This post is technically only for me, but feel free…. It is, in effect, a manually constructed “del.icio.us post” to collect the comments that I have made in the last day or so on issues of language. Oh, and some added-on self-analysis and rumination.

Books

See Also…, A study of scanning habit : a couple of comments

Pegasus Librarian, The Book-ish-ness of Books : a couple of comments

Life as I Know It, A Book Is A Book Is A Book – Or Is It? : a couple of comments and an email exchange. Thanks, Jennifer! And I apologize for making your “head heart.”

Music

Pegasus Librarian, The Book-ish-ness of Books : a couple of comments (but the same as above under Books)

Communication, Content, Social

Stephen’s Lighthouse, Internet Activity Index – From communication to content

Other word issues from last couple days

On Assumptions about language use in tagging : my own post and especially my multiple comments on it.

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Before I get to my self-analysis prompted by much of this discussion, I would like to say that:

All I can say is that I hope I have been reasonably coherent across this discussion, that I am thankful to everyone for making me think, and for participating in this conversation. I also hope that whether folks agree with me or not that they see that I think there is an important difference in these two (allowed) uses of book and that I am not just being pedantic.

Sorry, ripped myself off from my own comment at Jennifer’s place.

[All the below is really just me talking to me. Read it if you must. Perhaps it'd be better not being here. I don't know. Perhaps it'll do someone some good to see that others have serious questions in their own lives, too.]

I am not trying to be a pedant. I am not trying to be an ass. I am not trying to tell others how to use language.

I am trying to show that it might matter how they do, and why it does.

I am at an odd place in my life and in my career. For many reasons, I do not know “my place” in either. I have some vision(s) of how I might fit into the profession, but it is a difficult position. In fact, it is a position that I seem to be adopting along many axes. Bridge; boundary object.

I am not a good researcher, and quite likely never will be. I am (at the moment) not a good practitioner. That, I full well know, can be remedied. I have been an extremely good practitioner; in this field and others. But at the moment I am a neophyte struggling with a complex form of practice; one which some people would argue that I, and people like me, can never really succeed at. I even accept that argument; at least, in the best of all possible worlds. But we do not have that world; so I struggle to become a good descriptive and subject cataloger, be that traditional cataloging or metadata. [I was telling Tracy just today that things would be better if I could just be Candide....]

But I do, in many ways, by bent and education, sit in the middle of practice and research. I am reasonably good at seeing how each matters for the other. Kind of hard to make a living at that, though. And one always runs the risk of becoming a thorn in the side of both camps. C’est la vie!

This is one of the biggest splits in our field I feel. Perhaps I’ll have to learn to accept a measure of success as something along the line of 1-2 helped in their thinking and/or navigating the theory-practice divide to 10-12 regretting that they even heard of this particular thorn.

Praxis (in the Donald Schon sense) is what I want to affect and effect.

Kathryn and I had a discussion of something I might do in the realm of knowledge organization research today. It seems to fall into the middle ground as above. Pauline said she expects me to do important work. Bridging this divide, or more importantly, helping others do so, is important work. She didn’t say it’d be easy work. And I’m sure she didn’t mean so either.

But as your girl says:

and the woman who lives there can tell
the truth from the stuff that they say
and she looks me in the eye
and says would you prefer the easy way
no, well o.k. then
don’t cry

…

i do it for the joy it brings
because i’m a joyful girl
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world
i do it because it’s the least i can do
i do it because i learned it from you
and i do it just because i want to
because i want to

Ani DiFranco ¤ Joyful Girl ¤ Dilate

Or, for the other view:

come on kids, let’s all hold hands
and pretend we’re having a good time

…

so just suck up and be nice

…

cuz i’m a pixie
i’m a paper doll
i’m a cartoon
i’m a chipper cheerful free for all
and i light up a room
i’m the color me happy girl
miss live and let live
and when they’re out for blood
i always give

Ani DiFranco ¤ Pixie ¤ Little Plastic Castle

Jesus, my friend, how did we get here again?

I’m a small honeybee
I drown in the water
you are my hand in the well.
HOLD ON

Bif Naked ¤ Hold On ¤ Purge