Monthly Archives: February 2007

With all my love & respect…

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Happy Valentine’s Day mrl-005 — Feb 9, 2000

In 2000 I made my first Valentine’s Day CD which I gave to six of my female friends. I also made Valentine’s Day CDs in 2001-2003, with 2001s being a double CD. They went to anywhere from 10 to 16 women, always increasing. I have not made any since 2003. Reasons aren’t appropriate here/now. This is not to say that I haven’t had any female friends deserving of the effort; that is ridiculous. Heck, I wouldn’t know where to begin and postage would add up quickly; the vast majority of the others were hand delivered.

I also made special little bags of Valentine’s treats for the recipients, and gave bags of treats—pencils, erasers, stickers, candy hearts, chocolate, silly cards, etc.—to many others, and made sure I had at least a couple pieces of chocolate and a sticker or two for every female student worker that I worked with [inexpensive little novelties from the party store]. Not everyone has someone to make then feel special on Valentine’s Day. I know. Even the avowed Valentine’s Day haters would light up when someone old enough to be their father took a moment to let them know that they are special. [I amaze even myself some times in my life; rare, though, that I do—generally I'm fairly curmudgeonly about something like Valentine's Day.]

With that in mind, here is the contents of my first Valentine’s Day CD : With all my love & respect…

The inside (back) of the cover of the original liner notes:

I don’t know if I can get away with this, especially after saying that these are some of my favorite ‘Love Songs’, but, I am not a Romantic. Anyway, these are some of my favorite love songs, or songs about love in a few cases. I tried to keep it to love songs though, in honor of Valentine’s Day. I’ve always been told that I have a twisted idea of love songs. So what! But, I recently realized that I was making a mistake, I was including songs about love in the love song category. They are a distinctly different kind of song, although I love many (more?) of them, too! There’s been a couple already on my other CDs but they’re not so good for Valentine’s Day.

Women have always been my closest & dearest friends. I’m able to say things to them that guys just don’t get, or don’t even want said around them. Making this CD has been a bit painful for me, but I felt that I owed it to the women around me that I love. I want to tell you that you are a very special & beautiful woman to me! All I want is the best for you! And if I can be your friend along the way, so much the better for me!

Wishing all the Best on Valentine’s Day 2000. With all my love & respect,

[originals signed]

Please do not take any lyric too literally.

Set list:

1 Wond’ring Aloud – Jethro Tull
2 Anyday – Derek And the Dominos
3 Fire Of The Newly Alive – Rosanne Cash
4 Comes Love – Billie Holiday
5 Need Your Love So Bad – Fleetwood Mac
6 Holy Water – Bad Co.
7 I Want To Be Loved By You – Sinéad O’Connor
8 Dark Star – Crosby, Stills & Nash
9 What A Difference A Day Makes – Dinah Washington
10 For Rosanna – Chris DeBurgh
11 As Time Goes By – Jimmy Durante
12 Trip Through Your Wires – U2
13 Soul On Fire – LaVern Baker
14 I Will Never Be The Same – Melissa Etheridge
15 Your Warm And Tender Love – Chris Rea
16 Into The Mystic – Van Morrison
17 Rock Steady – Bad Co.
18 Love Song – Syd Barrett
19 My Funny Valentine – Dinah Shore
20 At Last – Etta James

Liner notes:

Wond’ring Aloud – Jethro Tull (Aqualung, Chrysalis VK 41044, © 1973)
‘We are our own saviours, as we start, both our hearts beating life, into each other… … its’s only the giving that makes you what you are.’
“This is my gift to you. Happy Valentine’s Day!”

Anyday – Derek And The Dominos (Layla and other assorted love songs, MFSL UDCD 585, © 1970) Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, Jim Gordon, Carl Radle and Duane Allman.
“You have no idea how good it does my soul to see you smiling!”

Fire Of The Newly Alive – Rosanne Cash (The Wheel, Columbia CK 52729, © 1993)

Comes Love – Billie Holiday (Body and Soul, MFSL UDCD 658, © 1956, 1957)
“Lady Day from the original mono master with an immense amount of care & love going into the remixing & pressing.”

Need Your Love So Bad – Fleetwood Mac (The Pious Bird Of Good Omen, Columbia 480524 2, © 1969)
“You can’t have love without having the blues occasionally.”
[page 1]

Holy Water – Bad Co. (Holy Water, ATCO A2 91371, © 1990)

I Want To Be Loved By You – Sinéad O’Connor (am i not your girl?, Chrysalis ensign D 100139, © 1992)

Dark Star – Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN, Atlantic SD 19104-2, © 1977)

What A Difference A Day Makes – Dinah Washington (Corrina, Corrina, RCA 66443-2, © 1994
“What a voice!”

For Rosanna – Chris DeBurgh (Into The Light, A&M CD 5121, © 1986)
“I offer this song to all of you daughters on behalf of your fathers. I know I feel this way about my daughter! I hope yours does too! Sara, I miss you so much.”
[page 2]

As Time Goes By – Jimmy Durante (Sleepless In Seattle, epic soundtrax EK 53764, © 1993)
“I prefer women singers, but you’ve got to love Jimmy!”

Trip Through Your Wires – U2 (The Joshua Tree, MFSL UDCD 650, © 1987)

Soul On Fire – LaVern Baker (Soul On Fire, Atlantic 7 82311-2, © 1991)
“I love this voice. I got turned onto her (& lots of other great artists) via The Atlantic Rhythm and Blues series.”

I will Never Be The Same – Melissa Etheridge (Yes I Am, Island 422-848 660-2, © 1993)
Be very careful with the lyrics of this song. I didn’t lose anybody because she was never mine but yet… “Thank you! I never knew it could feel so amazing just being around someone. I hope I can make someone feel that way someday. I barely saved myself. Thank you for being so tolerant.”

Your Warm And Tender Love – Chris Rea (The Road To Hell, Geffen 9 24276-2, © 1989)
“Another guy being saved by love? Some of us do like the idea too.”
[page 3]

Into The Mystic – Van Morrison (Moondance, Warner Bros. 3103-2, 1970)
“This is a romantic album. I love the imagery of it & I want to feel like this someday.”

Rock Steady – Bad Co. (Bad Co., Swan Song SS 8501-2, © 1974)
“I had to include this if only for ‘listen to, baby, let the music flow…’”

Love Song – Syd Barrett (Barrett, Capitol CDP 7 46606 2, 1970)
“What a pretentious title for such an unpretentious little song. Same Syd as Effervescing Elephant.”

My Funny Valentine – Dinah Shore (Sweet and Lovely: Capitol’s Great Ladies of Song, Capitol D 170305, © 1992) Rodgers – Hart, Piano accompaniment by Andre Previn, Recorded 1961
“I had to include this little gem.”

At Last – Etta James (Northern Exposure, MCAD-10685, © 1992)
“I loved this crazy TV show. They always chose great & sometimes very eclectic music.”
[page 4]

I wish I could actually provide the actual music … but that’s not to be. Oh well, enjoy. And Happy Valentine’s Day!

[For the curmudgeonly out there, just hold on a moment....]

Snow day tomorrow, too and Happy Birthday ISU

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So we got us one heck of a blizzard and tomorrow has already been cancelled. Well, not tomorrow exactly, but you know what I mean.

I do hope the wind dies down though so they can get the roads cleared before Thursday morning. See, I have to travel an hour away because I have a bell to ring.

This year, Founder’s Day at Illinois State University (my undergrad alma mater) is the 15th and it is the Sesquicentennial of ISU. The oldest public institution of higher education in the state is 150 years old.

Since 2002, members of the Illinois State University family have celebrated the heritage of the state’s first public university in this special Founders Day ceremony. The bell from Old Main, the first building on the campus of what was then called Illinois State Normal University, is permanently displayed on the University Quad at the site of Old Main. Throughout the years, the bell was a symbol of daily campus life as it tolled the hours each day.

Although the Old Main building was deemed to be structurally unsound and removed from the campus in 1958, the bell remains a reminder of the campus that sprung up from the prairie. During Founders Day activities, the bell is brought back to active service as selected members of the University community pull the rope to ring it once for each year in the life of the institution.

I was a 2nd year (2003) bell ringer and as such am invited back each year to assist by ringing my little commemorative replica bell. I did participate in 2004 since I was still there, but have not made it back before now. The year I was an official bell ringer (2003), Founder’s Day was actually on my birthday. So if Birthday Month is truly and finally on my side now I’ll be able to make it over to Normal to participate in a few of the Sesquicentennial festivites at the university dearest to my heart—for so many reasons—and see some of my friends and hang out with many of the other past bell ringers; many of whom are far more prestigious than lowly little me.

Happy Birthday, ISU! “and gladly would he learn, and gladly teach“

It really can’t have been that simple…

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My speakers don’t sound right. That is, they sound much better than they have for months now, but they still don’t sound right.

Sometime after moving across town one of my main channel speakers (you know, the stereo pair) developed a crazy hum, crackle, horrible … shitty sound. I called Polk before Christmas and found out that despite being 13 or so years old they would be happy to send me a replacement driver for a reasonable price.

My problem was being sure I ordered the right one, although we were both guessing it was a midrange. I sat on the problem as I’m wont to do. Today I pulled the possibly offending driver to see if anything looked amiss. Seeing as it was so simple I pulled the other and swapped them.

I am now trying to see (or hear, I guess) what’s up. So far, nothing. They don’t quite sound right, but they don’t sound like shit either. Part of the problem is that I haven’t heard them sounding good for months now. The other may be psychosomatic and that’s because I pulled the drivers. It really shouldn’t matter, but it does.

Now the question is, how long this will last? xfingersx and xtoesx.

Birthday Month may be on my side now officially. I damn sure hope so. Let the music reign. :)

A truly excellent review

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I doubt that I’ll ever get to this level of excellence—in fact, my reviews probably shouldn’t even be called reviews—because I generally don’t put enough effort into writing reviews of movies or music. For me it is a sort of chicken-and-egg problem, I don’t do it because I’m no good because I haven’t done it much and thus get no better at it and thus don’t put much effort into it because I’m not good at it….

But as an excellent example of what I aspire to, please see this review of Wordplay by anna at eclectic librarian. It is a great depiction of the film in all of its angles, has a touch of the personal, discusses the DVD extras, and, well, I’m going to stop before I write a bad review of a good review.

Anna also writes good music reviews and she—originally unbeknownst to her— did an excellent job helping me buy some things from iTunes when I finally used a gift certificate I was given.

I have been very remiss on commenting on the songs I bought back in July 2006 and I mean to do that soon. For now, let me just say that the songs listed in that post, and in that order, constitute my Cataloging Music mix. They are every one excellent and make a most excellent mix (for me) to catalog serials to, amongst other things.

I guess the only thing “wrong” with anna’s review of Wordplay is that I have already seen it. And that is certainly nothing she had any control over.

So go read her review and then see the movie for yourself.

“Brava,” anna! Please keep up the great work.

I hereby declare Birthday Month has begun

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Just as I was about to head out the door and try and catch another bus, which I just noticed went by only 5 minutes late, I got an IM from Karla saying all classes at UIUC had been cancelled!

I verified it on the University website and I IM’d another friend who had made it in to work. She said they were about to be sent home, probably. Unsure whether we will get paid for any or all of the day, but at this point, “Whatever!”

Wishes do sometimes come true! I got my wish for a February storm (preferably not ice) and it is even big enough to close campus; well after most anything else was closed.

I see I just got a comment from Liz on my previous post about winter weather ruining her March birthdays so maybe I should explain.

I am not actually a fan of winter either. I grew up in the north suburbs of St. Louis County (MO) until the summer of my 15th year and then lived in the far, far, far west ‘burbs of Chicago until the day after I turned 19 and went into the Army.

As a kid, winter was OK sometimes but I could take it or leave it. The Army was the real problem. It spent 20 years out in the winter weather, standing around for 20-40 minutes at a time for no sane reason (formations), practice “camping”, shoveling so a walkway could become icy death when it was more sensible to slog through the 2-3 inches of snow, etc. In other words, lots of time in the winter weather on anything but my own terms. I came to despise winter.

I also do not snow ski in any form, I do not snowmobile, ice fish, or anything else outdoorsy that needs winter conditions.

But after “retiring” from the Army in 1998, returning to the Midwest and trying to piece my life together as I slowly and painfully began to come out an immensely deep depression and somewhere along the time I started the concept of Birthday Month to help me focus on more positive things, I also realized that I am a child of the American Midwest who happened to have a birthday in February. The middle of winter! So I learned to convince myself that winter—at least February winter—really isn’t so bad. I decided to actually like whatever the winter weather gods of February threw at me; sometimes it manifests itself only in bare toleration, but at least I don’t stress about it. I even decided that it was patently unfair if we did not get a major February storm.

Thus began my wish each February for a major winter storm in celebration of Birthday Month. While not exactly good at it usually, I guess this is an example of “making lemonade.”

Blizzard Warning! One wish down, two to go…

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ChampaignWeather13Feb2007.jpg

Originally uploaded by broken thoughts.

It seems I got my wish for at least one storm during Birthday Month! I hope this bodes well for Birthday Month because, despite my best intentions and the loving recommendations of friends, I am having a hard time getting started on Birthday Month this year.

Yesterday I tried to schedule an hour long massage for my birthday next week, but the therapist is going to be out of town. Sure, there are other therapists there and even cheaper places to go. But Zorica knows my back and takes it as a personal challenge. She is also the only person I’ve met who is up to the challenge. I don’t want to be petted–OK, maybe I do but I ain’t paying for that–or simply put to sleep. I want my back to be relaxed for a while once the massage is over and there is an immense amount of knotted muscle to get through before a massage will even begin to do anything. Paying most anyone else for a massage would just be throwing money away.

OK, off to see if I can catch the bus this time. One is late, the next reasonably on time, … If I have to wade through a foot of snow (which, yes, I wished for) I want the bus to actually come.

Dystopia, Libraries, and a small apology

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For the possibly two of you awaiting the rewrite of my critique of the Coyle and Hillmann article in D-Lib, and particularly for the wonderful folks who provided feedback so that I could do a better job, I am sorry. I do not know when (or perhaps even if) it is coming.

For many reasons—most of which I am not prepared to go into right now—I am currently experiencing another “crisis of faith,” if you will, regarding my chosen field of endeavour. I am fully despairing for the future of libraries, not for any of the reasons generally thrown around like not changing fast enough, changing too much, no cultural relevance, lack of ability to compete with the likes of Google or Amazon, or …. No, my despair is for, and because of, librarians.

This perception does not come from the biblioblogosphere alone and, with any luck, not even mostly. [Warning: upcoming generalization and reification] I say that because the biblioblogosphere is an entity unto itself; a self-important entity that has far less impact than it seems to believe it should. It is also a highly divided, fractious entity.

No, my despair is based on journal reading, to include a historical perspective, multiple mailing list “discussions,” face-to-face discussions formally, semi-formally and informally, and other assorted places/venues.

I do not have the energy right now to even attempt to be the chronicler of what I see. As much as I enjoy being a philosophical and cultural gadfly, I first need to find some inspiration again. Maybe when I actually have a little hope again I can spare the energy to be the critic. Notice, I did not say that I have lost all hope. Yet.

I fully expect the academic/practitioner divide. I even expect some of the other divides as they are historical. But I am seeing far more division than I used to. The state and future of libraries, and hence librarians, is a very murky thing right now. Thus, some fractiousness is to be expected, I guess. And maybe that is all it is. But I fear it is worse. And even if it isn’t all that I perceive, I still want to know how we are to make any forward progress with so much division amongst us.

One thing I am doing for myself is to seriously cut back on many of my sources of information and “keeping up.” I have slowly started to prune my Bloglines account, and after I give a presentation for our ASIST student chapter in eight days on blogs that students might want to follow I am going to seriously reduce the clutter and chatter.

I am also seriously questioning the current value of AUTOCAT to me. After it recently changed hands (ownership), it has become a kinder and gentler list, but the chatter has also gone up significantly, and daily message counts have doubled.

I am going to try and weed a lot of sources out of my current reading/browsing routines and when I have found a little breathing room I will add in a few things of value that I am not currently engaged with. This is the plan anyway.

I want to be excited. I want to be engaged. I want to contribute to my field. I need to have hope.

Zotero, WordPress and COinS

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While I have no doubt that none of you were actually waiting for this moment, I am fairly excited.

Zotero, the new bibliographic manager from the folks at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, have released a WordPress plugin that embeds a COinS tag in each post making the content easily available to Zotero, and other software that can make use of COinS.

The plugin allows Zotero to detect all relevant bibliographic metadata for blog entries, including item type, title, author, date, and tags.

…

The plugin works by embedding a standardized tag in each blog post, known as a COinS tag. COinS—or Context Objects in Spans—is a community-based standard for encoding bibliographic information in web pages. By installing the plugin, you make it possible for not only Zotero, but also other COinS interpreters to recognize and process your metadata, thereby supporting a new generation of semantic web tools and services. Other sites that currently embed COinS include Wikipedia and WorldCat.

The WP plugin is part of a larger effort on the part of the Zotero team to document best practices for exposing metadata. …

I’m all about exposing some metadata. And while I’m not suggesting that my blog actually has any content that one might want to put into a citation manager, I’m happy to make it easy on anyone who might want to.

Thank you Zotero and CHNM!

New individual post header image thanks to Iris!

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I just put up a new header image on my single posts. This lovely slice is courtesy of my friend, Iris Jastram aka Pegasus Librarian.

The full picture is available in here. And yes, I asked permission. Thankfully she said yes. :)

Since I currently have the random image generator turned off, I figured I wanted a nice wintery photo for my posts header image. It is my birthday month. I am a Midwest boy. And it is the middle of winter. Iris’ photo fit the bill wonderfully.

Thanks, Iris!

ALA membership processing is broken

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Update 19 July 2007: I wanted to add an update that I have been contacted by LITA and that official steps are being taken to preclude whatever disconnect happened in my membership from happening to anyone else.

I have been personally welcomed into the fold and look forward to my future time with LITA.

For a bit of context, and to help folks realize that it’s not just me bitching again: see rikhei’s recent trials and tribulations with ALA membership:

I am already regetting renewing my ALA membership

Clarification on the ACRL registration problem

In the middle of November 2006 I renewed my membership in ALA and made a few changes in said membership. One of the things I did was to drop ACRL and join LITA. These were certainly the changes which cost the most.

Here is an excerpt from the renewal confirmation email:

The following Membership(s) were purchased:

1. Student pricing - Student Membership Basic Dues
2. ALCTS - Association for Library Collections and Technical Svcs
3. LITA - Library and Information Technology Association
4. IFRT - Intellectual Freedom
5. LHRT - Library History
6. NMRT - New Member
7. SRRT - Social Responsibilities Round Table

That said, I am still (mid-February 2007) getting ACRL publications and I have yet to receive a word from LITA. Any word. A freaking “Welcome” would be a good start!

I went in and looked at my membership status at the ALA site last night. [That trick is, well, a trick. I know ALA is working on another website redesign so I'll cut them some slack on the idiocy that is checking your current member status for the moment.] It seems that all of the above is true, along with still having a membership in ACRL and the fact that I owe them $35 more dollars.

Of course, I have received absolutely no communication from ALA on this matter, but at least it explains the ACRL publications I am still receiving. But guess what ALA? You are not getting another penny from me for this year! And the future is seriously under reconsideration, again.

I did not renew my membership in ACRL. In fact, I cancelled it. I did join LITA though. And while your confirmation email and the website confirms that, they do not seem to know it.

I know some of you out there will (again) try and defend ALA on this. But you know what? There is absolutely no justification! It is simply broke. Plain and simply broken.

If Amazon and all the other sorts of entities that are currently being tossed around as things libraries should be emulating were broken like this “we” wouldn’t be saying these things, would we? [And, yes Jenica, I feel your pain. Amazon is currently broken for me too.]

I have taken a look at the ALA Membership Committee page and I see some names I recognize—names of people I like and respect. First, let me say thank you for serving. Second, let me say you have a big task ahead of you. Third, I doubt you really have much input into actually fixing the problem. But I sure hope you are beating on the door of those who do, and I wish you luck. Because wherever the problem lies, it is causing you membership issues and member loss.

I don’t actually expect a lot of “glitter” from ALA because I am somewhat happy to give them money to do some of their more important background work. But I do expect for the confirmed membership info from mid-Nov to match what it is in mid-Feb. I also expect that if you think I owe you money that you would contact me. I also expect to get what I pay for; even if that is simply a welcome.

I voted for the dues increase ALA. I expect you to actually fix some of the broken parts with it. Starting with membership services might be a good place. That seems like such a basic concept for a membership organization, especially one whose purpose really isn’t to serve their members but where their members work. It seems to me that asking people to pony up large sums of money to be a member of something that actually supports their employers—truly one heck of a concept—would particularly make the organization pay attention to the “small” matter of membership.

ALA membership services is simply broken. Considering I have had an issue every time I have renewed my membership the last couple years I do not see myself retaining my membership when I am no longer a student. To give that kind of money for such service is completely unthinkable. Actually, to give up the kind I did as a student is also unthinkable. Taking 3-6 months to get straight any changes in my membership and then turning around and asking me for money in another 6 months is inexcusable.

ALA, you are not the only game in town. There are plenty of other professional organizations which I would happily join if I wasn’t giving you the money I am each year. I have only heard good things about these organizations, also.

I am tired of this crap ALA! Fix it! Now!

I welcome any contact—public or private—from members of the ALA Membership Committee or anyone in LITA who has any insight into the issue. But for anyone planning on just giving the same tired excuses, please save yourself the trouble. I have absolutely no desire to hear them. Again.