some of them. Like, statistically, I can't read, listen, or watch anything. So I'm just accepting that. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: I'm reading a book right now. I'm reading that book that I quoted for the amen break and how to do nothing. Taking my time, and I'm not worrying about getting through it so I can read the next one. MARLEE GIVENS: All right. CHARLIE BENNETT: How about you, Cody? CODY TURNER: If I'm following these academic definitions, I think for me-- CHARLIE BENNETT: That's so cute that you're going to bring it in like that. CODY TURNER: --transportation, because I don't own a car in Atlanta, I get around by bike, and sometimes MARTA. So most of the time I'm thinking in slow for transportation. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah. MARLEE GIVENS: Mm-hmm. CODY TURNER: Because I'm fine taking the time to get there, I actually enjoy the ride. So the only time that I'm thinking about a fast way to get around is really if I'm thinking that I'm inconveniencing someone else too much to take the slow way. MARLEE GIVENS: Hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: That's a really good answer. I like that one. CODY TURNER: Is it? I just came up with it. Marlee, what about you? MARLEE GIVENS: I think that's good. Yeah. So I'm going to say travel. And I feel like, for me, there's two different kinds of travel. There's the, I'm going to try to do as many things and see as many things as I can, because I don't know if I'm ever going to come back here. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah. MARLEE GIVENS: Which I love doing that. I love all the planning. CHARLIE BENNETT: The packed itinerary, MARLEE GIVENS: I'm fine with skipping things, but it still feels like fast travel in my mind. Whereas slow travel is, we're just going to drive to the beach. We're not going to have any plans. We'll bring some books. If we spend the whole time just sitting on the beach, that's OK. It's just a wonderful break. CHARLIE BENNETT: You know what's fantastic about that, Marlee? The credits are perfect for that answer. Why don't you roll them? MARLEE GIVENS: All right. [MUSIC PLAYING] CHARLIE BENNETT: Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library. Written and produced by-- oh! MARLEE GIVENS: I know! I know! CHARLIE BENNETT: That's so funny. Alex McGee, Charlie Bennett, Marlee Givens, and Fred Rascoe. MARLEE GIVENS: So many things wrong with this script. CHARLIE BENNETT: What happened? Someone did some kind of-- MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: --find and replace, I guess. MARLEE GIVENS: I think it's me. Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, Marlee. MARLEE GIVENS: I'm so sorry. CHARLIE BENNETT: Legal counsel and nothing-- nothing at all, because it's OK to sometimes just do nothing-- were provided by the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group in Atlanta, Georgia. MARLEE GIVENS: Special thanks to Julia Glassman, Meredith Farkas, and all of the librarians out there who approach the job with care and balance. And thanks, as always, to each and every one of you for listening. CHARLIE BENNETT: Our web page is library.gatech.edu/lostinthestacks, where you'll find our most recent episode, a link to our podcast feed, and a web form if you want to get in touch with us. MARLEE GIVENS: Next week, well, it's Friday the 13th. CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, my gosh, it is. MARLEE GIVENS: I'm sure it'll be all sunshine and rainbows. CHARLIE BENNETT: [LAUGHS] Time for our last song today. Our show title is Slow Train Coming Up Around the Bend. I don't know if we're the train, or if the train is coming to take us somewhere, or if we're tied to the tracks, or if we built the train, or if we laid the tracks, or what. But I do know which song that line is from, so let's just play it. This is "Slow Train" by Bob Dylan. Have a great weekend, everyone-- slowly, if you can. Just do it however you want. [MUSIC PLAYING]