Off the Mark

habitually probing generalist

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Entries from January 2006

A year of broken thoughts

January 29th, 2006 · 8 Comments

Today is the 1st anniversary of this humble little blog. 
My 1st post was "So, what is this about, and for?" on Saturday, 29 January 1995 2005.  A couple weeks ago I wrote a sort of pre-anniversary post, "Bloggy happiness," with some early reflections.  I said most of what I wanted to in the "Bloggy [...]

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Tags: My Life · Weblogs

Pixel pix

January 26th, 2006 · 1 Comment

I bought a digital camera a week or 2 back although I haven’t done much with it yet.  I opened a flickr account yesterday and posted my 1st photo today.
It’s not all that interesting, but it is a picture of Studio 3 where we broadcast "away games."  An "away game" is a distance ed class [...]

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Tags: My Life · Web/Tech · Weblogs

My Neighborhood

January 22nd, 2006 · 2 Comments

The decision to post this came about due to a comment from Angel on my post from yesterday, "One more destroyed life. How many more?"
The following originated as an email to a friend of mine, Gina the anthropologist, after an incident at a discussion forum we attended after Bowling for Columbine.  It was linked to [...]

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Tags: Conversation · Military and War · My Life · Politics · Society

One more destroyed life. How many more?

January 21st, 2006 · 3 Comments

I have written about this topic before [among other places], and I have no doubt that I will have to again.  Such a complete shame. 
Please take the small amount of time out of your busy day to read "KIA in Alabama."  In my not-so-humble opinion you owe it to Doug Barber and the tens [...]

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Tags: Military and War · Politics · Society · Weblogs

Communities

January 19th, 2006 · 1 Comment

Community
This piece was written for my 1st LIS class summer 2004 on the topic of "what community means for me as a librarian." It may be directed at librarianship but it says much of what I was trying to say in January with my initial note to myself.

In late 2003 and early 2004 due to [...]

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Tags: Education · Librariana · My Life · Society

Book Review Essay for The Pursuit of Power

January 18th, 2006 · 2 Comments

The following essay is my 2nd book review essay for my graduate Seminar in Sociological Institutions - Technology and Modern Society Fall 2003 with Dr. Richard Stivers at Illinois State University.
McNeill, William H., The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since A.D. 1000, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982)

   This paper will [...]

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Tags: Books · Education · Military and War

Do you want to think?

January 18th, 2006 · 1 Comment

Free Speech in the Catalog from David Bigwood at Catalogablog points to the article Do You Really Want to Be a Forum? by Leonard Hitchcock in the current issue of Library Philosophy and Practice.  [This post was started sometime before mid-October.]
There are several other interesting articles in this issue of LPP.
One in particular is Information [...]

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Tags: Articles · Education · Librariana

Rollerskating Birthday Party

January 15th, 2006 · 5 Comments

I went to Elizabeth’s (my coworker) rollerskating birthday party last night.  She turns 26 tomorrow, so she is just 4 months older than my son.
Most of the rest of her friends that joined us are about her age; about 30 of us in all I think.  We didn’t exactly take over the skating rink, way [...]

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Tags: Food and Drink · Games · My Life

I’m supposed to do what?

January 14th, 2006 · 3 Comments

I’m going to be just a bit circumspect, but this sucks!
Class is on Tuesday. 
This is Saturday afternoon. 
The syllabus and readings were just posted.
I’m supposed to read:

4 "documents" freely avaliable on the web.
2 chapters in the text.
2 chapters on reserve in the LIS Library.

This is not lightweight stuff either, but is about that [...]

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Tags: Education · Librariana

Cataloguing in an Electronic Age - Michael Gorman

January 14th, 2006 · 2 Comments

School may not start until next Tuesday, but I’m trying to get a start on some of my readings for class(es).  I started with the readings for week 2 of advanced cataloging (primarily because it is the 1st list I had available).
They are:
Gorman, M. "Cataloging in an Electronic Age," Cataloging & Classification Quarterly v. 36, [...]

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Tags: Articles · Education · Librariana · Web/Tech