Saturday April 17, 2004

(01:12 pm) BloggerCon II

     I had planned on staying the whole day but my head was spinning after two sessions so I thought I'd enjoy the sunshine instead.

     They are a very friendly group of people who are very positive about what they are doing. Which now that I think of it is a nice change from some of the library meetings I've been to where all we do is complain about lousy patrons and lack of funding.

     They had a nice opening session where we sang "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" and then the National Anthem accompanied by an accordion. Odd yes, but a very positive way to start a heady day.

     The first session for me was 'Vision From Users' monitored by Lisa Williams. She did a nice job of moving things along and giving direction where necessary. The goal seemed to be a lot of brainstorming about blogging tools, what they do and what they should be doing. Mostly beyond my abilities, if I had told them I was using FrontPage to manage my blog they probably would have asked if I move my car with my feet through the floorboards. I still have to look up what granularity, trackback, and wicki are supposed to mean.

     The next session was 'Librarians' monitored by Jessica Baumgart who blogs at J's Scratchpad. In some ways this was less interesting then the first. I will always argue that all librarians are cut from basically the same mold but we do work in very different environments and blogging use for a university is going to be much more different then for a company or a public library. There seemed to be some talk about searching blogs for content. I don't really see that as necessary or the purpose of the blog. To me its a conversation and if you don't catch the topic within a few days its no longer relevant. It would be like me tape recording every conversation I have and then weeks later going through those tapes to find some bit of info I had forgotten. There is a point where forgetting is a blessing, its a way of cleaning out the clutter. That's a bit of oversimplification but so be it.

     While I was sitting there trying to think of how it applies to public libraries (for the record I went into this not thinking it would apply to public libraries) I did come upon some definite use for blogging. As our circulation system has developed over the past few years we now have email capabilities to contact patrons with hold information and overdue notices. Some libraries are even creating email databases to send out news alerts concerning the library. Our Friends group has been talking about creating an email database of members to send out Friends information. I'm going to have to explore more but a blog with an RSS feed would actually eliminate the need for either of those. RSS is becoming for and more common, something I know from personal experience because my stats did take a hit on the days that LISFeed.com was down. If we start promoting aggregators to the public as an information tool, which it definitely is, then we can list whatever blog feeds we want to create on our websites and patrons can subscribe or unsubscribe as they see fit. A blog is not something that has to be updated every day or even every week. I would say that wasn't the case before RSS because if you want to attract an audience you have to be consistent and fresh. But with the RSS the patron is going to check it daily for whatever other feeds they subscribe to and if there happens to be a library alert in there terrific, if not its one less thing to read. I'm sold, now I just have to figure out the product.

     I wasn't out to do any S* promoting but I was talking to someone at the 'Librarians' session and they had heard of my site and passed it on to a conservative friend so that was cool. I also introduced myself to Jessamyn West of Librarian.net. I wanted to thank her personally for the heads up on the problems with my RSS feed. Nice woman, very positive. We didn't get into any debates which is usually a good way to keep things friendly.

     Well, that's my spiel for the day. Enjoy.

Friday April 16, 2004

(12:05 pm) Lunch

     A worthy cause and easy to do with Paypal. You can give as little as $5 or $10, it adds up fast when everyone pitches in.

     Bill Rules! But Trump is not meant for improv. The project in Chicago looks spectacular. Its nice to know America has so many people who like to think big.

Thursday April 15, 2004

(06:31 pm) Home

     Work tomorrow, Bloggercon Saturday, Sunday and Monday I'm going to enjoy the nice weather we have coming (for a change). Though somewhere in there I have to get copies of my pamphlet made for MLA.

     Bill's a lock tonight. I was disappointed Amy got the boot, as a task that interview process was brutal but fair. Still hard to believe she did that bad.

Night

(06:03 pm) Bloggercon

     Funny how things sneak up on you. Bloggercon is this Saturday. I have no idea what to expect. I'll let you know how it goes.

(05:34 pm) Library Lookup

     A fellow librarian showed us this little tool at a collection development meeting. Some of you may already be using it. You create a custom link in your links toolbar on your browser. When you see a book in Amazon or other major book catalogs that you might want to purchase for your library you click on your custom link and another window opens up to your catalog showing if your library or neighbor libraries already own it. All it really does is pull the ISBN from the web address in Amazon and plugging it into your library search engine. Incredibly simple and incredibly clever.

(05:30 pm) NRO

     Jonah Goldberg brings up open access. Scroll up to see some input from librarians. While what he is pushing for is nice in theory, paying for it is another story.

Wednesday April 14, 2004

(05:56 pm) Home

     Night

(05:39 pm) Wallbangers

     When I got my first full time job as a reference librarian, I decided to join a couple of reading listservs. Most of my own reading had been classics and sci-fi, some fantasy. So I joined Dorothy-L which was a mystery lovers one, huge membership, hard to keep track of, so I didn't get too involved. The other was RRA-L, Romance Readers Anonymous, which was actually pretty fun. I read a couple good books, some were just awful, and don't get me started on Outlander. There was a term my fellow RRA readers like to use called 'wallbanger', meaning a book so bad for whatever reason that you had to stop reading and chuck it across the room.

     I finished a book last week called Sunset and Sawdust. And while it didn't literally hit the wall it is the reason this little memory came to mind. Its actually an interesting book, enjoyable settings, good characters, easy to read and get into. Until the last 10-20 pages when you just say "What the?" The ending wasn't unrealistic but it just left you feeling cheated, you went all that way only to wind up nowhere.

(05:20 pm) Who's Asking?

     I enjoyed the press conference last night but the President looked as tired as I felt. I hear the questions reporters ask and I think "Are you kidding me?" The only people asking for apologies are those that wouldn't accept one to begin with. At least not from Bush, sure they clap at Richard Clarke's apology but only because he is focusing his little tantrum on the current administration not on the previous one.

     David Brooks over at the NYTimes had an interesting piece yesterday but he got it completely wrong. He tried to say we are being inconsistent in our stand on Afghanistan and Iraq. "We" are not, everyone voting for Kerry in November is. Many of us were Shultzians before 9/11, some Weinbergerians, but we were all Shulztians after the 9/11. Its the other side with the split personality.

Tuesday April 13, 2004

(06:08 pm) Home

     That's enough for one night. I'm going home to have some nice Easter leftovers courtesy of my sainted aunt.

     Our President is taking a press conference tonight. A little awkward since for once Gilmore Girls is actually new for a change. But hey, priorities are priorities and the W rules.

     Night

(05:53 pm) The MLS Front

     Speaking of that dreaded bit of parchment, a Mr. Boggs from Ohio comments in the MLS Forum. A few points:

1. That 'theoretical understanding' of human interaction is called manners.

2. The problem with the Dentist/Hygienist point is that in our world the Hygienist is already doing the Dentist work. Actually it would be better to say that the Hygienist is the Dentist, its the Dentist who needs not a new label, they are called Library Directors, Assistant Directors, and Dept Heads but the loss of the label Librarian because really, when you hit a certain level of management your no longer a Librarian in terms of what the public thinks or what a Librarian actually does.

3. 'Professional quality' is a stick that's been used to beat down highly skilled and very professional people who don't have that sacred MLS. Someone once told me that personal skills can't be taught. I'm not sure I agree, I think they can. The MLS however doesn't teach them. There are too many anti-social twits with one and too many friendly and motivated people without one for me to think the MLS has anything to do with it.

(05:39 pm) I Want...

     ...To Be A Librarian, was a children's book by Carla Green published in 1960. The book recently came up on auction on Ebay and I picked it up. Very cute. I was little annoyed with the part where Jane asks Miss Brown what to do to become a librarian. Her response was to go through college and then "another year at library school." Ugh.

     Anyway, the cover is cute so I've made it available in the store on a t-shirt, a mug, a coaster, and an apron. There's no profit mark-up so no money comes my way. Its just the cost to have it printed. Not a great way to sell my own stuff true, but I wasn't planning on making money on this venture to begin with.

(05:15 pm) YES!

     I ordered a bunch of items from the store and they came today! Wahoo! The notebook is cool (small and no page lines but cool)! The book bag is cool! The mug! The bear! Very cool stuff. Feel free to blow a paycheck or two! (just kidding, a half paycheck would be sufficient)

Monday April 12, 2004

(12:22 pm) Schneider

     Last week I talked about her letter in ALA. This is from an emailer:

Hi Greg, Haven't visited the site for awhile. One friendly criticism is the way in which you go after Karen Schneider. Jack Stephens over at Conservatorblog too.

The letter-writing campaign which is in the works will call for the release of the prisoners. She knows the politics of ALA and is silently, behind-the-scenes making converts to the right side of the Cuba issue (well, not our version of the Right side, but in terms of human rights, yes.)

Granted, she is not a Conservative, but if any of us want our voices and opinions respected by any of the leftie loonies at ALA, I don't think having the Ann Coulter type of sarcasm and attack is the right way to do it. I agree that the Stalinists at ALA are not even worth arguing with, but people like Schneider are thinkers and she has proven to be courteous in debate and skilled at persuasion.

Of course you could say get your own blog up, but I'm just trying to be helpful from my perspective, as one who has been a part of the anti Castro effort within the ALA and finds myself allied with mostly liberal or "progressive" people who wouldn't agree with me on a host of issues.

Have a joyous Pasch, keep up the good fight.

     Also just a note on Jack at Conservator, he defended her on this issue. I think he was after her on another issue, but not this one.

(12:18 pm) RSS