Thing 11 - Instant Messaging (North Texas 23 Things)

My first experience with "Instant messaging" was playing around with Internet Relay Chat (IRC) back in the late 1990s. I used to hang out on #germany (channel Germany) a whole lot, mostly to practice interacting with native German speakers online; it was a fun way to waste time; I'd sometimes have a beer in hand while logged on from my apartment in the Old Grad House on South Main in Houston, while I was still a graduate student in German Studies at Rice University.

I later watched over the shoulder of my friend Jase, who was an "early adopter" to America Online (AOL), and which had its own chat rooms exclusive to AOL users.

Today I sometimes use the "chat" feature of Facebook, which I was previously unaware of until a friend of mine from High School messaged me from her home in Alaska one evening. It kind of took me by surprise.

I also used to instant message a woman I was dating while working at AIG, via AIM (AOL Instant Messenger). This was technically against company policy, but evidently quite popular among bored night shift people. I had no idea, until this woman insisted I get on AIM so she could message me.

I also participated in online chats in Library school in the WebCT software platform, with varying degrees of success.

I find IM a somewhat frustrating mode of communication, though if you think IM is confusing, try Blog TV!! That's like IRC/IM and Live Video all rolled into one big confusing mess. It's like IRC but with eveyone having a webcam and a microphone.

Currently I have downloaded to my home PC (and work PC) the chat software from Google, namely Google Talk. I use my real name on it, John Ronald. I think that's my Google Talk user name, but I'm not 100% for sure. I basically got it because I have a photographer friend out in California who likes to chat, and I like her, so I broke down and did it. If I had it to do over again, I probably would've gone the Meebo route.

I know I have colleagues working in Reference and virtual reference is a big thing, being available a certain number of hours a week for live "chat reference", as opposed to traditional F2F reference or plane jane email reference. I'm told it can be somewhat stressful, especially if you get multiple patrons hitting you up at one time with multiple reference questions. In the world of cataloging, we really don't use IM software that much. Email usually suffices. I have of late purchased a web-cam, as well as screen capture software, so that I can take a digital moving image of a book or other information object in hand and show it to a more experienced cataloger, say, and also show a screen shot of my ILS, or a part of ClassWeb, or whatever, and ask for advice in areas where I feel "stuck". I haven't done this yet, but I do plan to do so the next time I have to tackle a particularly thorny cataloging problem while handling original cataloging or advanced copy cataloging.

I'm not crazy about IM as a way to communicate. I'd rather either talk on the phone or email or write a regular letter. IM can be useful for conveying short, discrete bits of information, but it's not the forum best suited to long philosophical discourse. The level of conversation almost never rises above that found on your typical internet message board, if even that. I accept that IM has found a permanent place in the delivery of Reference service, and that this is on the whole a good thing, but outside of that context I rarely use IM in any form anymore.

iPod pondering, followed by a rant.

In case you didn't know, or hadn't thought about it, there is more than one way to use/enjoy an iPod besides with the standard earbuds jammed in one's ears, which is a method I almost never employ in public, and seldom in private, either.

I own an iPod (two of them, in fact) and though I have a little music on them, what I mainly use them for is to listen to (and watch) audio (and sometimes video) podcasts, mostly on topics of personal interest, but also from European news agencies like Deutsche Welle and the BBC (great way for me to keep my German-language listening skills sharp, I subscribe to many German, Austrian and Swiss news podcasts).

My car is a post-2000 Honda Civic but actually has a tape deck and not a CD player. I do have a CD-to-Tape player/adapter, which I was forced to buy when I could not buy a cassette tape version of one of Sarah Vowell's works that I wanted to listen to in audiobook format. When I listen to audiobooks, I prefer audiocassettes, but it is increasingly rare for publishers to offer that format anymore; I was happy that David Sedaris's last book was still available in cassette format, which is perfect for my car's tape deck.

While I listened to Sarah Vowell's book on CD, I noticed that the cassette-tape adapter that plugged into my portable CD player would also fit into the base of my iPod, I decided to try a little experiment. I copied the next audiobook into my iTunes library, added it to my iPod, and found it was much easier to listen that way than having to pull over and park to change a CD on long trips. I plugged the adapter into my iPod and the digital audio was able to play just fine over my car speaker system. I also listen to podcasts this way on the go, much more enjoyable than commercial radio or talk radio (except for maybe NPR).

Also, around my apartment, I have saved old computer speakers from past computers I have owned (most new computers you buy these days come with brand new speakers, so rather than throw out the old speakers, I found a way to re-purpose them), and I use these as stand-alone iPod stations that I can plug in my iPod to and have it play those German-language news podcasts while I'm doing chores like washing dishes, or folding laundry, or getting dressed for work in the morning. I also enjoy listening to Barnes & Noble's "Portable Professor Series", which is similar to (but less expensive than) The Teaching Company's lecture courses on CD (with The Teaching Company, I still obtain those on cassette tape whenever I make a purchase for myself, on those rare occasions when I find a bargain item I really like on sale).

There are also professionally made "docking ports" for the iPod that can give you stereophonic sound comparable to a "boom box", etc, but I'm satisfied with my low-tech work-arounds (old computer speakers, my car tape-deck & cd-to-tape adapter re-purposed as an adapter for my iPod to play over my car sound system).

Still, as long as the cassettes are in good condition, I'm perfectly content to continue checking out books-on-tape from the public library and listen to them in my car's tape deck on my commute or for long trips. At the 2008 Texas Library Association meeting, I listened to a number of children's librarians note that cassette tapes are much hardier and stand up to more wear and tear from kids than do CDs; One library actually hauled out old portable cassette recorders from the 1970s and began circulating them with books-on-tape for parents whose cars (and homes) only have CD players.

I remain highly skeptical of the "all digital future" for many reasons, and remain convinced the printed monograph book remains the true cornerstone of a genuine, well-rounded, humanistic education (which, I know, elicits snorts of derision from those in technology fields and sometimes those in the natural sciences as well). I use new technology, sure, but I also remain mindful of "low tech" work-a-rounds and methods. Another example: I'm always about 1 system behind on gaming consoles. I bought my PS1 when the PS2 came out. I waited to buy a PS2 until after the PS3 came out, and because it also saved me from buying a stand-alone DVD player. I get to enjoy the technology eventually (albeit a bit behind the trendy curve) without breaking the bank. I also added a DVR system to my cable television hookup, which gives me more flexibility in planning my social activities (and is admittedly simpler than programming a VCR), and I also subscribe to Netflix (I'm a huge fan of Japanese animation movies and tv shows in English translation). But I'm also mindful how much all this digital technology cuts into my available time for reading, so I have to go out of my way to carve out quality time with books from my busy schedule, time to still the digital chatter and distraction and devote myself to the printed word, in solitary reflection. I also realize I'm not nearly as disciplined in this regard as a colleague at a neighboring institution, who reads even more prolifically than I do. I'm kind of a "moody" person and if I'm not in the mood, I just won't pick up a book or stick with it for very long. I have to mentally prepare myself for sustained reading. It's always rewarding when I do, though, and there's seldom a feeling of satisfaction that quite matches the feeling I have upon finishing a good, informative, well-written book. The kind of (mostly nonfiction) books I read always have people scratching their heads and asking if I am reading it for a college class and when I say "no", they look completely baffled.

I'm also highly skeptical of California Governor Schwarzenegger's call for digital textbooks for California schools, which I view as a "cure" whose effects could end up being worse than the "disease" (budgetary shortfalls) it seeks to cure.

Perhaps I'm a walking anachronism (gee, I'm only 38, a Gen X member, who had a personal computer at age 12, an Apple ][+ with dot-matrix printer and without a modem, and my family owned an Atari 2600 gaming console before that; On my old Apple ][+ my favorite games were text-based adventures like Zork, Planetfall, etc; I did eventually graduate to games with better graphics like Ultima III, which is how I learned to type since the game makes use of every key on the keyboard for a function in the game) and our up and coming users may by in large feel like they "no longer need" the physical versions of books, etc, but I say we will be a society worse off if that ever becomes the reality and the norm. When my grades would slip in school, my Dad limited my "screen time" the old fashioned way...he took away the computer plug-in cord.

I view it as part of my ethical duty as a librarian to stand up and speak out on behalf of the virtues of "traditional" reading, with book in hand, even if it makes other people point and LOL or ZOMG! ROFLMAO, etc.

Anyway, thanks for indulging me if you all read this all the way through...it turned out a bit more ranty than I intended, but such is the nature of much blog fodder, no?

Library of Congress Agents Ask Lawmakers to Give Them Back Their Guns - Political News - FOXNews.com

Library of Congress Agents Ask Lawmakers to Give Them Back Their Guns - Political News - FOXNews.com

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File this under "I had no clue". Who knew that LoC had investigators that packed heat?! How cool is THAT!! Give 'em their guns, back, Obie!

Seriously, what a dickish thing to do to Federal investigators.

Ongoing re-cataloging

I'm currently engaged in a long-term re-cataloging project that began last summer and, with any luck, will be concluded this summer. We truly are bearing down on the last remaining affected records. Apparently some time in the mid 1980s, as our library building opened in 1986, there was a rush to move all the books from the old library to the present one. Evidently in the old library, not everything had made it into the online catalog yet and were still controlled by card catalog. In the rush to get everything moved over and into the online catalog, a stop-gap measure was employed, namely student volunteers were used to create "brief" records, just to hurry up and get the item into the OPAC quickly, and I supposed it was imagined they would go back and fix them after the fact. The road to hell being paved with good intentions, these records have remained unfixed until, you guessed it, I came along. Here is a brief example of what I am talking about. (please click on the image for a larger view)


The record on the right is a "brief" record, created by a nominally trained student, on the fly. The record on the right is the actual Library of Congress record that I ended up replacing it with. Look at the subject headings in particular. This would be Laugh-out-loud funny, except for the fact that the record on the right sat like that in our catalog for YEARS and YEARS until I replaced it with the DLC record just recently. I also ended up having to update our holdings in OCLC so that they now show up in WorldCat. In other words, unless you searched our OPAC directly, nobody in the world would know we owned this book by just checking WorldCat.

I've been working on this re-cataloging project since last summer, when it was spun out of an authority control project and became the main focus after we decided to outsource our authority work to a vendor, Backstage Library Works, who have done an admirable job. I've concluded my first manual sweep of the catalog searching by author last name. Most of the offending records had either a blank or 19uu in the fixed fields for date, which made them easier to spot and isolate from legitimate records. They also were distinct in that they had a mysterious 035 $9, which is a nonstandard subfield; these were products of a database migration, from the previous ILS to Voyager, but no 035 $a (i.e. OCLC number). We commissioned a special report from Backstage to find all the records thus affected (all records lacking 035 $a); Backstage found approximately 14,000 records matching this criteria, about 3% of all our records; However upon closer examination, many of these were "false positives", as the Backstage report also yanked in ALL materials on Reserve, ILL, and even Acquisitions brief records. In the reports I have reviewed so far, only about 15-20% of the records (if that many) are true hits. I am now manually sweeping through the Backstage special report, once again separating proverbial wheat from chaff. I would estimate that the actual record count remaining to be fixed is no more than 6,000 records. Many of them either lack a 1XX field altogether, or have a 110 or 111 field rather than a 100 field, and thus would never have turned up in a Personal Name search. I'm glad to be restoring full bibliographic access to these items and thereby enhancing the functionality of our catalog, and also making more of our holdings accessible to scholars through WorldCat and potentially ILL. No doubt some of the materials I'm handling ought to be weeded, and so, it could be argued, I may be wasting my time with some of them, but that's not my call to make; our weeding tasks are a separate process handled by acquisitions, so I don't worry about it very much. Sure, I sometimes feel silly re-cataloging, say, a Phys Ed book from the 1940s, but on the other hand, when I'm re-cataloging tomes of History (D's, E's and F's) or Art books (N's), Literature (P's) or Music (M's), I feel a sense of gratification in conducting this restoration work. As I've alluded to jokingly before, it's sort of a "faith-based" initiative; I have to proceed with the belief that restoring full bibliographic access to these items will be useful someday to someone somewhere, but never knowing if that will ever be true or not in actuality. So much of what Libraries do are "just in case", for the long term, versus the "just in time" mentality of the Web-centric world.

The nit I'm picking with the above record is simply that the Boxer Rebellion in China had nothing to do with the sport of Boxing; it was simply a slang Western description of the rebel Chinese faction, who emphasized athleticism and martial arts prowess. I'm sure the student who added that LCSH was only trying to help, but in so doing displayed her ignorance of history, and mislead multitudes of library patrons until this year. No longer, thanks to me.

Texas Legislature Ajourned.

The Texas Legislature adjourned May 31st; some Higher Ed bills were passed, which I have no comment on yet. One TSRA-backed bill was passed, allowing Texans to purchase firearms in non-adjacent states. The more substantial bills (parking lot firearms storage and campus personal protection act) did not come up for a vote this session; They will have to be revived next session. Damn. I really had a good feeling about those bills at the start of the session. It also means I still have to come and go to work disarmed, while armed criminals roam free. What's a piss-ant weapons charge to a thug willing to commit armed robbery and/or murder; the only ones who obey the law are the law abiding like yours truly. That's the perverse nature of nearly all so-called "gun control" laws.

When I worked for my previous employer, the parking lot thing was a non-issue since my company did not own/control the parking complex, merely leased space for its employees to use. The company had no right to inspect my car or control what I carried in it. After car-carry became legal in Texas, I started keeping a .38 revolver in the glove box, and a semiauto rifle in the trunk. Our campus police similarly have stated they do not care if we keep firearms locked in our vehicles, but they have to enforce the law against concealed carry in university buildings.

I don't know what kind of legislative horse trading took place this session behind closed doors, but maybe in order to pass the other Higher Ed bills this session, the Campus Personal Protection Act was allowed to die quietly this session, to ensure bipartisan cooperation on the other bills. It's a disappointment, to be sure, but that's just how the legislative process works, and like they say in football, there's always next season, or in this case, legislative session. I'm afraid more idealistic goals like "open carry" will have to wait until we maximize the reach of Concealed Carry first, and pass the "Parking Lot Firearm Storage" bill similar to legislation recently enacted by the Oklahoma Legislature and upheld by the courts in Oklahoma. It's funny to see conservatives squirm and bicker over this last one, since to some property rights are so sacrosanct they trump even individual self-defense rights. Since I don't own any property, don't plan to own property (except if I inherit my parent's house in the suburban hinterland of Houston someday, which I fully expect to have to sell as quickly as possible--I sure don't want to live there or have to pay property taxes on it for very long), I'm sometimes rather contemptuous of property rights arguments, and I think personal self-defense rights are sacrosanct and trump ANY one else's property rights considerations. Or you can take the tac that one's own body is the ultimate form of property right, which is a nice bone to throw to the other side in this capitalistic, nominally democratic Republic we inhabit. Uses their argument and logic against them, as it were.

So as the cliche has it, it's literally one step forward, two steps back for self-defense gun rights in Texas this time around.

Oh, and a small piece of good news, via the Texas Freedom Network:

TFN Statement on the Senate’s Rejection of Don McLeroy’s Confirmation as SBOE Chairman

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 28, 2009

The Texas Senate today failed to confirm Don McLeroy as chairman of the State Board of Education. The 19-11 vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for confirmation. Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller is releasing the following statement:

“Watching the state board the last two years has been like watching one train wreck after another. We had hoped that the Legislature would take more action to put this train back on the tracks, but clearly new leadership on the board was a needed first step. The governor should know that parents will be watching closely to see whether he chooses a new chairman who puts the education of their children ahead of personal and political agendas.”

That perks me up some, for now.

Finally! Thing 10, Ning - a modest success.

Finally managed to subscribe to a few library-related NING social networks (pending approval), but it crapped out on me again when I tried to sign up for the last one, "Got Books?". The website must have been having issues this morning, because now the search engine works again. How bizarre.

Anyway, with any luck the Ning Mods will approve me to join their library related network grouping(s).

What I'll get out of doing so remains to be seen.

Thing 10, addendum

I think the site must be experiencing bugs, since it's not functioning currently as this tutorial describes it:

North Texas 23: Thing 10, attempt Two (Ning)

Ok, so I went ahead and took the plunge. Here's my Ning profile. Still not finding any explicitly library-related or librarian created groups out there. The suggestions were pretty off the wall; I finally joined the generic group "Geeks!", but once I joined it, I could not figure out how to Navigate back from "Geeks!" to what I term "Ning central". That is User-Friendliness FAIL, folks.

I am seeing now that Ning is like a Meta-Social-Networking tool, a Network of Social Networks, each an independent little Fiefdom all its own, customized by their creators, etc.

Ning is not for newbies or sissies; seems aimed at web-savvy geeks who already know what they're doing. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, if anything, but I am not finding ANY library-related Ning groupings out there, not a single one. If ALA has a Ning presence, someone let me know, o.k.?

Some of the groups are pretty broad, like "Geeks!", but others seem incredibly narrowly focused, too.

Initial impression post sign-up: Me no likey Ning.

Thing 10, first attempt (Ning)

So, the NT23 Things blog gives this helpful suggestion.

Go to the main page at Ning.com, and you will see a search box at the bottom of the page. Enter keywords for activities of interest to you. If you enter the search term “library,” for example, you’ll see the ALA network about halfway down the results page. Some networks require you to sign in to view content. ALA’s doesn’t. Ideally, on whatever network you choose, you’ll at least be able to view a list of members, see photos and videos, and read forum and blog posts.

Righty-o, tried that, got nowhere. I would cut and paste screenshots, but I'm too lazy to figure out how to do that. I infer from my various attempts that non-member searching has been disabled. Kept returning "no results" for keywords like Libraries, ALA, Libertarian, Objectivist, Socialism, Librarian, etc. Yeah, right.

So I decided to browse the Ning blog instead.
My instant impression is that it looks like it's heavily dominated by commercial interests, even more so than either MySpace or Facebook, aimed at the Yuppie demographic. I guess the only way to explore further is to take the plunge. No doubt other library "movers and shakers" already have. If I recall correctly, at TLA 2009, The Librarian In Black was less than impressed with Ning, or didn't exactly sing its praises at any rate.

I'll mull over it some more; I may eventually join just to see "what up?", but really, how many "social networks" need one join, really? There's even an entity out there that describes itself as a kind of "Facebook for Atheists" and I'm like WTF?! Meetup.com not good 'nuff for ya? Not a regular commentator on Pharyngula or GiFS? Maybe it's cool and all but the exponential explosion of all these myriad networks...ugh, you can't belong to ALL of them.

North Texas 23: Thing 8 & 9, Facebook & More Facebook.

I've been on Facebook for about a year now, ever since I accepted my current library job.

I'm of course a "fan" of ALA and other library groups. I'm even a Facebook administrator for the FB page of Progressive Librarians Guild.

I've gotten so many friends on Facebook, some professional, some from High School, some from previous jobs, etc, that it's really a diverse crowd. I actually find I am less boisterous or outlandish on Facebook because of the potential to royally piss off at least *some* of my FB friends. I have been retreating back to MySpace where I know fewer people in "real life" and thus feel more at ease to really speak my mind when I need to spout off. I don't make any reference to this blog on Facebook, and would not have mentioned my Facebook presence here if not for the requirements of the North Texas 23 Things project, nor will I mention it again anytime soon. Although I know I have regular readers of this blog (and am always slightly surprised to meet readers in person, amazed that anyone actually reads or listens to my rants here), I do find I avoid making overt linkages between my various online presences, whether on Blogger, or MySpace, or Facebook, or YouTube. I also recently started an account on Film Rookie under a screen name. Film Rookie is a YouTube-like video sharing site but newer and apparently less overtly censorious. I hold back from doing live personal rants on my personal YouTube channel because 1) I'm extremely camera-shy and self-conscious, especially about my own voice and 2) because one of my aunts just subscribed to my channel. If I do any live video rants in future, I plan to somewhat anonymize myself using camera special effects, and only upload it to Film Rookie and not YouTube. I'm an out-of-the-closet atheist to my parents & most of my friends, but not to my various aunts and uncles or cousins. It just doesn't come up in conversation. I guess my aunt on YouTube knows now about my atheism (I have some Xtranormal animation videos that admit as much and I didn't feel like taking them down), I'm going to refrain from posting live on-camera responses rants except in the form of animations from Xtranormal on YouTube.

Because two of my old High School friends who are Christian ministers are also Facebook friends, I tend to tone down the rhetoric over there, at least on my status updates. I used to have a big red Dawkins "A" on my front page, but it got buried in the last Facebook format update. Still, it's right there in my "info" page for anyone who bothers to look. Another High School friend handled his info on these topical questions more elegantly; For "Political views" he put "yes" and "Religious views" he put "No."; Wish I'd thought of that. Oh well.

And yes, I do think that Facebook, MySpace et. al. does make the job of a COINTEL type gov't program much easier, as we end up doing much of their work for them. Perhaps the Miranda warning needs an update for the 21st century; "anything you say or write, online or off, can and will be used against you in a court of law". No doubt unscrupulous prosecutors may quote you out of context, etc, to paint you in the worst possible light. This is some of the down side/dark side to all the boon of social connectivity these networking tools provide. The question you must ask is, is it worth it. I guess I'm a bit of a fatalist when I say, for me, "yes". I'm an "information professional", I have to be "out here", to show basic competence in these web tools, to "be where the users are", etc. It's what I do. I can't not do it, whatever (valid) reservations I may have that might keep someone else offline entirely. These are the choices I've made, and the compromises as well.

I blog here semi-anonymously under my initials, but as readers who have sought me out face to face at Library conferences know, I'm not hard to find in real life.
I've been posting very prolifically of late, but I often go for long stretches at a time where I have nothing new to say or have no motivation to write about whatever. Truth is I blog for me and me alone. If you subscribe to this blog expecting regular output, I promise to disappoint you eventually. Do not put me on your RSS, it won't be worth it. I get visited by Google spiders way more than human readers, I suspect. That's cool, I don't mind, I probably wouldn't read me either--too irregular.

I'm looking forward to the items on the NT23 Things that are actually NEW to me.