Friday, January 29, 2010

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.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

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.

Friday, January 08, 2010

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.