Category Archives: Current Affairs

DigiWriMo 2014

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I have committed to participating in Digital Writing Month 2014, more commonly known as DigiWriMo, this November. I did it its first year in 2012 and made my goal of 50,000 digital words. Most people who know November as a writing month know it as National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo. There is also Academic Writing Month, AcWriMo. Wikipedia says there’s an Academic Book Writing Month, AcBoWriMo but that’s a new one on me. Well, on Twitter there is no #AcBoWriMo but there is plenty of #AcWriMo.

I have been driven to write lately—perhaps driven by the mysterious and as yet undiagnosed illness; which is neither here nor there. I have so many ideas and there are tons of old ideas not finished, or ever even fleshed out, to work with.

Preparation has involved recording these ideas as they occur and corralling old recorded ones too, prepping my Scrivener project file (my writing tool), and spending more time learning to use it well.

This year my goal is ≥ 1k words/day, with a total of ≥ 25k words/November. Yes. I am aware of the missing 5 days. I am trying to be gracious with myself. [If this illness can possibly help teach me that idea then, OK, I’ll take the rest. I’m not counting on this being an actual lesson, though.]

I do not know how much I will do with the, thankfully, re-expanded DigiWriMo folks’ official efforts but I will be “playing along at home” at a minimum. I certainly hope and plan to interact a fair bit. I just have to manage my stress triggers and adding a #digiwrimo twitter search window to my already overflowing two twitter accounts for a month ….

I also recently acquired a new phone making the leap from an iPhone 4S to a 6. I had been eligible for an upgrade for well over a year and $200 was the most they were ever going to give me anymore for my 4S. Or that anyone was going to give me. For a lot of hoops and a delay of several weeks, I got to pay roughly $100 and a $35 activation fee to move from a 16GB 4S to a 64GB 6. I took that deal.

It was particularly tempting as I use both TextExpander and 1Password on my computer. They have also both been on my phone but were basically useless. Finally iOS 8 allows them both to be useful. [Sadly, I will not be putting iOS 8 on my iPad 2. It is struggling already.]

The point of all this is that having those 2 programs actually doing good work on my phone may let me use it to do just a couple more tasks than I would’ve before. Also, the bigger screen isn’t to laugh at with my old eyes. They will also allow me to more productively write digitally even though what I “write” on my phone will still be pretty damned minimal.

Some of what I write will be public, much as now although even more will be. Much will be kept private. I really want to start doing a better job of journaling, in a couple senses of ‘journal.’ I hope DigiWriMo will spur me to do so, or at least take advantage of the illness’ urging me to do so. I hope to get a few more blog posts up here and definitely more written on By the barrel.

Poetry, 2015 goal planning, book reviews, tweeting, and all sorts of other writing endeavors are on the docket. Some of the topics I hope to address, whether public or not, include Facebook, gender labels (as language), gender on labels (as in depiction of on beer labels), sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, body image, altered consciousness, and many others. We will see what happens.

If any of you are participating in some kind of writing month in November let me know if you would like some support and hopefully we can find a mutual venue.

Some things seen around the Internet lately

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Drinking with the Troops

From a local blog, Urbanagora, comes “Drinks with a Soldier.” I just love how some jackass commentor tries to hide behind the shield of anonymity and call the post author a liar. Certainly there are all sorts of views on this war, including those of the troops fighting it.

Perhaps if you ever get the chance—you could try arranging the chance—you, too, should have drinks with a soldier (or sailor, airman or marine) and find out a bit about what it is like on the ground in this war.  Of course, don’t forget the millions of servicemembers still living who served in our previous wars. A patient, caring ear would do many of them a world of good.

The value of a liberal arts education

For an interesting discussion on the value, or lack thereof, of a liberal arts education and liberal arts colleges see “On Liberal Education” at the Academic Librarian blog. Wayne Bivens-Tatum critiques the views of the author of a new book on the subject, as presented in The Kansas CW.

A spirited back-and-forth between Bivens-Tatum and the book author follows in the comments. I should state up front that I agree entirely with all of Bivens-Tatum’s points and his larger argument. The book author tries to point out some flaws in Bivens-Tatum’s arguments which simply are not there. I found that rather humorous.

But the one point I was hoping Bivens-Tatum would take up was the author’s insistence that some immediately practical subjects should get substituted for liberal arts classes because students are incurring too much debt, can’t pay their student loans, have to take high paying jobs vs. the job of their dreams, have to move back home with mommy & daddy, etc. because colleges are financially predatory.

So the solution is immediately practical vocational training? Wouldn’t better financial counseling for students, laws barring credit card companies from preying on students, educational finance reform, and so many other things be helpful, too, and perhaps even more ethically important? Have a look and see what you think.

Early Mike Wallace interviews with “important people”

Via Resource Shelf comes The Mike Wallace Interview.

In the early 1960’s, broadcast journalist Mike Wallace donated 65 recorded interviews made in 1957-58 from his show The Mike Wallace Interview to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. The bulk of these were 16mm kinescope film recordings, some of the earliest recordings of live television that were possible, and that survive today. Many of these have not been seen for over 50 years, and they represent a unique window into a turbulent time of American, and world history.

See interviews with jockey Eddie Arcaro, stripper Lili St. Cyr, actress Gloria Swanson, Steve Allen, Frank Lloyd Wright, birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger, Eleanor Roosevelt, novelist Pearl Buck, and many others.

Doing the dirty fictionally

Via 3 quarks daily we get a book review in the New York magazine of Robert Olen Butler’s Intercourse: Stories. Find it in a library near you via WorldCat.

Robert Olen Butler’s new story collection, Intercourse, is, as its title suggests, totally about doing it. It imagines the thoughts of 50 iconic couples as they knock the proverbial boots, beginning with Adam and Eve copulating on “a patch of earth cleared of thorns and thistles, a little east of Eden,” and ending with Santa Claus blowing off postholiday steam in January 2008 by doing the nasty with an 826-year-old elf in the back room of his workshop. But, as the clinical tone of Butler’s title also suggests, Intercourse is very much not a work of erotica. It tends to ignore messy fluids and crotch-logistics in favor of wordplay and psychological nuance.

Civilization and cultures

Also via 3 quarks daily we get Tzvetan Todorov in the Pakistan Daily Times thinking and writing to his usual standard of quality.

But if you look at this line of argument more closely, the flaw in Barnavi’s argument is immediately apparent. The meaning of the words civilisation and culture is very different when they are used in singular and plural forms. Cultures (plural) are the modes of living embraced by various human groups, and comprise all that their members have in common: language, religion, family structures, diet, dress, and so on. In this sense, “culture” is a descriptive category, without any value judgement.

Civilisation (singular) is, on the contrary, an evaluative moral category: the opposite of barbarism. So a dialogue between cultures is not only beneficial, but essential to civilisation. No civilisation is possible without it.

[There, S, I did it. And no, neither linking to the Academic Librarian nor WorldCat invalidates my effort. ;-) ]

3rd blogging anniversary and welcome to new readers

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Welcome new readers

On the 14th of Jan, Blake posted a story at LISNews, The LINews 10 Blogs To Read in 2008. My lowly little blog was included in that list. I have at least 29 new readers in Bloglines, which means, perhaps, 80-120 total new readers since then. Of course, the fact that the list was reproduced all over the blogosphere didn’t hurt either. ;)

Now Blake’s recommendation is wonderful to me, but I wonder what people expect based on that description. It is accurate but such a small part of me, even the part shown here. Also note the methodology; I come recommended based on a sample of probably one, perhaps two if I flatter myself. :) [There’s a tie-in in that previous link to the name of my first (public) blog, …the thoughts are broken….]

So, welcome to everyone who has come this way via the list. Please check out the other folks, too.

Please feel free to comment, correct, say your piece, etc. I do not worry about whether or not you agree with me or how long your comments are. Sometimes substance requires several paragraphs.

I do moderate all first time comments, though, to cut down on spam. Links are allowed but at some number shortly after 1 your comment will get flagged as spam, which I’ll hopefully catch. I do try to address all comments, and try to do so in a fairly timely manner. But I do sometimes fail.

And you can always use the Contact Form to send me non-public comments, too [Scroll back up and use the Contact tab at center top].

Who am I?

I am finishing a Certificate of Advanced Study (CAS) in LIS at GSLIS, UIUC. I also did my Masters here just prior to this degree. Organization and access of information has been my area with a focus on classificatory structures. Some of my post-MLS classes include thesaurus construction, classification systems seminar, information modeling, humanities ontologies, Topic Maps, bibliography, and Python programming. [Full list of my 80 or so grad LIS hours is here.]

I have worked as a computer technician for the department, broadcast distance ed classes and assisted with classroom technology, both on campus and virtual, been a thesaurus maintainer, and most recently work as both the serials cataloging GA and as one of the monographic cataloging GAs.

As I hope to be done this May (my 3rd Mother’s Day graduation, hopefully) I am now on the job market. I am primarily looking for an academic job doing something related to cataloging, metadata, vocabulary work, etc. If you know of any feel free to send me a link.

I am also a “habitually probing generalist” as my tagline claims, but that may be causally based more on brain chemistry at an early age than by culturally-trained bent [Although I have assimilated much of the cultural quite well. I’m one hell of a manual citation tracking machine, for instance]. I get intensely interested in highly specific things on occasion. And in the process of diving in deep one finds so many things one did not know about. Some of that stuff is going to be highly interesting and itself lead off in other directions. What a deliciously dangerous vicious circle this is.

3rd blogging anniversary

Three years ago today …the thoughts are broken… debuted with “So, what is this about, and for?” I once had a “best posts” which I began to update quite a while back. Not a job I actually relish although I would like people to see the stuff I prefer for whatever reason I label it “best.”

Oh. Crap. That page is much older than I thought and all of the links are broken since it moved from the first blog to this one. Oh well, perhaps you can search titles if you are interested in some of my early stuff (1 Feb – 25 Oct 2005). Some day I may get that list updated but since I’m nearing 1000 posts [and taking into account other time constraints] it won’t be any time soon.

My first blog was hosted at TypePad. On 20 July 2006 Off the Mark debuted [It does include all of my previous posts at …the thoughts are broken… but all internal links are broken]. This means I’ve been on LISHost and WordPress for more than half my online existence; that is, blogging existence and paying for hosting.

The name of my 1st blog came from a line in a Grateful Dead tune while this one was named by Richard Urban and Walt Crawford.

Since May 2006 I’ve been taking a fairly narrow path for a generalist; that is actively taking. Much of my time is taken up by this. [See this post and comments for some comments on the curse of being a generalist; and also of having an “actively wired” brain.] I am looking at what the Integrational theory of communication and language might mean for LIS if taken seriously. Thanks go to David Bade for starting me down this road.

So not an anniversary for this specific blog (although my friend, Iris, said last night that it’s the same blog with a new title. Perhaps.) but a blogging anniversary. Just to be clear.

Zotero, COinS, WorldCat, linking …

My blog has a plug-in that generates COinsS data so that OpenURL and COinS aware tools will recognize this data and do something contextual with it. For instance, Zotero (which I recommend highly) can import that data from the web page. If I click the icon [contextually variable] that shows up in my browser’s address bar the post metadata is imported: Post title, author, blog title, date of post, URL, and access date. And, no, I don’t have many of my own posts in Zotero. There are a few posts, though, that are being used in my bibliography and CAS paper so they are there.

But I also use Zotero to output COinS data to put in my posts when I cite a source, like in my weekly reading posts. And I do far more of it for print resources as it is easier and more reliable to get information in automatically. And if I can provide a resolvable URL for a web resource anyway then how important is the COinS data for them. Again, I do not have that many web-based resources in Zotero; comparatively.

I also try to link to WorldCat for stuff they have records for. By the way, they are providing data for the taking by Zotero also. A couple days ago I linked to a work record in LibraryThing that I had brought in from Oxford University being the only one in LibraryThing to have it (or claiming to have it). I got that data into Zotero from the LibraryThing work page which also gave me some data. I think, in this case anyway, that WorldCat would have been better.

So, as Blake said, I write about print stuff. I read a fair few books (mostly non-fiction) and lots of articles, to include photocopying a boatload of stuff not online. Most of it is LIS literature or related to issues in LIS.

Extraneous

Well now. I think it’s all been a bit extraneous and somehow self-indulgent so far. ;)

My blog is both personal and professional. This state has been written about and commented on many times here and elsewhere. Consider the name of my first blog, …the thoughts are broken….

Here’s a few more lines for a bit of context:

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music
Would you hold it near as it were your own?

It’s a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they’re better left unsung
I don’t know, don’t really care
Let there be songs to fill the air

Grateful Dead. “Ripple.” American Beauty.

This is the positive view of making best use of one’s broken thoughts. I’ve been listening to American Beauty since it came out and “Ripple” has always been one of my favorites and always deeply personally meaningful. That meaning has shifted and changed and grown over the years but it has always been positive.

The other side of broken thoughts though is know as fragmentation, depersonalization and moral minimalism. [See these posts perhaps. Actually, I do have an overview post of these issues less than a year old.]

Thus, the title of my 1st blog was both a warning to myself and a positive statement of how to make things better. Changing the name for my new blog had nothing to do with considering my thoughts to no longer be broken. That is a lifetime struggle based on the way our society is structured.

In the meantime, I try to keep my chin up and gently coax a few of those thoughts into being coherent and whole. As Robert Hunter wrote 38 years ago:

Let there be songs to fill the air.

Productively non-productive

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Thanks to all my friends for sending their condolences in various venues. I am uplifted by your care. I’m a right proper heathen but if your views run differently and you can spare a thought for my aunt’s family right now that’d be awesome.

She was a rock for that family. For a very long time.

[I apologize for any odd paragraph formatting below as WordPress is screwing with me relentlessly on this.]

I think or, at least, I hope that I was productively non-productive yesterday. I didn’t do anything directly related to my bibliography, although, perhaps, that could be argued.

I read lots of my own stuff (and comments) from this blog over the past year. While I did, I did lots of electronic annotations in Zotero, copied and pasted anything useful written about articles or books by Hjørland or Harris (or related) into my draft bib, noted blog posts that will be useful when I come to write my bib essay and the CAS paper as a whole in my wiki, and other minor related tasks. This morphed out of the books read in 2007 delaying tactic I was on primarily Saturday.

Late in the evening, I took the content of my 2 posts on Hjørland’s “Semantics and Knowledge Organization” ARIST chapter [part 1, part 2]and got them re-formated into a Word doc with any redundancies removed and internal and external citation lists merged for both at the end. Printed out it’s 11 pages solid. Now I’ve got to put that work—and an awful lot of unanswered questions, some very big—to even more work. Still. This is mostly CAS paper stuff primarily; although, this is the paper with the one Harris reference. Hmmm. Definitely bib material.

I’ve been varyingly unhappy, perhaps unsatisfied is better, with my blog for quite a while. Can’t quite put my finger on what exactly about it that bugs me. But I do know that it’s various, and varying.

Part of it is not being able to cover everything I’d like as deeply and/or as broadly as I’d like. But that’s just life. I do wish that my “Some things read this week…” posts were better. Better in the sense of more fleshed out entries for far more of the things read. Some wrap-up thoughts, etc. “Progress” is important but this is a prime area where I could employ some goals towards Slow Reading. [Please ignore that “progress.” I wrapped way too much up in that term.]

Speaking of John Miedema, there was an interesting post and comments at a recent post, “Have you set an end-date for your blog?” [BTW, there are frequently interesting things to read at Slow Reading.]

Have you set an end-date for your blog? Interesting question, and idea. For the right reasons, it is a grand idea.

In a comment, John writes:

Hi Peter, I’ve put one blog to “sleep” so far (http://johnmiedema.wordpress.com). It was my first public blog, had the usual first blog characteristics — wandering mission, odd mix of personal and professional — and was a real learning experience.

Well, I guess—nope, didn’t put it to sleep but gave it a new manifestation and expression, and name—that is fairly similar to me. It explains my 1st blog pretty well, and it explains this one, too.

wandering mission, odd mix of personal and professional — and was a real learning experience

Well, my mission wanders no more than I do so not really applicable, although all output probably evidences differently as far as appearance to others. But an intentional “odd mix of personal and professional,” certainly. And it remains forever—hopefully—a learning experience.

I know John wasn’t implying that these “usual first blog characteristics” are anathema to every blog. Perhaps just those he’d prefer to write. ;)

Hell, I’d love to be able to write a highly focused topical blog or two. And that’s also a part of my non-satisfaction with this blog. But writing those blogs is not me. Or, at least, not me right now.

And based on what I read yesterday, it has been highly focused for a while now. It’s just highly spotty, and not really intended to be so focused.

End date? Sure. It’ll definitely have one. I’m just in no position to set one right now, unsatisfied as I may be. Let’s hope I don’t just disappear it, though. :)

Opportunities come … and go; just as fast

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A couple hours ago I wrote and sent off an email that I found very difficult to write.

This weekend I received an email asking me to sit on a panel at ALA to help discuss a topic of current concern to some. But, unfortunately and for various reasons, I decided early in the year not to go to ALA. I chose to go to NASIG instead (June), along with ASIST (Oct.). I have since added ISKO-NA/NASKO in June.

Despite having lodging in the DC area, there is simply no way I can decide to go at this late date. I most certainly cannot afford it, nor can I afford to miss even more days of work.

But how is one to turn down such an offer? This is certainly the highest level invitation of any kind I have received in my so far short library career; probably even of my whole life.

I know some of you turn down these sorts of things frequently. But did you turn down the 1st one? “They” say “timing is everything” and so much about the timing(s) of this is perfect. But bounce that timing off the reality of life and it skews real poorly on one or more axes. OK, one axis. Money.

Several people of importance to me are encouraging me to accept and I am grateful to them for that wisdom. But it simply is not to be. <sigh>

But. Tomorrow I start a(nother) new job and will become a Rapid Monographic Cataloging GA (well, hourly for the summer; GA in the fall). Yay, me!

I am seriously looking forward to actually making some forward progress each day (as in number of titles cataloged). My serials gig is anything but rapid. It’ll be hard to remember that I can only do copy cataloging with the monographs, though. ;)

Life is full of trade-offs it seems. And some of them are even good ones.

P.S. I was reasonably OK with my decision a few hours ago, but now I am finding it hard to fathom that I said “No, thank you.” I can certainly believe the reality of it, though. Oh well. “Buck up, kid! You get to learn something new tomorrow.”

No IM and other things

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Computer

To my few IM buddies I will not be available the next … days. I took my laptop to the shop this afternoon. The trackpad had been locking up a lot lately, and last night the whole machine just got stoopid! I’m really worried and praying that it is still under warranty. I believe it is; but my beliefs are not exactly relevant.

I’m also pissed because I was going to do a full backup before taking it in. I have a fairly current almost complete backup, but I really would have liked to be able to just dump the whole thing to the external drive first.

They won’t even be looking at it until tomorrow. <sigh>

Life ….

You know, we’re just going to leave that one alone for now.

I have “arrived”

I guess by one scale I have finally “arrived.” I made it into American Libraries Direct for my reporting on the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control meeting. I really don’t even have a problem with their claim that “Blogger Mark R. Lindner offers extensive notes on the session, which featured a controversial presentation by University of Chicago cataloger David Bade….” Some do consider it thus, although I do not.

I just really wish they had linked to the first post. It seems to me to be more like yellow journalism to link to the one post that reports on the presentation that might be considered controversial, or that they have labeled as such. It also does not help that it is the only presentation that I questioned in any true way. As it has already become abundantly clear to me, many people fail to see the labor of love and actual respect that I have for David Bade’s views in my questioning.

I wrote what I did there, and in my follow-up, because I care deeply about his message being heard and, more importantly, being understood by those who need to hear it. I fear even more will now only see my questioning. For that I am especially sorry to David Bade.

The “system” is once again poised to shut down dialogue.

Conferences

I am now officially registered for both NASIG and NASKO. Here we come June, Louisville and Toronto. Woohoo!

Is the replication of information a form of activism, and can it even be so?

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I am assuming that most of you are aware of the current flap over the posting, printing, displaying, and reproduction of the 16-byte hexadecimal number that is one of the cryptographic keys that—with some more knowledge; the number is not in itself magical—can unlock the encryption of HD and Blu-Ray DVDs and, thus, allow for the copying of them. [See Wikipedia article.]

Some of my friends have even participated by posting the number on their blogs, perhaps even ordering a t-shirt.

I would like to ask you to read this [i d e a n t: “Rebellion by Numbers“] before finishing this post. It is not required but it is what shifted my thoughts in this direction. It is also more elegant that I can be, and links to several other writers.

Prime caveat: I do not mean to criticize those who have publicly reproduced this number. In fact, in some way, I applaud you. I, too, do not believe that numbers should be generally ownable property. But it is far more complex than that.

Having worked on a nuclear missile site in my earlier days I do not even want to think about this kind of “activism” getting hold of the PAL keys and spreading them around because someone thinks the military should not “own” these numbers. Now, while I don’t think they would actually claim to own these numbers, that delicacy would not prevent your swift removal to a detention camp or, perhaps even, your execution as a traitor to your country.

“Ownership” is only a small part of the issue here. Nonetheless, that is not my concern.

My concern centers around the last several and, in particular, on the last paragraph of Mejias’ post.

When activism is defined solely in terms of the exchange of information, we are reducing the options available for acting. That is how an encryption key (information in its purest form) was easily converted into a “subversive message” whose replication and dissemination was seen as a revolutionary act. As long as we’ve had media —and I’m afraid emerging “social” media don’t pose a significant alternative— we’ve seen this dynamic: the replication of information has itself come to define what it means to act, has become the source of meaning. The individual goes from being a social actor to an intersection of information flows. She possesses more information than ever before (about global warming, about genocidal poverty, about the false pretenses under which wars are started), but all she can do is replicate and pass on this information. The purer the information (09 F9 …), the more efficient the activism.

I feel that this may be one of the biggest [sets of] questions for our age and, particularly, for librarianship.

When is the replication of information activism?

Can it even be activisim?

If so, is it efficient?

It seems that the replication of information may [or should be] be a necessary condition for activism, but it does not seem to be sufficient to me. Perhaps there are some (small?) sets of circumstances where the simple act of replication of information constitutes activism; perhaps this current case is even one of them. But it seems to me that further action [of certain sorts] would clearly magnify the efficacy of the activism. Perhaps actual letters to your elected representatives, letters to your local newspapers to attempt to bring the issue to the attention of more of the citizenry, …?

Is this form of cyber-movement primarily a way to make people feel good about themselves? “I did something. I participated.”

Please. I do not mean to point fingers. I include myself in this—or even a lesser “active” group—as I have done nothing.

But truly—as Mejias and others ask—what other causes are there? What other issues of importance? Perhaps even of far more importance? In some ways this is a “free speech” issue, among others. But what about active police suppression of peaceful protesters for the last several years? Poverty, hunger, lack of medical care, wars of aggression in the name of democracy? All of these seem far more important to me than some DVD encryption key.

I’m not sure I’m even up to the task of engaging in this question; certainly not as well as I’d like. Someone like Rory Litwin or Jessamyn West are far better qualified than me. Nonetheless, I believe that these are some of the fundamental questions of our age, and that as librarians we have a responsibility to honestly and seriously—in a nuanced and critical way—ask, “Is the replication of information a form of activism?”, along with its associated questions.

Smoke-free and I’m missing it…

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Besides the many reasons being sick sucks … my town just went smoke-free a couple nights ago and I’m not able to go out and support my local establishments.

Actually, Urbana went smoke-free at the beginning of January and I have been enjoying the $2 pints of fresh Guinness (natch!) the last couple of Mondays at Crane Alley. Although last week some jackass was in the bathroom smoking. I don’t care if it’s cold out, dude; it’s the law! I let it slide and didn’t turn him in because I wasn’t in the mood, and I’m not a narc either.

But I really want to go support a few places in Champaign. Blind Pig, for instance, and a few others. I cannot wait to experience these places smoke-free!

It’s about time we entered the 21st century on this one. To all my smoking friends or even non-friends, I am sorry for you. But, really, too bad. You never did have a right to pollute the public environment and make others stink and, worse, sick. You only had the privilege. There are things tha others must remain at home and do. Now it’s your turn.

Thank you Champaign-Urbana for becoming an even better place to live!

Now if we can only make it through this dumbass Super Bowl thing. :(

Shutting down conversations … and starting them

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So much for my pleasure with myself over how I wanted to use the Calhoun Report to focus on what our “response” might be. I really wanted to discuss What can we accept from it? What needs a different scope, modal verb, etc. for acceptance? What can be added? And, the big one, how we’ll pay for it?

It didn’t turn out that way. Too many others are still at earlier stages of engagment with the report. And I honestly cannot, and do not want to try to, answer “So what did she mean by getting rid of LCSH? What exactly…?” [The best I could say to that was that they could listen to her on just that question in her own words since all of us present have access to the interview with her in Steve Oberg’s Tech Services class on 2 Aug.] Oh well. I can’t really be upset; I have spent far more time with this report and various responses to it than many, many others. It took me a long time to get to the point where I wanted to use it as a catalyst to a discussion of what we need to be doing; thus, I am not faulting my fellow students. Maybe in another venue….

Truthfully, I am tired of talking about “Calhoun, the Report.” It is seriously flawed at both micro- and macro-levels. It has seriously questionable unstated assumptions. It doesn’t begin to cite where it should…. Stop! See. It’s easy to beat up on it. I hereby resolve to do my best not to beat up on it anymore. I will (try to) speak negatively of it only when I need to critique a specific flaw in a related context.

I think “we” will be living with “Calhoun, the Report” for a long time. I hope that this, “the best of all possible worlds,” turns out such that this report is known historically as a defining moment in the world of classification—that this was what “woke us from our dogmatic slumbers.”

As Edward Swanson points put in his “book review,” the Calhoun Report effectively “damaged the prospects for discussions to be conducted amicably in the near future” (LRTS, 50(4):295-6). I haven’t been the best of help in bringing this back to a good discussion either (not that I could have half the impact of Karen Calhoun). But I’m finally ready to move on. Maybe I’ve grown up some, maybe I’ve spent enough time and had enough small discussions of it and some more education on related topics and I’m now ready to have an ethical response to it, maybe I’m just getting old, maybe I’ve realized that the message I want the decision makers to hear isn’t telling itself, maybe …. Probably some of all of this.

I think “Calhoun, the Report” calls for a response. Part of that response will be “conversation,” again at least in “the best of all possible worlds.” Discussion, advocacy, education, training,…. Actual dialogue about these and other important topics. While talking is a form of doing, more active doing is also required. Test projects, standardization work, advocacy, education and training,…. I hope to be involved in this response in multiple ways.

I want to be involved in the dialogue. It is beginning to show up in some places. It needs to show up in more. Maybe some people will only hear the message by overhearing it, by catching it obliquely. “Whatever,” I say. As long as they are hearing “the message.”

Let me just state for the record, I despise the marketing of almost any message. I called marketers (the “industry [includes education thereof]”) the Anti…, repeatedly, before ever leveling that name at Karen Calhoun. But I am enough of a realist (or simply old enough) to have some idea of how the world works. In fact, by despising “them” I am actually giving them credit for the impact marketing has.

Many of the important ideas have been around for a very long time. They are all critical today. They are being used; by people who can afford to pay. We finally have the computational ability (affordability, primarily) to do things thought of at least as far back as 1867. Cutter and multiple class numbers, anyone? Many other wonderful ideas arose in the intervening decades. But for a long time, computing “power” was non-existent and expensive. Now that we can finally do many of the things dreamed of for 130 years, some of “our leaders” want to dismantle the whole structure. [Why do I pick so many darn underdogs? Something about being a small kid….]

So what is this “message” of mine that is going to cause me to switch to the dark side and being “marketing”? I can’t exactly say yet. I can give you some “bones” for now and maybe by Halloween I’ll have a little “flesh” to put on them. It will be fluid for awhile.

Disclaimer: I am not asking anyone to join me, there is no bandwagon, the only catchy slogan I have so far is “Free the Authorities!,” which is definitely not exactly a buzzword. And it could get old at some point. I swear there’ll be no beta, and certainly no 2.0.

Semantics will, though, be important. Nuances of meaning will be brought out when required. What I would love is some dialogue. Contribute whatever you can when you can with whatever strength or weaknesses you bring to the discussion. Question and push me.

I am unsure what form this “dialogue” might take and where I might contribute. But feel free to remind me of something I might do, such as there’s this wiki over here that needs something about “authority control,” or…. I hope to get back to the library (or more so anyway) in my “new” home here at Off the Mark.

Pauline’s classification seminar was great! The format has some issues but you’d be [choose your own nasty adjective] to not take a class with Pauline Cochrane. It has left me invigorated mentally and helped me regain a sense of hope, even if it is a small hope. Even though my Calhoun discussion went where I didn’t want it to, but knew it would, go I am looking to this report and its ilk to motivate me into a positive response. There are some stories that need to be told in our and allied fields. There are some things that need to be demonstrated. Some of this is happening in diverse places. Maybe I’ll pass some of that on here.

So here is what I’m excited about at the moment — interoperability, internationalization, actually using classification systems to their fullest, freeing authorities, new data structures, vocabulary control, thesauri, classification systems, faceted classification, classification for the Web, exchanging this kind of data, making it play well together, making good use of the installed base of LCC and DDC, faceting LCSH, …. Oh, and the questions in the first paragraph.

I don’t really know what is going to change around here. But when I get as excited as I did yesterday by the 025.431: The Dewy blog — EPC day 2: Highlights post so that I post the following to our class bulletin board after the final class of the semester, then something is up.

See this blog report about day 2 of the EPC meeting. Stuff on UDC harmonization of Religion in DDC, Dewey training,

“update on the status of our new editorial support system. We are working out the details of data conversion from the current ESS proprietary format to an enhanced version of the MARC 21 Format for Classification Data (and to an enhanced version of the MARC 21 Format for Authority Data for the Relative Index). The format conversion will facilitate improved data representation within the system, and easy distribution of data in XML and other formats.”

And “Dewey numbers in authority files.”

Maybe something of interest to you…

I’ll definitely be looking at the “enhanced MARC 21 formats.” Thanks all for a great class! :)

See the upcoming post for more on these and related matters.

Just remember, nothing to join and since I can’t carry a tune there’s no reason for a wagon for this band of one [Walt, thank you for making my day! You often do.]

Shiny new battery

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Yesterday I received my shiny new replacement battery from Apple. My PowerBook did not need one in the first recall, but did from the second. I took the opportunity to gentle “realign” my case and you can barely tell it fell now.

Now, I’m going to need a new battery myself after that little meeting yesterday morning. If we don’t talk about it, then it didn’t really happen? Right? [That is completely rhetorical; that said, smart-***ed is ok, but I can really do without snide.] For now, I’ll be doing a couple hours of work/wk on a thesaurus for now. More later.

Pauline’s class ends today. I’ll be turning in Common Exercise C on Linked Subject Access Systems – Toward Improved Faceted Topical Searching in OPACs and on the Web using LCSH and LCC/DDC. That’s a mouthful.

I’m also leading discussion on the Calhoun Report. My focus will be on what is good in it, how do we “justify” the costs (to others), and how do we pay for it all? [Some of of you possibly reading this need to pick your jaw up off the floor, and/or you are proud of me. Me, too. Both. Growing up sucks, but sometimes just happens.]

I really do like my PowerBook a lot more again now without the explicit dents.  I think I’ll have to give her a few more loving taps with the little hammer and the Post-its.

Anyway, so much for any sort of (small) break when this class is over. I can make it to December, I can make it to December… [I can survive December…].

Here’s to everyone’s day!  Time to consider getting ready to catch a bus to go finish some original cataloging of a serial from 1900.  It is a succeeding title and has a major name change within the 8 issues we have.  Our Cataloger’s Destop account expired yesterday.  I don’t use AACR2 much, but I still rely on the CONSER Editing Manual.  A lot.  Should be interesting.  Maybe I’ll have to get acquainted with the paper CONSER….