End of an Era

Today is going to be a special day for me.  I get to go to work and break apart a particularly irksome special collection.  This is one that was organized in such a way and so long ago that no one currently working at the library can remember why it exists in its current state.  What’s particularly bad this time around is that by simply following how things ought to be in Dewey, the collection would be organized in a far better way (yeah that’s pretty rare).

So today after some lengthy discussions on how patron’s search for materials and if anyone still browses the non-fiction shelves I finally get to fix this travesty.  And how do I celebrate the occasion?  I nearly cut off a finger while slicing my morning bagel, making what I have to do just that little bit more difficult (along with trying to type this post without using so many “t’s”.

Steampunk

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post purely for the sake of geeking out, and this just makes me too happy.  While I wasn’t paying attention a science-fiction sub-genre made the leap to real world movement.   Granted 1 (sizable) article in the Boston Phoenix doesn’t necessarily equal a movement, but then the Times printed an equally sizeable article in the same week (granted it listed LXG as a core influence, so it’s not perfect).  Just go and read the articles, and then try and find a copy of the Difference Engine, or at least start reading Girl Genius.

A few critiques

I just finished filling out this year’s ALA membership survey, and I feel the need to vent.  I’ll be upfront and admit that some of my ire is probably borne out of the survey’s poor design.  For one thing the forward and back arrows on each page were on opposite sides of the screen, and not the sides that would make sense (I know that’s nitpicky).  My bigger issue is the bias that was apparent in nearly every question.  Most were of the form, I get a large value out of my ALA membership, agree or disagree.  Oh and there was no space for comments, but hey that’s what the internet was made for after all.

So no, I don’t feel that I get a great deal of value.  The ALA does accomplish a great deal at the macro level within the profession, but for a medium sized library like mine they are largely irrelevant.  The effect I see there is a subscription to a magazine that tends to infuriate me (as readers of this blog must know by now), discounts for attending a conference that I’ll be able to go to the next time it’s in Boston (since it was there 3 years ago this might take awhile), a catalog for an advertising campaign that’s older than I am (and who exactly is the target audience for a Tim Gunn read poster?) and a weekly e-mail that I actually do like (mostly because it aggregates articles from sources besides the ALA).  They could do so much better.

Truthiness

This is a little late in coming, but I just discovered this great article in the Washington Post on the current state of Truth.  The article largely concerns what Stephen Colbert referred to as Wikiality, or truth by consensus.  I’m actually a huge supporter of the Wikipedia, and despite my newfound access to the Britannica I still continue to utilize it far more often, and for most of the reasons that David Weinberger elaborated on at MLA last week.

The more fascinating point the Post elaborates on here is that people are progressively becoming too impatient for truth of any other kind.  The inference here is that all questions are now expected to be ready reference ones.  There’s a great example in the article of how even the simplest reference interview can be too trying for the attention span of some of our patrons.  We may have a problem here.

No <3 for Acronyms

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in this profession for who doesn’t get the acronym thing.  Why is it that we can’t have anything sound official without resorting to one of these damn things.  Getting through a weekend of hearing about FRBR, RDA, RA, ILL, ILS, III, at the MLA conference (which incidentally lost the domain name due to the dozen or so other organizations that already use it) just made my head hurt.   And today I see that  LAMA has spent what I’m sure was an exorbitant amount of time coming up with a new name for themselves, LLAMA.  Now they just need a mascot to go with the radical name change.

A Photo Gallery

I’m feeling tired today after finally making it back home.  Thus I’ll leave you with a link to the photo pool of Michael Colford, the most prolific documenter of this year’s MLA conference.  I particularly like his shots of the game night and the book cart drill teams.  Always nice to see librarians cutting loose.

The Great Debate

The main subject from the last few conferences I have attended (at least in regards to the tech services tracks) is the future of cataloging.  We are now only a year away from the release of RDA (despite the LC’s Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control’s recommendation that work on it be suspended).  At MLA this last week I got to hear from Both Janet Swan Hill (who sat on the working group) and from Diane Hillman (an RDA supporter from Cornell).

This provided a unique opportunity to way both the pros and cons of the proposal.  RDA is supposed to replace the AACR2, which roughly speaking provides the grammar for cataloging.  The big changes in it are designed to make it play nicely with the FRBR standard, and to make updating records easier by replacing the our current text strings with URI linkages.  Both of which are admirable goals.

But then came the final report of the working group (skip to page 31 for the RDA bit).  Personally I would love to see all these changes come about, we’ve waited too long for them already.  However, I want to make clear that I’m not dismissing the work of anyone involved in these projects, I take issue with how long it took to begin the work on the new standards, not on the progress made since then.

But I am concerned with the practicality of the innovations the cataloging profession is awaiting.  Making the new standards is one thing, convincing the ILS vendors, publishers and OCLC to play along is another, and I’m not sure I see that happening yet.  Right now everyone is awaiting the RDA release next year, while in the meantime I’m still waiting for the implementation of last year’s supposed upgrade to my ILS.  So I’m just dreading the prospect of being able to see the “future of cataloging” but not being able to participate in it.

RIAA gets empowered

Here’s my morning frightfest.  According to a recent post up on BoingBoing, the House has just approved a bill that allows law enforcement to reposes anything that has been used to violate copyright in a criminal proceeding.  In theory this means that if a patron uses a library workstation to download an mp3, the library could lose their computer.  It’s amazing what a good Lobbyist can accomplish.

Decompressing

I’m back from two packed days at the 2008 MLA conference.  This year it was held in Falmouth, which was a pain to get to (I got lost 4 times, counting once in the hotel), but the conference was wonderful.  Except that I was fully intending to blog actively from there but didn’t feel like paying the daily connectivity charges at the hotel thanks to worrying about my car repairs (so I’m feeling cheap right now).

Which leaves me in the odd position of wanting the chance to digest what I’ve learned by discussing it here, while the events of the conference have already been described fully elsewhere.  Just like the previous year I was well and truly impressed with the depth of the presentations that were offered, and most importantly nearly every presenter was there to show how their ideas could actually be utilized by the attendees.  So often at these conferences I feel like the organizers have the heads in the clouds and only ever present the best case scenario.  Sure given an unlimited budget and a free hand I would love to build the ultimate library.  But MLA manages to remain practical, while not skimping on pushing for innovation and that is to its great benefit.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say later, but right now I can feel myself crashing hard.  In the meantime please read through the MLA blog linked above.  There’s a ton of great material there and the whole team of bloggers truly outdid themselves in their reporting.

Why I love comics

Sorry there’s not much of a post today, I have to get ready to drive to MLA tomorrow so I’m just rattling off something quick.

I love comics, and one of the biggest reasons for my adoration is that it’s the only medium I know of in which absolutely anything, no matter how outlandish, can get a release.  The latest case in point, Helen Killer.  The story is an alternate history in which Helen Killer regains her sight thanks to an invention of Alexander Graham Bell’s and goes to work for the Secret Service under President McKinley.

Not only did someone actually publish this, but it’s getting decent reviews.