Marianaria Sra. Bibliotecaria

So, do you want customers or not?

2009-12-28T09:20:00.000-08:00

All of the stores in the mall I work behind started opening at 8am during Christmas week. The change in hours, however, was a secret: there were no signs posted anywhere I could see that announced the change. In previous years the exterior entrances all had posted schedules of December changes in hours, but there weren't any this year.

Do they want customers or not? The tenants might want them, but they aren't getting much help from the mall management.

Selling the sizzle, or selling burlap bags

2009-10-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

The latest company to purchase all of the advertising space at the Embarcadero BART station is the often-reviled fast-food chain whose coffee surprisingly was rated highest by a rating agency a few years back. Let's paraphrase an acting expression and call it the Scottish restaurant.

Also doing some advertising these days is the leading purveyor of brewed coffee, whose patrons' daily purchases are frequently an example of things to forego in articles suggesting ways to economize. Let's call that chain Celestial Dollars. I've seen one of their billboards at a BART station I rarely go to, and some print ads.

The Scottish restaurant's billboards blanketing the Embarcadero station have a perky orange/yellow bacground; half have snappy sayings along the lines of (I never wake up enough in my morning commute to write down the ads) "brewed just around the corner," "less than half the fare to Orinda" --- a nice acknowledgment of where the billboards are --, and a few others I can't remember. Every other billboard has those lines, on the perky background; the others have up-close views of a the coffee drinks ---- oooh, foam; ooooh, whipped cream and chocolate. As the old saying goes, advertising isn't selling a steak, it's selling the sizzle. The Scottish restaurant seems to be doing a good job of selling, if not the sizzle, then the aroma of coffee.

Celestial Dollars, on the other hand, has its billboard (the one I've seen) and its print ads (I've seen more than one) with text on a burlap bag. The color is a burlapy-brown. There are no photos of coffee products. The texts are either annoying (something about some drink is "like an adult blanky" --- excuse me Celestial, that's WAY too sweet for me) or bland (something about their buyers go everywhere to purchase coffee beans; something that suggests they have high social concerns for those who grow the beans -- true enough for the fair-traded coffee beans it uses, but those aren't the only coffee beans, as I understand it.) Overall the ads are bland. No sizzle; either cutesiness, or an appeal to conscience.

Maybe the blandness of the ads reflects the fact Celestial Dollars hasn't had to advertise much up to now. Presumably this step into advertising reflects the fact that some patrons are listening to those articles on how to save money, and are either switching to the Scottish restaurant, or just plain skipping the chance to not just buy an expensive coffee drink, but to personally micro-manage each ingredient in the drink at Celestial Dollars. For whatever reason, the company is now advertising, but not selling much of a sizzle. I suspect I am not the only person who doesn't salivate at the picture of a burlap bag. Now, coffee with whipped cream and chocolate -- that's another thing entirely.

Checking for children?

2009-09-21T14:06:00.001-07:00

The other day I received one of those junk-mail envelopes in the mail that has lots of different ads, more or less focusing on my area. They occasionally have a coupon or two I can use, or can save with the intent to use, so as usual I flipped through all of the ads.

While I don't need to buy any checks right now, the illustrations in the ad from a company that sells checks caught my eye. What caught it were child-friendly designs that took up most of the first and second pages, and a lot of the third. The first page was awash with checks featuring Disney characters -- Pooh and friends; Disney princesses (the ensemble phrase now used for Cinderella, Snow White, Pocahontas, the Beauty with or without the Beast, maybe Sleeping Beauty and the little Mermaid -- I'm not sure;) Mickey and friends, etc; also from whoever produced Daffy Duck and friends; also, for some reason, the Ratatouille rat (I thought that movie hadn't been a very big hit); Betty Boop; and I forget all the others. The other pages were heavy on cutesy little girls, angels, cherubs, etc.

My immediate reaction was to wonder just how many children (mostly, girls) have checking accounts. I must have been avoiding doing some sort of work at home as I kept staring at the illustrations, which showed one design per set on a simulated check, complete with printed name and address. What caught my attention next was that all of the checks in the flyer had the same name, something like George and Mary Smith.

This led, of course, to musings on George pulling out his checkbook to pay for a round of beers with his buddies, and there, for all to see, is a wonderful illustration of one of the Disney princesses on his check. Hmmmmmmm.

I looked through all the sample designs to see what was most macho, and found very few: some Harleys (lots of women ride them too); some macho kids designs (Transformers, Spiderman, Batman); and some rustic outhouses. Maybe there were a few with US flags, US military insignia, and bald eagles, but for the most part, things vaguely male in orientation were vastly outnumbered by all the girlish ones.

I've been mulling over the ad ever since I saw it -- and have meanwhile seen shorter ones in other mailers and in the Sunday advertising supplements, and they, too, all seem rather heavy on princesses, etc. Do men buy these designs? Do they use these designs if purchased by the female half of the printed name? Do these companies know what they are doing? Since I feel vaguely through the looking glass, shouldn't there be checks with Alice in Wonderland?

Woodstock and Warrior Potatoes

2009-06-22T09:52:00.000-07:00

Two of the advertising inserts in yesterday's Sunday newspaper had some entertaining stuff.

The insert for the suburban big box store whose name is often pronounced with a French accent had a two-page spread for "Woodstock Exclusives" to "celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival ...." You, too, can now have the Woodstock logo (dove on guitar fret, with one human hand holding down some of the strings) on paper plates or napkins! Or a reversible picnic blanket, solid orange on one side, with a (non-psychedelic) repeating pattern of "3 days of peace and music" on the other side.

The "3 days" slogan is also on plastic tumblers and on some tees. However, in the upper left corner of the two-page spread is a bumper-sticker shaped box, with "Woodstock" and the trademarked logo on one line, followed by "Forty years of peace, love and music" on the second line. Presumably love was left out of the items for sale by the big-box store because someone recognized that in the Woodstock context love was the S in S, D, and R&R description of the sixties (here tactfully not spelled out.)

Meanwhile, in another ad from a big-box store that has a letter of the alphabet preceding "Mart"as its name, there was a two-page spread for Transformers tie-ins from the movie. All in dark colors, except, down in the lower right corner, there was a bright yellow figure, described as "Mr. Potato Head Bumble Spud Taterobt. No ordinary fries, these are POTATOES IN DISGUISE! tm." Only $8.99: I found this so funny I might go buy one. To heck with peace and love.

Wink wink, nudge nudge

2009-06-11T15:12:00.001-07:00

A billboard on the SF Muni platform at the Embarcadero Station shows that one company knows some slang -- or has an ad agency that does. The ad is for combined cable and phone services, and says, as far as I can remember: "Check out our package. You know you want to," followed by something like "Proud to celebrate SF Pride." That's the clue as to the slang.

It resonates nicely with the one two billboards away touting solar panels, with something along the lines of "Stimulus packages on the roof." That wasn't intended to be slang, but now seems to be.

Sometime it pays to be semi-awake during ones commute.

I love old dictionaries

2009-04-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

Jessamyn West has some interesting comments on ALA's new Connect site: http://www.librarian.net/stax/2773/i-feel-that-i-should-mention-ala-connect/#comment-124372

I added a comment to her post, and felt that I needed to check the spelling of "unfortunately," one of the words in my comment. I used a nifty 1934 edition of Webster's New International Dictionary, unabridged, near the reference desk, and on the way to "unfortunately" I ran across "unforeskinned." Yes, it means circumcised.

Dictionaries: so much fun for simple minds.

An Extraterrestial Rosetta Stone?

2009-01-27T14:16:00.000-08:00

Rosetta Stone is a company that sells foreign-language courses in a box -- probably on CDs, maybe on DVD. The only print ad I've seen shows a teenage boy in jeans, a white tee shirt, and a baseball-style cap, against a backdrop of a field. He's holding a Rosetta Stone box, settling his cap firmly on his head, and looking determined. The caption says something along the lines of "He's a hard-working farm boy. She's an Italian super-model. He knows he has just one chance to impress her." I find the ad both funny and sweet -- and sort of wonder about the back story: just where is he going to meet her? How did he find out about her?

Being without a tv, I only recently saw a tv ad for the same product while channel surfing during a motel stay. The tv version of the ad lacked the story line, but instead had a surprise in its list of customers: along with the US State Department (that makes sense) and the Department of Defense (that also makes sense,) there was also NASA.

NASA? Do the available languages include some extraterrestial ones? Let's try a print ad on that one: He's only a dedicated astronaut from planet Earth; she's a Venusian princess with 12 arms. He knows he has just one chance to impress her before being mauled to death by Venusian sabre dogs."

I love advertising.

Spiritual Endeavours in Olden Times

2009-01-16T10:43:00.000-08:00

I just stumbled across an 1886 publication by the London Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: Vocabularies of the Niger and Gold Coast, West Africa.

This is a short publication, with a small number of words and just a few phrases in separate sections for the Yoruba, Nupe, Kakanda, Igibira, Igara, Ibo, Ga (Akra,) and Obutu languages. The vocabulary list and phrases reflect every-day communication, not religious terms, and translate the same English words/phrases in each language.

One approach to spreading Christian knowledge is hinted at by the prominent number of words/phrases involving to beat. The English list of words: beat, to beat, beating, having beaten, I beat, thou beatest, he beats, we beat, you beat, they beat, I am beating, I had beaten, I may beat, I shall beat, I am beaten, I was beaten, I shall be beaten, Beat him well and bind him with ropes, I have beaten his son with many stripes.

A handy verb list, presumably all in the imperative, consists of: go, eat, sit, come, beat, stand, die (!,) give, run.

It wasn't easy being the object of conversion activities in the past.

Author's affection for alliteration is annoying

2009-01-13T09:57:00.000-08:00

On BART this morning I started reading American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century, by Paula Uruburu. (New York: Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Group USA, 2oo8.) According to the book-jacket, the author is an English professor. My impression is that she may have spent too much time in grad school reading Victorian three-decker novels.

The book demonstrates both a mania for alliteration and a dedication to adjectives and adverbs that scream for an editor. The four-page introduction alone includes, in part, "a winsome, waif-like, and wide-eyed Evelyn Nesbit," "class of calculating Calvinists," "priapic city over which the preternaturally and passionately inspired [Stanford] White," plus a number of shorter alliterative phrases: betrayed and broken-hearted, purveyor and pillager, minted mansions, magnificent mansions, empires of excess, creator whose corrupted Garden, and tiled and terra-cotta confines. Chapter one includes this phrase in a longer (believe it or not) sentence: "a thrilling and ingenious decade of crusaders and con men, cakewalks and coon songs, contradictions and coincidences, class wars and conspicuous consumption ...." Unfortunately, all of the foregoing examples are only a small sample of what's available.

Chapter one also includes this sentence, for a change with few adverbs and little alliteration, but still plenty of adjectives: "The anticipation of a new millennium was absolutely electric as the last minutes of the withering 1800s hung suspended in the frigid air, overripe and ready to drop." I'm up to page 38 and am, without being withered, ready to drop my interest in the book due to the overripe prose.

Where's the Index?

2009-01-08T11:07:00.000-08:00

My new phone book arrived in late December. Last week I needed to use the yellow pages to look for a smog check station, and that's when I discovered that the yellow pages index has been done away with. I'm not sure if it was called an index, but it worked like one: you could look up the term you wanted, and find out what heading the phone company was using. I did find the section: auto smog brake and lamp inspection and repair. Good luck, however, to someone looking for a shop that specializes in brake repair, as there is no heading autro brake, and no cross reference. Ditto for "lamp" repair, but there is auto electrical. My general impression is that the phone company is trying to jack up the number of yellow page listings by making it necessary for a company to buy listings under different headings.

A few years back I needed to use the index to look up services for the elderly, and the index was a big help in providing a lot of category headings. Looking in the phone book today, there's a heading for "Elderly Care Product and Services," with one company, and no cross-references. That's really too bad. I needed the information then as my mother had just started the two-year decline that preceded her death, and I was new to the whole field of services for -- well, I guess, the elderly. It was daunting finding information at first, but ultimately I discovered the care company I used for those two years, and without which I couldn't have managed or kept my sanity. I can't remember if I found it through the phone book, or from a flyer at a restaurant in an area surrounded by senior housing and nursing homes. I do know that for some reason, it's not listed under elderly care. Thinking about it today, I'm not sure what all the phone book categories were, so I'm not sure where I would start if I had to do it again, other than looking under nurses of various types. (Just thinking about this has my stress level rising retroactively in what I think of as post traumatic stress from that period.)

Holiday Slog Blog: Week 5

2008-12-22T10:52:00.000-08:00

My Speciality: Fine Whines

Monday, Dec 22: The end of the slog is in site: my boss is scheduled to be back on December 26. That means I have to start clearing away all the accumulated stuff on the reference desk -- every bit of silver has a cloudy center.

Friday we received in the mail an envelope from the main branch, stamped confidential, but with no staffer's name. Today, we received another one, without the confidential stamp, but still no name. At least that one I could open with a fear of breaching confidentiality. On Friday I sent a letter to the entire library system asking whoever sent the confidential letter to get in touch -- and that person did, and apologized for not adding a staffer's name.

Wednesday, Dec 24: Today at work we have bagels and shmears; butterscotch fudge; chocolate-covered raisins; a box of See's candy; and pumpkin bread. All these provide noshes for four employees and three volunteers. Hope we have enough. Later: the last volunteer in brought cookies and cheese, salami, and crackers. Maybe we will have enough.

Friday, Dec 26: Hurrah hurrah, my boss is back! And we have even more stuff to eat, thanks to one of our part-time staffers, who brought in panetonne! (And, later, gave me a tin of cookies that I will share.)

An educational holiday newsletter

2008-12-19T08:49:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season for holiday newsletters. I rather like the few I get, probably because I don't know anyone with wonder-kids and/or a million dollars they spent in the previous year, so the news in the letters isn't annoying. (However, I find annoying the signature on one composed by a cousin's husband, as it is signed with his name, followed by "and wife [name] and sons [two names.]" If he wants to write cast lists for plays he should do that, rather than sign family correspondence.)

One newsletter this year, from a college friend who lives in Virginia, included a mention of a trip she and her husband had taken around Virginia (maybe a staycation?) and produced this amazing factoid: Sherwood Forest Plantation, the estate near Charles City originally owned by John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States (1841-1845,) is currently owned by the (living) grandson of that president.

What? That's one family with an unusually short family tree. Turning to the ever-helpful World Book Encyclopedia, I found out that after the death of his first wife, (22 months after -- no Romeo POTUS he,) Tyler married, in 1844, a 24-year old woman with whom he had seven children before he died in 1862. Turning then to the Sherwood Forest Plantation website, I noticed it has a genealogy. It shows more than one grandchild still living, all from the second wife, but not all with Tyler's seventh child ( a daughter) as the parent.

I don't know if the current owner is tall or not -- his genes are long, but his jeans might not be.

Burning Love -- or is that the BBQ?

2008-12-18T12:40:00.000-08:00

Leah Garchik's column in the December 17, 2008, San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfgate.com) had this item:

"For $3.99 a bottle, Burger King is out with a new men's body spray, Flame, that "features the scent of seduction with the hint of flame-broiled meat." Unfortunately, they don't have perfume counters at Burger Kings. You have to go online, to www.firemeetsdesire.com, to purchase this product."

I think Burger King is missing a bet here. Why not have a perfume counter, at least during this December. Where better to shop at the last minute? Nothing like buying a nifty gift and getting a nosh at the same time. Then if you're hard-pressed for wrapping, you can put it in the Burger King box or paper your nosh came in -- add a little ketchup to the paper for a seasonal red tone.

Holiday Slog Blog, Week 4

2008-12-15T11:10:00.000-08:00

My Speciality: Fine Whines

Monday, Dec 15: Last week I couldn't get the Slog Blog to space correctly -- that's why it looks so terrible.

I may have over-anticipated stress (well, that's what being a pessimist is all about, no?) as the past three weeks have been notable mostly for boredom, with few patrons, few questions, and some inability to get things done because I can't do everything on the ref desk computer that I can at my desk. So I've added boredom as a label, just to show that I can move with the times.

Despair was never so funny

2008-12-15T09:41:00.000-08:00

I just discovered http://www.despair.com/, thanks to http://www.librarian.net/stax/2615/sustaining-20-services-in-libraries/ --- I looked at the power point presentation, and came across this quote, under a picture of pencils and the heading "Planning," from despair.com : "Much work remains to be done before we can announce total failure to make any progress."

If you can barely muster even a tepid interest in motivational posters, take a look at Despair, which specialized in demotivational posters that more or less gently spoof the motivators. Wonderful stuff, with full color graphics, just like the motivators -- but without the exclamation points.

Demanding Beggars

2008-12-12T09:08:00.000-08:00

No, the title doesn't refer to panhandlers. It refers to an out-of-state public university library that sent an interlibrary-loan request with this borrowing note in the section regarding shipping:

Loans by 1st class or express. Copies by e-mail, express mail.

Well lah-de-dah. We lack the facilities to scan material for email transmission, plus they want an entire small book which we wouldn't scan if we did have the facilities. We mail using library or media rate, whatever it's called these days. We have twice in the past year run out of money for postage. We have no budget for using anything but the US Post Office.

Politeness keeps me from responding that we can't meet their picky requirements; fortunately, the item is non-circulating so that's all we have to say.

Holiday Slog Blog, Week 3

2008-12-09T10:30:00.000-08:00

My Speciality: Fine Whines

Tuesday, Dec 8: I rode past my stop on Muni this morning -- in fact, I rode three stops beyond my stop. Fortunately, I noticed we were at Civic Center San Francisco, not Civic Center Oakland, and got off. I wasn't even reading an interesting book: I was reading the newspaper, and not even anything particularly interesting (ho hum, California is about to collapse financially; ho hum, most of the bailout money approved by the feds is already spent; ho hum, some large percentage of people who had their mortgages adjusted towards the beginning of the year are again behind in payments.) I have no idea what missing my stop means, other than the fact that not many people got off at my regular stop -- usually most of the car gets off there.

Friday, Dec 12: Both BART and Muni were slow this morning, so I was already stressed by the time I arrived. I figured it didn't bode well for the day, and that proved true, a bit. The patron who talked a mile-a-minute on the phone yesterday, making any reply on my part difficult, did show up, and was surprisingly pleasant to deal with: maybe she only talks that fast on the phone? I had pulled all the material I thought she could use, so that helped.

Then there was today's example of the type of patron who wants to argue with every statement or suggestion I make. I don't mind someone who says "I've seen that" for every source I suggest (I just tell someone like that that they are doing a great job of research), but someone who just says "what I want won't be in that title" drives me up a wall, primarily because I've never had a patron who explained why that title might not work. I don't ask why it wouldn't, I just plow on trying to find something the patron would deign to look at. What I would love to do is to say "look, I've been advising people on this topic for ten years, and, trust me, this IS a possible source of information." The closest I come is to say "I'll include it in the list of possible titles in case you decide to see what it has."

My favorite patron inquiry was a few years back: a patron wanted to look up person in a specific type of source. (There -- that should be cryptic enough.) We have exactly the type of source the patron needed. When I asked the name of the person she was searching for, so I could include in the call number the volume she would need, the patron said she didn't know the name! I managed to say, with commendable fortitude, that without the name, it was going to be difficult to search this title. (And no, this was not a famous person that I might be able to narrow down through twenty questions.) I'm still intrigued as to how the patron was planning on recognizing the person she wanted if she did look at the source.

I shouldn't be too crabby -- at least I had some reference work. It's been extremely slow all week, again. This leaves me feeling more tired most days than on days with a lot of questions.

San Francisco's last blacksmith, 2008

2008-12-03T10:06:00.000-08:00

A blog I follow had this post yesterday:

http://infopeepwork.blogspot.com/2008/12/nearest-book-meme.html Try that post's suggested process -- it was fun for me, with a surprise trip down memory lane. Who knows what you can come up with.

You can see my response just below that post: a quote about Edwin Klockars Blacksmithing, the last blacksmithing business in San Francisco, from The San Francisco Labor Landmarks Guide Book: A Register of Sites and Walking Tours, edited by Susan P. Sherwood and Catherine Powell, (San Francisco: Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University, 2008.)

What I didn't put in my response is that Klockars Blacksmith Shop doesn't produce horseshoes or decorative wrought iron: it makes "one-of-a-kind tools for ship-builders and industrial supply companies." (p.57)

Treasures, but no Shoppers Rushing Home

2008-12-01T09:41:00.000-08:00

The Friday after Thanksgiving I took my car in to be serviced at the dealership in the town near me. Through some miscommunication I thought the work would be done in 4 hours (it was done in 7, "just as I thought," said the staffer who took the order.) Based on the four-hour misunderstanding, I decided I would wander the town's shopping area.

The dealership is in the town with the major shopping area for my part of the county: no enclosed malls, just blocks and blocks of downtown stores. The closest store to the dealership is a big-box store beloved of suburbanites, who generally pronounce its name with a French accent. I got there around 9:00 -- it had opened that day around 6. What I found: plenty of parking spaces in the small front lot (most parking is underground,) and not many people inside. The only place in the store with a crowd --- really, a crowdette --- was the electronics area. The toy area had few people, and was easy to navigate, particularly as I didn't have a cart, having no car to lug any purchased treasures to. There were no lines at the checkout counters, which were fully staffed.

I then walked down the closest street, with shops on both sides. All stores were open (by now it was about 10, as I had stopped first for a scone at a small bakery) but there were very few cars parked. The only store I went into in the first couple of blocks was the Heart Association's somewhat upscale thrift store. It was crowded with a group of three or four women interested in the clothes. I overheard one saying "I'll never shop [upmarket department store two blocks away] again -- the clothes here are great."

Wandering on, I got closer to the street anchored by two chain department stores, one upmarket and one upper-mid range. Now there were lots of people around, but not enough to block the sidewalks. I went into a chain bookstore, and it was pretty empty, except for the cafe. All cash registers for book, etc., purchases were fully staffed: there was one person ahead of me in line. By now it was about 11:30.

I wandered around the street with the anchor tenants and lots of small shops: not many people there either. Certainly no congestion on the sidewalks. I then headed back to a restaurant near the car dealer for lunch, which didn't have much in the way of customers. (And then I got stuck reading old magazines at the dealer for a couple of hours -- the library nearby is being rebuilt, so I couldn't go there.)

I was surprised the next day to read in the SF Chronicle a report that there had been big crowds in that same area I had been in. Maybe at 6am, maybe after lunch, but not between 9am and noon.

Thanks to absent-mindedness, I had to go back the next day to retrieve the jacket I had left in the bakery (just to be polite I had a chocolate chip scone ....) Now having a car, I went back to the big-box store with the French pronunciation to actually make some purchases. I arrived around 9:30: again, plenty of parking outside and few people inside the store. One toy on special that I assumed would be sold out was still available. There were no lines at the cash registers. A number of staffers were wandering around, apparently with maps of where some specials were located, but there weren't any people to give them to.

The one interesting thing about that store is that it had racks and racks and racks of 50% off clothing -- none of the current stuff, and a few items weren't even for fall/winter. The clothing was all very jammed together on the racks -- the whole effect was very different from the store's usual displays. The message the racks sent was that this store isn't doing well -- certainly the lack of shoppers both days seemed to confirm that.

Holiday Slog Blog, Week 2

2008-12-01T09:40:00.000-08:00

My speciality: Fine Whines

Monday, Dec 1: An email has arrived announcing the date of the holiday party at the main library. Our party will be sometime in January, as the head of our branch wants to be present for it. She's the one who is on vacation until December 26, then on further vacation for the rest of December. Fa la la la la, la la, la la.

Wednesday, Dec 3: So far, it's been fairly stress-free while my boss has been gone. We've had a trickle of patrons each day, with very little reference work. Instead of stress, I'm feeling worried that I will fall asleep in my chair and fall onto the floor .... I'm impressing myself: very little stress eating, despite a plethora of chocolate candies, and, today, two types of cookies. Since I don't really need any stress to pig out on whatever sweets are available, I'm now hoping that maybe I can keep this up permanently, becoming slender and bee-yuo-tea-full. Let's hope so. With no one to share the reference desk with me, it's starting to look just like my desk in the office, with piles of books and papers all over. Just a little touch of office home away from office home.

Saturday, Dec 6: Fortunately, the powers that be gave me yesterday off for working today, even though that left the library without a librarian. We're only open one Saturday a month, and today it's fairly peppy, which I like.

Holiday Slog Blog, Week 1

2008-11-21T10:28:00.000-08:00

Motto: Fine Whines, my Speciality

Fri, Nov 21: As of 11am today the holiday slog starts. No, it's nothing to do with the usual holiday stresses -- family, meals, parties, gifts, money (as in, where are we going to get the money.) This has to do with the fact that as of 11am, I am the only librarian at my library until December 26. That puts me on the reference desk for 6.5 hours out of the 7 we are open, five days a week. Yes, the librarians are in an employee union, but no, there are no limits on the consecutive hours a librarian can be on the desk, and there is no minimum staffing requirement in order to open the library. Even with low patronage, the long shift is exhausting or stressful, apart from any special problems that come up.

What better way to cope than to whine? I'm going to update this post for the "week" of Nov 21 through 26 -- followed by two days off for Thanksgiving and then two-more for the weekend. Then I will do a new post for week 2, and similarly update it. I know my thousands of fans will want to keep up with all the breaking news.

So I started the day with a mall walk: I got to the mall in front of my library early enough to do a complete circuit of the two floors. This is part of my "exercise more" approach to stress. Then, hurrah, my boss gave me some chocolate, and, in line with "dark chocolate is good for stress" I ate some of it, but in line with "don't stress eat" I only ate two squares. I've got the rest tucked away, in the hope that I will forget I have it. Further stress pre-emptive plans to be undertaken as time allows: rearrange Netflix list to move all comedies to the top. Find funny books to read on the commute -- the ones I have at home, and, thus, may be too familiar with to laugh at too much, are Bill Richardson's Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast; Daisy Ashford's The Young Visiters (sic; my favorite line: "The Crystal Palace heaved into view;") Leo Rosten's The Education of Hyman Kaplan (asterisks between each letter of HK's name omitted) and later sequels; and Rosten's revised, or new version, of The Joys of Yiddish --but maybe mordant humor isn't quite what I want. Maybe a reread of Brigit Jones's Diary, and a first-time read of the sequel --- I recently saw both of the movie versions -- plus the Bachelor Brothers' sequel.

Monday, Nov 24: Relaxed, rested, I return to the library, to discover that the front door key won't work, because, yet again, the archive that shares our space did not fully close the door after letting someone out after hours. The good news: at least the door isn't openable without a key, as was the case several times before. I got in using a side entrance, thus setting off the burlar alarm, and then ran quick like a bunny to get upstairs to enter the code to shut it off. Then I phoned to call off the law enforcement responders. I shall count the quick run as part of my exercise to reduce stress plan.

Wednesday, Nov 26: The "week" -- Friday, Monday-Wendesday, has been pretty stress free. Entertainment was provided by the person who came in to the library via the mail room, then, when she was told that she is not authorized to enter that way, asked if it would be ok to leave that way.

Automatic generation and human fertilization

2008-11-05T10:51:00.000-08:00

One of the blogs on my Feevy list is "Lords of the Blog," the site for the peers in the British House of Lords. (As the upper chamber in Parliament, that House differs in substantial ways from the United States' upper legislative chamber, the Senate, not least by being far more upfront about its members thinking they are related to God.)

The November 5 post by Lord Taylor of Warwick, Seek and ye shall Fund, summarized his speech in a debate on the British economy. Like all the posts on the site, it was followed by a heading "Possibly related posts (automatically generated.)" The top link was to "Human Fertilization and Embryology bill."

Precisely what that bill would have to do with the posting about the economy is unclear, (possibly because I didn't link to the bill to read it,) but it's pleasant to think that the machine's pick is a bit of humour related to the second sentence in the last bullet point in Seek and ye shall Fund.

Election over

2008-10-23T09:40:00.000-07:00

I mailed my absentee ballot on Monday, October 20th.

Since mailing it in, I've received only one piece of mail re: who/what to vote for, plus one phone call that left a message about supporting one of the ballot measures. There was also a group of people on a corner one evening waving signs about supporting that same proposition. I expect more mail will be coming in soon. All too late for my attention.

This is the third election where most of the mail I've received has arrived after I mailed an absentee ballot. Given the high number of absentee ballots cast in California, I think candidates/parties/supporters need to rethink their mailing strategies.

Company doesn't live up to its reputation, and I'm glad

2008-10-06T12:12:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I went hunting for a replacement AC adaptor for my portable DVD player -- the one that came with it had died.

I went first to a small chain with electronics: Hi-Fi Hovel or something like that. It had lots, but none that were 9v 2.1 amps.

Just for the heck of it, because I was already in the store to buy some sweatshirts, I also looked in the electronics section of a big-box general store, but it didn't have one either.

So that left the dreaded national big-box all-electronics-all-the-time store in my town. I had heard from several women that it has a reputation for not being very helpful to females, so I wasn't looking forward to it.

Turns out it didn't live up to its reputation. When I asked the concierge or whatever one calls the directional desk, one man called back an employee who had just walked away, and asked him to take me to the right shelves. That employee took me there and found a universal adaptor with a range of voltages and amps. He opened it up, showed me, at my request, how to set it for 9 volts (turns out, you just move a switch to "9," duh) and, looking at my old adaptor, pointed out the correct tip to use on the new one-- a good thing, as I would have chosen another. He did all of this without giving any sign of annoyance or condescension.

So points for that chain. I was in and out quickly, and, it turns out, the item was elegible for a rebate. Next time anyone says anything about that chain providing sexist service, I'll speak up in its favor.

The best part of all: I finally got to watch the final disk in Foyle's War.

Put a necktie on your cat when it's job-hunting

2008-09-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

The State of Missouri has set up a recruiting site and job fair on Second Life. They recently made their first hire, an IT employee. The employee first appeared at the virtual job fair as a "small cat with a red bow tie." Perhaps because of the cat's tie, he got an in-person interview (no report on what he wore) and then got the job. The moral of this story is to be sure your avatar wears business attire (to the extent possible, given the avatar) to any virtual job fairs.

It's National Punctuation Day!

2008-09-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

Today is National Punctuation Day -- see http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/24/happy-national-punctuation-day/!

Within that post is a link to an article that will cause heart palpitations in any lawyers you know who deal with contracts: an extra comma in a contract resulted in an increased charge of 2.13 million (Canadian) dollars to one of the parties. I hope whoever typed/word-processed that contract for the party getting the extra money got a bonus of some sort.

If you're looking for an appropriate way to celebrate, try making this resolution: I will not automatically put an apostrophe before the final 's' in a word, unless it indicates a contraction, or a possessive. (Yes, such a resolution is legal.)

Did Larry Ellison Listen to Me?

2008-09-22T09:31:00.000-07:00

On September 27, 2007, I did a post in which I suggested, moderately facetiously, that server farms, which consume large amounts of electricity, might offer free or almost-free gymn services to the surrounding population, so the exercise bikes in use could generate some power for the server farms.

Today the SF Chronicle has a story about Oracle OpenWorld, Oracle's annual customer conference in San Francisco (see http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/21/BUOR13189Q.DTL.) In an effort to be a bit greener, there will be exercise bikes available that, when used, will generate the power to charge the user's laptop or cell phone (or, I guess, both.) "If they peddle hard enough, these folks will generate extra energy that Oracle will capture and use to help power the conference."

I am all aflutter at the thought that Larry Ellison might have read my blogpost -- hope he also read the November 16, 2007 post where I thanked Oracle for providing free museum admissions to the public at large during that year's conference. (Mr. Ellison: any chance of repeating that next year?) Or maybe, like me, he just got the idea from the dystopian movie Soylent Green, in which Edward G. Robinson peddles a bike to generate a bit of electricity to light a small lamp. (Let's hope the rest of that movie isn't coming true.)

Mr. and Mrs. Famous Male Author

2008-09-18T09:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I received the Fall issue of Fiat Lux, the quarterly newsletter from the UC Berkeley Library Development Office.

As usual, it included a chatty one-page "letter" -- i.e., essay -- by Thomas C. Leonard, who holds the title Kenneth and Dorothy Hill University Librarian. Titled "Hauling it: how donors help" it started with a one-paragraph story about "a northern husband and his southern wife" who in the 1830s schlepped (that's my word, not his) discarded newspapers from "an exclusive reading room in New York City" to New Jersey. They searched those southern newspapers for information on how slaves were treated, and, ultimately, produced American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, published by the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1839. Mr. Leonard comments and, finally, reveals the name of at least one person in this saga: "By collecting the slave owners' horrifying words about how they treated slaves, Theodore Dwight Weld and his wife changed the national debate."

The emphasis in the preceding quote is mine. Just who was his wife? The noted abolitionist and women's rights advocate, Angelina Emily Grimke. (Note: those are links to three different sites.)She only lost her identity, at least in Mr. Leonard's mind, in 1838, when she married Weld. She has a lengthy list of publications to her name, including an essay -- termed "testimony" -- in American Slavery As It Is.

So, in a year when we have both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin managing to run for high political office with their own names, not as Mrs. William Clinton (as he now likes to be called) and Mrs. Todd Palin, we still have Mr. Leonard, who, I note, does not hold the title of Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Hill Librarian, not quite managing to name the "little woman" who helped Mr. Weld.

Ironically, the next paragraph starts with "At Berkeley, libraries today are the places a new generation goes to find what their society has overlooked or not properly valued." Thanks to Mr. Leonard, some of us don't have to go to the library at all to find that out.

Darwin Awards for Galveston Residents

2008-09-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

Let's give a Darwin award to each person who, with Hurricane Ike bearing down, is staying in Galveston, despite: a mandatory evacuation order; anticipated waves of 22 feet -- or, in a different number base, Galveston sea wall height + 5 feet; storm surges of 20 feet -- or, ditto, sea wall height + 3 feet. See any online news stories for those factoids and mentions of those staying; I've been following it on http://www.cnn.com/.

Let's also send a prayer for the 1,000 or so prisoners in the Galveston county jail, and their jailors, who as of this morning, September 12, had not been evacuated, according to the Houston Chronicle -- try http://www.chron.com/ to find the story: a link doesn't seem to work.

And, after the storm, let's give multiple copies of Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History, by Erik Larson to whatever remains of the Galveston Public Library, with a suggestion that future residents be required to read once a year Larson's chronicle of the 1900 hurricane that destroyed most of Galveston.

We have met the enemy, and, once again, he is us

2008-09-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

On the rare occasions when a religious building is destroyed in northern California (perhaps in a major earthquake, or by fire) there is almost always a follow-up story in the newspapers about that congregation's religious leader telling them that while the building was destroyed, the [church/synagogue/mosque] exists, because the congregation, not the building, is, in fact, the [church/synagogue/mosque.]

I was reminded of that by the negative references at the Republican National Convention about community organizers. Community has an rich etymology (that's word history, not insect science) that embraces fellowship, the public, shared by all or many, and fellow-townspeople. We can use community to mean an entire political entity (a town or city) but it can also mean any group with common interests or goals -- say, a national political party, or a local group formed for any purpose.

In 2000 Robert D. Putnam wrote "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community." The title came from statistics showing that while bowling remained popular, the number of those bowling in leagues had greatly declined. Overall, the book points out, Americans were "investing" their time less and less in "social capital," the activities among people that lead them to think of themselves as part of a community of persons, as opposed to a simple political entity. We've all seen it: a chapter of a fraternal order closes due to declining membership; two houses of worship merge; a club just stops meeting.

The new United States citizenship test that will take effect in October of this year includes as question 55 "What are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy?" The list of possible answers includes "join a civic group; join a community group; give an elected official your opinion on an issue; publicly support or oppose an issue or policy." Community organizers help people to create those groups: civic or community. Some organizers help people unite to work with local officials -- the Neighborhood Watch programs encouraged by law enforcement are one example. Other organizers help people come to together to "talk to power" at the local level by expressing opinions on issues, or supporting or opposing an issue or policy -- a process that can also be called "fighting city hall." Maybe that's what two former mayors had in mind when they bemoaned community organizers at the Republican National convention. Maybe they should take a look at the citizenship examination.

(Title is from a Pogo cartoon.)

Tsunami Sarah

2008-09-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

The choice of Sarah Palin as the Republican party's vice-presidential candidate has had a major impact on the city offices in Wasilla, Alaska, the town of which she was mayor before becoming governor of Alaska. I worked for many years in city administration for two California cities: one with a population of about 35,000 at the time, and one with about 100,000. Even towns of those two sizes would have been hard-put to deal with the tsunami-like surge of calls, emails, letters, and faxes that have hit Wasilla, with a current population of 7,025, per the city's website. I suspect that city residents trying to call city hall are having a hard time getting through.

The city has swung into action amazingly quickly, seeking to provide information while not returning calls due to the insufficiency of funds budgeted for telephone service. As of Thursday, September 4th (the first day I checked,) the city's home page has as its first heading a link to "Questions and answers about former mayor Palin." Click on that to go to the page that mentions the lack of funds for telephone calls. More importantly, it also includes information on how to contact the current mayor (and a reminder that she still has to do her normal job); a link to information about public records requests; and "Document Central," a set of links that starts with "City documents -- recently requested -- former Mayor Palin." Someone has done a very impressive job with very little lead time -- I wonder how the overtime budget is holding up. Kudos to all the Wasilla staff that worked on getting the info up.

Hasty reading on my part missed the fact that to find "Banned or Censured Books Response" one must click on "City documents -- recently requested -- former Mayor Palin" in Document Central; I clicked on library in that list instead, and just got a map. But that's my fault, not theirs. Clicking correctly just got the policy on requests to remove books, but that's fine as a quick start. Maybe no reports were made to the city council on requests. Maybe more will be forthcoming.

The city's speedy response reminded me of something said at a disaster preparedness workshop at one city I worked at: when your city has been hit by a major disaster, and everyone is scrambling with all their might to respond to people injured, dead, and dying, not to mention trying to protect survivors and property, you have to save some people to respond to the politicians who will descend upon your town for photo ops to show how caring they are. I think of that whenever an elected official flies in to view a disaster scene. Wasilla isn't in quite that same position, but it may feel like it: everyone's trying to get their jobs done, then the world starts calling/faxing/emailing for info. Again, good job Wasilla.

Apocalypse Then

2008-08-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

I have surreptitiously joined a science fiction/fantasy reading group -- I do the reading, but can't attend the meetings, which are, if not in another galaxy, at least far far away.

The current selection is A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller. It consists of three parts, each of which was originally published as a short story in 1955, 56, and 57. The three were then reworked and published as a novel in 1960. Canticle is a post-apocalypse story, set after a more-or-less undescribed nuclear holocaust. Miller wasn't the only one writing post-apocalypse novels (or short stories) at that time: George R. Stewart wrote Earth Abides (first winner of the International Fantasy Award; the apocalypse in that book was a disease that killed almost everyone in the world -- well, in the US,-- not a nuclear attack) in 1949; Nevil Shute's On the Beach came out in 1957; and Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon appeared in 1959. For a very extensive bibliography, see Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction, by Professor Paul Brian of the Washington State University at Puyallup.

Nuclear annihilation (by the Soviet Union -- back in the day, the US would not have started a war) was a major fear in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, hence the number of novels and short stories using it as a theme. Reading recently Mary Roberts Rinehart's mystery, The Swimming Pool, published in 1952, I was surprised to see a passing remark that the narrator was able to sell her family's summer home in upstate, rural New York because the buyers were worried about an atomic attack and wanted to get their family out of New York City. That was a throw-away line, very matter-of-fact. For a taste of the culture of the time, try Conelrad Central, a nifty site with too much material that I remember: 1950's "duck and cover" drills in school (in the event of a nuclear attack, curl up under your desk -- today the same drill is for earthquakes,) but also, Our Friend the Atom, a Disney Studios filmstrip and book. (I guess if it hadn't been for the Soviets, the atom would have been everyone's friend.)

Miller's atomic war, which occurred six hundred years before the novel opens, is referred to as "the flame deluge." Perhaps it's an allusion to Thomas Nashe's line "brightness falls from the air," with the accompanying refrain "I am sick, I must die / Lord have mercy on us." The Wikipedia article on Canticle (see link above) notes that Miller participated "in the Allied bombing of the monastery at Monte Cassino in World War II," and he wouldn't have been the only one to equate bombings with that line: Time magazine used it to title a June 8, 1942 article on the bombing of Germany.

Following the flame deluge, the "simplification" occurred: the destruction, by the survivors, of technology, books, and the people responsible (scientists) -- there's an implication that the backlash extended to all those who were educated. Somehow this seems less fanciful today than it might have in the 1950's: "let's kill the scientists, and all those intellectuals, and people who read for any reason except belief." Well, the future may be coming faster than we think, and, of course, not always in ways we expect.

Earth Abides had the same disappearance of knowledge, but it was gentler: the survivors focused on in the book simply didn't, or couldn't, learn what the main character could teach, and reverted over the decades to a happy ignorance. I read that book around 1960, and I have a memory of a scene where the main character and another person walk by the UC Berkeley Doe (the main) Library. The other person (maybe a child or teen) asks if there is information in there that could help them, and the main character says there is information, but it is beyond them all. Stewart, the author, was a professor at UC Berkeley, and, given that the main character was a grad student, I wonder how much that failure to pass on information reflects his views of the "next generation" of college/university professors.

A recent non-fiction book takes Earth Abides one more step -- it discusses what would happen if all humans suddenly disappeared, without any nuclear war. The World Without Us, by Alan Wesiman, is fascinating. He uses specific locations around to the world to discuss the probable effects the disappearance of humans would have, and has some very interesting examples of areas that have, in fact, lost all human population: Chernobyl, and a strip of high-rise hotels in Cyprus. On his homepage (click on the title link above) there is also a link to a USA Today article on the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans, with a spectacular photo of a house now almost invisible for the foliage covering it -- that has to be kudzu. World Without is great background reading for any apocalypse novel: it's what would be happening in de-populated areas, regardless of the cause of depopulation -- war, disease, politics.

Choirs, Company Towns, and the Rest of Us

2008-08-19T09:34:00.000-07:00

"Preaching to the choir" means directing your message to people who already know it/accept it - the implication is that the speaker is failing to address those who don't yet know the message.

We don't have many (if any) company towns anymore in the United States, but back in the past, when, for instance, a lumber company would set up and own entirely a town for its workers, -- see http://www.humboldt.edu/~eel1/exhibit/show/scotia/scotiahp.html -- one could probably safely assume that the inhabitants would understand that "closed on a company holiday" would mean no stores were open on, let's say, the birthday of the company's founder. Even without the company literally owning the town, there might be so many people who were employed by either one business entity (think Hershey, PA) or by various companies in one industry (think of the cities in what is now the rust belt) that certain company-related dates would be well-known.

The library I work in is a distant satellite of a main branch in a city where some huge percentage of the population works for state government. When the main library decided about six months ago to standardize the telphone answering machine messages in all the branches, they unfortunately neglected to think of the branches outside of that quasi-company town.

My branch used to have a message that gave our normal opening days, with the hours, and then a statement that the library would be closed on (day of week/month/day) for the (name) holiday -- the message was changed after each holiday to reflect the next one. In December, the message would also indicate the days between Christmas and New Years that the library was open, since we got so many calls from patrons who thought we might be closed. No more. In true company town/preaching to the choir fashion, the new message has replaced those statements on closure (and the December special open days announcement) with a generic "closed on state and federal holidays." Quick: what's the name and date of a state holiday in March? How many holidays in February? Is one of them the 22nd? What about the day after Thanksgiving? What about the week between Christmas and New Years? What if a holiday is on a Saturday/Sunday -- will the library be closed on Friday/Monday? (Hint: the answers to the Saturday/Sunday questions are not the same, except for one holiday.)

There is a brief message that one can look on the "library's web page" for more information. Not much help if you are driving, and suddenly wonder if the library is open or closed. Not much help if you don't own a computer. Not much of an introduction to reference service in general.

Breaking News from SpamLand

2008-08-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

One of today's spam messages was headed: Monsanto to genetically modify British Royal Family. The entire message was "Watch the Video" with a link to what would have undoubtedly genetically modified my pc at work as well as the library's entire system. Good thing that I have no interest in watching a video showing gene splicing. The subject heading, however, was very entertaining.

Pay-for-it-yourself War

2008-08-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

The online version of CNN today has a story about US troops having to pay baggage fees to commercial airlines flying them to war. What?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/08/13/troops.baggage/index.html

The story quotes Tim Wagner of American Airlines as saying, somewhat airily, "If they pay, they get reimbursed [by the Department of Defense,] so at the end, they don't pay a dime." Spoken like someone who has never tried to get any sort of reimbursement/refund from a government agency, other, maybe, than the IRS.

The Air Transport Association carefully washes its hands of responsibility by saying baggage policies are made independently by the individual airlines -- and it has no plans to ask for an across-the-board waiver of fees by troops going to war.

It apparently is not enough that the soldiers are risking their lives on at least two fronts (Iraq and Afghanistan - but stay tuned for updates) -- they also need to shoulder the cost of bringing their gear. Just how broke is the Department of Defense? Since it's paying for the airline tickets, maybe the airlines could just bill the Department for the baggage fees. Surely Mr. Wagner would be in favor of that -- after all, at the end, they (the airlines) wouldn't be out a dime.

In Spamalot!

2008-07-31T08:52:00.000-07:00

Today's spunky spam that eluded the filter and made it into the mailboxes I monitor at work included three of the "breaking news" subject headings I noted in the previous post. This time I looked at the content shown in the box to the right of the mailbox, and noted the following interesting interfaces.

Subject: Private plane travel to be banned. Content: "New laws legalize gun ownership for teenagers in US," followed by a link with transex and video in the address. Comment: They need a marketing director: they probably would get more readers of the message if they went with teen gun ownership as the subject.

Subject: Google Knol threatens Wikipedia. Content: "Madonna seduced Timberlake on set," with a link that includes video in the address. Comment: Somehow the overlap between tech battles and Madonna/Timberlake seems limited, although I will admit I'm ashamed to know Timberlake's first name (Justin?) without knowing much more, so maybe we have reached total celeb saturation.

Subject: Cambodia attacks Thailand in Asia War. This at least got me to check www.cnn.com/ just to see if in fact a war had broken out. Nope. Content: "How you can save your home from foreclosure," with a link that includes "watch" in the address. Comment: Given the periodic head-shaking story about the lack of geographical knowledge in the US (which is nothing new: Ambrose Bierce said "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography") this subject seems unlikely to draw in any substantial number of potential foreclosees, even with "Asia" in the title giving a hint as to location.

Subject: Robert Novak diagnosed with brain tumor. This, in fact, is true. The content, however, is a quite funny disconnect between at least the on-screen persona of Novak as a combative consevative: "Cute ducklings following in a line behind mother duckling, cute." Not quite what one connects with Novak. The link is to a site with "watch" in it, and has "de," for emails from Germany. Who says Germans have no sense of humor?

I looked in the mailboxes' junk mail folders to see what hadn't made it past the filter, and it was all the usual stuff about sexual enhancement (just how paranoid are men about their favorite body part?) and sex videos (probably including Madonna and Mr. Timberlake.) So at least the pseudo breaking-news subjects are meeting their probable goal of eluding filters. Whether that translates into any clicks on the links is anyone's guess.

Breaking News on Spam

2008-07-28T09:46:00.000-07:00

I'm responsible at work for two email accounts, and both get plenty of spam, not all of which winds up in the spam files: a fair chunk winds up in the inboxes of each account. There's always a lot to delete on Mondays, and I have to keep half an eye on the subject lines of those in the inboxes, as a real message can be sandwiched between spurts of spam.

Today, July 28, I noticed something new: some subjects now consist of breaking news: McCain drops out of presidential campaign! Beijing Olympics cancelled!

At least it wakes me up a bit as I scroll through various intentional misspellings of Viagra and euphemisms for /intentional misspellings of a gentleman's favorite body part.

"Google Dilemma" by Grimmelmann

2008-07-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

Jessamyn West, whose website proclaims that it "[puts] the rarin back in librarian," linked in her July 15, 2008 post to lawyer/law professor James Grimmelmann's talk on "The Google Dilemma." While fully footnoted, the talk is not a legal quagmire (which is even murkier than a doctoral dissertation swamp.) "The Google Dilemma" is a good introduction to Google-bombing and the mysterious workings of that search engine's ranking system, and the social/legal ramifications of both. There's a brief summary about the deletion of results based on a nation's laws -- China, Germany, and France being the example. The last two, like some other countries on the European continent, have anti-hate-crimes laws which require the deletion of any search results which link to hate-sites. In the case of Germany, the original laws (that may have been amended since first enacted) were mandated by the allies after World War II as an attempt (successful) to protect against the resurgence of the Nazi Party. I hadn't known that France had similar laws, and I don't know when they were enacted, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of the statutes had the same motivation as the German ones, although without a mandate from other countries.

China, one is tempted to say of course, requires the deletion of sites with certain political content. Grimmelmann has an interesting display of the results of searches for Tiananmen in Google Images and in the Chinese Google Images site. The results from the non-Chinese site include the by-now iconic image of the individual protestor facing down the tanks as well as other images from the protests, but the Chinese results do not.

Title of this post: just having fun with double letters.

Getting Crabbier about Tom Sawyer

2008-07-10T10:10:00.001-07:00

In my previous post I commented on ways in which a wiki/blog site (I call it Tom Sawyer's site) used by my library is unsatisfactory compared to this site. I now have another complaint about that other site: I'm getting email from it. My email address was required to register as a user in order to make a post -- fairly standard. Unfortunately, I've been spoiled by this site, which doesn't send out email.

Some of the email from Tom Sawyer is to announce a new post to a thread I am following: that's mildly ok, although in most cases I am following it because "following" is the default setting when one posts something. My fault for not changing the status to un-follow. As the threads all deal with a conference that has now ended, I figure I won't get too much email in the future on that account.

Today's email, however, is inviting me to vote on the most popular wikis on that site as a whole. This I find annoying. Why not just have a pop-up on that site? Either way, I'd be ignoring it, but at least I would have one less spam in my inbox.

Spoiled rotten and so happy

2008-07-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

My library system recently set up an intranet for in-house communication. The home page has a link to a wiki intended for posts by our system's employees who are at conventions or conferences. It's set up on a commercial site (let's call it Tom Sawyer's site) and boy, is it a pain in the neck.

While it's called a wiki, I don't see it as that different from a blog -- individuals are posting about presentations, and others can respond. I hadn't realized just how great this site is until I used Tom Sawyer's site. My single biggest problem with that site is that you cannot edit a post after the fact. So there are all my typos, plus, rather embarrassingly, the wrong name for a speaker, out for public view for all time and eternity. I had to respond to my own post to announce the speaker error.

I spent a lot of time searching for help from Tom Sawyer to see if there is, in fact, a way to edit a post. I managed to come up with a huge number of posts on another part of the site itself, not my system's part, commenting on that lack. A number of them mentioned Blogspot as one site having that feature.

I now recognize that I am quite spoiled -- and I'm very happy that's the case.

FEMA: Hire these People!

2008-06-30T11:14:00.001-07:00

Friday through Sunday, June 27-29, I was at a conference (aka jamboree, which reminds me of hayrides and square dancing) in Burbank put on by the Southern California Genealogical Society. At one presentation, the bulb on what I guess is still called the projector sparked out -- the projector was hooked up to the speaker's laptop to put up the power point presentation or whatever it was. In two minutes or less, one of the Society's members was there with a new projector! I've never seen such a response.

It made me realize something else they had been doing: each of the conference rooms had a holder outside its entry door(s) giving the title of the session. At some point after a session began, the members were taking down the sign for the one going on, and putting up the sign for the next session. That meant that as soon as you left one room, you could easily find the room for the next session. (And yes, the daily schedule also had the room name and number, but the titles of the sessions helped too.)

And as a third great thing, the daily speaker schedules not only showed the time, room name/number, speaker name, and title of session, they also showed the page number in the syllabus (200 plus pages, I think) for the speaker's handout. On top of that, the person introducing each speaker included the page number for the speaker's bio page in the syllabus. (And was nice enough not to read the bios in their entirety -- each intro took only about two minutes, including a request to turn off cell phones.)

That sociey could teach FEMA a thing or two, or one thousand. Put them together with a cadre of Eagle Scouts and they could revolutionize the world.

Not in Kansas -- or in Northern California

2008-06-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 27th, I flew into Burbank (Bob Hope Airport at Burbank) for a conference at the Burbank Marriott Hotel and Convention Center. I haven't flown to Burbank since the 1960s.

Just as in the 1960's, passengers exit the planes (or at least Southwestern's planes) by exterior stairs, then walk a short distance to the terminal. Later, at the hotel, I saw displayed lots of photos from the 1940s and earlier of various famous people posing for photos on those same types of stairs. Back to the future!

Having walked to the terminal, I knew it wasn't the 110 degrees out that had been reported for the San Fernando Valley the previous week. I decided I would walk to the hotel, which from my conference-supplied map looked very close by. To check on that, as I was leaving the terminal, I asked an employee of some sort if it was possible to walk to the Marriott. He looked stunned, and after a minute said, "It's a good eight-minute walk. There is a hotel shuttle."

I, probably also looking stunned, asked if there was a sidewalk all the way, and he said yes. I also asked if there were street lights at the intersection, and he said yes. Encouraged by this, I resolutely set out on my good eight-minute trek on the smooth flat surface and survived to tell the tale.

I'm Living in a Card Shop, Thank Heavens

2008-06-17T12:22:00.000-07:00

In my periodic meanderings through thrift stores, I look for postcards, notecards, and greeting cards. I sometimes buy retail versions of those things too -- my preferred site for buying greeting cards these days is the Dollar Tree, where they have very decent cards for fifty cents each.

I stopped by the Dollar Tree last night to pick up a few things, not including cards. The local paper (not the SF Chronicle) in the newspaper vending machine next to the door had on the front page a story about a county elected official who is to marry his male partner today. I used to work with the official more than twenty years ago, so I was pleased to see the news. My mind then shut off: here I am, in the store with good (and cheap) greeting cards. But do I purchase a card for them? No.

On the way out, I even stop and write down the name of the official's future spouse. Do I go back in and buy a card? No.

So, at home, after 9pm, I suddenly think: I should send them a card. Duh!

I then decide that surely I must have something on hand that would be suitable. First stop: Bollywood postcards, using photos of the film industry in India from the book Bollywood Dreams by Jonathan Torgovni. (Link is to a gallery exhibit of some of the photos.) I definitely have one possibility: two actors, looking like Tweedledee and Tweedledum, in matching costumes that I can't quite place in time and space, but looking vaguely, I guess, like Indian soldiers of many centuries ago -- or maybe just like palace guards. They're waiting for filming, and one of them has a glass of milk. Well, no, not the right card: I sent another copy to a gay couple last Halloween, with a message saying I hope they have spiffy costumes. This card is not serious enough for the occasion.

A quick skim through the box with cards and postcards doesn't show anything suitable. By now, of course, I am fixated on the idea that I MUST send the card out early this morning, rather than buying one when the stores open.

Then I thought: don't I have something in the folder with monthly pockets in it for cards? (I realize this makes me seem pathetic, but, hey, I'm a librarian, and we like to organize things. At least my books at home aren't in call number order.) And, indeed, the folder does yield something: it's in the pocket for next January (for future use on New Year's) and it's a postcard with a turn-of-the-century photo of two men in tuxes, each with a bottle of champagne, one of which is being held in a toast. The image was probably from an advertisement for champagne -- neither man looks tipsy. Perfect for a congratulatory note, although I can picture Miss Manners swooning at my failure to just write a note in black ink on white or cream paper. (Which I also have, somewhere.)

I put the postcard, with a suitable note, in an envelope (to lend gravitas) and sent it to the official's office this morning. Thank heavens for living in a card shop, of sorts.

Mechanics, quantum and automotive

2008-06-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

A colleague is going to Pasadena this weekend for the California Senior Games, which is the qualifying event for next year's nation-wide Senior Games. (We both find it odd that an athletic meet for seniors has a one-year lag between qualifying and the meet itself ---- does everyone qualified in the 80 yrs and up age range always show up at the nationals a year later?)

The state games are in Pasadena. When I asked her where the events were held, she said at some technical college in Pasadena. After a few moments of thought, I asked her if by any chance she meant the California Institute of Technology. She said yes, that's where it was. I explained that calling it a technical college isn't quite accurate: future Nobelists, not auto technicians, are getting their undergrad and grad degrees there in quantum and other non-automotive mechanics.

We both had a good laugh. For me, it also brought back some very fond memories of dating guys in Ricketts House (dorms are houses at Cal Tech) many many years ago --- could it really be that long ago, or has the space-time continuum gone awry? So far, no Nobelists (or automotive techs) among those I dated, but one lawyer, one last heard of in law school at an advanced age, and an anthropology/ linguistics professor.

What we expect is climate; what we get is weather

2008-05-29T14:11:00.000-07:00

The title of this post is a statement allegedly made by Mark Twain, according to the Daedalus Books catalog that arrived yesterday. His most famous comment on the weather -- at least it's famous here in San Francisco -- is "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." Today it's considered spurious, but it certainly reflects the summer weather in the San Francisco microclimate where my library is located.

Maybe because I had both those quotes in mind, I found today's "Pinpoint Forecast" of the weather in the San Francisco Chronicle to be entertaining: "Today, decreasing clouds. Friday, decreasing clouds. Saturday, partly cloudy. Sunday, partly cloudy. Monday, mostly cloudy." There's something humorous in clouds that decrease, but never disappear, and then, unheralded, increase (into mostly cloudy.)

Or maybe riding on Muni just makes almost anything funny, meaning ha-ha, not odd. The oddity today on Muni was an apparent bag lady who, when I tuned into her angry mutterings to herself, was going on about "swashbucklers." The streetcar was about to arrive at my stop; I was sorry I hadn't tuned into her earlier.

Backscatter-Brained

2008-05-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you don't even need to try to keep up with the latest online trends: they come to you.

My email account at work was recently backscattered, with about 200 messages arriving in an hour. This kept me busy for a while, as I can only delete 20 at a time, first from the inbox, then from the deleted message files.

A colleague in our Tech department provided the link above to an article explaining backscatter, plus a link to an article about another use of the term: x-raying passengers at airports. That particular article is, OF COURSE, coming from the Office of Privacy Policy and Compliance, part of the Transportation Security Administration. Whoever chose the name for the office has read 1984 too often.

Subversive Visions

2008-05-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

I'm rereading Bellwether by Connie Willis. Her characters work for a tech firm keen on creating (yet another) vision/mission/goals statement; at the meeting the staff break into small groups to come up with suggested wording. The characters spend the session talking about something else. When it's announced time is up, one of them quickly writes down what she always uses in these (or similar) situations: "Optimize potential; facilitate empowerment; implement visioning; augment core structures. " Sound familiar?

The main character in the book is trying to work out what causes something to become a fad. Because of various factoids about real fads at the start of each chapter, plus general comments on how fads might start, Bellwether complements Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, which was published four years after Bellwether.

Stimulus Rebate: Beware of what it reminds you of

2008-05-01T10:10:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking that the stimulus rebate sounds like money back from the sort of enterprise that used to be called a cat house. Unforunately, the very fine feline that resides at my house either read my mind, or listened (for the only time) when I mentioned it to her, and then misinterpreted cat house, because she chose Tuesday to show some symptoms that required a visit to the vet yesterday, Wednesday. Today she has minor surgery, and there goes most of my rebate, on the house cat.

Working in the info mine

2008-04-15T10:32:00.001-07:00

Today, April 15th, is, among other notable things, Library Workers Day. The name always reminds me of the seven dwarves going off to work in the mines. Yes, we're busy pick-axing out shards of knowledge for others.

To celebrate, we had a good spread of food at our library, always welcome. Fruit, cheese, crackers, chips with salsa, and cookies. (With chocolate, of course.) Yum yum.

I like the fiesta idea, and, being far away from the head branch, the lack of speechifying. We were invited to share humorous stories about library service, and had a few, but what really got us going were stories (funny) about "young people" thinking of us as positively elderly. A good time was had by all.

Well fortified, we went back to the mines ....

Fake Folksonomies in the Fog

2008-04-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

Today my local library system, not the one I work at, announced on its catalog site that the Visual Catalog will premier on April 7th, with searching available now (April 5th.) After trying it out, all I can say is please please please do not let this be a total replacement of the current catalog. The announcement doesn't make that clear.

The Visual Catalog (as opposed to what? there is no verbal catalog) is powered by AquaBrowser Library (registered trademark -- I have no idea how to do the little r in a circle.) I'm not sure where the name AquaBrowser comes from; it conjures up images of trying to read through swim goggles underwater. Or maybe watching a book sink into the water in the bathtub. AquaBrowser's website says that 80% of libraries in the Netherlands use its products; maybe an entire sinking country is the source for the name.

Ever ready to try a new catalog, I entered into the search box Laurie R. King, an author I like. There's no choice of author-title-subject in the search box. What pops up with that search is, on the left, a "Word Cloud;" in the center, a list of titles; and on the right, the "Refine" list, which, among other things, allows one to pick up, under authors, THE Laurie R. King.

Can you figure out what the list of titles is? It's every title that has, anywhere in the entry, either "laurie" or "r" or "king." This is not helpful. I'm being deprived here of the current choices in the catalog, where an "author" search is a keyword, and an "author browse" search is for a specific name. Here I can only get a keyword.

The "word cloud" is interesting. With Laurie R. King in faint gray type in the center, there are lines to spelling variations in orange (XR, VR, Lauria, Lourie;) translations in green (daar, d r (it's hard to tell if the space is there or not between the two letters,) and haar -- none of which seem to be translations of words in the central phrase; and then a large swarm of association words in black: in this case death, kong, court, son, martin, day, luther, prince, novel, queen, england, knight, tale, ruler, lion, evil, princess, richard. What's missing are any words relating to Ms. King's fictional characters: Mary Russell, Sherlock Holmes, Kate Martinelli. The association is simply to each word or initial in the search term, not the phrase as a whole. I had at first assumed that the the word cloud was a folksonomy, a collection of search terms collaboratively created by experts (librarians,) and creators and consumers of a text. Unfortunately, the fact that the words link only to individual words rather than to the phrase as a whole shows that the cloud is computer generated, rather than a folksonomy. Too bad. As it stands, it has neither librarian-generated subject headings (female detectives, England,) nor ones created by the public (say, Mary Russell.)

One can click on any of the words in the cloud to find the associated links. I clicked, just for the heck of it, on court, and got, as the number two title, The United States Supreme Court. So, the thought process is this: the searcher wants "king." Maybe the searcher would also like "court," because a king has a court. So let's show the searcher a book on the Supreme Court, because ..... All logical suggestions are welcome. In reality, then, the association is just another keyword search, without context (i.e, no relationship of court to king.) Or have I missed some recent news about the Supremes ? I admit I've been a tad happy lately, for no particular reason, and, as the saying goes, if you're happy, you're not paying attention.

So, I went to the refined list and clicked on author Laurie R. King. The resulting list of books by her is arranged by "found editions," according to the heading. That means that when two editions of a title come out in one year, there is only one listing, with a button to see both ("regular" and large print, for example.) For the life of me, however, I cannot figure out how the list of editions is arranged. It is not alpha by title. It is not chronological or reverse chronological. It is not by series (Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes, Kate Martinelli, stand-alones.) The very last title, on screen 2, is her most recent book, Touchstone, published in 2008. I have no idea if that "last published, last listed" approach is standard. If it's not standard, I shudder at the thought of clicking through page after page for some authors with even larger oeuvres, looking for their newest titles. (If I knew it, I could search by it. I hope.)

The news release on the library's catalog burbles that the visual catalog will be an "adventure comparable to browsing the shelves. ... [The] Visual Catalog is clearly designed with the library customer in mind." The motto for all this is provided by the vendor: Search, Discover, Refine.

I, personally, have never discovered any books on the Supreme Court next to the books on the court of King Arthur, nor in the mystery section next to Ms. King's books. Perhaps I have just been lucky. The associations in the word cloud conjure up for me not the shelves of a library, but the shelves in a thrift-store's book section. Indeed, they are fun to browse, but they aren't my first choice when I am looking for something specific, like the latest novel by an author. Or any info-shard. If I wanted to discover, I'd wander around the library, or the web.

As noted above, I don't want to be deprived of choices. I don't want to be forced into a keyword search, with the need to then further refine it. I want a list of books in reverse chronological order, so the newest is at the top. Surely I can't be the only customer who looks to the library for the newest in fiction?

Perhaps "customer" is the operational phrase here. I dislike it as a term for library patron, but many library systems (the one I work for included) are quite keen on. When I hear customer, I think of someone trying to sell me something. I do not think of someone who is always right. Does anyone, anymore? Nordstrom's (a department store) is idolized by many for its customer service. But it's considered so great, in part, because service in most stores is so abysmal. Is anyone really happy with the service they get in most places? Am I the only one that shudders when a business tells me that they are making changes for my benefit? Is there any reason my attitude should change because the Visual Catalog is shaped with customers in mind?

The outlook is cloudy indeed, if not just plain fogged over. I like the fog I see outside my office window all summer long; I'm significantly less keen on seeing it in a library catalog.

April is the Cruelest Month

2008-04-01T12:54:00.000-07:00

April is National Poetry Month, the fiesta that, perhaps, is the source for T.S. Eliot's opening to The Waste Land (and the title of this post.) For an updated version of that line, go to http://www.poetryfoundation.org/, click on gallery, click on view archive, and go to the Roz Chast cartoon from a 1994 New Yorker. Then celebrate National Poetry Month by looking at all of the other cartoons -- the one with the cat looking in the mirror is particularly funny. Your culture-vulture merit badge will arrive in the mail.

Every couple of years I celebrate by sending out a poem (not by me) to friends, who, to prove they are friends, remain so despite having to at least look at a poem (not necessarily to read it) once a year. This year I thought I would spare them all the terror of receiving a piece of mail from me by posting links to some poems I like. No need to tactfully avert one's eyes from lines/stanzas/who knows what else. Just don't click on the connections.

So, here are some poems, with the occasional note.

The Highwayman, by Alfred Noyes. My mother used to read this to us, very melodramatically.

Concord Hymn, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I remember this from elementary school.

Shield of Achilles, by W.H. Auden. I liked this in high school.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/ Click on reading guides for both a poem and commentary. I like "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden, "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning, and "Not Waving but Drowning" by Stevie Smith.

Booker T and W.E.B, by Dudley Randall. I discovered this today. Happy National Poetry Month to me!

Child on top of a Greenhouse and My Papa's Waltz, both by Theodore Roethke.

The Revenant by Billy Collins. He was the keynote speaker at the California Library Association's conference in, I think 2007 or 2006, and read this poem among others. I particularly like the last two lines.

Deathfugue, by Paul Celan; translator John Felstiner. Extremely dark; extraordinarily moving. Felstiner's translation is magnificent. I've read other translations, which pale by comparison with his.

Who creates those surveys, anyway?

2008-03-26T13:53:00.000-07:00

I just finished the California Public Libraries Survey that my local library system had on its website. This is a state-wide survey, as evident from both the title and the list of geographical areas available in a drop-down menu at the "where is the library you go to " question.

Based on a couple of questions, including the last one, (had I heard of some named online live reference site -- the name escapes me and I can't get back into the survey,) its main aim seems to be to determine an interest in 24/7 online reference access.

Given that interest, you would think it might include a question asking if web access is available in the home, but no, it didn't. In fact, one question assumed you had internet access in your home. I think the surveyors missed a chance to get some information on home-based web access, by geographical area, age, and income, all info asked for by the survey.

The question that seriously annoyed me, however, had to do with what type of material one uses when one visits the library. It had a lengthy list, including fiction, non-fiction, magazines/newspapers/articles, and various specific categories of non-fiction, plus ebooks and electronic databases. So far, so good. However, the respondent could only choose one. What? The surveyors apparently think that persons going to a library go only for one purpose -- no mixing picking up the latest mystery and looking for consumer info. (Which, in any event, was not a category.)

Hence my question: who writes those surveys?

I answered the question on types of materials used by choosing "other," which had a box into which one could enter something, so I entered "why can't I choose more than one thing? Now the surveyors know who writes those answers.

Mutterings, Witterings, and Random Thoughts (oh my)

2008-03-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

Today's (March 24) San Francisco Chronicle has an article in the Technology and Business Section titled "The Best Affordable Cars," with the subtitle "A few quality components make these autos the ones for budget shoppers to get." The prices for the four featured cars were $16,375, $21,200, $26,325, and $30,000. Ok, the first one is a low price these days, but just what budget do the buyers of a $30K car have?

Are super delegates at the Democratic convention a retro touch? As far as I can figure out, they are a throwback to the smoke-filled rooms of past conventions, when primary votes didn't count for anything. Super delegates can apparently vote for anyone, regardless of how their state or congressional district voted. Ok, I'm willing to let Bill Clinton, a super delegate because he's a past Democratic president, vote for Hillary: NY voted for her anyway, I think, but even if it hadn't, what's the point of having a husband if he won't vote for you in the convention. But otherwise I'm not keen on super delegates.

I recently succumbed to an offer in the mail of a subscription to Time magazine for a period about a century or so, for only $20. I regretted it about a week later when I got a similar offer from Newsweek, which I preferred to Time the last time I read either. Then I really regretted it when I got my first issue. It's a mixture of CNN's homepage and People magazine. I'm too lazy to cancel, so I'll put up with it, but I am certainly not going to renew, should I happen to outlive the subscription period. I already subscribe to The Economist for real news, so I can't complain too much.

And speaking of The Economist, it's a great example of technology: the issue I receive on Friday can include articles and cover stories on events that happened on Tuesday or Wednesday of the same week. Of course, that timeliness can be enticing to others: the first issue after Hurricane Katrina hit was delayed in delivery about three weeks, which I attribute to those in the delivery chain taking time to read it.

The title of this post is an amalgam of Larie R. King's use of "mutterings" and the use of "wittering" (maybe only as a verb, however) in Bridget Jones' Diary.

Sam Gamgee and vivisection

2008-02-25T14:32:00.000-08:00

Noodling around in some library catalogs, I came across an entry for:

Gamgee, Sampson. The Influence of Vivisection on Human Surgery. 2nd ed., 1882. (No publication information provided.)

Is this a descendant of Samwise Gamgee, Frodo's valiant companion in The Lord of the Rings? Wikipedia has an article about Sampson Gamgee, with his father mentioned, but nothing further. Let's hope someone investigates further ....

Wikipedia also has an interesting article about Samwise, and a letter Tolkien received from someone of that name, who might have been a relative of Sampson.

I Should Have my Head Examined

2008-02-03T15:02:00.000-08:00

The title of this post is what my mother, of blessed memory, would say when she had done something foolish. It ran through my head this morning as I sat in my car in the supermarket parking lot, debating whether to get out and go into the store, or to just turn the car back on and go home. The reason? Today, Sunday, February 3rd, is the day of that televised sports extravaganza that:

1. Is the cause of about 5% of the annual avocado sales in the US;
2. According to urban legend (probably untrue) causes municipal water levels to fall during the commercials and half-time show as most of the US population flushes toilets during bathroom visits.
3. Is the basis for numerous media reports/studies before game day of the commercials to be aired and those previously-aired during this annual show, and of post-game day analyses of the ones seen;
4. Is so protected by its team of lawyers that I wouldn't dream of using its trademarked/copyrighted/whatever-it-is name in this post, for fear of finding not heavy-duty linebackers at my door as legal enforcers, but the even-more-to-feared said lawyer team.

So, why was I so indecisive in the parking lot? Well, it's also true that the said extravaganza produces a lot of what I think of as amateur shoppers at the grocery store prior to the kick-off, not to mention truly scary drivers racing to get home in time for said kick-off.

I hadn't planned to go, but I fell into auto-pilot. My typical Sunday morning starts with coffe and the newspaper at a nearby outlet of the fast-food chain whose coffee was rated higher by a national consumer magazine (which also doesn't like its name used in connection with its ratings) than the coffee at the number one barista chain in the entire universe. Then I go to the 99 cents store to start my grocery shopping --- a bag of six bananas for 99 cents! two quarts of milk in recylable plastic for 99 cents each (that's a half gallon for $1.98!) a bag of small carrots for 99 cents! I love that store.

Then I move on to a chain grocery for other stuff. And that's what I was doing there, despite the fact that I had carefully looked in the paper to see what time the kick-off was (at the mysteriously exact time of 3:17,) with the idea of going shopping later. But auto pilot won out, and there I was at about 10am.

The parking lot was jammed. I finally decided to go in, rather than go home. I managed to grab one of the few carts available (that's par for the course a lot of times on Sunday --- said national-chain store doesn't do a good job of having carts available) and headed in. And, indeed, the place was chock-full of gentlemen, singly or in pairs, loading up on what I hope were supplies for their sports extravaganza parties, because otherwise there are a lot of them who subsist on chips, salsa, and beer, all eaten off of paper plates. (The good news: they use a lot of napkins, too.)

Really, it wasn't too bad. The worst part is ongoing: the store was remodeled about a year ago, as part of a "life-style enhancement" or something like that. That seems to consist of an olive bar and a branch of the afore-mentioned barista chain in the store. One result of the remodeling is that three aisles are a lot narrower, and have support posts further blocking them in addition to the usual cardboard displays. Those aisles are always inconvenient, but put a lot of people in them (as this morning,) and they're grim. It's the only grocery for about two miles in any direction, so I keep going there, but I grumble every time.

Today, thought, I got in and out in a reasonable amount of time, given all the guys wandering around. As inexperienced shoppers, they lack the basic foraging skills more regular shoppers know: salsa? Try condiment aisle, or potatoe chip aisle. (Salsas are in both.) I will admit that paper plates are tough: this store, for some reason, puts them across from the soup cans. No one was buying frozen pizzas as far as I could tell, and I carefully avoided the beer/wine aisles.

The whole experience reminded me of a photo in a book I recently gave my sister as a present. Titled Porn for Women, it lacked nude/scantily-clad guys in suggestive poses, but, instead, consisted of photos of good-looking, fully-clad guys doing things to make any woman's heart rate go up. (The cover shows one vacuuming.) The one I was reminded of was a photo of a guy reading a newspaper, and saying, with a genuine smile on his face, "Honey, the play-offs are today. We should have NO trouble parking at the crafts fair." Be still, my heart.

Thinking outside the (jewelry) box

2008-01-14T10:40:00.000-08:00

I've had a number of compliments on two bracelet sets I've been wearing the past week or two. Each set consists of colored beads on three stretchable bands -- one set in shades of green, one in gold and burgundy. I'm upfront about where I got them: on the hairclip rack at Kmart. They were intended for use in tying up what I still call pony tails, although perhaps these days they are called something else. Cheap and attractive: that's not me, but my bracelets.

Questions!

2007-12-13T15:08:00.000-08:00

Jessamyn West, in her December 10, 2007, blogpost, commented on a Slate article about Yahoo Answers. That was my introduction to that site. For a reference librarian, it's pretty interesting stuff. I signed up and started answering questions. My library is a specialized one, so there's only a limited range of reference questions. The questions on Yahoo Answers are closer to those asked at a public library desk; I find the broader range a nice change.

My observations after just a few days (also posted, more or less the same, as a response to West's post:)

Many of the questions on Yahoo answers could be answered with an online search (Barney or some other one -- see my 10Oct07 post for use of Barney.) I'm not sure why those posting didn't try that -- but, then, maybe they did, but had little success due to misspellings, which are surprisingly common in the queries. As the old question goes, how can you find a spelling in a dictionary if you can't spell the word?

Many of the questions are "ready reference" -- librarian talk for a reference question that can be answered with a quick look-up. A phone call to a local library would seem to work as well as a posting. That service would seem to be one in need of some marketing by libraries.

Just as in a public library, some questioners online want all their homework done for them, including assignments that ask for essays, not just factoids. One responder to a question in the former category outlined how the questioner ("asker" in Yahoo terms, grrrrrrr) could approach the assignment. I hope the questioner rated that response highly. Of course, as any public librarian knows, a lot of parents come in to do their kids homework for them. Or at least to check out the books with the answers. Maybe it's an improvement to have the kids themselves posting the questions?

In library school, a friend joked that there are five answers that can be used to answer all reference questions: the only one of the five I remember is "a member of the carrot family" -- my friend claimed she used that to answer any questions from her mother about the identity of a plant. So far I haven't had a chance to use it, but maybe it will come in handy soon.

Remembering a Little Girl in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, with Donations to the Central Asia Institute.

2007-12-05T12:16:00.000-08:00

In September of 1978 I was in Afghanistan as part of a London-Kathmandu overland trip with a British firm -- the coward's way of following the hippie trail. From Kabul we went up to Bamiyan. I decided I would skip a day-trip from Bamiyan to Lake Band-i-Amir (spelling can vary) and wound up instead joining another traveller I met at our inn in clambering around the hills surrounding Bamiyan Valley: in retrospect, more than stupid, as at one point we were above the valley, holding onto a cliff-side and moving sideways on a trail a goat might have had difficulty navigating. Fortunately, neither of us fell, (or, to be really honest, fortunately, I didn't fall -- after all, I had only met him the day before.) Walking back through the fields to the town after we survived, we met a small girl going home from school. She proudly showed us her slate, and our mutual incomprehension of the other's language didn't allow for much more, other than smiles. I've always remembered her, however, so proud of that slate.

Decades passed, wars came and went and came back, the Taliban blew up Bamiyan's giant Buddhas, women who weren't already wearing them were forced into burquas, and, in 1993, Greg Mortenson started climbing K2, the second-highest mountain in the world, in Pakistan. Injured in the climb, he was nursed back to health by the villagers in a small town. He promised them he would build them a school in appreciation, and, with Dr. Jean Hoerni, founded the non-profit Central Asia Institute to build schools in remote areas, first, in Pakistan, and then also in Afghanistan. One of the requirements for a village obtaining a school is that it be used to educate girls as well as boys.

More time passed, and one of the Sunday newspaper magazine-type supplements had a story about the Central Asia Institute. I immediately remembered the little girl in Bamiyan, whose fate I had always wondered about (and still do wonder about,) so I made my first donation to the Institute. One of the pleasant things about donating to it is that it's one of the very few (heck, maybe it's the only) non-profit I have ever donated to that doesn't then inundate a donor with mailings. Yes, they send the occasional one (maybe two a year?) but I feel that a larger percentage of my donations are going to the project than is the case with non-profits razing whole forests to make the paper for their appeals.

Mortenson's story, and that of the Central Asia Institute, has now been published: Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace, One School at a Time. It's been on the NY Times bestseller list for about ten months so far, and is available in paperback. I recommend it, along with donations to the Institute. I want other little girls to be proud of their school slates.

Autobody painting at home, thanks to science, magic, or technology

2007-12-01T09:39:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I artfully managed to scrape my bumper as I pulled into a parking space. The bumper wasn't dented, but there was metal showing.

Looking for a paint touch-up, I went to the California State Automobile Association website to see what they had listed under companies giving discounts to CSAA members.

And there, dear reader, I discovered Dentpro. As with most things remotely related to technology (or science, or magic,) I am probably the last to learn of this type of service. Dentpro will send a van to where your car is (house or office) and repair small dents or do small painting touchups. Yes, they make house calls! And I got 10% off for being a CSAA member!

For me, the whole thing worked perfectly. I called on Thursday, November 29th, my call was forwarded to a local Dentpro franchise, and that franchise could come the very next day, hurrah hurrah. I was off the 30th because I'm working today. It took the tech less than an hour to paint, and the color matches perfectly. It is now the best looking part of my otherwise dusty car. He ran a tad late in arriving, but called to let me know -- I can wait for anyone if they will just tell me what's happening.

In any event, I was't going anywhere anyway. Yesterday was a banner day at the bibliotecaria's house (or should that be casa?) In addition to the painting, I had new windows/patio doors installed. Being locked in the bathroom during the window/door work and hearing strange loud noises traumatized my faithful cat; the loud noises traumatized me too, so I sat outside in my newly-painted car.

All in all, a very satisfactory day -- not as much fun for the money, as, say, joining the statistically inept in a casino (phrase is from The Economist's November 30, 2007, article on Indian casinos in California,) but, of course, better in the long run.

Postscript: looking for the wesite to create the link to The Economist, I first entered http://www.theeconomist.com/ -- try it to see an economist who hasn't heard that economics is the dismal science.

A Puritan Contribution to a Complaints Choir Song

2007-11-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

So, over Thanksgiving at my sister's, I watched some YouTube videos of Complaints Choirs (see November 8, 2007 post for info and links on Complaints Choirs.) Birmingham, England, wins hands down -- we were singing along with the chorus; the St. Petersburg, Russia, choir seems to have a lot of issues with love; the small island off/in British Columbia really doesn't like tourists; Penn State's choir probably cracks up those on campus, but doesn't do much for others (i.e., my sister and me;) the Helsinki choir's song was good, but nobody much seemed to smile; the Chicago choir was a trailer for a future video. Thanks to whoever did all the subtitles.

I thought of complaints choirs today when reading my transit book: Eve LaPlante's Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall (NY: HarperOne, 2007.) Sewall was one of the Salem witch trial judges, and the only one to repent of his role. His public repentenance is pictured in the mural in the Chamber of the House of Representatives in the Massachusetts State House, with the title "1697 Dawn of Tolerance in Massachusetts Public Repentance of Judge Samuel Sewall for his Action in the Witchcraft Trials."

Salem Witch Judge is a fascinating book, and it's making me realize how little I know about the trials. For instance, the persons who were executed were the ones who asserted their innocence; those who admitted witchcraft were not executed. (Read the book to find out why.) Giles Corey, who refused to answer any questions, or to enter any plea, remained silent to protect his property from confiscation. He was pressed to death in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a plea. (Maybe waterboarding would have worked better?)

The complaints choir aspect came in with respect to Sewall's poem for the new century (the 18th): the first verse reads: Once More! Our God, vouchsafe to shine: Correct the coldness of our clime. Make Haste with Thy impartial light, And terminate this long dark night." (p. 231.) Even the Puritans could complain about winter.

Post-Salem trials, Sewall wrote the first anti-slavery tract in the colonies; he's considered the first poet to write about the American landscape as an American, rather than a displaced English citizen; and (I haven't read this far yet) he started to think of women as the equals of men. (What was the world coming to?)

Ever the teensiest, lady-like, bit of a complaint about this book: IT DOESN'T HAVE ANY FOOTNOTES! This drives me crazy. One example: at one point the author is quoting Perry Miller, a 20th-century author, about Samuel Sewall's writings. There is a bibliography in the book, but Miller has five entries. There is no way to tell from the titles which one would have the quote. I'd like to read a bit more about Sewall's writings and his position in colonial literature (about which I currently know nothing,) but I'm going to have to first find the books, then see if they deal with what I want. It would have been nice if the author could at least have included a date ("Perry, in [date] noted ....") or something like that. I'll bet Samuel Sewall gave his sources.

Highjacked Mirror

2007-11-19T14:30:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, November 18th, someone highjacked my non-work, free, email account, and locked me out.

The highjacker then sent an email from my address that, summarized, says that I am about to leave for Africa to join others working to fight any one of three different problems, in three possible countries, one of which is Nigeria. (Ring any alarms to you?) The email (of course) asks for money: specifically, it asks the recipeient to "borrow me" $1500. The spelling, syntax, and grammar are all a lot poorer than in my own writing.

I first learned of this from my sister, who humorously called to ask if I were still coming for Thaksgiving. I then had calls from two other people, and, today, had all sorts of emails, most but not all in response to my email alerting people to the highjacking.

This experience is serving as a mirror, showing how I am seen by others. I now know that I am seen by some friends/acquaintances as someone who could pop off to Africa, at what seems at least to me to be the last minute, to work on a service project. I'm glad to know that I am easily seen as public spirited and international.

On the other hand, I am a bit crabby that those same people who assumed I really am going on this trip also accepted that I could write something with so many mis-spellings and errors in both grammar and syntax. "Borrow me" some money? Give me a break - I don't write like that. Bad mirror!

Of course, if those friends who believed the post would go ahead and send me the requested money at home, I could forgive them their acceptance of me as the author of the post. (New mirror: devious schemer.)

Thank you Oracle for Free4All

2007-11-16T14:45:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, November 10th, Oracle sponsored Free4All, free admission to twelve museums located in what Leah Garchik of the San Francisco Chronicle calls (and the rest of us should call) Culture Gulch, the area around 3rd and Mission, more or less. Hats off to Oracle, even if they may have done this just to make up for the inconvenience of closing a block or two of Howard Street for a week for its annual (or is it semi-annual: surely they just had one) conference.

One of the musuems I visited that day was the Musuem of the African Diaspora (MoAD.) The two floors of exhibit space were devoted entirely (as far as I could tell: I am eminently able to miss small rooms off to one side) to "Hungry Planet: What the World Eats." This has little to do with the African diaspora, but is fascinating. The exhibit consists of large color photos of families from around the world, seated/standing with a full week's purchases of food, both groceries and takeout. Text tells a bit about the family, and lists everything purchased, with prices in US dollars. A small exhibit included shots of fast food places around the world -- mostly US firms, but some local ones.

The galleries were crowded, probably due to the free day (well, that's why I was there,) and there were lots of families. Some parents used different photos to point out to their child/children that not everyone has as much to eat as we do in this country. Among the adults, there was lots of conversation too. It was all fascinating, even to a non-foodie like me. I recommend this exhibit, but there's also a companion book, which won the 2006 James Beard Foundation Book Award, in case you can't get to the museum. The exhibit continues through January 20, 2008.

Good heavens -- I found someone who's not in Wikipedia

2007-11-15T16:18:00.000-08:00

Plowing my way through a list of books in our library ( well, ok, to be honest, through our card catalog, what remains of it,) I found a great title: Impressions of Dante and of the New World, with a Few Words on Bimetallism, by John Walter Cross, 1840-1924. (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1893.) Like some bloggers today (moi?) Mr. Cross obviously free associated all over the place.

A Barney search (see October 9, 2007, post for explanation of term) produced a manuscript collection in Cambridge University, but nothing else for this particular John Walter Cross, although a number of hits for others of the same name.

Hence the title: not in Wikipedia. I had begun to think that everyone could be found there. Does this mean Mr. Cross is excruciatingly dull, inadequately infamous, or just plain forgotten today? His book title is so odd I'd like to learn more. Guess I will have to turn to some print sources.

It's a small world someone taught to sing in perfect harmony

2007-11-08T08:58:00.000-08:00

Today's (Nov 8th) Jon Carroll column in the San Francisco Chronicle (for some reason, I can't link to Carroll's site: go to http://www.sfgate.com/ and click on columnists, then on Carroll) reports on the international Complaints Choir movement, started by Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen.

First, form a choir of good singers. (Good, to forestall subsequent complaints about the singing, presumably.) Next, write a song full of complaints. Then videotape the choir singing the song and put the video on YouTube for all to appreciate. There's already about an hour's worth of songs from different choirs, per Carroll: search YouTube for complaints choir.

So far the choirs are from Finland, Germany, England, and Canada. Since he quotes from the Finnish one, it appears to be in English. One of its complaints: "In the public sauna they never ask if it's ok to throw water on the stones." That does it -- I'm scratching Finland from my list of courteous countries to visit.

I don't have a computer at home, and can't watch YouTube at work due to monitoring, plus I can't watch it at a Public Library due to noise, so now I'm really looking forward to visiting my sister over Thanksgiving: in addition to eating all the Thanksgiving foods our mother used to make, I can also listen to Complaint choirs on her (my sister's) computer.

(Title is a mash-up of that annoying "It's a small world" song from the Disneyland ride -- annoying because it remains with you for life -- and the line "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony" from the really old Coca Cola ad -- the song was so popular it was expanded and put out on vinyl or at least played on the radio.)

Paper Security Blankets

2007-11-03T13:37:00.000-07:00

On October 28, 2007, my local newspaper printed a book review by Monica Hesse that originally appeared in the Washington Post. (No link as the Washington Post requires registration to use.) Ms. Hesse was noting/reviewing four new books aimed at helping people successfully use YouTube, Second Life, MySpace, and the iPhone. The last book wasn't mentioned in the review -- it was cut in my paper from the longer original -- but the cover is shown along with the other three covers in an accompanying illustration. The book is many times larger than the iPhone itself.

The review quotes Don Norman, author of "The Design of Future Things" as saying "Technologies really are being packaged in a way that's not intuitive or usable to the consumer." Ms. Hesse goes on to say "Call it the Case of the Missing Instruction Manual. New technologies have always needed some sort of user guide. In 1532, the hand plow was sold with one." (Who knew?)

On the one hand, it's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one that finds things on Web 2.0 (not to mention the rest of life) non-intuitive. (See previous posts about trying to figure out our new phones at work.) On the other hand, if I were interested in Second Life, or considering an iPhone, knowing that books have been published to explain how to use them just might reinforce my feeling that either or both are beyond me. And on what is now the third hand (I always think of the Hindu goddesses at this point, although they have an even number of arms/hands,) I can feel comfortable with my lack of interest in using any of the four items the books cover.

(Title of this post is from Ms. Hesse's review: "Though studies have shown we retain information learned online as well as that learned onpage, we still appreciate a paper security blanket.")

Snail Mail: Sometimes Faster than a Speeding Bullet

2007-11-01T11:08:00.000-07:00

I recently took a giant step into the twenty-first century by signing up for Netflix. (My local library didn't have set four of Foyle's War.)

The Netflix discs are sent by US Postal mail. I am amazed at the speed involved, and would love to know how the rest of my mail, both outgoing and incoming, can zip through the US postal system as quickly as the Netflix mail does.

Example: Saturday I put my return envelope in the mailbox at the PO about 9am. On Monday, by 8:30 am, I have an email from Netflix that they have received the disc. Later that day, I get an email that they are mailing the next disc, which should arrive the next day. And sure enough, it does.

I, of course, can't keep up: the disc then sits around until I have time to view it.

What's the feminine form of wretch so wan and pale?

2007-10-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

The October 30, 2007, issue of The Examiner, the San Francisco free handout of what was once a mighty Hearst-owned newspaper, features, on the Healthy Life page, an Associated Press article titled: "Work out at Work: New Product Combines Workstation, Treadmill."

Yes, the treadmill, once walked by British prisoners, including Oscar Wilde, for 6 hours/day (with five minute breaks every so often,) and now just anther piece of exercise equipment to jog on (at the gym) and to hang clothes on (at home,) is coming to work. No, not in the employer's gym -- in our cubicles. No more lounging around in chairs -- employees will walk (slowly) while trying to read a computer monitor, or while keyboarding and trying to read a computer monitor, or while talking on a phone wedged between shoulder and ear while keyboarding and trying to read a computer monitor, or while drinking something while talking on a phone wedged between shoulder while trying to read a computer monitor (and for all I know, keyboarding with one hand at the same time.) Assuming that becomes the standard workplace setup, will prisoners be expected to sit on chairs at workstations for hours at a stretch?

I strongly suspect that whoever is developing a treadmill workstation does not wear bifocals, much less trifocals. Or high heels.

The article suggests these websites: Steelcase Inc. (office furniture/design site -- uses the word Walkstation,) the Mayo Clinic, and True Fitness Technology (either a manufacturer or a vendor.)

This post's title is from what I thought was The Ballad of Reading Gaol, but isn't: so what is it from? I remember the line "In Reading town in Reading Gaol, there lies a wretch so wan and pale," but nothing further. That's not unusual for me: if the world of Fahrenheit 451 ever comes to pass, I'll join the book people and will be Bartlett's Quotations because all I can remember of poetry/drama are a few lines of any particular work. It's good to have an alternative career path, no?

If I'm living in the future, where's my rocket car?

2007-10-15T15:26:00.000-07:00

Clicking around in the blogosphere I wound up at the MSNBC article about Roombas and their owners. Roombas are those disk-like robotic vacuum cleaners made by the Irobot company - the name is taken from a 1950 Isaac Asimov story collection which contains his three rules of robotics (which is a term Asimov created for a 1941 short story.) The MSNBC story notes that some owners of Roombas name them, and some even dress them up. That sounds weird, but then the article went on to say that Roombas make men enthusiastic about vacuuming. That's enough to make me want one of each: a Roomba and a man to do the vacuuming.

Roombas remind me of the 1950 Ray Bradbury story "There will come soft rains," in which a fully automated house survives a nuclear holocaust that has killed all humans. The house communicates with the (non-existent) residents by voice, and in the absence of responding voices, continues on its way each day, serving the default menus, clearing meals, etc. No roombas in that house though: it has fully automated small mice to clean away debris. (I forget if the lawn mowing is done by fully automated goats.)

In my opinon, Ray Bradbury is the most prescient science fiction author since Jules Verne. In his 1953 Fahrenheit 451, he foresaw all those portable music devices we plug into our ears -- now Ipods, but first, Walkmans. I just saw Fahrenheit 451 on a DVD -- one of the special features included on it is a 2002 interview with Bradbury. He mentioned that when the Sony Walkman first came out, some reps from the company came to him, showed him the device, and said "Fahrenheit 451! Fahrenheit 451!." Let's hope his prescience doesn't foreshadow firemen who burn books.

In the short story "The Veldt," which came out in 1951, Bradbury took television and turned it into wall-sized screens one could not just watch, but could also interact with --- and, in the end, enter into. Children of course loved it, and adults worried and didn't quite get it --- does any of this sound familiar today? Fahrenheit also had large screens, plus the small tv sets that exist today, but not then. On at least the large screen one could have the characters on a program turn to look at the viewer and ask the viewer, by first name, what he/she thinks of something. We're not there yet, thank heavens, as the vapidity of the show the Fahrenheit character is watching would probably kill us all, but we may be creeping up on it: in recent news CBS has announced that CSI NY Virtual Experience will allow viewers to get involved via Second Life (but not simultaneously with the telecast.)

So maybe we're living in the future now? Somehow I expected a rocket car. After the slide show of advertisments, shown with the lights on, my local chain movie theater (14 screens! 8 or so movies, as the theaterettes are too small for the popular movies!) dims the lights and starts the show with a "Welcome to the ----- Theater" piece which involves a rocket car (a more aerodynamic version of the De Lorean car with the gull wing doors) taking off from a rocket car parking space, flying through the airy streets among tall skyscrapers entirely lit up at night (the cars may be flying because the streets are littered with carbon footprints from all the electricity being used) then at last coming into a garage with the name of the theater. Once it's landed/parked, we get to move on to the adverts for the films. Eventually the movie itself appears.

Sticker Shock, part 2

2007-10-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

While I was posting yesterday about the current cost of tuition at my undergraduate college, the mail carrier was busy delivering to my home the first of this fiscal year's pleas for a donation from a graduate school I attended. This school is part of the University of California system but, as the letter is careful to point out, gets less than 30% of its funding from the state. In what is appearing to be a trend, the chatty request letter mentions that tuition is currently $24,000 per year. It was around $600 when I attended in the early 1970s. Once again I am in sticker shock.

At some level, I think I'm feeling (if that's not a contradiction in terms) worried that my degree will somehow be retroactively denied due to lack of funds.

School Daze (part 2) and Sticker Shock

2007-10-09T12:21:00.000-07:00

In my earlier post, all of us at the branch were hoping that intuition would help us figure out how to use our nifty (or at least feature-ridden) new phones, new to us but second-hand in fact -- hence the lack of manuals.

Intutition certainly wasn't getting us where we wanted to be, so I went back to the web, using that search engine that doesn't like its name used as a verb, so I try to think of it as Barney, from the first name in the song "Barney [company name] with the [first syllable of company name, repeated twice] - [company name with y instead of e at the end] eyes." Saying I Barneyed something doesn't quite trip off the tongue as easily as saying I [company name]d something, but who am I to argue with corporate America?

I finally came up with the full 72 (or is it 52) page manual, thoughtfully posted by a university in the midwest. Thank heavens for Barney's search capacity, and thank you to that university, tactfully unnamed in case posting it violates something or other.

When I told one of my tech colleagues about my success (she had responded to my earlier post with a suggested site that turned out not to have the manual,) she said that she's found a lot of items online posted by universities for their students' benefit. Let's hear it for academia.

Of course, even with the manual, we can't figure out how to get the phone at one desk to buzz to indicate someone's calling on another line ....

On roughly the same day that we came up with the manual, I received the first of this fiscal year's letters from my undergraduate college, asking for a donation. The letter, very chatty, mentioned that tuition this year is $34,500. EGAD! When I went there in the 1960s, it was $1600 per year, and even at that price I only attended because I had a California State [i.e., government] scholarship which paid the tuition. Those state scholarships still exist, I think under another name, and, while the maximum is higher, they are still not anywhere near the cost of tuition for private colleges/universities today.

I went to Cyndislist and looked under "money" in the table of contents, to see if I could find a site that would convert the 1960s tuition price to today's dollars. Measuringworth came up with a variety of values, the explanations for which were too lengthy to make much sense to me. One of them was in the $31,000 range, but the rest were all a lot less. I decided I would take the $31,000 figure as the most accurate, just so I wouldn't feel retroactively priced out of the market.

Cultural Markers

2007-10-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

Bumper stickers seem to be an endangered species these days, at least in the San Francisco Bay Area. Many demonstrated a person's political/social views, providing passing interest on a roadway. With the decline in bumper stickers, a new way of marking affiliations and views has emerged -- address labels.

One can order, of course, address labels from commercial sources, which offer a mulitiplicity of designs. I did order some a few years back, and that opened a floodgate. I now regularly receive mailings from a variety of non-profits and and other groups sending me address labels and asking asking for a donation. The labels can have a mixture of designs, only some of which have the organization's logo; others have messages/logos only. I think there must be a merged marketing list somewhere of people who have ordered address labels and people who fit some non-profit's profile. Or they're merging the lists themselves.

A few days ago I received a letter at work with an address label I recognized: "Teach tolerance" with a logo. That person and I are both on at least one mailing list.

It's not quite as much fun as reading bumper stickers, but I'll take my cultural markers where I find them.

Server Farms and Carbon Footprints

2007-09-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

To paraphrase a high school cheer, "Victory, victory that's my cry: V-I-C-T-O-R-Y." I've finished the 23 things, without them finishing me off.

All in all, it was good for me (was it good for you too?) -- not always fun, but educational. Sort of like library school classes in cataloging.

As I wrote in some earlier posts, the 23 things identify resources that can be used to fill particular needs of libraries and their patrons. Find a need, then consider the resources, evaluating them in terms of time and dollar cost, employee skills, and patron access to electronic gadgetry. A handy mantra might be "Be not the first by whom the new is tried, nor the last to put the old aside." Or, look before you leap. The Quechup email is an example: respond to an email about a new social networking site, and your computer is infected. Even Infopeople got caught (see their September 4th blogpost.)

And then, of course, time catches up with us, faster than we may think. A September 27, 2007 article or post in Fortune magazine's column or blog "The Browser: Analyzing the Tech Biz" is titled "Are we already moving on from traditional social networking?" Traditional! But I just got here! Imagine how non-trendy a library's web presence on a social network might be in one year. Imagine the need to keep up. Not reasons to not go online, but certainly time costs to be evaluated.

My utility company (Pacific Gas & Electric, PG&E for short, pronounced by some as "piggie") just sent out a mailer inviting customers to sign up for a program to pay some extra dollars per month to balance out the carbon footprint of the gas/electricity used. The funds will be used to provide alternative methods of energy production. I'm considering it, in part because I figure it won't cost much. According to the brochure, the cost to the average customer will be about $5 per month. Whenever PG&E (spurred on by the state Public Utilities Commission) announces a rebate on past charges, I get a lot less than the average refund, presumably because I use low amounts of gas & electricity.

Carbon footprints, however, bring up the question of the hidden environmental costs of the web. Server farms and web hosting services use massive amounts of electricity for both cooling and operation. On July 8, 2006, Fortune magazine had an interesting article or blog post, "Behold the Server Farm! Glorious Temple of the Information Age!" The subtitle started: "They're ugly. They require a small city's worth of electricity. And they're where the web happens." That rhetoric, for some reason, conjures up in my mind the mosaics of Justinian and Theodora, and their courtiers, at San Vitale in Ravenna. The mosaics would have to be inside the buildings housing the servers, as the exteriors would, at least metaphorically, be coated in carbon footprints from all that energy expended to keep photographic ephemera, among other things, online forever.

Example: I recently took a cruise, but not a camera. Searching Flickr for the cruise ship and that same itinerary produced about a trillion photos by one person who apparently spent her entire cruise with a camera to her eye, photographing everything. Someone should have told her she could poke her eye out. It was pleasant to see a photo of the fruit bowl in her cabin, looking like the one we had in ours, but perhaps the carbon emitted from power plants to keep that online forever is not worth the hidden costs to all of us. I'm reminded of a scene in the movie Soylent Green, a dystopian view of an overpopulated future, in which an elderly Edward G. Robinson wearily mounts an exercise bike to create some electricity by pedalling away ------ and gee, that's maybe a solution to the problem! Maybe server farms could provide free or cheap gyms to the surrounding populations, using the bikes (and treadmills?) to generate some of the power needed! Of course, the sweaty gymn rats would add to the need for cooling ....

23 Things #23 (callooh callay)

School Daze

2007-09-27T12:24:00.000-07:00

While I'm willing to share my blunderings through the technological forest with a colleague, guiding them through one of the 23 things (just follow the crushed bushes I navigated through, ignore the paved path nearby), there seems to be a lack of either enthusiasm or time on everyone's part.

Nevertheless, "each one teach one" is our current motto on a slightly different technological front. On Tuesday, our branch had new telephones installed, with exciting features our previous system lacked: voice mail, with new phone numbers for all, except for the public line! automatically forward your own calls to a different desk! a nice pop-up (or is that propped-up?) screen with the date and time! Who knows what else!

We aren't quite sure of what else because these phones, while new to us, are phones previously used at the main branch. They came without user manuals, and with the buttons either unlabelled, or with the previous users' notes. They also initially didn't allow outgoing calls. By Wednesday, the phone company rep had come back and done whatever was necessary (it's all magic, science, or technology to me) to get them all working so we could make outgoing calls. We also got from library headquarters an email with a chart of each person's phone, showing what the 16 buttons were for, and a document listing "phone features" with an explanation.

No explanation of voice mail. No explanation of how to transfer a call manually (from the circulation desk, to the reference desk.) No explanation of how to use the speakerphone feature. The intuitives in the library are busy discovering how things work, and sharing the info. Today, Thursday, our student intern, who used to work in the library's tech department is going to see what he can figure out, or pry out of someone.

My contribution was to make a valiant search of the internet, hoping to find a manual online. No such luck. The company's website doesn't have any online. Thank heavens we have some intuitives working here.

23 things #22.

With Rings on their cell phones ....

2007-09-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

With rings on their cell phones,

and who knows where else on their bods,

at last it's easy to spot

the folks from the pods.

(Just a little ditty in memory of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.)

Thanks to the Yahoo podcast FAQ, I know that one does not need an iPod to listen to a podcast. I can add to the volume level in the workroom by listening at my PC.

I got to that site from the 23 Things link for item #21. It's a beta site, and a notice said that the site would be closed on October 31, 2007. The FAQs were informative and got me up to speed on the concept, but I found the site difficult to search. The search line wanted one to specify series or episodes (or both) -- doing both for "library" brought up only two links. I couldn't see how to search the tags, but perhaps I just missed the link.

I then went to podcast.net, another directory. This is extremely well-organized, with a clear line for searching for tags. A search of tags starting with L came up with an alphabetical list, so I could see that there were links to podcasts under libarian, librarians, libraries, library (I think those are in alpha order.) Clicking on the "library" link brought up a lot of on-point podcasts. I think this is a great site.

I then tried podcastingnews, another directory. Entering a search for "library" brought up a rather large close-up photo of a very buxom blonde, in a not-so-buxom black bra, holding a drink. You could see the bra and its contents (the main focus of the shot) because her shirt was unbuttoned, and her bow tie untied; there were a few locks of her hair visible (but not face,) enough to show the viewer that this was not just any buxom lass, but, rather, a BLONDE buxom lass. The drink was very visible, as the photo was illustrating an "Art of the Drink" video podcast, and the text included "drink library." Keyword searching has rarely been this interesting before.

Podcasts seem a good way to send to recipients wealthy enough to afford the recievers (ipods, pcs, some music players) a variety of oral programming: stories for kids, talks given at the library, library education. I guess those not wealthy enough would be in the same position as before podcasts: not able to listen in without going to the library for an event. This bothers me, but I can't think of a solution, and, I suspect, probably people in all income ranges acquire ipods or music players.

23 Things #21

Yourtube, not Mytube

2007-09-21T10:12:00.001-07:00

Others have said it better than I can:

From a tech colleague I have cited before: "YouTube -- the ultimate in channel flipping. ... YouTube let's you do it at your PC." Why do I feel this is more fun for males than females?

From a friend's email: "Pug bowling is fun to watch --- useless, but fun." (Well, it was something close to Pug bowling -- I no longer have the email.)

My library system (not SF Public Library) just installed Websense, the data protection and filtering application, on the staff computers, in part to address bandwidth problems, including increased usage of streaming audio and video. Maybe everyone was working on their 23 Things assignment at the same time?

I suppose YouTube could be used to show videos of library events, although the library pictures I noticed on Flickr tended to be fairly drab: who knows what the videos would be?

23 Things #20

Columbus should have had this map site

2007-09-21T09:51:00.000-07:00

At last -- Google Maps is a site that is easy to use. (Well, I didn't try to add a picture of our library to the map.)

I particularly liked the fact that the directions to/from the library include total mileage and driving time, with extra time "in traffic" noted --- so when is there no traffic in San Francisco? I tested directions to our library from the San Francisco Bay Bridge: for directions coming to the library, total distance is 12.3 miles, about 17 minutes, up to 30 minutes in traffic; returning to Bay Bridge from our library, time is 18 minutes, up to 40 minutes in traffic. The one time I tried driving to work, on a Saturday, it took more than an hour to get to the Bay Bridge from the library at 5pm --- that was the last time I didn't take public transit. (It was quite fast at 7am, though, getting to work.)

The directions print out very nicely, in large type with the exits in bold: easy to read while driving. I've been using the California State Automobile Association's map/directions for my personal use; I'll probably switch to Google's site.

23 Things #19

Soap Opera Blurbs

2007-09-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

I'm somewhat interested in Google's online word processing and spreadsheets, but of course, the "reeeeeeely big" (as Ed Sullivan used to say) question is PRIVACY. (The link to the home screen for those applications is horrendously long, and I have no idea how to paste it into the screen for "add a link," so just go to the 23 things link below and click on number 18.)

I can see one application in our library, with a number of staffers working on what might or might not be a spreadsheet; since it is just arranging non-cataloged items, privacy wouldn't be that big an issue . Staffers could work from the circulation desk, or their own desktops.

I was very entertained by the User examples (blurbs on successful usage) on the site (much shorter URL) : I particularly liked the "son-in-law par excellence" (self-named, but well-earned IMHO) helping out his mother-in law on the opposite coast, and the retired police officer in Poole, England who, along with his wife, uses the service to create the shopping lists: no more poorly-scribbled wifely lists for him to read while pushing his trolley around the market. What's not to like when those two, and a drag strip operations coordinator in Las Vegas, all find it useful? Not to mention the family/friends fighting over Boston Red Sox (or is it the White Sox?) tickets. Really, it's almost a soap opera in those user comments. I note that the site is a beta version: if things don't work out, maybe Google could just market the comments.

23 Things #18

Wiki equals Fast: Do we know who's driving our car?

2007-09-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

Wiki in Hawaiian means fast. (Ukulele in Hawaiian means jumping flea.)

Probably because of Wikipedia I tend to think of a wiki as an encyclopedia-type site. Some of the library sites I looked at seem closer to blogs. Probably not a big difference.

The Bull Run Library wiki is a good example of a problem: It looks like an official library site, with a heading consisting of photos of interiors of the branch library (it's part of Prince William County (VA) Public Library system), but under "About this website" is the statement "This wiki is not sponsored by nor associated with the library system. It is maintained by one library patron." That perhaps explains a later statement under the same heading: "If this wiki does not meet with your expectations, please feel free not to use it." So much for the image of a friendly librarian. With friends like that, do we need enemies?

I didn't add to the Infopeople wiki (challenge 17) as there is no privacy policy on the site, and also because I'm tired of trying to figure out if my login name needs to be my email address, or Marianaria Sra. Bibliotecaria. I think I'm getting burnt out from entering all the different sites for the 23 things.

23 Things 16 & 17

Joining Miranda in Awe and Wonder

2007-09-19T09:41:00.000-07:00

At one point in The Tempest, Miranda, who has been raised on a desert island by her father and has finally met other Europeans thanks to the shipwreck caused by the title's storm, says with awe and wonder of those others, "O brave new world, that has such people in it." (Act V, scene 1.)

That was pretty much my reaction at reading the 23 Things links to Web 2.0 and to Library 2.0 and the Future of Libraries. (My reaction to the Wikipedia Web 2.0 article was really to the discussion portion.) A more modern term might be shock and awe, minus the heavy artillery.

Otto von Bismarck (speaking of war) is credited with saying "Laws are like sausages: it is better not to see them being made," at http://www.brainyquote.com/. Well, let's add to that trends in the making.

In some respects, the discussion portion of Wikipedia's Web 2.0 entry wasn't wildly different from the September 9, 2007 Dilbert comic strip. (A lot longer, less funny, and at times a lot snarkier, yes.) In that strip Asok, the intern, deflects a question about his progress by asking if the company's service is Web 2.0 or 1.0. Predictably, arguments ensue about just what Web 2.0, and the company's service, are. Somehow it was funnier in a cartoon than in the Wikipedia discussion.

I'd like to see Dilbert's take on Library 2.0. Maybe he would just pound his head against a wall -- certainly that's my reaction. I think that Walt Crawford, who wrote the piece that was linked to, might have the same reaction (head-pounding) on a dark and dreary day -- instead, he addressed Web 2.0 on an apparently bright and sunny day, producing all 32 pages of the article.

His bottom line, as I see it, is that Library 2.0 is a bandwagon sent out by a few circus owners; it has captured attention and enthusiasm with something a lot closer to "Hey kids, let's put on a show!" than a show itself. Or maybe it's closer to a pied piper entrancing children ....

The elements that may or may not be part of Web 2.0 (see Dilbert, above, and the Wiki discussion) are tools that libraries can use to meet identified needs. (A tip of the hat to my
tech colleague who repeatedly makes this point in his blog.) Web 2.0 tools are not the only tools; they are tools that in turn use popular methods of communication, and the ability to use them will vary from library to library depending on funding, skills available to the library, and the skills/communication resources of the patrons to be served. (I adore Mr. Crawford for disliking "customers" as the term for those using a library; unfortunately, my library likes it.)

Let's all focus on how we can make library patrons even happier -- they will let us know when they are unhappy -- by using new approaches, just as libraries have always done (see Crawford's article and quotes in it about past technological advances -- like telephone reference.)

Let's not worry if we can call ourselves Library 2.0 or not: heck, let's just all say that yes indeedy, we are a Library 2.0 library, and see if anyone sues us.

23 Things #15.

No Technorati

2007-09-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

Technorati doesn't make it easy to find out much, except by trial and error (I specialize in the latter.) I finally went to "Help" and found FAQ -- which for the most part deal with tech questions, although it did include "What is Authority" as one.

I searched for tags using one from one of my blogs, and, sure enough, my blog popped up.

I don't feel the need to join Technorati to count hits or popularity or whatever it is counting.

This is obviously a useful site for searching the blogosphere, so could be a useful link in a library's website. Libraries with blogs could also use it to measure the hits (etc.) as noted above.

23 things #14

The Golden Apple of the Web

2007-09-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

One of my most frabjous days was the one on which the newspapers first reported that chocolate, particularly dark chocolate, is good for you --- callooh callay indeed indeed indeed. For weeks after, I avoided reading any more stories on the subject, for fear that a subsequent report would prove that the initial results were from an elementary school science fair project funded entirely by the dark chocolate industry. So far, no such breaking news ....

Now that chocolate is good for us, one my my remaining guilty food pleasures is golden delicious apples. It's a guilty pleasure because I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the capitals of foodies: people who go beyond gourmet to being concerned with terroir, transportation, and tiny farms. Jon Carroll, in his March 5, 2007 column in the San Francisco Chronicle very politely grumped that he didn't really want to discuss the food at dinner parties -- he wanted to eat it with some other conversations. I sympathize: I really don't need to know if the mushrooms on my plate were hand-grown and hand-harvested with loving attention on a slope darkened by pesticide-free old-growth redwoods less than twenty miles from the restaurant/dinner-part site, by a farmer wearing undyed organic cotton clothing woven by monks paid a living wage, a hat made from bark naturally shed by eucalpytus trees, and shoes handcrafted by a female-cooperative in a third-world country with funding from a micro-loan program dedicated to improving the lives of refugees, then shipped to the US by a company that uses carbon-offsets to improve the air quality both there and here.

Just to set the record clear: I like old-growth forests; I like redwoods; I like pesticide-free; I like cooperatives improving the lives of women/children/refugees; I'm for living wages for all; I guess carbon offsets are good; etc. etc. --- I just don't really want to spend an entire meal discussing the lineage of every ingredient in every item. I like conversation, but would prefer just to chow down while discussing something else.

Further clarification: I even like foodies. This year I celebrated April, National Poetry Month, by sending to the ones I know a copy of Donald Hall's poem "O Cheese" -- if he lived in the Bay Area, rather than New England, he might have titled it "Ode to the Cowgirl Creamery." (It's included in White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems, 1946-2006.) The (mostly) resulting silence probably means that sending people a poem to celebrate National Poety Month just adds new meaning to "April is the cruellest month" for the lucky recipients --- but maybe they all were too busy eating some cheese to express their delight?

I know of heirloom tomatoes, and that there are people growing, or trying to grow, what I guess would be heirloom apples. I picked up the info on heirloom apples from Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan (plus the fascinating fact that when Johnny Appleseed was scattering apple seeds, the apples from the resulting trees were good only for making hard cider.) I read that book as a result of reading Deadly Harvest: A Father Mark Townsend Mystery, by Brad Reynolds, S.J., a mystery involving a new strain (is that the word?) of apples. So I feel a bit guilty for liking plain old golden delicious apples, with no lineage to speak of, and produced far far away (and then coated with food-grade wax, probably distantly related to the carnuba wax sold for use on cars, which seals in the pesticides, and then kept in refrigeration, and not very recently picked, and when they were picked, may have been picked by machines and not people, etc. etc. A lineage worthy of Oliver Twist, not Alice Waters.)

And, surprisingly enough, I like social bookmarking at del.icio.us. Finally, an application that solves a problem I can identify. At my library, the two librarians who share the reference desk log onto the terminal with their own user names/passwords. This allows each librarian to access her own email accounts. It also, however, means there is no shared bookmarking. Now we can come up with a combined list. Not as frabjous as dark chocolate being healthy, but still quite satisfactory.

(A tip of the hat to W.B. Yeats and Ray Bradbury for the title of this post.)

23 Things #13

Rollyo in the Clover

2007-09-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

I am slightly under-whelmed by Rollyo, but I think that's because I don't need to do a lot of research. I can see why Arianna Huffington finds it useful (she's one of two noted on the site -- the other is someone with shopping sites,) but for me, it's nothing I really need.

In terms of a library use, it would seem to be a shortened version of the Librarian's Internet Index which many libraries have links to. I suppose a library's staffers could use Rollyo to create links to sites on narrow topics, to assist users. Such a project, of course, raises questions over the criteria for inclusion/exclusion. Maybe websites could be added to books for the Banned Books Week observed by many libraries.

23 Things #12

Subject Headings: Fun at Last

2007-08-31T11:25:00.000-07:00

Subject headings drive me crazy. I occasionally give talks on how to do subject searches in library catlaogs -- I use the Library of Congress subject headings, which are the most common in my field. I always tell an audience that while the Library of Congress (LC) is full of warm wonderful librarians who want to help people, when it comes to subject headings one should always remember that as federal employees, the LC people are distant relatives of other federal employees who bring us the IRS forms. So, how easy should one expect them to be?

LibraryThing shows the gap: I enjoyed just adding tags to my personal books, and seeing what tags others had added. I was listing fiction titles, and the subject headings there tend to be closer to what most people use, but the tag cloud still shows lots of terms.

I don't need a list of my books: long before library school, I was weeding my books at random intervals -- mostly to make room for more books. I know what I have, and where they are ( I lack the "summer home" that LibraryThing uses as an example of helpful location info to add to one's list.) But I like the links to other titles, and the comments.

Library Thing would seem quite handy for small libraries, and, I guess, for public libraries that don't subscribe to one of two main databases for cataloging (OCLC and RLIN.) I may use it to see if I can find a listing for any books our cataloging department can't find in OCLC.

In the July-August issue of Utne (formerly Utne Reader,) there was a brief note, "Gaming for the Greater Good," about the ESP Game at http://www.espgame.org/. The game "involves viewing images and typing descriptive words at the same time as a randomly selected, unknown partner .... Players accrue points when they agree on a word." The game has a serious purpose: "Researchers designed the game to cull data, making it more efficient to search for images online and help label them for blind users." (Utne 142:11, quoting from Science News (March 17, 2007.) Now that is a fun way to approach cataloging.

23 Things #11

Images and Imagists: poetry and pixels.

2007-08-30T15:05:00.001-07:00

I first tried the Image generators in the last hour of the last day before I went on vacation: I was almost done in by my ususal hand-to-hand combat with computers on top of stress about getting ready for the trip: packing -- why do it in advance, when you might get run over by a streetcar, and have to answer to God why you wasted time on earth packing for a trip that wouldn't take place; cleaning for the cat sitter -- heaven forbid she thinks my cat lives in anything less than a perfect house; worrying about airport screw-ups -- whatever happened to the romance of air travel? All in all, I felt the image above summed up what I need on my computer. Thanks to Glass Giant.

Image generators brought to mind the Imagists. Ezra Pound wrote what one person termed "Imagism's enabling text:" In a Station of the Metro. I went to Flickr and searched for pictures of the paris metro: found a lot, but not quite anything that really brought to life Pound's poem. Some crowd scenes looked much jollier than his poem intimated, and none suggest that it is raining outside. So, which is truer: photos, or poetry. As a regular transit rider, I certainly feel closer to the poem than the pictures: but then, I'm not on vacation, as at least some of those photographed are.

23 Things #10

Twitter, Tuitiar, Bartleby and Klee: Not a Law Firm

2007-08-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

I echo Bartleby the Scrivener by saying, "I would prefer not to" join Twitter. I looked at the home page, and found some of the featured twitterers interesting: GuardianTech, SkyNews, and LAFD, but not interesting enough to subscribe to. The "just posted" list showed posts of interest to only acquaintances of the poster.

I did somehow link up to some twitters about Michael Gorman's blog posts about Web 2.0, on the Encyclopedia Britannica's blog: as one person said in a post somwhere else, who knew the Britannica had one? The post and the comments were pretty interesting/entertaining, but the point of the twitters was just to provide (outraged) notice.

The social aspects of twittering come through pretty clearly in Tuitiar Comunidad Twitter Argentina (I like the sound of Tuitiar, and the blue bird.) My lack of interest probably reflects my lack of a social group that uses Twitter. Plus, it seems difficult to carry around the necessary Twittering Machine to keep me available for instant posts. Email at desktop PCs seems fine for me now.

Twittering machines and sound poetry: I had incorrectly remembered Kurt Schwitters rather than Paul Klee as the artist. Searching the internet for Schwitters twittering brought up some links, and ultimately I found one with a short video excerpt of Kurt Schwitters reciting Ursonate, one of his sound poems: not twittering, but trilling in parts.

Library uses: possibly providing information to individuals on something: new acquistions? your hold is now available?

23 Things #9

Flogging Blogs

2007-08-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

Of the two technologies covered by challenges 1-5 (blogs and photos,) the blog would seem most appropriate for my section of our library. The social aspect of photography seems unlikely to appeal to our patrons, who are mostly not local residents, and who are all adults. Far be it from me to say that adults are not narcissistic, but I think that there is less of a need to create a social nexus via photos on the part of adult researchers.

Photos of some of the rarer items in the collection could, however, be helpful --- or at least decorative.

After looking at the four libraries on the link from challenge 6, I have these comments:

I wonder about the wisdom of a library allowing minors to post their photos on the library's website: or are those teens all 18 and older?

I was entertained by the comment of one teen on the PLCMC site, that putting the library on Second Life would do away with the need to go to the library in person. For some reason it reminded me of the patron at my local library who once needed to renew for the third time the Cliff Notes item he had checked out. Maybe the similarity is not needing to read something.

I wonder why Ann Arbor's list of new books in Spanish only describes them in English.

Denver's homepage is useless for linking to the podcasts they have.

I wonder who is being left behind in the rush to produce podcasts for kids. Just what is the socio-economic distribution of ipods, etc.? Probably a lot broader than I think.

I read about RSS Feeds, signed up for Bloglines, subscribed to a few, and was disappointed in the results. Bloglines doesn't display the entire blog. For instance, for the SF Public Library's Magazine and Newspaper section's blog, the feed doesn't display Herb Caen's typewriter, the ultimate in icons for SF Chronicle readers of the past. I miss Herb, although I also really like Leah Garchik's column, which is the closese replacement. Her "Overheards" (which, the last time I looked at it online, didn't appear in that version) can be priceless. My favorite, a mother overheard speaking to a young child: Eat your donut and then you can have a treat.

The bloglines feed for David Silver's Silver in San Francisco omits the links (using Feevy -- which I am now interested in) on the right of the blog to the most recent posts from a variety of other blogs. I've found Silver's links very interesting, particularly because a number of them are from Spanish-language blogs.

I was also disappointed that Bloglines seems to want to force a user to read only in one language: at least that's what I sense from the language specification, and the statement that blogs in other languages would be translated as much as possible. It might be fun, however, to set the link for one language, then sign up for blogs only in another. For a great column on an English-language website apparently translated from some other language, see Jon Carroll's column in the August 13th San Francisco Chronicle (http://www.sfgate.com/; click on columnists, then on Carroll, then on archive. Leah Garchik is also under columnists.) His quotes are from the accessories section of http://www.apparelop.com/. I was laughing out loud on the streetcar when I read it - fortunately, in SF no one notices or moves away. (Or asks what's so funny.)

Getting back to Bloglines, I unsubscribed to my links -- it's just as easy to have the blogs I like bookmarked, so I can see them in their entirety.

Thanks in part to the links from David Silver's blog, and from Lipstick Librarian (written by someone I knew in library school,) I have already found some interesting library-related blogs, including the SFPL Mags/Newspapers one noted above, and Jessamyn West at http://www.librarian.net/.

23 Things #6-8

Mashups vs. moshpits

2007-08-08T16:37:00.000-07:00

I suspect that moshpits, for those young enough to enjoy them, are more fun than mashups. I did play a game, but otherwise wasn't too impressed with the sites. I lack the piece of equipment (name forgotten) that was needed for one site --- or so I think.

I'm not sure what a library application would be for this.

23 Things #5

Goldengrove Unleaving

2007-08-08T14:23:00.000-07:00

More on Flickr 4 and the groups: I searched Afghanistan hippie, and ultimately arrived at http://www.magicbus.info/. My my my -- the memories came cascading back. This site, with its links to similar sites, is addictive; I just wish more photos were posted more often.

For propriety's sake, I should mention that I made the London-Kathmandu trip in 1978 without the aid of herbal stimulants. (No, really.)

(Source for title: "Goldengrove unleaving" is from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. While searching online for it, I discovered a Jill Paton Walsh novel with that title.)

23 Things #4

Flickerings from the past

2007-08-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

Found lots of interesting photos, although Libraries was the last thing I looked for. I searched for Afghanistan, and got a wonderful link to a group on the hippie trail: the overland route from England to Nepal and farther. A lot of the photos were from 1977, and brought back great memories of my trip in 1978. Whatever happended to some of those "fellow travelers?" I occasionally search online for them, but no luck so far.

I also searched for my hometown, and found a lot of photos. Main Street is no longer a location with working businesses, but, rather, a conglomeration of boutiques/coffee shops/restaurants. A destination spot for many on weekends, but it seems strange to have one's own town turned into what I think of as Disneyland. It's due, of course, to the town booming, and malls/office parks coming in. It's not far from where I live, so I have gone there, but one or two visits to Main Street fills my needs -- there are similar stores where I live (similar, but independents) so no need to travel far for coffee/food/boutiques.

I did rather wonder about the wisdom of one photo showing a man on a motorcycle (Main Street does attract some biker groups looking, I guess, for an independently run coffee store) -- the title was Fat Boy. Maybe that's his own choice, but, as the bumper sticker says, "The reason more people object to people wearing fur than to people wearing leather is that it's easier to harrass rich women than motorcycle riders."

I'm not sure how the subjects on Flickr work, as under Libraries was a good photo of the giant censer (incense burner) in the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Some libraries had photos of local library events, which could be of interest to those attending, or good publicity on a local site for events. I liked the site with vintage postcards of libraries.

Haven't worked on mashups yet: sounds like something from a rock concert.

I didn't join any groups as I didn't feel like opening a Yahoo mail account, which comes with the signup. I can always check with groups that I like.?

23 Things #4

Dilbert Understood at Last

2007-08-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

I've been enjoying Dilbert since the cartoon strip started -- so much of the humor applies to any occupation, more's the pity. But starting the 23 Things has led to even more of an appreciation, at least for Dilbert himself, whom I picture as someone who can identify potential user problems and avoid/fix them in his programming. (Or whatever it is he is doing.) Who's the coffee-drinking slacker in that cartoon --- I think he's the one who worked on the two programs or links or websites I've used so far in starting the 23 things: just getting the online video to work for "pre-step" 1 was a challenge -- heck, just getting a link to the video that was live was a problem.

Finally saw the video, and I have now gotten as far on Blogger.com as writing a post. I can't wait for further adventures.

Were things less stressful in River City? Apart from censoring Balzac?

23 Things #1-3