Library Avenger Dons Her Cape. July 26, 2009
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a snippet in today’s Tulsa World from the “Stems & Pieces” column, page G6, asks “Is there any job on Earth less stressful than librarian? What do they have to worry about? Someone whispering too loudly in the non-fiction stacks?”
Yeah. good one. ha ha. I’ll tell you what some of us worry about on a day-to-day basis.
Students who can’t read very well but whose parents refuse to help with homework, dropping kids off at the library for a combination of free tutoring and babysitting: we worry about these kids on all kinds of levels.
People who have just been told that they – or their loved ones – have Cancer, informed by a doctor who sent them off with a pamphlet and a referral: we worry about these fragile human beings who have no idea how to find reliable information on health care.
Adults who are returning to the classroom after a long respite and were given little or no instructions about how to access all the online information that will mean the difference between their success and failure – toward an effort in which they’ve invested something to the tune of at least $10,000: we worry about these people who have so much riding on their visit to the library.
People who need help finding the right tax form, help with research for a term paper, help with that song that they can’t quite remember but it means so much to their anniversary planning, help in locating the exact wording of a city ordinance that will allow an apartment building to go up on their adjoining property, help with finding their birth mother or father, help with filling out an online job application because they’ve never used a computer in their lives: we worry about them every day.
Today in the Tulsa World, the snippet that appeared above this snippy little remark states that the writer is “loving” Former Gov. Frank Keating for making remarks “referr[ing] to teachers as ‘slugs,’ and jokingly declar[ing] that ‘homicide’ was the best way to deal with their union…” Presumably the writer’s anticipation stems from the joy it brings when exposing this level of idiocy. How Ironic Is That?
We are teachers in the library. Every day, we teach people the skills to find information that is critical to their lives. Like many other educators, our funding is being slashed, our membership must deal with increasingly complex and stressful situations brought on by a nation in the grip of a recession, our infrastructure is being pushed to the limit – all the while our validity is being questioned. Add to that the fact that we are all human. Experiencing the same stress of dealing with our coworkers, managers, and customers. $6000 a year for counselling in a company that employs hundreds of workers in over 25 locations across Tulsa County sounds like a bargain to me.
Is there any job LESS stressful than librarian? How about “irresponsible, uninformed, and flippant writer” in the Tulsa World?
connecting the data dots July 23, 2009
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for 5990 this week, our assignment is to blog about “connection technology” readings. my response to chapter 3 was a hearty “wish I’d read this before attempting the first assignment.” I didn’t know what I was talking about at all – “Blade Server” sounds like a slasher / vampire film to me – I was just doing my best to sound confident. hope it is ok to say that now that the grade is posted. =]
Chapter 4 was ok at first: Krol’s analogy comparing packet switching to mailing a letter was great. Long about page 39 and IP addressing conventions though, I felt my brain getting numb. TTL, TCP, UDP, ICMP, 2 to the 32 power of the 16th million zzzzzzzz I was asleep by page 42 and did not wake up until the next intelligible sentence on page 52, “the overall result is that routers use this simple Boolean approach….” BOOLEAN! I know that!! “simple” and Boolean in the same sentence! I was so excited that I stayed awake to the bottom of that page, but must have drifted off again – don’t remember much until the ping! on page 58 and my favorite word “Summary”
I’m sure all this sticks in one’s head eventually – especially if one enjoys it and thinks it will be useful. it’s good information I guess, but in every academic library in which I’ve worked, we had absolutely no authority to do anything with the computers. The IT department locks down the system with administrative passwords and we had to ask them to do everything for us. Everything. As in the latest update to Adobe reader that allowed us to download articles. or Flash player. the simplest most innocuous things, we still had to wait until IT arrived in their blazing chariots of passworded fire. It may change, or it may be different where you work. but if you have an IT department that gets paid 3 times the salary of the head librarian to come flip that little switch or supply that administrative password, I doubt it.
Schism October 8, 2008
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in the sixteenth century, a quiet, studious monk by the name of Martin Luther rocked the foundations of Christendom. In pointing out the futility of buying indulgences for the remission of sins (and the greed behind selling them), he forever changed the way Christians looked upon their relationship with God and Church.
It was the end of the world as we knew it.
Erasmus, the apologist for the other side, did not so much overcome Luther’s arguments – rather, he pointed out the effect that such conclusions would have upon the body of the faithful. if salvation is a matter of justification by faith alone, then no one need “do” anything. as in “go to church” at all. and if no one needs go, then no one needs tithe. get it?
Mother Church was a little more blunt. shut the hell up Martin or the royal We will kill you. Do not ask Us to put your Faith to the Test. Yet, there he stood because he could do no other.
Rome went nuts. First, they tried to censure the renegade. It didn’t work. Much to their horror, his teachings gained ground. Quick! Counter-Reformation! Adapt or Die! we hate them, they hate us, we’re right, they’re wrong. war, revolution, pestilence, plague, pox, and posturing. Gee whiz, it’s like every day was an election year.
centuries of bitter rivalry later… lo and behold, both Catholic and Protestant Churches survive. One did not replace the other. it turns out not to be so much a matter of “either/or” as “different strokes.” apparently there are enough people in the world (over a billion Catholics and some 71 million Lutherans alone) to support both.
Computers and the internet appeared in the late 20th century. tentative at first – saying “uhmm, I think there’s a better way to handle card catalogs…” Then came Google for looking things up, Apple for making things fancy, and Amazon for selling things cheap and delivering them right to your door. Schism! then everything must be going digital!! Library meltdown!!!! The demise of our print collection is at hand – so we will be justified by electronics alone. Bring out your dead! We’ll throw those unbelievers on a pyre of their burning, useless contagion of books. It’s Us against Them. And oh boy is it ever going to get really really toasty for Them!
Luther’s arguments were taken to their logical conclusion by Calvin – if it’s “faith” alone, then actions intended to impress or appease God, are useless “works” – THAT sure blew open a can of Worms. can’t I pray for my children like Augustine’s mother, or is that just wasted breath? How about works of charity for the least of my brothers and sisters in the name of “you did it for Me?”
not according to Calvin. Heaven is not a work-release program. you’re saved or you’re not. there’s nothing you can do. How does that sit with a rational human being? More to the point, how does it feel? Because logically, there is no way around it.
Erasmus hinted at the obvious difficulty that such a premise presents to a priest – or to any person of faith. Ora et Labora. Luther spluttered a bit in his later writings, but ultimately he had no compromise that could embrace human participation in personal salvation. Prayer, worship, acts of charity, confession of sins, penance, the virtue of simple kindness in the name of Jesus – all are works. Taking Luther’s cue, Calvin embraced a more honest, but brutally fatalistic doctrine of total depravity. so there’s no point in any of it really…. even living it out is sort of a waste of God’s time.
eeeeeuuuwwww. Calvin’s was a stark and cold interpretation that still leaves too bitter a taste in the mouths of many believers (including me, along with the grape juice in those little cups they use instead of a good shot of red Merlot). obviously Mater Church didn’t die. it turned out that there are many mansions after all.
yes, in some ways it’s the end of the library world as we know it. we can’t just close our eyes and build towers of paper to block out the piercing electronic light. but we don’t have to offer a requiem for print as a constant dirge either. in fact, Erasmus might point out how ultimately nihilistic it is for a Librarian to do so.
Many (if not most) of my fellow students bemoan the fact that everything is going digital and how much they hate that because they love books and going to the library. but, since it’s the logical end to this…. these statements usually end with a little sniffle or sigh of resignation. O Ye of little faith! If you think you have come to bury a dying institution, then please walk away so the rest of us can tidy up the place before people get here. Go get an IT degree. And stop beating your breast with that book, rending the paper journals, and scourging yourselves with the bookmarks!
After all, where is the dignity in that?
10 DC things that I’ve run across, into, upon, or over October 7, 2008
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First, this link to the tool produced by the Grandaddy of all consortia libraria: OCLC. they have digital library products and services – at what I would imagine is a pretty hefty fee – but they are at the heart of every other library function and why not. no really. why not. anyway, as such, their DC software would get my nod since one never knows when other products are going to die and take everything with them. http://www.oclc.org/us/en/services/collection/default.htm
Reference #2: an article by Edmund Balnaves that addresses some of the issues (and validates my uncertainties if my suggestion # 1 is not followed). products with strong histories of functionality and continued tech support are fundamental when creating organizational strategy: http://llc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/20/4/399?ijkey=O6OAxJKjGAx8aTh&keytype=ref
#3 – in the spirit of seeing both sides, this article neatly answers my first question and makes me think anybody can do this. the flow charts are amazing. I feel more reassured that Dublin Core would seem to be the metadata of choice for all this, no matter what platform, right? I still would not want to trust my whole library’s IR to my ability to do this myself. http://www.wrlc.org/dcpc/dcmspaper/
#4 – omg a PowerPoint!! love those bulleted lists and flow chart. Tom Ceresini of Palinet makes life easy… or not. http://www.palinet.org/media/2007conferencepresentations/2007DigitalCollectionManagementSystems.pdf
#5 = this next article may be dated, but this is about the speed at which most real libraries keep up with the technology – in fact, this is downright progressive if not futuristic compared to local instititions I’ve worked in lately. Librarians! put on your sci-fi goggles and peek into the future. or not… http://www.stsci.edu/stsci/meetings/lisa3/grothkopfu1.html
# 6 – Copyright. my favorite topic and I love this site, although I’ve not made my way through it all. I warn you, take a piece of thread into it, because it goes for miles under the surface. Georgia Harper is a Texas woman who sets out some legal issues with a delightful touch of pepper sauce. Intellegent, witty, and USEFUL. why do we have copyright? why should we care? Georgia, tell it! http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/image.htm
# 7 – since I have a forthcoming post on the “death of print,” I want to include this link to a speech presented by Dan Okrent, editor of Time magazine. I will be taking the opposite view, not that it matters in the face of pretty much every other comment I’ve read lately on the topic. but, given the content, I hope ya’ll appreciate the irony of an oral message, transcribed through conventions of print medium, and published in a digital journal. in terms of Homer and linear B, what does this really say…. http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0002/okrent.htm
# 8 – digital bookmoblie? open source gone native, leave it to those radical militant librarians to take it to the next level: http://www.digitalbookmobile.com/
# 9 – so now that there is electronic bookmobile, wouldn’t it be nice if there were just a list of digital books floating around out there in the datasphere? some kind of locator – that flows over the boundaries of Gutenberg and Google. yes, confirmed DCists, behold! http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/
and for #10 – there are several Sudoko sites, but this one keeps archives and provides a forum for enthusists. there is even a puzzle-solver that you can set up to solve step-by-step if you are stuck and want a teeny little boost (which I would call “cheating” if I hadn’t used it once or twice). the daily puzzles can be printed or completed electronically and submitted for competition. go on. have yourself a little fun… http://www.sudoku.org.uk/
digital bone collector September 25, 2008
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for the record, I am not pro-porn. I accept that it is legal. but free speech aside, it’s right up there with slavery in the degradation of human beings. I feel sorry for the lives it has ruined, the suffering it represents. poverty, ignorance, pain, lonliness, exploitation, greed, addiction. It is overwhelmingly sad to me. then again, I can’t side with the Right on this one either, for instance this work of Serrano:
http://www.artnet.com/artwork/424288434/423908876/piss-christ.html
remember Jesse Helms speaking on the horrors of funding the NEA while staniding in front of a topless statue of Justice with her breasts covered? yep. Serrano’s statement about the plastic values of modern society was THE filthy smut that made it a religious argument. really inflamed the whole tail a-waggin,’ jaws a-droppin,’ and support a-yankin’ controversy way back then. we all died laughing that poor Justice had to put on her first training bra for Jesse so that like-minded conservatives across America could be spared the prurient sight of her marble taa-taas. I wonder now how much it cost the taxpayers to send someone all over America with all that white tulle?
on the other hand, hard-core porn is just sad. so I thought I might pass on the tip that kids can get around the parental controls on a computer by going to Google and searching the images. Type in an explicit phrase – the thumbnail images appear in all their hideous glory – parental controls only block websites – not the search. but who needs to go to a website when you can get all that gratuity and not trip the alarms. some of them even “move” on the search page – how about that.
I talk with my children about porn. in terms of the dignity of the body, the exploitation of the individual, the corruption of sex for money, and the life that is so much more than meat. and then I check the search history every now and then on my home computer. Trust. but Verify. guess that makes me a digital collections gatekeeper – and a conservative one at that! I will be reading on mission statements, policy guidelines, and “vision” statements before creating class project. get it? “vision” statements. ok, so I can’t stay sad for long…
btw – John McCain wants to yank all funding for the NEA and NEH. again. bye-bye Hallmark Hall of Fame productions of Shakespeare. bye-bye Jack and Jackie and the days of Camelot. bye-bye love. bye-bye happiness. hello emptiness. i think I’m a-gonna cry.
copy right, copy left, and copy this down September 21, 2008
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there’s an old song by Judy… somebody “I’ve looked at life from both sides, now.” she concluded that she really didn’t know anything about anything “aaatt alllll” but she still made the best of it. Judy, dear, here we go.
I’ve worked in a creative endeavor that did not enjoy the protection of copyright. I was a choreographer in the late 70’s and early 80’s – a time when lightweight video cameras (or computers) were not in wide use. the creative process would happen, dancers would learn their parts, and after the production, the actual performance was usually filed only in the memories of those who were there. some of those were fellow artists who could take a section of choreography and use it whole-cloth for their production. I would set my work on dancers in a musical and I would see bits of it a few months later in an opera or in another show. usually it was a friendly exchange, but it DID sting to see no credit in the program for the idea. it also stung if the “borrower” got the next job with TO and the bigger paycheck while I was at TP working for free lunch and comp tickets. even if an 8mm video existed, there was no precedent for copyright infringement for movements in performance art at that time. thank goodness that’s been remedied and these are now protected and preserved.
whereas my experience cannot compare to authorship in other areas, it does touch on the reason why I have so much sympathy for those big bad thugs in publishing who hold copyrights. Yes they make money off the backs of the real creators, but they fund those creators as well. research is a particularly delicate balance of companies (pharmeceuticals come to mind) who will fund research and not worry about paying for publishing data along the way. then there is humanities research. in which publishing data along the way creates the basis for the next breakthrough – the next idea that is not worth much by itself, but can lead to the one after that, and the one after that…. if no one is supporting that endeavor by publishing and protecting it in a more permanent manner, what happens? yeah, I know, I KNOW. IRs. that’s the thought behind them. I remain skeptical. and I’m not alone. meet a guy smarter than me on intellectual property: http://www.law.gwu.edu/faculty/profile.aspx?id=3253
and here’s what he had to say on September 12, 2008 before the House Hearing on “Fair Copyright in Research Works Act”
My basic concern about the NIH proposal is that it will, sooner rather than later, destroy the commercial market for these scientific, technical, and medical journals. If this dark prophesy comes to pass, who, I wonder, will handle all of these expensive and sensitive administrative details? Some of my academic colleagues are confident that this change in the mechanics of scientific publishing will have little or no impact on the private sector, and that it will remain as robust as ever, even if the NIH freely publishes all of the NIH peer-reviewed article manuscripts shortly after private publication. Some claim that they have “evidence” that STM publishing will continue to flourish. I have not seen that evidence. To me, it suggests an element of wishful thinking. In my experience, Congress is normally reluctant to hang major legislative change in copyright policy on the thin reed of wishful thinking. With the prospect of free copies available in the near term, who in the face of experience and reality can reasonably expect that subscribers to STM journals, faced with their own budgetary constraints and needs, will not look with real favor on alternative free sources? I can’t. It is belied by common sense. Certainly, many university and industry librarians will cancel their subscriptions to these learned journals, with some estimates of a cancellation rate approaching 50 percent. With plummeting sales, how could the STM publishers stay in business? This is a critical point, and one that this committee has a special sensitivity to. It really goes to the heart of the matter, in terms of public policy.
wondering aloud September 15, 2008
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as part of the Institutional Repository group, I find myself wondering if the disparity of experience and career goals among the members may make it difficult for much consensus. it seems the only thing we all have in common is that we are in the program, albeit some are LIS and others KM. as a person planning to remain in an academic library setting, my views are naturally going to be different from someone hoping to create a knowledge collective for an accounting firm. and so are my needs… Dennis made an interesting comment once about the degree program itself and how we all have to get what we need from it since we are on such different career paths. remaining true to that inner compass while collaborating and expanding into the unknown may be the very experience that will help me negotiate between “knowledge worker” and “librarian” – my personal Charybdis and Scylla.
looking at the bright side then, here goes. Salo’s comment about the lack of prestige in a digital collection is not something I’d thought about directly, but as a print-on-paper snob myself, this is the point that looms very large in development strategy. particularly for fledgeling repository efforts, marketing such a concept to faculty is sobering. like the guy in the movie “Handcock” who was trying to get pharmaceutical companies to give away their product in the hope of a better world. a bumper sticker saying “I ‘heart’ IRs!”…. well, maybe that needs a little more punch.
even something as “simple” as an online exam bank where students could study using previous tests has proven to be very slow going. there is a whole cabinet of paper files put on reserve by faculty to allow students to view previous exams. many will not allow these to be scanned or made available electronically. why not put them online? there are those who do not want other faculty to use their questions. the sentiment from said faculty seems to be that they worked hard to encapsulate the issues of the class and they do not want to make it easy (or anonymous) for other professors to appropriate thier work. professional pride (or embarrassment) seems to keep these files safe from prying eyes – particularly those files that have to be “signed out” on a piece of paper with the peruser’s name. does a professor tracking the viewing of their tests violate privacy issues? AAAAGGGGHHHH!!! CHRYBDIS!
sailing more towards Scylla where I can sacrifice a few ideas to save the rest, what is appropriate for a digital collection? or to use Salo’s extensive experience, what is pragmatic? do IRs commonly use tracking programs so that users have to sign in and verify who they are before looking? that would be a given, right? is that information tracked/used/verified by the IR gatekeepers? is this shades of Big Brother Google? sorry if all this is boring to those who figured it out long ago. I’m still reading the stuff on hashing that was supposed to explain it better and ready to curl up in a ball with my thumb in my mouth like Sybil.
life, liberty, and the pursuit September 10, 2008
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of happiness? of a MLIS? no. of property. the original unalienable rights according to, I believe Rousseau, were “life, liberty, and property.” property rights are the foundation of Greek, Roman, and Judaic Law. they precede the American “pursuit of happiness” because the general idea was that the Aristotelian “cause for which” one pursued property was happiness. Jefferson went for the telos.
a digital discussion erupted somewhere on D2L about the legal implications of a student creating a digital collection of the articles we are supposed to read and distributing them to the class in one electronic file. convienent – omg! yes. and thank you. Illegal? I think it may be. while the discussion postings are most interesting, the fact that this was brought up within the context of our class is really interesting- and ironic. to recast the question for a public blogging forum: who owns the articles on that student’s flash drive? Permissions, so I understand, were not granted.
our Alma Mater pays for books, subscriptions and holds physical items for course reserve. as students we can print and copy (up to 50 pages) for our personal use. I’m a student. I then should be allowed to make a copy of another student’s copy. right? maybe. it’s kind of iffy. but certainly, HE really isn’t supposed to make a copy of his copy for me. it crosses the boundary of the US Code that stipulates “personal use.” even our instructor probably can’t make copies of her own published article and distribute it to our class without crossing that blurry line into the gray area of copyright infringement. the gray, blurry area really swallows the legal landscape of the digtal document. not that anyone pays much attention, but should the publisher find out and choose to make an example – well we remember the Napster Kids, right?
electronic file sharing. we all do it. well, YOU all do it because if the publishers who own the copyright to those publications come knocking, I had nothing to do with it. and neither did anyone I know. publishers make money through not-sharing.
maybe I should change discussion groups to institutional repositories. the legal thing, not to mention the faculty protecting their work thing, really interests me. and the Salo article was great.
gone fiche-ing September 6, 2008
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Grafton’s comments on microfiche and it’s discontents brings out an issue of which digital collections librarians will want to be aware before scaling the ivory towers of academia.
while working in an academic library, I wondered why in the world anyone would want to continue to buy microfiche in this day and age. it’s inconvenient, must be used on-site, difficult to read at times, slow to find the right pages, time-consuming to print, and non-searchable. the machine is a pain to service and no fun to operate. yet microfiche still arrives regularly. what is it about this stuff – other than the fact that someone long ago made a commitment to buy it for the library and we have to maintain the collection? even that seems pretty weak.
volume count. it’s how libraries compete with each other and how schools achieve accreditation points. microfiche is cheap. microfiche takes up almost no space. one set of microfiche – like 19th century legal treatises – adds thousands of items to the volume count for pennies on the dime. binding older paper journals does the same thing. the library buys a subscription on paper – there’s a journal title added to the stats. once the paper copies are about a year old, they can be gathered and sent to the bindery. the individual records for each issue are removed from the catalog – which doesn’t change the fact that the library subscribes to the title – and the bound journal is now a volume. a “book” if you will. it’s such a shell game.
so when Grafton voices his concern that paper copies are being destroyed – perhaps that is true to some extent. but he can rest assured that some college or university library has bound that in buckram and added compact shelving to store it. after all, it’s the stuff of which new wings are made….
digital collections reflections September 2, 2008
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from the article by Lee, the term “digital collections” is pretty broad. so in thinking about the three collections that have proven most useful (if not abused) to me are:
1. JSTOR – I came across this resource many years ago in a Shakespeare class taught by one of the finest English professors, Dr. Watson at TU. in a discussion of Hamlet, I threw out the possibilty that the gloomy young Dane was upset by his mother’s sexual relationship with her new hubby because Hamlet feared she might become pregnant, creating a pesky heir to his throne. Watson sat back while the rest of the class remained focused on the “fact” that Gerty would be well beyond childbearing age. after all, Hamlet looks a lot like Laurence Oliver, which means his mother must be about 85 and holding, right? JSTOR had a full-text article from the 1940’s or so titled “Not fat or 30” which proved to be THE piece of scholarly reinforcement that I needed to write a really good final paper. In the section in which I deftly argued that Getrude’s fecund state adds to the dramatic impetus for the play, Watson wrote “ah. you’ve answered this point nicely” in his margin comments. that was it. nicely. from Watson, that’s like a ticker tape parade complete with a marching band. JSTOR provides historical perspectives on many A&S subjects. It can be limited by discipline and the advanced search can limit the results to articles or expand it to include reviews, etc. the downside, it is accessable only with a log-in, usually provided by a higher-education institution at, what I’m guessing is, a pretty steep cost.
2. the Perseus Project sponsored by Tufts has a great collection of ancient Greek and Latin texts. from the main page at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ I click on “Classics” and “texts.” many of the English translations are pretty poor, BUT the Greek or Latin sections have a really cool little feature that allows you to click on the word and have a pop-up that gives you the grammatical particulars about that word. when I am not able to find things the disciplined way (a Duckworth’s held together with rubber bands, a duct-taped intermediate lexicon, and a copy of Smythe’s Greek Grammar replete with tear stains) or when I am so confused that my scholarship BECOMES a tragedy littered with the dead bodies of bad traslations, I turn to this great resource. I then say an Act of Contrition, and apologize to Socrates for being weak and basically cheating. 😦 the downside? – the text is transalliterated into English alphabet. to read in the actual Greek, a plug-in is available, but I’ve not found the results to be acceptable.
3. gosh. digital collections. I use all kinds of resources, like Webster.com, often – but is that a collection? I don’t think of it that way. hmm. There IS something that I’m interested in, though “favorite” is not how I would describe it. TU has a whole world of wonder on the fourth floor of McFarlin library. For years, the items in special collections were shielded from the world and “protected” almost out of existence. No one knew just what was up there. it is still happening in fits and starts, but now there is an effort underway to bring this marvelous collection out of the dark and into the digital light. So far, there is not a lot of “there” there in comparison to other digital projects that have really gotten off the ground, particularly in images. But what potential – oh my. so, in its present form, it may be my least favorite digital collection. but it terms of the possibility that I know is there, and in the mad hope that I can learn enough to contribute to the effort and make it reflective of the fabulous treasure that it really is: http://www.lib.utulsa.edu/speccoll/
WAIT! how could I forget?!! #3. the WebMuseum- Paris! I’ve bookmarked only the artist page, but the main site probably has all kinds of cool stuff that I’ve not had time to discover. this is great for those little art emergencies that require a person to view a pertinent masterpiece or die. happens to me a LOT. bienvenue! http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/
The Accidental Bloggist 