Academic Freedom and its absence.

You only appreciate Academic Freedom once you no longer have it. It has been a difficult shift for me, transitioning from being Librarian I (Cataloger) at a sizable state university in northern Texas to being a library worker (under)employed in a large county public library system in SE Texas. Our county has passed a very draconian "social media policy" that very strictly prohibits me from accessing any website that is not directly work-related on my personal workstation, including library-related blogs, much less keeping touch on the pulse of popular culture through websites like BoingBoing.net; I can't even take 30 seconds out of my workday to place a personal ILL request from my own machine (something my boss only recently jumped my shit for). Even discussing this social media policy here semi-anonymously is probably skating on some thin ice.

If I were still with a university employer, this kind of draconian shit would not fly; Our tradition of Academic Freedom would be respected and tolerated. We would be free to download any tool, etc, that would make us better librarians more in touch with our patrons, etc. But since I'm a library worker drone, I'm not supposed to think big or even think like a librarian. I'm a "non-practicing" librarian under-employed by a public library system.

Not only that but things came to a head with my cataloging responsibilities. All I care to say at this point is Thank God for the Americans with Disabilities Act or else I'd be back out in the cold, unemployed again at Christmas time. With ADA, I was at least able to hang on to my full-time employment; The director and county HR made me an offer...accept demotion from Library Paraprofessional to Library Clerk II, and you get to keep your full-time status (with slight pay cut) and keep benefits.

My cataloging duties have been stripped from me entirely. I can finally stop beating my head bloody against a brick wall trying to satisfy an ueber-perfectionist boss who can never be satisfied, who keeps moving the goal posts, and whom I realized far too late had long ago ceased being an honest broker in all of this. I know I did a good job on my final truck of books, but my boss gave me a ridiculously short time limit to work on the material so she could next complain about productivity (moving goal posts, as I said), even though it is a specific reasonable accommodation that a person with Asperger's syndrome be given additional time to complete assignments.

I'm grateful to my job coach/advocate from a local organization known as The ARC. Although originally conceived as an advocacy organization for individuals with mental retardation, they have expanded their umbrella to include those of us with Autism Spectrum Disorders, such as Asperger's syndrome and "classical" autism. Though at times I have found myself butting heads even with her, and I do feel some slight disappointment that we did not fight harder to prove I can do cataloging just fine with reasonable accommodation. The fact is, I could do my cataloging utterly perfectly but so long as my boss was the ultimate judge and arbiter, she could say it was the worst cataloging she'd ever seen and NOBODY would question her, second guess her or try to verify if she's actually being honest or not. There's no neutral "cataloging court of appeals" I can turn to to prove her wrong. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The only positive here is that my ILL duties have slightly expanded. I am getting to learn even more about the ILL process, and the skills I pick up along the way might make it possible for me to start doing ILL professionally in a university setting someday...that would be ideal. As for cataloging, I tend to view RDA with a jaundiced eye, as a sign of collective insanity. I just don't care anymore. In a fit of idealistic furor, I requested via ILL tons of books explaining DDC for me, but after my forced compromise that deleted my cataloging duties, I returned them all to the library, since I would no longer need any of them.

To paraphrase a great Native American warrior, "I will catalog again no more, forever".

I did apply to a few other cataloging positions while all of this was shaking out, including a Librarian I (cataloger) position with a different county system on the far north side of town, but I didn't even get a phone interview out of that, nor even a rejection letter. I did get an interview offer from a minor Texas university in Kingsville, Texas for a "Metadata librarian" position, but truth be told I'm pretty apathetic about "new emerging metadata". I really couldn't care less about it and I'm afraid that would probably show through on an interview. I let them know thanks but no thanks, I'm not interested in the position with them anymore. If it was a plain-jane cataloging job, I would've gone for it, but since the emphasis seemed to be on the "new emerging" Metadata aspects of it, I said aw screw it. Plus I just don't feel like moving to Kingsville, to be honest. I'm happy with my little rut here in SE Texas, and maybe I'll jump on a better ILL position in an academic library somewhere later on down the road.

My only goal at this stage is to make it 5 years to get "vested" with the county and have a pension to add to my social security benefits. To be able to inherit my parent's home someday and continue living in it, able to keep up with the property taxes, basic living expenses and modest entertainment expenses. Winning a wife & kids optional at this point. I really don't feel any great urgency to ever remarry, honestly. I accept I'm probably stuck in this part of Texas for the long haul.

I would eventually like to move in a public services direction, willing to become just a paraprofessional in Public Services to begin with, working my way up and back to Librarian I rank someday. Going Tech Services was a huge mistake, especially for someone with visual-spacial deficits that come with many people with Asperger's syndrome. Hindsight makes that perfectly clear now. It will be a long hard slog to re-invent myself as a Public Services (Reference) librarian. ILL is sometimes classified as public services in some libraries, so that may be my best avenue for long-term planning. I do want to engage in face-to-face reference work someday, too. Although I am an "Aspie", my particular disorder is exceedingly mild and mostly makes me quirky and awkward, but I manage fairly well in most areas of my life. I've learned intellectually what most NT's pick up intuitively on a great many things. There are some areas where that classic Aspie "literalness" remains an issue, with respect to language and the way questions are put to me. I pay very close attention to language...ask me a factual question and you will get a factual answer; I'll ignore or miss any emotional subtext that isn't explicit. Ask me a speculative question I'll speculate. But ask me a factual question but intend that I speculate is totally barking up the wrong tree with me. It just won't "compute" for me and I'll probably piss the person off without meaning to; this has happened in my own family. My dad gets frustrated with me and says I'm "splitting hairs", etc, implying that I'm worrying over distinctions without a difference. My dad is, by contrast, a "lumper", lumps things together that he thinks are related therefore close enough to conflate. I disagree. I'm not splitting hairs, I'm not obsessing over distinctions without difference, I'm trying to speak as precisely and exactly as possible because precision in language *matters*....matters enormously to me, in fact. Hell, I obsess about semantics. It's my favorite hobby. I get enormously irritated with people who are inexact and imprecise about the language they employ.

"That word, it doesn't mean what you think it means."

Story of my life, at times.

I also remember some interesting...discussions...between my boss and myself over subject headings...remember thinking "oh, you're one of THOSE catalogers" (the kind I hate). It was also a contrast between the Academic way of looking at things and the Public Library way. Precision is more important in Academic context than public ones. Public Libraries value consistency over pinpoint accuracy. Public Libraries are "lumping" institutions, while Academic institutions are all about proper splitting. It was hard for me to try and switch over to the Public Library style of assigning a call number, subject heads, etc. I did think I was getting the hang of it, but that's all in the past now and no longer my concern.

The irony is that my former immediate boss for cataloging and I were in complete agreement over the questionable wisdom of RDA, and also doubting the correctness of the decision to drop the 440 field, which we retained for local practice.

This boss is still my department head and so I do still ultimately report to this person, but I have an intermediate boss, a Library Paraprofessional who handles ILL Borrowing, while I back her up on Borrowing and do the Lending side from our own collections. Together we are the ILL team for the system. As I said, I do greatly enjoy the work.

With things slowing down before the holidays, I often had to "invent" work to make myself look busy when the real boss would come strolling by...stuff like taking inventory of our printed labels and printing up new ones that we were running low on for uncataloged YA and Juvenile paperbacks, for example. Or ILL branch stickers for inter-office memos, etc, or cutting up new individual TexShare labels from existing printed strips. There wasn't much physical processing left to do (and already 3 clerks working on THAT), so I got creative in finding other work to do that wouldn't rob work from others. I also blacked out or white-labeled the used padded envelopes we use for ILL sent via USPS. Normally I do this as I'm preparing an item for shipment, but to kill time I did them nearly all in advance, which will put me in good stead next week while my new immediate Para boss is away on vacation and I'm covering ALL of ILL for the whole system for 4 days. I think between my normal duties plus her own duties this will keep me busy the entire day for the next 4 workdays...at least that's my plan.

Just trying to survive and not piss off the department boss and draw unwanted attention to myself...hoping someday to transfer out into Public Services with a more sympathetic boss and into role where I can directly see that what I do makes a difference and helps real people in their lives. That's the aspect of working for AIG, Inc. that I miss most...that palpable sense that what you're doing saves lives, makes a real difference, etc. Cataloging is all too abstracted from all of that face-to-face reality. It requires a good deal more faith, I suppose; a willingness to live on faith of a kind, that kind of goes against my grain.

I'm slightly better off this December than I was last December. My weight and physical appearance and overall health are much better, and I'm still gainfully employed (albeit underemployed) in a library setting, none of which was true last year at this time.

I no longer have to consider Law Enforcement as a serious alternative to library employment. I no longer have to consider Paralegal training and work as an alternative to library work. I no longer have to consider Law School as a means to radically re-invent myself. I just have to hang on and do the best I can in the job I'm in. I finally feel a margin of stability that I've not felt for quite some time, and that's a good thing.

Happy Holidays to all of you and I may (or may not) blog again in the new year. The existing social media policy where I work definitely has a chilling effect on my willingness to talk about anything work-related beyond general issues affecting ALL libraries, not just my own. Just remember, anyone considering a move from Academic to Public libraries....cherish your Academic Freedom now; you may miss it dearly when it's gone.

Sometimes you gotta take a step back to go forward.

There comes a time when an unemployed librarian has to ask himself, would you accept a paraprofessional position as a stop gap measure, a chance to get back in the game?

Actually, I answered that question the day after I left my last professional job with a resounding "Hell yeah!" and have been applying left and right for professional as well as paraprofessional jobs alike. My only differentiation was that I did not apply outside Texas for paraprofessional jobs while I did for librarian jobs.

I had thought maybe I needed to re-invent myself as a Reference person, that I'd just gotten off to a bad start in Tech Services, that my Asperger's syndrome (not recognized until this year) had undone me in two library jobs but now I that I knew I was an "Aspie", there was something I could do about it.

As of this morning, I'm happy to report that I'm climbing back onto the Tech Services horse that threw me. Sort of. Yesterday I interviewed for a paraprofessional position in a local county-level public library system. In truth, I'd sent in so many applications to this system over the past few months, each time getting passed over, that I'd kind of lost track which position it was that I was now being called in to interview for. I went to the library prepared to sell myself as a born-again Reference assistant, but my librarian interviewer began by telling about her past and her experience and it was all technical services, so I quickly put two and two together and realized I was now interviewing for a paraprofessional job in Technical Services (they use a different term in this library, which is what threw me at first). I did a quick mental "game change" in my head and I was ready.

The interview went well, I thought, followed by the mandatory tour of Tech Services, which looked the way a Tech Services workspace should look...in the basement, with high cubicles for everyone. Lots of people busy with their appointed, self-directed tasks, etc.

When the tour was finished, I expected a handshake and a "well, thank you for coming in and we'll let you know, yada yada yada."

Instead my future boss turned to me and said "So, I'd like to offer you the position. You don't have to give an answer right away." After processing what she'd said, and recovering from the initial shock, I said "I accept!"

The job will entail working 1/2 of my time doing Interlibrary loan requests (outgoing, from our library to requesting libraries), while 1/2 the time will be spent on copy cataloging. My future boss also comes from an Academic library background; she lost her last Academic library posting owing to a reduction-in-force layoff, so I think she maybe sympathized with my plight. She also went out of her way to talk about having had bad library managers herself and learning a lot about what NOT to do...which this morning makes me wonder if she knows my previous bosses reputations better than I first thought. She also lamented how Cataloging is not required by Library schools anymore and how important mentoring within the profession must become to make up for this deficit. All of this was definitely music to my ears, as I've had such a rough time with finding *anyone* to properly mentor me as a budding Cataloger.

I definitely welcome the chance to learn ILL, as well, as that's such an important part of library work. I will also be in a position to learn DDC22 & WebDewey up close and personal, which I've never been exposed to before.

The best thing about this position is the potential for promotion from within, which this county library system definitely endorses. There are a few key retirements coming up and once those are processed my future boss intends to one day upgrade my position to Librarian I, and since I already have the MLS in-hand, I would be first in line for the job if I wanted it. So it's not a dead-end job at all but one with room to fully recover as a professional, working librarian. The pay will be similar to my old AIG payscale, which I can live with. I plan on continuing to live with my parents, who are getting up there in age. They're not elderly yet, but they're not far from that age bracket, either. I'm an only child and feel obligated to look after them, and a job that lets me stay in this area is for the best. I had been looking to join the local metro police department if this job come through. Looks like that won't be necessary now. Staying at home means I'll continue to eat healthy, have minimal expenses as far as room & board, and can devote most of my first year's salary to massively paying down my student loan obligation(s). It would sure be nice to be frugal and clear my remaining student debt in a single work year, have that final debt burden lifted from my shoulders finally.

I was getting pretty desperate and had even taken the LSAT recently in Shreveport, Louisiana. I got my scores back; they were not great but better than I thought. I scored high enough to probably get into at least 2 of Houston's 3 major ABA-accredited Law schools, namely South Texas and Texas Southern. I was a bit under the mark for the best school here, namely the UH Law Center. I had also been toying with the idea of a Paralegal certificate through Rice University's Glasscock School of Continuing Studies either in lieu of or as a prelude to law school. Now instead I will be focusing on being the very best paraprofessional I can be and rehabilitating myself as a Catalog librarian once again. Seems I've been typecast as a Tech Services person, so you gotta play the part the director gives you, and once the house lights come up, stand and deliver.

I'm deliberately not naming this public library system, just suffice it to say it's geographically convenient. And my new boss seems so much more approachable than my old bosses. She wants me to come to her for mentoring, and I plan to take her up on that offer. My new boss believes in the value of good cataloging, even in public libraries where so much of it comes in the door pre-cataloged by vendors. She's been effective at convincing the system director that vendor cataloging quality is not up to local standards and that it pays to have in-house professional cataloging to edit and tweak and maximize the local database's effectiveness, etc. I definitely aim to support this mission in any way I can.

It's a bright new day for my renewing library career.

Confronting AS: Asperger's syndrome and my misadventures in Libraryland

This is not going to be an easy post to write, and may go through several edits before I'm done and satisfied with the final version, so please bear with me.

I had a rather awkward conversation with my mother last week; it was right before dinner, and she was hesitant to broach a "big" topic at such an inopportune moment, but I said it as ok. She asked me if I remembered how my ex-wife had, when we were married, declared that she thought I was ADHD? I said yes. Well, although we no longer believe that, ADHD is sometimes a common mis-diagnosis given to children with Asperger's syndrome, which is a milder version of autism. My mom being a retired teacher librarian, she had been exposed to AS kids in her school and a lot of their behaviors reminded her of my childhood and adolescent behavior. We sat and read the Wikipedia article on Asperger's syndrome, as well as the WebMD article. I sat back and thought about it and agreed it was at least a plausible hypothesis.

I next turned my attention to books, like this one:

Asperger's From the Inside Out: A Supportive and Practical Guide for Anyone with Asperger's Syndrome (Paperback)
~ Michael John Carley
# Paperback: 272 pages
# Publisher: Perigee Trade (April 1, 2008)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0399533974
# ISBN-13: 978-0399533976

It was available at the local branch of my county library system, so I walked over and checked it out and devoured it in only three days. I gave it to my mom & dad to read as well, while I next moved on to:

22 Things a Woman Must Know: If She Loves a Man With Asperger's Syndrome (Paperback)
~ Rudy Simone
# Paperback: 112 pages
# Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Pub; 1 edition (May 15, 2009)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 1849058032
# ISBN-13: 978-1849058032

Although written by a woman, for women, I benefited from reading this, and it shed new light on the hows and whys of my first marriage failing as it did. Sure, my Ex had plenty of her own issues that she brought to the equation, but it's also clear neither I nor she understood some of the underlying AS behavior traits that were to be expected if I'm neurologically wired as an AS person.

When I think back to my early years, especially my first stint as a graduate student at Rice University, where I was the most erratic and least emotionally stable, the signs of AS are clearer. Ditto my year abroad in Germany, which, while an awesome experience, was often a profoundly lonely time, at least with respect to the other Americans in Tübingen, and the fact that though I made German friends, there was always an unspoken polite distance maintained. Such friendships could never be as close as with, say, my High School friends back home. We talked, we enjoyed each other's company, but there was a lack of emotional intimacy, a gulf I did not know how to bridge.

Foreign languages have long been an obsession of mine, and the appeal of The Foreign to an AS person is obvious. Foreign languages are like an embassy where we can obtain temporary asylum, since all foreigners are equally strange. In other words, nobody notices that you are weird in a foreign country, because in the eyes of natives, all foreigners are a little weird, both Neurotypicals and Asperger's people alike.

I also understand better what I found so appealing about the anime series Welcome to the NHK. The story centers around a twenty-two-year-old hikikomori ("recluse") who gets aid from a strange girl who seems to know a lot about him, despite never meeting him before. A common theme throughout the story deals with the hardships of life and how people must deal with them in their own way.

I found I could really relate to the main character Tatsuhiro Satō, especially his manic inner monologues. Granted, Tatsuhiro Satō is an extreme case, but it seems evident that the hikikomori phenomenon in Japan is a logical expression of autism and Asperger's in that society. Japanese society is especially dependent on proper etiquette, elaborate rules of social conduct and niceties...so much so that austistic Japanese naturally seek to flee open society and shut themselves away so as to not have to deal with such anxiety daily. Eccentricity is mildly tolerated in the West, even cherished in some circles, but far less so in Japan, where social conformity is key.

One autistic girl writing on the web whom I came across stated that the reason she loves Anime so much is because the characters' exaggerated facial expressions are much easier for her to read and understand. I definitely think she's on to something.

In the library workplace environment, I can see that I was under the apparently mistaken belief that Academic librarianship would be more like a university teaching job, where eccentricity is accepted or at least tolerated and sometimes cherished...you'd think AS and a cataloging job would be made for each other...people often regarded as intensely interested in a narrow subject--hm, sound familiar, my Cataloging brothers and sisters? But in fact Libraries tend to be more like 9-to-5 office jobs, especially in many Tech Services departments that literally are 9-to-5, and ruled by no-nonsense Acquisitions people who are strongly business-minded by necessity. These kinds of jobs can be perilous for AS people, since it requires navigating socially...i.e. the job is less important than how well you relate to others. This can be hard on catalogers on the spectrum, unless they have a senior cataloger in a managerial position who understands them, sympathizes with them, and defends them in the face of uncomprehending, unsympathetic superiors from an Acquisitions background. It can be hell on earth if you are the solo cataloger in your outfit and you're also on the spectrum.

I recall with acute embarrassment an argument I got into with a Reference colleague that made its way back to my boss and got me in hot water. We were discussing suspected anomalies in the OPAC's search results. My Reference colleague insisted something was wrong with the OPAC, using Keyword search. I reproduced her results and did not find them anomalous but rather the best you could expect using such and imprecise search method, and that even this crappy method yielded usable records that one could use to further refine the search. I tried to explain this to my Reference colleague, who snarled back defensively that she knew how to search, she was just giving an example of what students do...I advised her good, then teach it to them. I really did bend over backwards to be as polite and tactful as I can...I could have been a lot lot nastier, snarkier, etc, but I restrained myself. It didn't matter. She still blew her stack and ratted me out to my boss, who came down on her side against me, even though on the technical question at issue, I was absolutely right. That didn't matter, I was being "disrespectful" of a senior colleague, despite the fact that I was smarter and understood the operation of the OPAC better than she did. She claimed she was looking at an anomaly, and I knew better. I finally told my boss, if the catalog is yielding bizarre results, then let the Reference staff come up with the evidence for that, and really pursue it, in cooperation with Systems people who really understand the Database side of it, because I'm just not seeing what they claim to see. My main job is the integrity of the MARC records themselves, not how the OPAC retrieves them, etc, which is the proper purview of Systems, with input from Public Services. If I do my job with the integrity of the MARC data, and Systems keeps the database running properly, everything should come together fine. My boss kept insisting that I was responsible for things that just don't fall under the traditional understanding of what catalogers do and what they're responsible for. I spoke to other heads of cataloging who agreed with me, contra my boss. But because my boss was my boss--and not because she was right--I am out of a job and she is looking for a new Librarian I to impose her misguided will upon. Her ignorance as a librarian doesn't matter, she has the power, and that's all that mattered in the end.

I don't know if being diagnosed formally with AS would have afforded me any protection in my last job or not; Likely not, but I could have availed myself of the ADA and also the Employee Assistance Program more effectively. I could have demanded more forcefully to have my station moved to somewhere against the wall instead of the dead center of the room, for starters.

It's hard not to feel bitter having walked away from a corporate gig that played so well to my AS abilities and wandered into two separate library jobs that were both minefields with unseen social pitfalls. I was genuinely happy working for AIG, on three separate occasions. While for libraries, the initial joy quickly wore off. I found contentment in cataloging itself, buried in the work, but not all the other stuff a librarian has to do...most Catalog Librarians are as much managers and administrators as they are technical specialists...and increasingly more so on the managerial end and less so on the technical expertise end. I also enjoyed fielding the periodic reference question pertaining to library cataloging forwarded to me by Reference colleagues trying to help Library school students at TWU. I enjoyed talking to patrons one on one at length, much more so than I enjoyed talking to colleagues. I nearly always took my lunch alone...going off campus or to the student union. Most everyone else brought a lunch and ate and talked in the employee break room, while I almost never did. I guess I was hoping that as a Cataloger, my eccentricities and lone wolf mindset would be understood and accepted by other librarians, but I was horribly wrong. It all seemed to come back to bite me in the rear. I like other catalogers, but not others nearly as much.
I like catalogers whom I respect, who have professional opinions similar to mine.
I find many (though certainly not all) Reference people to be shallow and ditzy. They may be able to look things up in gifted ways, but they don't understand with much depth what they're looking at afterward.

I do think gender differences played a role in my professional downfall as well, if only insofar as women cement the bonds of their relationships through talk, and since I didn't talk much of my own volition but preferred to send written reports, my boss felt alienated from me, and I from her as well in reaction to her reaction.

AS explains some of it. So does my INTJ rating on Myers Briggs, while my boss was an extrovert. Update: Ok, she was an introvert, I later learned, but she was definitely neurotypical and not AS like me.

I'm trying to understand more about Asperger's syndrome without become obsessed about it, too...which would be pretty "meta". ;-)

The more I read, the more it rings true, and the more it seems I would probably benefit from a clinical diagnosis rather than a speculative self-diagnosis like I have right now.

I've also discovered that a fair number of my closest friends, all staunch atheists like me, are also on the autism spectrum, from fellow Aspies to high functioning Autism. I speculated jokingly if perhaps there's a link between AS and atheism, or if it is a case of Neurotypicals being more easily seduced by religion's emotional appeals than we are. One friend was genuinely terrified by an online exam that pointed her being far off the average and well into "high functioning autism" land. I tried to comfort her and encourage her to face this bravely, but right now she seems bent on a path of denial and preferring not to know. We tried to talk about our experiences with psychotherapy, but she had some rather misguided notions about what therapy entails, what it's capable of, etc. I said it was hard work, therapy, and if she wasn't willing to do said work, then her conclusion that it was a waste of time and money was correct. She said everything a therapist did she could do herself at home. I countered that a good therapist will call you on your bullshit, demolish your rationalizations and force you to be intellectually honest, and that it sometimes hurts, but it's healthier in the end. She remained unconvinced so far.

I understand her fear...she's a science educator--a very, very good one--but also in fear of her job with all the cuts to teaching jobs rolling around Texas these days.
She doesn't want a clinical diagnosis to be a hindrance to her or have it open her up to discrimination and harassment. Which I do understand. But if a science teacher urges students to seek the truth wherever the evidence takes you, isn't it a little hypocritical to not take your own advice when it comes to your mental health?
I think so. I'm trying to face my probable Asperger's syndrome without fear and without shame. I understand it makes finding gainful employment anywhere, not only libraries, difficult...but it's better to know than not know. Knowing, I can compensate. Indeed, on many levels I already have.

I'm still trying to reinvent myself as a Reference librarian, even if AS would seem to "naturally" predispose me to continue working in Cataloging. I think the Cataloging profession is losing its collective mind with RDA, and that FRBR is fatally flawed at a basic philosophical level. It's a good time to get out of the way of the wave(s) of stupid currently convulsing through the profession.

Well, more later perhaps. This is your crotchety cataloger, Aggie Librarian, signing off for now.

My cranky cataloger side is showing.

Might want to make sure you're sitting down and that your blood pressure is under control before reading this. --JJR

Saw this first on LIS News posted by Blake; original post here.
The piece is titled DDC Is Killing Our Libraries.
It could alternatively be titled "I wish my Library was an iPad"

...this gem excerpted from the below made me want to scream and filled me with a near-blinding rage; see if you can see why...
(quote)

So when (not if, when) we get rid of DDC, we are going to need a new system. So what should it look like? The basis of the new system I would suggest needs to be the basic concept of “Don’t make me think!”

Yes, heaven forbid we ask people to think anymore; that's just inhuman.

"Instead of a 200 year old system that doesn’t make sense, we need a new system that just works."

It does work, and it does make sense; you're just a lazy idiot who refuses to accept responsibility for his own learning, pandering to other like minded lazy idiots. -jjr

Sorry, I know, I know... what we have here is a very cranky Academic Librarian and Cataloger who is between jobs and also recently has come to understand he probably has Asperger's syndrome reacting with a School library administrator from a Reference background. Sparks are bound to fly.

Truth is, I don't much like DDC myself; I much prefer LCC, which is what I've used ever since my undergrad years and all I've ever used in doing original and advanced copy cataloging.

Nevertheless, I will strongly defend it against people with nothing to offer by way of a viable alternative.

Fair warning, anyone who starts out their argument this way:

The Dewey Decimal Classification System (DDC) is broken. I am not going to entertain any sort of conversation on this point, it is just a fact you need to accept. Accept it, and move on. One of the incontrovertible facts that clearly demonstrate the brokenness of DDC is that we have to teach DDC, and that is the focus here.

Is someone who probably doesn't have the evidence to back up their claim and is declaring victory as a fait accompli and hoping you won't notice the hand-waving going on...nothing to see here, ignore the straw-man behind the curtain, move along.

Luckily he gets taken to task much more tactfully than I can manage in his own comments section...

He does backpedal a little, stating:

"Now I am certainly not a taxonomer, so these are just some thoughts to get things flowing,"

I don't know about getting things flowing, but I am a cataloger, and this gets my blood pressure up, to be sure.

Sweet Jesus, can we not keep dumbing down Library Systems under the banner of "facilitating access"!!??

For a refreshing take, a blast from the past, have a look at what noted Author James Michener once had to say about how to use a library.

Note especially this gem; he counseled his readers and fans thus,
saying, "Every time I go to the library, I make a beeline to the card catalog. Learn to use it. It's easy."

Change "card catalog" to OPAC and I still think it's a valid statement. It only sounds quaint because people have gotten lazier and lazier; Smart phones, dumb people. For frack's sake, people, PLEASE take some responsibility for your own learning. Yes, we in Tech Services could/should do a better job educating and communicating about how Library systems, specifically library classification systems, actually work...We Catalogers have to do it, have to get out from behind our desk and head OUT to the stacks, with LCC or DDC bookmark guides in hand, because our Reference colleagues are too often preoccupied with other Web 2.0 matters to care about the minutiae of cataloging and classification themselves, much less passing it on to patrons, who in turn wallow in ignorance, utterly ignorant of what the spine labels mean. We have to push back against Reference personnel prerogatives and aggressively demand wall space for posters with the Classification scheme spelled out in some detail, whether DDC or LCC. If DDC and LCC are increasingly regarded as irrelevant it is up to US, in Tech Services, to push back and show that the library still rests organizationally on these tried and tested schemes. We aren't cataloging in a vacuum, we catalog for a reason, but if we fail to communicate that reason to our wider patron base, we will indeed be swept aside by the iPad idjits. We can't count on our Reference colleagues to spread the gospel as it were; they're too beguiled by Web 2.0 and Digital Imaging and Digital Literacy to pay attention. I'm reminded of the line from Star Wars, Episode III, "So this is how Democracy dies, to thunderous applause."; Substitute the word Democracy with "library cataloging and classification" and you have the essence of what is at stake. Catalogers, if this distresses you, quit moaning, quit complaining, get up off your feet, grab a big red book, and go ride the circuit, preaching the LCC or DDC gospel!!

When I took the time to explain to TWU undergrads about the LCC system, what it means and how it works, their eyes lit up with a new understanding and they were very grateful to me for having revealed this bit of library arcana to them. It shouldn't be arcana at all...time was Reference librarians were well versed in it as well, but that is no longer the case. With the rapid pace of new technology I can excuse this lapse--I really can--but what it means is that we Catalogers and Tech Services people have to pick up the slack and get out there and educate people on why we do what we do and how it can concretely help them--because NOBODY ELSE WILL DO IT...not administrators, not Reference staff, nobody. You want to see the face of who will keep cataloging alive and relevant into the 21st century...look in the mirror. It's up to you.

Don't think you won't meet opposition and resistance--you will. When I tried to promote this in my last library, I got significant pushback from my non-cataloger Tech Services manager. They just weren't interested in library advocacy for traditional classification systems. Bibliographic instruction was too passe, in their eyes. In retrospect I should have pushed harder, should have been relentless in my advocacy. I felt hesitant to do so as a brand spankin' new cataloger, and the only professional in the entire Tech Services cataloging unit (I had two paras under me). I always felt queasy being THE cataloger as a mere Librarian I, too. Nobody should have to suffer through a position like that. It's unethical for a library to keep relying on Librarian I's to be THE cataloger and just rely on burnout and attrition rather than do the right thing which is hire someone with 10+ years experience who can actually manage an entire department and set its priorities competently, etc. It's unethical to set up a job to fail and just burn through Librarian I's every few years to save money. Sure it saves money, but it also is devastating psychologically to those put through the grinder in that way. I am hoping against hope that I can find a position in a large enough cataloging unit to be managed by a senior cataloger, or failing that, at least have a cadre of experienced fellow catalogers who can support each other and offset each others' strengths and weaknesses; Alas, the economy being what it is, I am forced to consider new positions that are much like the one I just left...THE one cataloger in charge of a few paras and students. I hate it, but I have to keep my hat in the ring now that I find myself unable to return to my former employer, AIG, for obvious financial reasons on their part.

Well, here endeth the rant for now. More later, perhaps.

Two libraries, two policies.

I'm what ALA classifies as a "non-salaried Librarian" which is their euphemism for "unemployed", or at least it better be, since that's how I re-upped my membership this year, with that category, which is slightly cheaper than "regular member". I was pretty bare bones with my selection, joining only RUSA and SRRT and letting everything else slip by the wayside, even ALCTS, because with RDA, I regard the cataloging profession as having lost its collective mind and I want out of that noise. I'm trying to re-brand myself a Reference librarian but it's a tough sell.

Last week I needed to go downtown to do some personal research on depreciation of firearms, using the Blue Book of Gun Values, which HPL central has in its reference collection. As a gun owner, I also have a Texas CHL, but I knew from past experience that there is a 30.06 sign posted on the front entrance to the library, which renders all CHLs null and void; a concession to property rights, basically, but pretty squirly when exercised by public institutions, I think. Anyway, I went downtown disarmed (something I would not normally do), parked in the basement garage, brought a sack lunch and my laptop. I worked through the morning doing my research, updating my MS Excel file, etc. and then stopped to break for lunch; I went downstairs with my laptop and my sack lunch and sat on the plaza and ate. There were a couple of bicycle cops on the square, some Mexican workers, and a band of African American young men who were eying the cops warily. I deliberately avoided eye contact but I also stayed aware of where they were relative to me at all times, and I admit, I became uncomfortable when they drew nearer to me and the group got larger. A third policeman emerged from the library on foot, to talk with his colleagues. Again members of the crowd of young black men noticed the police and shared information about where these officers routinely patrol, etc. I finished my sandwich and diet soda, picked up my laptop, and headed back inside the library.

Maybe I was just being paranoid, and maybe these young men were just socializing innocently in downtown Houston. But I felt on guard and uncomfortable the whole time, especially being disarmed as I was.

I live out in the Suburbs on the edge of town. My local branch library, of the county public library system, do not post 30.06 signs, and I have entered the library carrying concealed numerous times, just going about my business. These libraries also do not have groups of young men idling around their entrances, either. They feel completely safe, while the central city library does not. Yet it is the Central Library that disarms the law-abiding permit holder. Yes, the day I was down there, there was an elevated police presence inside and outside the library; I had seen the foot patrolman doing rounds inside the library before he came out onto the plaza during my lunch break. But I've also been inside the library when there were only unarmed security personnel who are not law enforcement officers. There's no non-awkward way to leave one's carry piece in the garage, then come back to the garage and return to the plaza on the surface carrying; the easiest way would be to pass through the library but that is illegal, and walking up the exit ramp would look suspicious at best, even though it's the only legal way to exercise your carry rights when visiting HPL central. If I am going somewhere that prohibits my CHL via a 30.06 sign, I tend to go disarmed altogether. I know some people carry and then disarm in their vehicle before entering such structures, but the more gun handling you introduce, the greater the risk of an ND, or at the very least drawing the attention of passers-by who might call 911 to report "man with a gun". I do usually keep a "glove box" gun for personal protection, but it's never a carry gun that I could use for concealed use outside of my vehicle.

Library administrators need to know--but do not know--that 30.06 signs in Texas disarm only the law abiding, and that criminals with guns ignore such signs with impunity. It's a "feel good", "politically correct" measure that in reality protects no one, least of all patrons or staff. I want to bring this to the attention of the Director of the HPL system, but on the other hand, since I periodically seek employment with them, I don't want my name flagged as a "gun nut" and have that as a mark against me when I send them a fresh copy of my resume, etc.

My local Teachers Credit Union also posts a 30.06 sign; again, someone should talk it over with the manager, but I don't want to be the one to do it; I've voluntarily agreed to curtail my political expression for the sake of domestic peace; Due to my economic circumstances, I'm living with my parents, and they don't want to suffer any blowback from my otherwise outspoken political opinions, and I understand and respect that. The CU normally has an armed law enforcement officer sitting at a desk in the lobby, so I could understand why a bank manager might feel justified in posting a 30.06 sign. But even still, if a hardened criminal wants to rob the place, the 30.06 sign isn't going to make them bat an eye. The first thing a determined armed robber would do (assuming they "cased" the place beforehand) would be to barge in and shoot the peace officer first, then hold up the place. I know it must seem unthinkable, but security experts need to be able to think the unthinkable. If the uniformed officer goes down, and you've got a 30.06 sign posted, your staff and customers are then sitting ducks. If you don't have a 30.06 sign posted, there may be a customer with a concealed weapon who can take the robber by surprise if the opportunity presents itself. It is a second line of defense, potentially. Not a sure thing by any means, the customer might decide discretion is the better part of valor and allow the robbery to proceed. Or he might try to surprise the robber but fail and get himself shot. Introducing legal concealed weapons only improves the odds on the part of victims, it is not an iron-clad guarantee that the "good guys" will win.

There's an alternate sign that both of these institutions could use, and that is the sign barring *unlicensed* concealed carry, which includes a hefty fine and jail time, but does not affect legal CHL permit holders. By targeting criminals specifically, it does everything these managers are trying to do without the unconsidered negative consequences of a 30.06 sign, namely disarming the law-abiding.

I have attended two state library conferences in recent years, and at every one of them I was carrying concealed. I felt safer in the downtown areas while doing so, I used deep concealment methods so as not to alarm anyone, and I kept my mouth shut, except when having lunch with a non-library friend who is himself a CHL holder and asked casually if I too was carrying, which I confirmed. Nearly all of my Facebook contacts who are librarians are utterly afraid of guns, won't own them, etc. I accept that's the way it is, but I wish it were not so. It makes us look like hypocrites when we work so hard to defend 1A freedoms but shy away from 2A freedoms.

Alan Dershowitz, who also does not like guns, at least has the intellectual honesty to state:

"Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."

I'm eagerly awaiting the final decision of MacDonald vs. Chicago from the Supreme Court, and at least from the transcript of the oral arguments, there seems to be cause for hope that the absolute ban on handguns in Chicago will be struck down and the 2nd Amendment will be incorporated against States and Localities, a ruling long overdue.

I also recently joined an internet forum called "The Liberal Gun Club", and also began listening to a podcast (unrelated) called "The Liberal Guncast". Both are excellent sources for technical information sharing about firearms with none of the odious right-wing cultural politics that tend to infect NRA publications and other forums. The Liberal Gun Club is a great place to meet people who realize that supporting gun rights does not commit you to a whole host of truly obnoxious Right of Center political positions. Max of the Liberal Guncast rightly states that armed self-defense ought not to be a Right vs. Left issue but a core American value untainted by partisan bickering. I agree. Sebastian of the Pro-Gun Progressive Blog (now defunct) used to argue that it wasn't so much Right vs. Left as it was Totalitarian mindset vs. Pro-Liberty/Freedom mindset, and that there are Left and Right "flavors" of both. I still keep up with Seb on Facebook, but I really wish he would go back to regular blogging. Still, I'm one to talk, eh? My updates here are once in a blue moon these days, I know. I have created a separate blog on VOX dedicated exclusively to Anime and Manga, and I even eschew my library persona on VOX and talk purely as a fan-boy. It's kind of liberating, in that respect.

With that, I bring this somewhat rambling and ranty entry to a close; More later when I have something else to grouch about in Libraryland.

For the Anime Geek & career musings.

Just a quick note to mention that I've just now discovered Mozilla Firefox 3.6's "personas", or skins. I'm now using a version of "Firefox Girl", an Anime style "Fox Girl", a cute redhead with fox ears and a school girl uniform and a fox tail, lying on her side across a globe of the earth. Ueber-cute and very 'moe'.

I also was compelled to download Google Chrome on my bedroom desktop, which also has a variety of 'skins'; I chose another Anime themed 'skin' for Chrome; I can't read the Japanese characters, but it's probably based on an Anime series, one I'm not familiar with. It features 4 Anime girls, one blonde and three brunettes from light brown to black hair, and different eye colors and various facial expressions.

The reason why I downloaded Chrome is because my earlier version of Firefox was taking forever to load; Chrome was/is much zippier, it was like having a new computer. Luckily I was able to import my saved passwords, etc. into Chrome from Firefox. I then removed Firefox and reinstalled the latest version, 3.6; Firefox is now "playing nice" again and launching more reliably now. Chrome is still a tad faster but I use both now interchangeably.

I experimented with the free software Xtranormal State. It is a good software, but the problem is, the program is so large that it majorly slows down my bedroom desktop hard drive. I will rely on the Xtranormal website from this point on, as I have been doing. I removed Xtranormal State and my computer is back to its old self.

I had problems with an earlier version of Xtranormal State on my Desktop; it was a buggy, early version. I'm going to uninstall it and reinstall the latest version, I think.

I wish I knew how to link two hard drives together; I have a desktop PC in the closet (my mom's old one) that we don't currently use. I know some people use older PCs as servers for websites, etc. That's beyond my current knowledge of how to do it, but another one of those things it would be probably valuable to learn how to do for the future, especially if I continue my career in libraries.

I've been doing some out-of-box thinking, though, and even considering a transition to working in law enforcement. I need to get into better physical shape anyway, and trying to meet/exceed the police academy minimum standards for my age/height would be a laudable goal. I'm also looking into a local Kung Fu dojo as a way to get more limber and flexible, and also revamp my self-defense skills. Whenever I do Yoga, I find myself longing to get back into full-fledged Martial Arts. I'm not considering law enforcement flippantly; I have been pondering it for a long time now. I know people say police are underpaid, but compared to the salaries librarians make, cops earn good pay. Of course, there's the downside of being more likely to get shot at or stabbed, and dealing with the worst scum of the earth on a daily basis. More than a few old NJROTC comrades from my High School ultimately became cops over the years. Not saying I will, too; I'd rather get another library gig.

But I also think to myself that a good, steady civil service job in law enforcement...something I could do for a solid 20 years then either retire or move on to something else (i.e. maybe take law school classes at night and eventually graduate and become an Assistant District Attorney) might not be a bad thing. I'd have to start out as a patrolman, but I'd have ambition to move up and become some kind of plainclothes investigator. Maybe even Texas Rangers or FBI after that. It's a career path I never would've considered with Bush Jr. still in the White House, but with Obama as president, it's no longer unthinkable for me.

Someday I really despair of really making it as a librarian as a career. Libraries so far for me have been cruel and arbitrary places to work, with no feedback and then one day your boss decides she doesn't like you and you're out on your ass. And actually your boss has been seething all this time but like a passive-aggressive little b*tch she doesn't tell you, the onus is on *you* to figure it out, like in a bad relationship. I hate it. Reminds me of my failed marriage a little too much.

As a good friend and colleague (who is a woman herself) wrote to me: "Women can be jerks; if they don't like you, they can twist and manipulate things to get you fired."; Not saying what happened at Tdub was necessarily reverse sex discrimination, just saying that being male in that environment put me at a disadvantage; I was no doubt "tone deaf" to a lot of the emotional subtleties flying all around me, which no doubt cost me time and again.

I grow more convinced that Cataloging is a dead end for me. I need to make the jump to Reference work, but I also need an employer willing to take a chance on me as well. I've also given some thought to teaching English in China (and eventually, Japan) for a few years. The future remains wide open.

On technology self-education

I have had a harrowing 24 hours which I have just gone through after attempting to properly fix our home network to allow remote printing. That was the original aim, to permit, say, my Dad, to print from his laptop (which he actually uses as a lap-top, in his easy chair) to my basic printer on my Desktop PC, which is not the main hub of the network. What I ended up doing was knocking my own desktop offline and borking the its Internet connectivity such that I couldn't get back on! It turns out my Linksys-G Wireless adapter driver was corrupted (I learned the next day, after phoning the angels & gurus at SugarLand PC) and had to be reinstalled. First we uninstalled then reinstalled the adapter itself, then reinstalled the driver software using the install wizard and the original CD-ROM that came with the ancient Linksys-G adapter...at long last, success! And no need for a Geek house-call. I even got the Weather Channel Desktop application to function correctly, and my adapter was reposition in such a way that the signal strength it receives is up to 90%, up 30% from 60% in its original location.

Still no remote printing capability at this stage--I did tinker a little further before finally giving up on that. It's not critical, but it is something I would like to learn correctly some day, so that we can enjoy a *proper* home network that takes full advantage of what networking capability can do for users...especially laptop to desktop cross communication.

I created a new account on |biblios.net, the LibLime answer to OCLC Connexion; all well and good. But what I'd really like to do is download and install the Koha ILS on my Desktop to play around on, but this requires stuff like Perl and Apache, stuff that I've scarcely got the foggiest idea how to install or operate. Likewise, there is a client version of |Biblios similar to OCLC Connexion Desktop Client and it integrates with the Koha ILS but also requires Perl and Apache and the aforementioned extras that I've got no idea how to set up either.

But I think it would be worthwhile spending the money and time to learn how to install the Koha ILS and related |Biblios client version if only for the learning experience itself at a systems level. I might even be able to play with MARCedit and see how well it plays with Koha (or doesn't). It all takes time (which I have) and money (which I don't)...and patience and possibly a willing teacher. But I would have to view it at least abstractly as a worthy investment, a set of skills once learned that might serve well in a future librarian job whether in an academic, public, or school setting.

Also have an offer to do some distance cataloging of electronic resources on a contract basis, one gig at a time. It looks pretty complicated, but I think I should force myself out of my comfort zone and give it a shot. Not like there's really any other way to stay current with cataloging and cataloging skills, whatever my misgivings about RDA and what the future of cataloging and librarianship may hold for us all. I'd also gladly take an underpaid paraprofessional Reference assistant gig at this point as an in-between kind of job...which is kind of sad for someone with two Master's degrees, which is hardly unique among professional librarians.

But I'm dubious of my ability to boot strap myself to techno-know-how. I do feel like I will need a tutor or at least a paid consultant to get going with a project like setting up a fully functioning Koha ILS on my home PC that is web-accessible from the outside world, etc. Just an ILS to play with for training purposes, the way some library schools are beginning to do to teach cataloging fundamentals.
Also intend to play around on Biblios. Maybe find bib records for books in my personal collection and catalog ones that don't have records there, down to assigning an LC Classification number. Self-teaching in cataloging is an agonizing process if you don't have a reliable mentor, as I often haven't. Cataloging is a dying art in part because new catalogers aren't being supported properly, at least if my example is any indication.

Anyway, I'm grateful for the broadband access I do have through my old fashioned safety net, i.e. my parents. Sometimes I really am a walking stereotype.

Manga Mad - a documentary.

Just finished watching this very fine documentary on Japanese Manga & Anime culture.

What is fascinating to me are the similarities and differences between how Manga culture functions in Japan versus America. Japanese use Manga as a way to temporarily escape their very stressful work and school life. Americans use it that way sometimes, though in my case it was more to escape boredom rather than stress.

The documentary emphasizes how mainstream Manga culture has become...one statistic states that up to 40% of the Japanese reading public reads Manga in some form. Another stat is that 60% of the Animation sold in the world originates in Japan.

Manga and Anime function as the collective unconscious of the Japanese people, allowing them to express deep emotion and live vicariously through the lives of characters who can do outrageous things that they could never do in society in real life.

My feelings don't wax as extreme, but they have been deeply moved by many of the Anime and Manga stories I have been exposed to.

The concluding remarks were most interesting, reflecting on the pivotal importance of politeness and restraint in Japanese social discourse; it isn't nearly as blunt or direct as in English-speaking countries (USA, Great Britain). It made me remember, too, that Germany is the polar opposite of Japan, insofar as for German children, they are taught it is more important to be factually correct than to be polite. The Germans in particular pursue an unflinching Exaktheit in their social discourse that is jarring even to English speakers, and would be positively mortifying in Japan.

Newly unemployed

As of 15 December 2009, I resigned my position as Catalog Librarian at Texas Woman's University. As of 26 December 2009, I vacated my apartment near campus and moved myself and all my worldly possessions back to my parents' home in Sugar Land, Texas, with some of it going into storage on my Dad's rural property in Splendora, Texas.

I may ruminate on what happened, what went wrong in a later post. Suffice it to say if I hadn't resigned, I would have been fired anyway. Which, in hindsight, I should have forced them to do, because that way I would have qualified for unemployment compensation, whereas now I don't. Which I think is a crock, but whatever.

I sent off my first cover letter and resume to a major university just today, first of many on what will be quite a lengthy job search I have little doubt. At the very least, I now have 2 solid years of job experience behind me that no one can take away from me. Maybe that will be enough to let me get my foot in the door closer to home.

I feel the urge to re-invent myself as a Reference Librarian, since this whole cataloging gig just doesn't seem to be panning out for me. If I can't get a senior cataloger for a supervisor, someone willing to mentor me, then forget it, I'll be calling it quits as a cataloger. I'm done working for non-cataloger jerks. I'm done being the only professional librarian in either all of tech services or at least all of cataloging. I'm done being point man. I'm done being expected to transform myself into some kind of mind-reading Niezschean superman on the job.

For now, I'm learning more about/playing around with Google Docs as a way to post and distribute my resume online. I also updated my AggieNetwork profile, though I think it's mostly of dubious value for a prospective librarian. Unless you're a "typical" Aggie (Christian, Conservative, Republican) working in Business or Finance, the Aggie Network can't do sh*t for you, really.

My boss and I ultimately came to an impasse over what constituted reasonable work expectations for a Librarian I, Cataloger. My boss was making demands of me that were more a fit for the Librarian III skillset, yet TWU is unwilling to pay the salary it takes to attract a Librarian III. The position was NOT advertised as "Head of Cataloging" and yet that is de facto what the position entailed.

As I've said multiple times now, Tdub was trying and continues to try to get away with doing cataloging on the cheap. They don't want to hire an experienced cataloger like they should, so they keep burning through Librarian I's desperate for the work experience every few years or so, regardless of the toll it ultimately takes on individual lives and psyches. Now they are back to having only 2 Cataloging Assistants, with one set to retire in May. They are knee deep in an authorities correction project that is now without a professional cataloger to lead it and seemingly don't care. I really hope their decision to run me off comes back to bite them in the ass.

Was faulted for not involving myself more in Dublin Core Metadata via ContentDM, but Special Collections could never make clear what they wanted or needed from me exactly. Lesson learned is to just inject myself into whatever Metadata stuff is going on to show that I have an interest and am "doing something", even if I don't know what I can really contribute, I guess.

Tdub also just plain has a cult that has some very weird ideas about how keyword searching *should* work versus how it does work. Reference staff claim all kinds of strange search anomalies, yet I found not one shred of evidence to support these claims myself. Lacking an Systems Librarian until October 2009 helped these weird ideas foster and grow. Public services working in concert with Systems is who should be trouble shooting the OPAC, not Cataloging. We insure the integrity of the MARC data, etc. How the catalog searches the bib records, etc, is up to Systems, with input from front line Reference folk. My boss kept wanting to put it on my shoulders and I kept balking at the proposal. I consulted a former head of cataloging at a MAJOR Texas university and she basically agreed with me, and her testing of our OPAC also revealed no anomalies. Towards the end my boss's constant harassment kept me from getting serious cataloging work done, or at least made it much harder than it needed to be.

When I wax philosophical, maybe it was high time I had moved on anyway. I'd learned all I was going to there, I think. My boss also wanted me to be an extrovert like her, when I'm definitely an introvert. She claims I lacked "Big picture" vision but I'm the one who added 8000 new holdings to WorldCat in my re-cataloging project, stuff that was "hidden" from the world and put TWU in violation of its contract with OCLC, I might add. I definitely left Tdub in better shape than when I found it.

Part of my problem is that cataloging is so remote and abstract, while I need more immediate feedback telling me I really am making a difference and helping someone. Reference work gives you that, and cataloging really doesn't. It's what I loved about working for AIG International Services the past 10 odd years, too. I knew I was making a real difference in people's lives right then and there. Cataloging you may make a difference 5 to 10 years in the future, or maybe long after you leave or long after you die. It's too removed from present day realities.

My thoroughgoing skepticism of RDA did not win me many friends either, I'm sure. My boss would ask about RDA and I would always answer the same: "not ready for prime time". Every talk I attended in 2009 on RDA was the same--frustratingly vague. Frustratingly vague at the start of 2009, and frustratingly vague at year's end as well. I also have deep philosophical issues with FRBR, especially its notion of a "work" in the abtract, which drives me up the wall, as there is no such animal. There is always an Ur-Text somewhere. I'm just too much of a hard nosed materialist to buy the Platonic notions that FRBR seems grounded in.

Attitudes like that do not get you counted among library movers and shakers, regardless how true they might be.

I have an opportunity to do some long distance contract cataloging, probably of electronic resources, and I'll probably be doing that part time while I look for work full time, but right now my copy of AACR2r2 and my copy of the Big Red Books (1992 edition) and my DDC21s are up in a shipping container in Splendora, TX. When the current arctic blast is over and warmer temps come back, I'll plan to head up there and retrieve my trade tools from deep storage.

Had to sell off a lot of books to make shelf space in Sugar Land. It was hard but necessary. Fact is I'll never have the personal oak wood wall to wall private library of my childhood and adolescent dreams. It's just never going to happen. I accept that now. May yet have to cull more books, like the East German kids books I saved from the discard pile and try to get a few pennies for them.

I'm pretty broke and having to cut corners and save money wherever I can. Don't have a lot of free time for blogging, but plan to keep it up as I keep myself informed about the state of the profession, or at least try to.

Later, folks.