Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Irony Redux

Once more: (this time from OCLC WorldCat)

The myth of the paperless office

Language: English Type: Book
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©2002. | Other Editions ...
ISBN: 0262194643 9780262194648 | OCLC: 46872316 | Cite this Item
=========================================================

...I bring this book up because one of my new bosses (i.e. the new Medical Director) is pushing the Paperless Office concept again, much to the consternation of just about everyone. This on top of the crappy new Database I griped about earlier. I sent this off via email to some trusted colleagues at work as "recommended reading, of possible interest..."; hopefully as an antidote to the madness. Just acting as the friendly, neighborhood wanna-be company/corporate librarian, don't you know...*whistles innocently* (actually I don't want to be a corporate/special Librarian, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish)

Incidentally, according to WorldCat, the two closest libraries where this book is available in tangible form is good ol' Fondren Library over at Rice University (where I have limited borrowing privileges) and the MD Anderson Library at the University of Houston (where I don't, so it'd be "library use only"; Fondren is just barely affordable, but UH charges an arm & a leg to their "Library Friends" who also want borrowing privileges--or at least last time I checked they did). None of the public libraries that are convenient for me to use---Fort Bend (below) nor Houston Public, have it in hard copy, only digital.

Y'know what this says to me?

"LET THEM EAT PIXELS!"

This is a scholarly book with lengthy, discursive prose, not a reference book you'd consult for short excerpted bits of information; It's an exceedingly poor candidate for an E-book.

You note that the two serious research universities have this book in hard copy, and for good reason. Serious scholars wouldn't have it any other way.

Irony...

Irony.

Librarians will get this. Others--maybe not.

a sample record from Fort Bend County Public Libraries....

The myth of the paperless office [electronic resource] / Abigail J. Sellen and Richard H.R. Harper.
by Sellen, Abigail J.
View full image
Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2002.
Description:
xi, 231 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Contents:
What's wrong with paper -- Paper in knowledge work -- Reading from paper -- Paper in support of working together -- Designing new technologies -- The future of paper.
ISBN:
9780585446561 (electronic bk.)
0585446563 (electronic bk.)
# Checked-In:
0
# Requests:
0
Link(s):
An electronic book accessible through the World Wide Web; click for information

Sunday, May 20, 2007

An applied History Lesson in the workplace

Today, my workplace brothers & sisters,

Let's meet...Frederick W. Taylor
most famous for his contributions to the analytical method called..............

Time and motion study

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A time and motion study (or time-motion study) is a business efficiency technique combining the Time Study work of Frederick Winslow Taylor with the Motion Study work of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth (best known through the biographical 1950 film and book Cheaper by the Dozen). It is a major part of Scientific management (Taylorism).

A time and motion study would be used to reduce the number of motions in performing a task in order to increase productivity. The best known experiment involved bricklaying. Through carefully scrutinising a bricklayer's job, Frank Gilbreth reduced the number of motions in laying a brick from 18 to about 5. Hence the bricklayer [or Travel Assistance Coordinator, in our case] both increased productivity and decreased fatigue.

The Gilbreths developed what they called therbligs ("therblig" being "Gilbreth" spelled backwards, with a slight variation), a classification scheme comprising 17 basic hand motions.

See also

References

  • Management (3rd Edition), Robbins, S.P., Bergman, R., Stagg, L, & Coulter, M. (2003) . Sydney, Australia: Prentice Hall
===========================================================================================================
I thought about all that for a minute, then I thought about our current hurdles with our two competing Databases at my workplace, BRIO (old DB) v. Liberty (new DB). Our contemporary situation turns Taylorism, a.k.a. Scientific Management, on its head, frankly...

....Unless the objective is to decrease productivity, increase employee fatigue & burnout, and run the company into the ground. Heck if I know, I'm not in management.
Despite its mid-1990s vintage, BRIO is the clear winner of the overall efficiency & productivity contest...no matter how experienced your users are, they will ALWAYS be slower with the Liberty DB than with BRIO. Those "extra steps" in Liberty DO matter--A LOT, especially when multiplied...the growth over time of net inefficiencies is exponential.
I don't know what analytical method was used to justify the switch from BRIO to Liberty, but it damn sure wasn't Scientific management theory.

Scientific management applies equally well for tangible products like cars and bricks to intangible products like insurance policies & related assistance services.
Makes you wonder...

This is why a Liberal Arts education is useful---and dangerous.

-JJR

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Rebranding librarianship: what do you think?

"It Stinks!" - Jay Sherman, a.k.a Jon Lovitz

You might want to give your opinion here. I did.

--JJR, a.k.a. Aggie Librarian.

=========
Rebranding librarianship: what do you think?
http://plablog.org/2007/05/rebranding-librarianship-what-do-you-
think.html

Friday, May 4th, 2007 by Andrea Mercado

Brendan Gallagher, a participant in Leslie Berger´s Emerging Leaders
Initiative, posted to the Mentors, Masters, Leaders blog today about
the survey that´s been making the rounds through various digital
venues:

I´m one of the ALA Emerging Leaders this year, and I´m part of a
work team that is looking at options for "rebranding the library
profession in the digital world." We´ve decided to survey as broad a
spectrum of library professionals as possible in order to see what we
think of ourselves.

This survey is part of Project KK. You can read more about the
project and other projects on the ALA Emerging Leaders wiki. I´ve
seen the survey mentioned on Twitter, in emails, in IM chats, and on
blogs, and I´m hoping that ALA will actually post a link to it from
the ALA home page, which would make a lot of sense and increase the
outreach of such an important request for feedback.

Pass it on -- "Future of Bibliographic Control"

This came in the mail this morning, so I'm passing this along from my inbox to you all, of possible professional interest to those in the Cataloging/Metadata side of things.

... in other news, I should hopefully know by the end of this upcoming week
if I am moving out of state (new job) or staying here.
Will keep ya'll posted either way.

Enjoy!

--JJR, aka The Aggie Librarian.

PS: My friend PT in Clear Lake describes herself as a "reluctant cataloger"; I like that. For all my attempts to get library jobs, I must admit I've gotten more phone and face-to-face interviews from the cataloging jobs I've applied for. I've gotten a few reference position phone interviews but NONE have gone to the next level of face-to-face interviewing among other finalists. It's a hard club to break into, but once you do, it seems you get first dibs on all the good cataloger jobs out there. Anyhow...check out the professional info below.

-----Original Message-----
From: Radical Cataloging [mailto:RADCAT@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of
mlindner@UIUC.EDU
Sent: Sun, May 13, 2007 12:20 PM
To: RADCAT@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: 2nd meeting of the LoC Working Group on the Future of
Bibliographic Control

Please excuse the cross-posting: I have sent this to AUTOCAT, RADCAT,
EduCAT, NGC4LIB, and the Metadata Librarians lists. Please feel free to
forward it wherever you feel it may be of use; that is, I give you explicit
permission to do so.

On Wednesday, May 9th, several colleagues from UIUC and I attended the 2nd
meeting of the LoC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control at
ALA in Chicago.

I have transcribed my notes, and those of Kathryn La Barre, in a series of
blog posts on my blog in the hopes of getting as much of this information
out into the public sphere as possible. Comments are certainly welcome.

A teaser and links to Diane Hillmann's posts at the LITA Blog:
http://tinyurl.com/2udc6t

Part 1: Welcome(s):
http://tinyurl.com/36moen

Part 2: David Bade
http://tinyurl.com/2jzuup

Part 3: Diane Hillmann
http://tinyurl.com/2q345k

Part 4: Jane Greenberg
http://tinyurl.com/2shc2v

Part 5: Jennifer Bowen
http://tinyurl.com/32am7g

Part 6: Public testimony and wrap-up
http://tinyurl.com/3dqwlt

There is still time to provide written testimony to this Working Group and I
highly encourage you to do so. Those of you outside of academic
libraries/LIS schools are highly encouraged to do so, as there seems to be
little explicit representation by these communities in this process.

Written testimony instructions can be found here:
http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/meetings/submit-testimony.html

Mark

Mark R. Lindner
Certificate of Advanced Study candidate
Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign

Graduate Assistant, Serials Cataloging, Content Access Management
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library
1408 W. Gregory Dr.
Urbana, IL 61801

Graduate Assistant, Illinois Fire Service Institute Library
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
11 Gerty Drive
Champaign, IL 61820

mlindner@uiuc.edu

Happy Mother's Day

"Mother" by Pink Floyd
-------------------------------------------------
Mother, do you think they'll drop the bomb?
Mother, do you think they'll like this song?
Mother, do you think they'll try to break my balls?
Mother, should I build the wall?
Mother, should I run for President?
Mother, should I trust the government?
Mother, will they put me in the firing line?
Is it just a waste of time?

Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry
Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true
Momma's gonna put all of her fears into you
Momma's gonna keep you right here under her wing
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing
Momma's will keep Baby cozy and warm
Oooo Babe
Oooo Babe
Ooo Babe, of course Momma's gonna help build the wall

Mother, do you think she's good enough
For me?
Mother, do you think she's dangerous
To me?
Mother will she tear your little boy apart?
Mother, will she break my heart?

Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry
Momma's gonna check out all your girlfriends for you
Momma won't let anyone dirty get through
Momma's gonna wait up until you get in
Momma will always find out where you've been
Momma's gonna keep Baby healthy and clean
Oooo Babe
Oooo Babe
Ooo Babe, you'll always be Baby to me

Mother, did it need to be so high?
===================================================

I always thought the line was "she won't let you fly, but she might let you sink".
Imperfect rhyme, yes, but semantically more coherent with the overall direction and theme of the song itself, though I suppose that misheard lyric reveals more about myself than anything else.

Song hits closer to home than I'd like it to.

Mom's a retired school librarian, so it took me longer than it probably would have otherwise to come around to Librarianship as a viable career path for myself; and even then, even though getting school library certified on my way to getting the MLS would've been the financially smart and savvy thing to do, it was impossible for me at a psychological level. I've been stubbornly determined to work in either academic libraries or public libraries, PERIOD. No interest neither in school libraries nor corporate/special libraries--unless we're talking Museum Libraries--I still think back to the really good phone interview I had with SCAD, the "Savannah College of Art & Design"; I had them talking face-to-face interview, the whole 9 yards. They really digged me, for some reason. But then just as suddenly, the employment offer vanished, owing, they cited, to budgetary shortfalls. Too bad, really, as I think SCAD would've been a VERY cool place to work for, surrounded by all those artistically talented people.

During my interview at USC, I did comment that the fact that there was NOT a senior cataloger in their Tech Services Department would be a reason for declining their offer IF I had an otherwise identical offer from another institution that DID have one. My therapist correctly diagnosed that it was a sign of wanting/looking for a replacement mother/father authority figure in the workplace; and a bit irrational, because although the 30-something catalogers I would be interacting with had many years job experience over me, many of them moreover having started out in library school at a much earlier stage in their lives than I did--I was still hoping to learn on bended knee from a gray-haired sage of either gender. *sigh*. That's archetype for you, folks.

Anyway, I did not go the school libraries route, and now it would be quite costly to me financially to backtrack and try to get that credential, either here in Texas or in South Carolina, assuming I get an offer of employment out there soon. It would be basically taking out an insurance policy against future joblessness or underemployment, and a fast-track back to the library world, a way of hedging bets. But the truth is, I just plain don't WANT to work in School libraries, not even in a High School setting. Still too traumatized from my 1 year teaching stint while living in Webster, Texas, I guess. Then there's the question of eventual PhDs...a PhD in Library Science would be the easiest route, I feel, but Intellectual History ultimately more gratifying. Rice U's Intellectual History program is still first-rate, even if some of the professors I most admired have moved on and are no longer on the Rice Faculty. But I can't conceive of taking time NOW to go pursue that. Just doesn't make any good financial sense to do so. I don't even aspire to Library administration beyond a department head job someday. And a PhD is not even required for a Library Director (though it is increasingly expected), only for a "Dean of Libraries" in a multi-Library university system. I'm still just trying to get in on the ground floor, so the thought of scaling such dizzying heights in the library world is pretty far removed from my immediate consciousness.

I do hope that USC pans out, I really think it's a job I could sink my teeth into and work my ass off and gain a lot of valuable knowledge, insight, and practical experience in, with good colleagues that I have good rapport with, etc. But if it doesn't, well, just keep plugging away for the faceless corporation I still work for, try to manage the transition to the new DB as best I can, etc. If I do end up in South Carolina, I may ultimately hire a lawyer to help me track down my biological parents, or at least my biological mother; not that I would ever embarrass the poor woman by meeting face to face; I'm more curious from an ethno-biological standpoint and a medical history standpoint. A friend of mine at work brought me a work of fiction wherein the author (or the copy-writer/editor) had included on the jacket blurb that "all children mythologize their birth"; She was skeptical of this and wanted my opinion. I stated "well, I did, because I'm adopted and have no hard evidence about what really happened, so myth is my only alternative". I speculate that one or both of my biological parents were alcoholics, and as such was probably conceived while they were drunk at the time. I was obviously unplanned, and it was probably not a happy time for my biological mother. My arrival obviously made my adoptive parents very happy, and for that I'm grateful. My biological mother had other alternatives, and me-today still supports the full range of choices she could have taken. Once I was in the world, it sounds as if putting me up for adoption was certainly best for me, and likely best for her as well...I'd like to believe it enabled my biological mother to go ahead and go to college and get on with her life in ways that would not have been possible, would have condemned the both of us to lives of dire poverty and desperation had she tried to raise me on her own. I guess I've lived with the mental interpretation of myself as a mistake, as an accident of carelessness, etc, but suppressed those thoughts so deeply...refusing to deal with them directly but nonetheless being deeply impacted by them regardless. It's not easy territory to cover, and I'm grateful to have my current therapist as a guide.

My adoptive family background is of Scottish decent. It's possible my biological roots are Scottish as well, but they're just as likely Anglo-Saxon (English) or some other European ethnicity. I doubt I have any Jewish ethnicity but that would be pretty neat to discover. Irish would be very cool, too. Or Russian or Polish. I think I would like to know, though, rather than just to exclusively celebrate the Scottish heritage alone based on my VERY Scottish name.

It's perhaps mythically significant that when I married CRC, I was married wearing a Kilt, but it was a generic rental, not in my (adoptive) family's Tartan. I would've preferred a Royal Stewart, but owing to availability and short notice and expense, I ended up wearing a Clan Gordon tartan, which is a mostly Green-Black-and-White pattern. Ironically, CRC, who is not adopted, is biologically tied to Clan MacDonnell of Keppoch, which is my (adoptive) family's Clan as well...the folks with my surname, well, we're a "Sept" of that Clan. CRC also had some Irish in her, which I always joked came out in her at times ferocious temper. CRC was brunette, but at times her hair would wax reddish in colour, to almost an auburn hue. She looked really great wearing my Rice U. sweatshirts; she was certainly smart enough to have gone there, but she decided not to. How happier life would've been if she had done so, for the both of us, perhaps.

To speak of mythical significance, etc, is precisely the sort of liberal-artsy talk that I relish but sets off the woo-detectors of fellow freethinkers who are more hard-sciences grounded, and it's what separates them from me on some level. I'm no less a materialist and scientific rationalist than they are, it's just that when you're analyzing human culture, you have to delve into these referents, become acquainted with them, etc. It confuses the hard-science types equally as the religious types. It's harder on the religious, because while I accept myth AS myth, they want (their own) myth to be substantized as hard reality, and this I'm unwilling to concede. They also want THEIR myth to be exalted over all others. Again, I'm unable to give them that either.

Scientific & Technological know-how is at best a tool to augment human virtue and aesthetic longing...but they make for a poor REPLACEMENT of these things. Organized religion hurts more than it helps, by ossifying free flowing patterns and creating hard dogmas. My point is, I find I am in broad agreement with James Howard Kunstler's musings on this stuff in his book Home from Nowhere, which is the follow up book to his groundbreaking Geography of Nowhere.

Anyway, enough Mother's Day Musings for today.
"Maybe you should put some shorts on, or something, if you want to continue fighting evil today."

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

rejection letter(s)...

Well, shit...a good library job and Texas just don't seem to be in the cards. My rejection letter from UH arrived today, dated 3 May 2007, for the Modern & Classical Languages position. They regretfully inform I am no longer under "active consideration".
Just goes to show you...it's like a Murphy's Law of Library Science....any position you sound PERFECT for you will always be rejected in the first round.

Weird-ass positions you apply for on a lark, you'll at least wrangle a phone interview out of.
I give up trying to make any sense of it. It makes me a little sick to my stomach, because it means so much more is riding on USC now.

(I don't seriously think I have even a prayer when it comes to the Oregon-based "Slavic Cataloger" job I applied for a few weeks ago--I knew that was a longshot going in)
Anyway, I'm biding time until my counseling session tonight listening to James Taylor sing "Going to Carolina in My Mind" on YouTube, which is some comfort.

Just keep rolling with the punches...it it comes, it was meant to be...if it don't, it weren't.
Our medical director up and quit while I was off in SC, and I've been approached by the new director to help manage the transition to the new database at work.

It would've been better to have involved staff much much earlier in this thing, but better late than never I guess. I gave my honest opinions on how things stand with the new DB and pointed out some of the material things we need to do our jobs better---heavier duty fax machines and more than just one going to the same line, etc.
There are actual "authority control" and "controlled vocabulary" problems to tackle, too.
So, whatever, y'know?

I'll always be "the Librarian" in any organization, no matter what my official job-title says. It's too much in my blood now not to be. It's part and parcel of who I am, for better or worse.