Off the Mark

This morning I actually got fresh, hot cookies straight from the oven for the 1st time in almost two years! I stepped into The Cookie Jar and saw that there weren’t any chocolate chip with walnut cookies and was immediately disheartened. Then I realized I was in a bit early and just perhaps….

Ed, the owner, came around the corner from the back and when he saw me said, “They’ve just come out of the oven.” I must have lit up like a 1000-watt bulb cause he immediately said, “I don’t think I can even handle them yet. They’d probably just break apart.” I responded with, “Ed, I don’t want you to burn yourself, but otherwise just put them in the bag. I’m just going to chew them up; I’m not putting them on display or anything.” He said that I might need a spoon and I said, “I’ll manage. Somehow.” With a huge grin on my face, of course.

I had four wonderfully warm, fresh from the oven, cookies this morning. I ate one on the way to the coffee shop and as badly as I almost needed a spoon I can guarantee you that I did not spill a crumb! They were so fresh from the oven that the other three were still warm once I finally had my coffee and got over to GSLIS.

Oops. This post wasn’t supposed to be about cookies, but it was an awesome way to start the day.

In Representation and Organization this morning, I gave my presentation about my final project all wrapped up with my book report. The book I reviewed is: Bean, Carol A. and Rebecca Green, Eds. Relationships in the Organization of Knowledge. Information Science and Knowledge Management, v. 2. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.

My final project is an annotated bibliography of all the various and sundry things that I’ve been reading about the highly interdisciplinary—quite possibly the epitome of interdisciplinary—topic of relationships since I started down this road at the end of last fall semester. I will be turning that in some time before next Wed. at 5 PM.

So my presentation was a combined book review and very quick introdution into the broad topic of relationships.

Relationships: a primer.

It doesn’t cover near enough, nor much of anything at any kind of depth. But with only 45 minutes total to present Kathryn and I both knew that I couldn’t do much. Still, I intentionally over-designed the presentation so that folks could use it to explore a bit more on their own if they desire. I can only hope they will.

To spare you the effort, I’ll cut to the chase and give you my conclusion:

While I certainly cannot expect everyone in LIS to be enamored of every one of these types of relationships, I most certainly do expect every LIS “professional” to be concerned with the kinds that most directly impinge on their particular area(s) of expertise.

Relationships are everywhere. There is no reality without them, at least not a reality processable by humans or any other form of life as we understand it. Seeing as LIS is concerned with the recorded forms of human knowledge, they are inescapable.

We have been obsessed with “entities,” things, for far too long. Perhaps it is time we pay more attention to what it is that allows us to recognize any entity in the first place.

Yes, you know me, folks. I’m all about imposing moral imperatives on others.

The semester is certainly winding down, although it’s hard to really feel that way yet. I still need to finish the annotated bibliography and the actual written book review before next Wed. morning. And I still have to revise my paper for Ontologies, sometime before the end of the semester.

I’m really glad I’m not taking a class during Summer I. So I’ll have a sort of break before the main summer session begins. Lots to do during that time frame though. Oh well.

Good luck to all students out there and here’s hoping you all can finish your semester on a high note. Or at least breathing and still on two feet. And a hearty congratulations to all the soon-to-be crowned librarians!