Belated Book Review: M. Bauerlein's THE DUMBEST GENERATION

This review is rather delayed, and I apologize for the long silence between posts. The Aggie Librarian has been busy re-cataloging lots of books that have been sitting in our collection without holdings affixed to OCLC, an oversight that was to have been corrected "someday", and that "someday" just happens to coincide with my becoming the Catalog Librarian at my institution. I've also goofed off a lot on weekends, watching oodles of Japanese anime, and gone to the occasional gun show here in North Texas (Fort Worth, Dallas, Mesquite--the 3 biggest), dragging along a colleague from a neighboring institution.

Anyway, without further delay, I provide for you my review of Mark Bauerlein's THE DUMBEST GENERATION, which I had the pleasure to read just before school started back up.

As a 30-something, nominally Gen-X, somewhat traditionalist Librarian (Cataloger), weary of repulsing time and again the charge of the All-Digital Brigades proclaiming Lib/Web 2.0, or by now 3.0, ad infinitum, there is much in Bauerlein's critique here that is music to my ears, and I appreciate his compilation of statistics aimed at deflating the hype of Web 2.0 enthusiasts.

However, by about the middle of the book, Bauerlein's own ideological biases begin to overshadow the book, and it's clear he's got his own axe to grind. Like other Right-leaning intellectuals before, he is out to demonize the 1960s, which for him are the habitat of the Ur-Dumbest Generation, i.e. 60s Youth Culture (an estimation I emphatically do NOT share). He casually cites Leo Strauss without further attribution or explanation, which set off immediate alarm bells for me. I know damn well who Leo Strauss is, and while the quotation Bauerlein cites from Strauss is not objectionable, the corpus of Strauss' philosophical work is, in my view, quite odious and not at all in harmony with the American Democratic tradition that Bauerlein expresses such sympathy for elsewhere in his book. He similarly casually mentions David Horowitz without giving much background or context to this highly controversial turncoat ex-Trot.

While Bauerlein and I might agree in common on the philosophical outlook and valid cultural criticism of Neil Postman, he would probably balk at further mention of heroes in my pantheon, men like Paulo Freire, Michael Parenti, Peter McLaren, Richard Brosio, or even James Loewen.

Bauerlein insists on a CAUSAL connection between radical 60s youth culture and the techno-addicted Dumbest Generation of the present moment. While I will agree with Bauerlein on the general sequence of events, I dispute strongly the causal connections that he asserts. He seems to be of the opinion that radical 60s youth culture imploded from within, and that its radical rejection of the past (as if alternating iconoclastic/iconodule dialectics aren't a common feature of cultural history) is what ultimately doomed its ability to continue, thrive and reproduce itself.

He approvingly cites such "voices of moderation" as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Irving Howe...voices urging the US to stay in Vietnam, mind you. Yes, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who would later rationalize arming the forces of Usama Bin Laden in Afghantistan, to use radical Islam as a bulwark against the Soviet Union and raise the stakes in the Cold War by giving the USSR a taste of the Vietnam experience...regardless of the potential for Blowback that eventually contributed to Sept 11, 2001.

So, it was the 1960s young intellectual's own fault that they allegedly did not endure...As if, say, the sheer exhaustion of the American body politic in the aftermath of the Agony of the Vietnam war, the heightened cynicism about government in the wake of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate cover-up scandal, the general malaise of the later 1970s, and the gathering Right wing counterattack that blasted into the open with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980—As if none of that might also have had an impact on the long term viability of 1960s radical intellectual culture, which came under withering backlash assault from the mid 1970s onward. Regretfully, thus, Bauerlein is long on assertion but short on evidence in these final sections of his book. He detests the internet-addicted "Dumbest Generation" that is the object of study in the first part of the book, and also detests 1960s youth culture...and desperately wants there to be a connection, but I don't find his arguments for causality even remotely convincing here.

I also felt he undermined his general case against the so-called "Dumbest Generation" proper by focusing in on and excoriating a young artist for failing to bow down and worship at the altars of the great artists of the past. While I myself deplore the ignorance of basic history among all Americans, and have a healthy respect for the intellectual history of our reining political philosophies and their detractors, in the realm of the Arts, the Artist, it seems to me, is always under the burden to make something new, to be distinct, etc. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail. Abtract Expressionism claimed to be taking on Michaelangelo; And I agree with art critic Robert Hughes's sucinct prouncement on that artistic agenda: “You lost.”

Still, the Dada movement in Germany and Switzerland of the early 20th century, or the Wiener Sezession before them in the Fin de Ciecle of Emperor Franz Joseph's Austria-Hungary were no less rejectionist of traditionalist “academic” art, yet no one today would deny their greatness in hindsight. Sezession artists were quite scandalous in their day, the blatant depiction of sensuality scandalized the Vienese burghers while thrilling the Parisian art scene. Dadaists, in a flush of furious creative impulses, proclaimed a doctrine of Anti-Art, by which they meant Anti-academic, anti-stilted, hidebound traditionalist art which they felt was tainted by association with the corridors of power which unleashed the calamity of the Great War. French Impressionism, so beloved by contemporary middle class Americans today, was itself profoundly radical and controversial at its outset. Of course one must learn the basics of painting, of color, of contrast, etc. But artistic taste is highly personal. I do enjoy visits to museums, and as the saying goes, I may not know much about art, but I know what I like, and what I like less. I respect the technical talent of earlier realist painters, but their works don't move or speak to me very much. So where Bauerlein sees impudence, I see independence that, in an artist at least, we should recognize, respect and nourish. Would it be too scandalous to bring to this youth the art of the Harlem Renaissance of the 20s? Something with which, as a young black American, he might more easily relate to than Rembrant? He might reject that, too, but no artist can expect to make a name for himself merely aping the style of what has come before.

I don't disagree with Bauerlein's general thrust in what he is trying to argue, but I do strongly deplore his selection of the visual arts as a forum to bolster his case, which I think falls flat at this weak point. Perhaps I err in showing preferential, even deferential treatment to artists and artistic temperments. So be it; I admit I am guilty of these biases.

I think Bauerlein is also willfully blind to the wider political economy implications of cultural production, the increasing corporatization of the University, the growth of (mostly right-wing and well funded) Think Tanks creating an quasi-alternative, policy-driven intellectual world that seeks to supplant the traditional academy. Bauerlein buys completely and uncritically the right wing canard, promoted by hacks like Roger Kimball, and Horowitz, et. al. about the campus being utterly dominated by the Left. Even when discussing the real, existing Left-leaning professoriate, He seems not to know either Cary Nelson or Michael Berube or their promotion of community outreach as a legitimate exercise for professors to engage in apart from basic research and which ought to count towards tenure considerations. He claims to see redemptive value in the Culture Wars but can't seem to name the major players on the side opposite his or describe many of the recent events in those struggles. No discussion of Stanley Aronowitz, or even Alan Sokal. Where Bauerlein wants to grill 1960s youth culture, my own inclination is to lob grenades at the wayward excesses of relativizing, irrationalist Postmodernism. I happen to think George W. Bush is the most vulgarly Postmodern President in US History. Frederic Jameson identified Postmodernism as the cultural condition of Late Capitalism, and I believe that point still stands. It's sobering for me to realize that the landmark motion picture THE MATRIX came out nearly 10 years ago, yet still seems like it was released only yesterday. But at least Bauerlein and I can agree that, while both of us know these names and the ideas behind them, we are correct to fear that many of our readers, both of his book and this review, won't have the foggiest idea what either one of us is talking about, and we can agree that THAT is a deplorable state of affairs made ever worse by the distractions of the technophilic, neophillic, multitasking Infotainment screen-media culture.

A personal favorite Genre of Music.

I'm a big fan of Celtic music, Traditional and New Age. I love Fiona Ritchie's Thistle and Shamrock NPR's radio show, the Irish Aires show on KPFT, and the Celtic-themed editions of Hearts of Space by Steven Hill. Unfortunately, in Denton, on radio, all I can get is Ritche's show on KERA 90.1 FM (the greater DFW Public Radio station). I can get Irish Aires online, from KPFT's website. Much new Celtic music is going increasingly online.

And as I've expanded into playing around with MP3s and players like the iPod, I've discovered great resources like the website Songhenge and this podcast by Marc Gunn:



Great stuff! When I was a graduate student and recently graduated alumnus of Rice University, I did my turn as a bartender in the graduate student pub on campus in the basement of the old Chemistry building. Before they got all hi-techy and computerized their sound system, we used to have a CD player hooked up to the speaker system, and I would go visit Houston Public Library downtown and go select 3-5 new Celtic music CDs from various artists I had yet to listen to and then inflict these tunes upon my bar patrons. More often than not it was a success and patrons really liked the music. It transformed the whole atmosphere from an ordinary basement bar into something more like a cozy Irish pub, if only for the hour I was on duty as a bartender. I think our Guinness sales went up slightly when I was on duty, too. I think technically what I was doing was in violation of traditional copyright law, as we, the volunteer staff of the place, did not have the "performance rights" to the songs, but this to me is one of the more dick-headed perversions of Copyright law. Promoting such non-mainstream music in such a venue is only likely to pique interest and INCREASE music sales, but intellectual property lawyers don't give a sh*t about such cultural enhancements that improve the community even while they skirt the law a tad. I frequently had bar patrons come up and ask to see the album cover and sometimes the liner notes, which I gladly provided. This was admittedly back in the mid 1990s, when the Celtic New Wave was roaring at rip tide (it has subsided a bit since the early 2000s). I still love it, but my family origin is Scottish, so I have personal reasons to stay connected to this music.

Special Hell

If you take sexual advantage of her, you're going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater. — Shepherd Book (from the Firefly Episode OUR MRS. REYNOLDS)

...or people who steal shiny new books from Libraries.

We recently goofed and slotted for "Main Reference" a new (2008) GRE Prep book that actually needed to be sent to our Main Reserves, where we can control the use more tightly. These are evidently high demand items, and all the previous GRE Prep stuff is in Main Reserves. But, it came from acquisitions flagged as "Main Reference", so I (copy-)cataloged it, my student assistant did the end processing, and off it went to Circ, from thence to Main Reference, where it "sprouted legs" and walked out the door never to be seen again. Painful lesson learned, and that some people are just ruthless sh*ts. Yes, you to belong in that "Special Hell", if it existed, my dear Library thief.

We would've lost more of them if not for the fact that the copy records in OCLC are lacking 050 fields and my ClassWeb access is STILL down (2 weeks now) and I was too lazy to go poking around on LC and elsewhere for older editions from whence to crib a suitable call number.

I'm also taking my time cataloging a 2 volume set of American Women writers. I'm doing an original record that piggy-backs on an existing record for Vol.1 which has an extensive 505 field contents note. I feel obligated to supply an equally exhaustive 505 for Vol.2, but it's taking a goodly bit of time to transcribe page after page from the TOC in Vol. 2. I may also be fudging the rules a little bit in the 245 field, since thought the set has 1 main editor, the secondary editors differ from vol.1 & 2; I combine the statements of responsibility into one with an [and] between the incongruous names. The 505 transcription is even more tedious work than my ongoing NAF project, or at least it feels that way. I'm also progressing my way slowly through an online course designed to teach me how to catalog Integrating Resources (and how they specifically differ from serials). This past Friday I spent all day with an AMIGOS trainer learning the basics of ContentDM. It was okay, and good to play around with training software where I couldn't do any real lasting damage while I learned to set up a hypothetical digital image collection, etc. Much of the controlled vocabulary for images comes from LC-TGM (Thesaurus for Graphic Materials), since the "subject cataloging" for images tends more to be an extension of descriptive cataloging. More "what is" than "what it's about", per se.

It was a good way to spend Friday as our ILS was totally down (even on the user side) because they're upgrading to a new server. The ILS will probably remain down through a goodly part of Monday, which means I can't make any progress on the NAF project, so I'll resume the 505 transcription and re-save the bib workform in the save file. I'm over halfway done, but it's just such a tedious slog, can't be done in one sitting. I'll also log in to the online course and get caught up on the next module, etc.

Mein Foto

Photo added to blog (with paint/digital filtering), proof that yes, I was indeed an Aggie. Once an Aggie, always an Aggie. This photo was taken my fish year, at Parent's Weekend, way back in the Spring of 1990. I was a young 'un then, and had no idea about wanting to one day become a librarian. When this photo was taken, I still had my heart set on becoming a Naval officer, my coke bottle thick glasses eventually dooming that prospect, but I didn't know that then. Back then, I had a tentative offer of a 3-year NROTC scholarship and was wrapping up a successful if otherwise unremarkable freshman year in the Corps of Cadets. There was still a Cold War on, as far as we knew, because there was still a Soviet Union and Gorby was still the man at the helm over there. That summer I would journey to Germany for a 5 week trip (2 weeks classroom instruction, 3 weeks travel around German-speaking Europe). By then I had already switched my academic major to German, along with History as a double-major, the disapproving frowns of my Naval Science advisers notwithstanding. I eventually was NPQ'd for the scholarship, returned to life as a civilian student, then went on to grad school, first for my MA in German Studies at Rice U, then eventually to UNT for my MLS, and the rest is history.

My first academic major at TAMU has been Political Science, but after my first Poli-Sci class, which was deathly boring, I dropped that major like a hot rock and became a History major. I added German later. I might've been happier had I done my MA in History rather than German Studies, but c'est la vie.

Back then, TAMU was using the NOTIS system for their OPAC interface (not that I would have known the term OPAC back then). It was an amber screen, menu-driven system. Although my High school still used a card catalog and the Dewey Decimal system (which I confess I never really learned all that well), I really didn't find the NOTIS system to be all that difficult to use. I may not have known what the call numbers meant, but I was able to find my books fairly easily. I did eventually learn the Russian history books were in the DK's up on the 6th floor of Evans Library. When I got to Rice U, I learned the German books were in the PTs on the 2nd floor of the Fondren Library. I found that I liked hanging out in the H's a lot, too, and sometimes the DD's (German history). I now know the basics of LC fairly well, at least what the leading letters mean, at a glance. I know some parts of DDC, but not the whole thing in any case, not from memory anyway. I still find DDC to LC conversion tables helpful where they exist.

Rice U. had a primitive web-based OPAC called, I believe, WebCat. It worked fairly well, and was certainly more aesthetically appealing than the old Amber-screened NOTIS system at Texas A&M. I don't know if they still have it, but when I was a graduate student, the Fondren Library had retained its card catalog, but hadn't updated it since 1986, according to the signage at the time. I don't remember if Texas A&M in those early days still maintained a physical card catalog anymore or not, but I'm thinking probably not.

I really wasn't an avid library user as a kid; I do remember attending a kind of summer camp activity thing at the Walter branch of HPL back circa 1978 or so...little did I know then that the HPL Central branch had just opened a scant 2 years prior. During High School mom would sometimes take me to HBU's campus library to do research, but she understood the library search tools better than I did...good ol' Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, etc. I just know I enjoyed pulling the bound periodicals from the shelves and reading things like Life Magazine from the 1950s and 1960s. I thought it was so cool that somebody kept these old magazines around like that so many years later.

I didn't really become an avid library user until I got to college, as an undergraduate. My library use expanded in Grad school, as I became more aware of the overall layout of the collection as ordered by LC classification. Before I went to library school, I once had an apartment that was only 5 or so minutes from HPL Central downtown. I practically raided their media library for the best of the best in documentaries, educational films, etc. I checked out and read books avidly, audio books too. That period in the late 1990s, circa 1998-99 was my heaviest period of personal public library use, when I really fell in love with HPL central, and to a lesser degree Harris County Public Library's West U. branch.

I've yet to visit the main Dallas Public Library, but have been to Fort Worth Public Library's main branch. While at UNT, I did sometimes go over to Denton Public Library. It's ok, but just can't compare to HPL's offerings, nor even Fort Bend County Library system's offerings for that matter.

Now I work in a library. At long last, I feel like I have a job with a real future, not just marking time and paying the bills, like at my last corporate gig. It was fun there, but it was ultimately a dead-end job. Which I didn't care about in my mid-to-late 20s, but as mid-to-late 20s became mid-to-late 30s, it was clear to me it was time to move on, and Libraries was the best way I could figure to get back into Academia some way, some how. It seems to have worked. I feel like I'm making a difference here, enhancing scholarship, contributing to the greater good. It's a good feeling. Signing off again, la la land calls. ZZzzzzz.

Another AV review (brief)

Just a quick shout out to note I really enjoyed another title in the Portable Professor series from Barnes & Noble, specifically Deborah Tannen's He Said, She Said, which is a lecture series based on her previous books and academic research on the different linguistic speaking styles of men and women and how they communicate (or fail to communicate) with each other. It was very eye opening to me and I had lots of "aha" moments all throughout, remembering past incidents with my ex-wife and ongoing dynamics with my mom. Sometimes Dr. Tannen's research leaves you feeling a little despondent, like there's no way around the impasse, but I do think she's right that at the very least it's better to understand what's going on than to not understand it. It makes a Meta-critique of the language act(s) possible, though it's not always possible in the heat of the moment. It's also much easier to catch other's faux pas ("oh, that was really insensitive") than it is to catch your own, but I guess you learn with time, and even learn to think of better things to say that are more productive responses than the "typical" response one would make, as influenced by one's gender.

Tannen was recommended to me by a library colleague at a neighboring institution, who had read her books and found them very helpful and revealing, and this is a guy whose advice I trust when it comes to reading material. That advice was solid gold in this case. I downloaded the contents of the entire lecture series from its component CDs onto my old iPod Nano (1G) and listened to it the whole drive down to Sugar Land, Texas from the DFW Metro area, roughly a 6 hour drive, depending on traffic. My only complaint about that is that when the tracks were downloaded into iTunes, the naming conventions of the different chapters were inconsistent, and so I had to be vigilant to make sure I was listening to the lectures in their proper order. At least the lectures were internally consistent with each other, so no problem at that level, but because of the naming conventions used, Lecture 10 would line up in sequence before Lecture 7, for example. I would wait until I had open road ahead of me to hop around the tracks to get the next lecture set lined up properly and started. If I could, I would try to time this with my rest stop breaks, with the car fully stopped. If I was in the middle of heavy traffic, I'd just pause my iPod and either go silent or punch out the adapter from my tape deck and listen to the radio softly instead.

This would be a handy method for "reading" library books-on-CD as well. Library audio content that is already in MP3 format typically does NOT work with the iPod but will work with any other MP3 player. I resisted going to iPod for some time until I realized I could download podcasts of foreign language news content, especially German material, with better audio quality (and later video) that short-wave radio broadcasts on Deutsche Welle just couldn't match; their own Podcasts over the web were that much superior, and since I was listening asynchronously, I could listen at my own leisure, when and where I wanted to, and I still do. My bigger iPod (8G) is what I use for this now, since the video content (RTL news, Tagessschau, and other nightly news broadcast video from Germany) takes up a lot of memory, much more so than mere audio content.

I liked having the whole lecture series compacted onto my iPod Nano, because it was a lot easier to scroll through the iPod menu than it would've been to constantly be swapping out physical CDs into and out of my CD adapter/player, which plugs into my tape-deck. I use the exact same pseudo-cassette adapter thingy for both devices and it works just fine in each. I also have some spare computer speakers that I have set up on my nightstand so I can plug in either iPod and simply listen to the content aloud while I'm getting dressed, doing chores, surfing the web or whatever (it's easier than sticking in ear buds when engaged in physical activity). This is a much cheaper work-around than getting an expensive docking port w/ speakers for one's iPod, or more sophisticated adapters that broadcast your iPod to the car's radio on an open channel (which is what you'd have to do if you had only a CD player and no tape deck). I like my low tech work arounds, personally.

Well, time to sign off for me. I managed to stretch this post longer than I thought I could. I'll sign on again, as I feel like it or have something to respond to or get off my chest, and as always I'll pledge to try to keep it Library related, or at least Higher Ed related. If I don't keep my blog(s) semi-topical, they get too unfocused and end up going nowhere. This blog was built on the ruins of earlier abandoned blogs and even earlier abandoned static websites, now lost to the mists of ancient cyberia.

Fun philosophical fisticuffs...

Currently participating in a rather fun bit of philosophical fisticuffs on AUTOCAT between a Web/Libr 2.0 true believer and the big guns of AUTOCATland. I normally sit on the sidelines, or toss a grenade and run. I guess I sort of provoked our interlocutor to wander into AUTOCATland, sort of like a military reconnaissance scout launching a feint attack on a larger force, which gives pursuit and is lead into an ambush as they cross in front of our biggest guns, which open up on the invader. After the initial salvo, I swung back around and made a strafing run. Ah, such fun. I've been getting off-list private messages of support, back slaps, etc. Our interlocutor is a prolific poster, however, so it may have to wait until the weekend for me to respond at length over there.

I will probably be able to attend to this blog more now that I have a working Desktop PC at home in my bedroom and don't have to rely on my laptop. I love my laptop, but damn do I hate laptop keyboards. If I have to type anything over a paragraph on one it's just plain painful. The conflict averse are playing kissy-make up on AUTOCAT right now, with the list traffic slowing up a bit, but I'm not ready to make nice. I do think I've made most of my major points already, but half the fun is responding to the overblown rhetoric of my opponent. I don't have time to go into the details here, but it may be fodder for future postings.

The Weeding (& Reading) of History in Libraries, reconsidered.

I recently finished an audio lecture series (Portable Professor by Barnes & Noble) delivered by Professor James Loewen, author of the landmark history book Lies my teacher told me. Loewen is a sociologist by training, but has long experience teaching history, and particularly the history of race relations in America. This is evident because the most outstanding, most eye-opening (to me at least) set of lectures delivered by Loewen in this series is the two part lecture titled The Nadir of Race Relations in America, 1890-1940. The lecture series itself is entitled Everything you've been taught is wrong: Fact, Fiction and Lies in American History, consisting of a grand total of 14 lectures on CD, plus a bonus CD of samples from other lectures in the Portable Professor series.

Loewen does far more than recount notable facts and dates and the exploits of great men in American history. He goes a level deeper to give his listeners an education in the nature of historiography itself. As a librarian, it has made me reconsider my attitude towards the weeding of Academic library materials, at least in the subject of history. At more than one point Loewen stresses not only the importance of primary source material (which every historian at least pays lip service to), but also points out that in relation to secondary sources, many times it is the older sources, closer to the time of the actual events described, where the more straightforward and honest, less embellished accounts of history can be found (and give clues on where to look with regards to primary sources). This sort of goes against the grain of our training in contemporary librarianship, where NEW is assumed nearly always to be inherently BETTER. And in Scientific and technical fields, this does tend to hold true. But this "insight" is potentially damaging when misapplied to the humanities, and particularly the field of History. Loewen's lectures really opened my eyes to the LIS implications of his research. I will think twice before recommending some older, dusty history series be chucked out because it's "too old" and "nobody" reads it. Loewen's own research patterns contraindicate this, and we ignore the needs of "expert" library users like Loewen at our peril, especially in academic libraries. I happen to have had the chance to physically handle these older history books very recently in my current ongoing Name Authorities project I am working on.

One byproduct of this NAF work is that periodically I will encounter a bibliographic record, usually of older materials dating from the TSCW or even "College of Industrial Arts" period of my current institution, where the record is basically incomplete/temporary, and seems to have been hastily added from a catalog card long ago and never upgraded; Often no holdings listed in OCLC, and some of these short local records even lack adequate LCSH's. So I physically pull the volumes, look them up in OCLC (frequently able to do so by LCCN, but generally only for materials published since the 1950s, mostly in the United States). With enough digging, I am usually able to find these missing materials, import the proper record, attach our holdings in OCLC, and overlay the brief record with the robust, full record that should have been there to begin with. Some of the brief records don't even fully match the book-in-hand their barcodes relate to (dates are wrong, a later second edition record is used for a first edition work, etc). It's kind of a mess that has been long overdue for this kind of cleanup, and I'm grateful to take a break from rather constant copy-cataloging and original cataloging during the regular semester to get this done.

When I first handled these books, my inclination was at first "ugh, why do we even still keep these around", but upon listening to Loewen's lectures, I have a deeper appreciation for these rarer books, and also an appreciation of making my home institution a better library citizen, by attaching our holdings and announcing to the world that these sometimes rare resources are available through I.L.L.

Of course, such work does require, for lack of a better word, something of a leap of library faith. You can't know for sure if any of your detailed, behind the scenes work will directly benefit anyone specific. It might not even matter in your lifetime. You're handling a collection that is bigger than yourself, something that will outlast you, but you have the awareness that decisions you make now will leave footprints later, directions taken now will either help (or hinder) research in the future. That's a humbling realization, and keeps one striving to do good and avoid doing harm in cataloging work.

My only criticism of Everything you've been taught is wrong is the lectures that touch upon Kennedy and the early 1960s. This is Loewen weakest material; though that said it's still better than many standard textbook accounts. Loewen also offers a criticism of Socialism early on that may well apply to certain total forms of state socialism, but do not hold true across all forms of Socialism. My own Socialist views are tempered by an anarcho-syndicalist/radical democratic streak. More Rosa Luxembourg and less Lenin. Loewen glosses over this distinction, painting with an overbroad brush. But these criticism are really minor. In the main, Loewen does a fantastic job of deconstructing, well nigh demolishing the Triumphalist/Nationalist (not to mention Neo-Confederate) View that dominates in the teaching of American history today at the secondary, and even the undergraduate collegiate survey course level.

As someone who lived though the ending of the Cold War as a young adult, I'm leery of the way history books are teaching this geopolitical drama to the younger generation who were too young to have any meaningful memory of it. I saw TOP GUN in High school, I watched the Berlin Wall come down on live television. It was very real, lived history to me, and people like me were in a unique position to critically re-examine the Cold War and realize just how much of a chimera and a charade much of it was. We were too young to be committed Cold Warriors (either pro or anti Soviet), so our views were still malleable, but the Cold War was also lived reality for us in ways it wasn't and can't ever be for those who come after us. It's not impossible for them to gain the same insights, but I'd assert it will be more difficult.

Heck, some of the Freshmen that will be starting this Fall will have no personal memory of the O.J. Simpson trial, let alone Rodney King and the ensuing L.A. Riots circa 1991. They were too young for these events to have any real meaning for them, and if they have any knowledge at all of the events, it's from immediate family and extended relatives who may talk about the events, or maybe they stumbled on a YouTube clip about it, or a Wikipedia article, or got curious about this stuff watching VH1 on cable.

It makes me glad to have cataloged a lot of ephemera we collected on VHS tapes which we inherited from the Minerva Center, a think-tank in Washington DC that studies topics pertaining to women and the military. Many of them were recordings of live television news programs and talk show discussions about 1980s-1990s debates surrounding women in the military, the Tailhook scandal, and Clinton era revived debates about gays and lesbians serving in the military. These are important pieces of history, too, right down to the corny 1980s television commercials in between the news segments.

Librarians, especially Academic Librarians, need to cultivate a finely attuned sense of history and historiography to fully treat their collections with the respect and care they deserve. I think most Librarians do make that effort, though with some Web/Libr 2.0 advocates I do wonder.

I would definitely recommend Loewen's lecture series as an audiobook acquisition even for Public libraries, and I am currently investigating other lecture sets in the Portable Professor series. Our local Barnes & Noble is having a clearance sale on them and I scooped up a bunch of titles for myself lately. I understand these will never be popular enough for B&N to keep on their in-store shelf-space and fully expect these to be internet-only available items. But these are items worth of consideration by collection development and acquisitions librarians. Precisely the kind of stuff we ought to be promoting that, though they will never be a commercial success at B&N, are nevertheless vital to the intellectual health of the nation. This is part of why Libraries differ from bookstores, and why we can and must exist peaceably side by side.

Mixed feelings about the renovations at HPL central

I took a personal tour of the newly renovated central branch of the Houston Public Library. I have to say, elated as I was that my old main library was back in operation again after a long hiatus, well, it's like that awkward feeling you get when a girl you secretly like changes her hairstyle...for the worse. You're tongue tied. You can't REALLY tell her what you think and so you say "looks great", or something equally innocuous. It would be too gauche to say "I liked the way you had it before", even if that's how you really feel.

In the case of HPL, it's not as though I necessarily liked the "before" better than the "after" picture here (you all are shocked, I can tell). No, it's just that after all the facelifts, nips and tucks, you'd think the result would be better than it is.

In no particular order, the biggest changes...the Elevators--gone. No big loss, really, as nearly half of them tended to be out of service at any given moment and you had to walk up them anyway. They've been replaced by a central stairway and elevator.

Children's library--was in the basement, now on the very top floor. Not so crazy about this change either, because it displaces the media library that was on the 4th floor. More on that in a minute. Anyway, so you're making the kiddos either ride the elevator or climb a lot of stairs, and heaven forbid if the elevator ever konks out. Lots of tired, surly kids going up and down those stairs, through the center of the building, making noise that can be heard all over the building, since it's an open and exposed staircase. My personal preference would've been to keep them in the basement, as always.

The basement itself is now 100% enclosed staff workspace, and a white, clinical void for patrons, with one lone security guard. The parking garage is similarly transformed. The public elevator is now the staff elevator. The new public elevator is located in a sterile, white room, encased in Plexiglas, with one lone security guard at what looks like a lectern, and an automated ticket teller machine (heaven help you if you don't have exact change, since the guard can't.). I know this saves from having to have the security guards put in a shift as the gate teller, and that it had been like that even before the renovation, but I still don't like it.

More staff reductions on the first floor. The good news, more check out lanes, on BOTH sides now. The not-so-good news--all nearly 100% automated with exactly 1 circ clerk to handle any issues (like fines & blocks, etc) and one security guard.

Media Library...abolished; VHS holdings--gone. I can sort of understand that...I myself switched to DVDs after I broke down and bought a PS2 (i.e. when the PS3 came out--I'm always a generation behind on Playstation units; I was enjoying the hell outta my PSX when PS2 was all the rage). But what really gets my goat is that I *KNOW* they didn't replace all the VHS holdings with equally ample DVD holdings. These are MUCH reduced today. Ironic for me, the notorious book snob, to complain about HPL's Media Library policies, but I love AV media, actually; It's just that I prefer the more elevated discourse of educational Documentaries, Human interest films, Artsy and Foreign flicks...i.e. the stuff most Blockbuster outlets will at most devote one aisle to and would prefer not to go near with a 10 foot pole if they could.
Libraries can do a great service in picking up that slack, and sometimes they have modest successes.

Their audiobook collection also shows signs of heavy weeding...all CDs now, no audiocassettes that I saw, though I could be wrong. It was certainly CD-dominant if not 100%. Again, sign of the times, not that much of a surprise. I was glad that they had more titles from the Teaching Company and in principle the fact that all the titles were in DVD format shouldn't have been an issue, but...Look, I know the Teaching company offers ALL their lectures on audio as well as on DVD, but some titles make a LOT more sense on video than others...like Mathematics topics or Art appreciation topics, something with a visual element as a legitimate part of the material, not just filler material for the voice overs. Which is what they were stuck with with the titles they selected...a series on Shakespeare, another on Hitler, etc. These are primarily lecture courses, mind you, so you won't be seeing moving visual clips from Leni Riefenstahl on the Hitler lecture, I bet. What HPL has done is virtually guaranteed that nobody will check these DVDs out. Even I would hesitate whereas if they were audio-CDs, I wouldn't hesitate to check them out. An Audio CD is something I can burn onto my iPod and take with me...a DVD isn't. I'd prefer cassettes for my tape deck in my car, but again, that's the latent Luddite impulse in me. I have a CD adapter of course...I decided I wouldn't pass up Bill Bryson or Sarah Vowell's latest on audio over a mere formatting quibble. Though I must say I was delighted to be able to order David Sedaris's latest work When you are engulfed in flames on audiocassette. That was totally bad ass, thank you David, thank you thank you.


Library geek that I am, of course I had to stroll through the 000's, to check out the LIS material. Still pretty robust, though I wish they wouldn't have weeded so much of Alternative Library Literature, the biennial anthology. They ditched all but the last volume, 2000-2001, which is a shame because the earlier volumes had lots of good material as well, some of it quite timeless. They also had updated DDC22's, having replaced the earlier DDC21's they did have. I did finally get a used copy of the DDC21 for my own curiosity. But on the whole, the LIS collection at HPL has undergone some shrinkage, and that's also unfortunate.

In the Foreign Language collection, the library has nearly abandoned bibliographic control altogether. It's a Dewey-Free zone. Now just a basic language code (SP, Fr, G, Ru, Vo) and the first 5 or so letters of the author's last name, alphabetized. The selections for the German books were fair-to-middlin'; some pieces of belle lettres and pieces of translated English bestseller crap from the US and UK (too much of the latter for my taste). I suppose I should be happy they still HAVE a foreign language section and that some stupid nativist English-only bunch of nutjobs hasn't lobbied to shut it down yet.

The plaza of the Library has been festively painted with geometric square and rectangular patterns in primary colors. It's ok, but doesn't really move me. I was upset that they'd removed the metal sculpture out front. It's not gone completely, they just moved it up a block to front Smith Street, but still, it looks out of place next to the more classical building design of the older branch of the library where the Texas state documents, genealogical and local records are kept. That modernist piece of sculpture clashes completely next to this building, but I'm glad it was preserved in some form, though they should've just left it where it was.

Also, as a concealed carry permit holder, I noticed the library is a 30.06 regulated "gun free zone"; It always has been, actually--it just irks the sh*t out of me now that I'm more aware of the issue and have a stake in it. The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas also has a 30.06 sign. As if signage there would've made a difference back on November 22, 1963, but I digress.

I guess the best thing I can say about HPL Central branch is, I'm glad you're back in operation, baby. Not sure about the new look, but I guess it'll grow on me eventually.

Name (& subject) authority work in E-books

I am working on an ongoing Name Authority project for the summer and have noticed that for our Electronic Books, there are very few records where we have an existing record in the NAF for the author in the 1XX field of these E-book records.I found out from my Electronic Resources Librarian that this was not normally part of the Electronic book workflow. I have requested to be updated about all new E-book loads so that the authority work can get done at the time the records are added, just like with regular print books.I have also noticed that especially with E-books, some of these vendor records get rather creative with their subject headings and especially their use of subdivisions; either they completely ignore the scope notes or just start seemingly making up their own subdivisions willy-nilly. Sometimes I will take time to fix/repair them into proper subject headings that follow the rules (often requiring breaking the single heading up into a couple of distinct headings, etc), other times I'll just let it stand as is. Sometimes the 1XX from the vendor-supplied record does not jive with the 1xx in the authority record from OCLC, and I have to cut & paste in the correct(ed) heading into the (local) bib record so it will link up correctly with the authority record I'm about to import from OCLC.I seldom encounter the same problems with copy-cataloging print monographs; It seems to be a quality control issue mainly with E-books; That said, it's not a BIG problem, most e-book records are just fine; it's just the phenomenon is quite a bit more noticeable when contrasted with monographs. It's admittedly hard to resist a little pop-psychoanalysis here; Do Electronic resources catalogers who work directly for vendors (instead of in libraries) feel special, like they're entitled to willfully flaunt subject cataloging rules/guidelines that the rest of us "ordinary" (i.e. mainly monographic, higher ed institution embedded) catalogers have to follow?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Unfocused Bibliographic Rant

Stringing together a few disparate items and commentaries, somewhat interrelated. Sort of.

Comment to a like-minded colleague...

(Me, then quoting) ...More wisdom from on High at LC:

>"a future for bibliographic control that will be collaborative,

>decentralized, international in scope, and Web-based*change will

>happen quickly, and bibliographic control will be dynamic, not

>static."

Translation: "The Future of Bibliographic control will be one enormous, raging Clusterfuck" (tm).

Or "Bibliographic control??? HAAH! We don't need no steeenking bibliographic control..."

Or "Let them eat wikis..."

then this one; quote first, then comment

-----Original Message-----

From: AUTOCAT On Behalf Of [X]

Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 2:11 AM

To: AUTOCAT

Subject: Re: (reaction to) Letter from Deanna Marcum and Joint Statement on RDA

I ... think it is completely in line with the

excellent recommendation of the Working Group to "Redefine the Bibliographic

Universe" to include all potential partners who create bibliographic

information ("metadata") into this scenario. I would like to point out here

that it is not we who are the ones to define the bibliographic universe,

it's our users who define it. They can now search all kinds of databases

just as easily (or as I have written elsewhere, *more easily*) than our own

databases.

The "bibliographic universe" to an increasing number of people is defined by

Google and Yahoo and not by us. This is an amazing transformation that has

taken place in only the last 10 or 15 years! I can imagine that many

metadata managers (many of them vendors) would much prefer to fit into the

"bibliographic universe" of Google and Yahoo than into the one we proclaim.

I believe that if we are to have a chance to convince these other "metadata

groups" that they need to be included in our own "bibliographic universe,"

these groups must feel as if they have some sort of a say in the situation.

We can't just say to them, "this is what we do, and if you want to cooperate

with us, do as we say, otherwise...!" That is not cooperation.

But I believe that somewhere, somehow a type of agreement could be reached

where we can cooperate to the extent where all can become more productive

and increase quality at the same time. I know that Mike thinks otherwise,

and he has far more experience in these matters than I do, but I fully

confess that I'm a dreamer! Behind these dreams however, is the conviction

that the "bibliographic universe" of our users and that of traditional

library catalogs must begin to merge. Otherwise, our users will opt for

Google/Yahoo, just as they do today.
======================================================

This is a library manager/administrator, too, which is what worries me the most.

He states... "We [libraries] can't just say to them [online content providers, etc], 'this is what we do, and if you want to cooperate with us, do as we say, otherwise...!' "

Actually this is exactly what we should do. The above missive is to me so wrongheaded, based on such a skewed picture...We call it the *Bibliographic* Universe (rather than, I dunno, the "Infoverse") because, much as the techie heads hem and haw, discursive prose books still form the basis of a solid, thoughtful education; That is still very much "our thing" (i.e. Libraries), and Google, et. al. can just suck it, frankly.

The online resources can augment such education, no doubt, and are welcome and have their place...if the so-called "digital natives" want to get "something", "fast", by all means let them Yahoo-it and Google-it to their heart's content. No skin off my back. If they find what they think they need, great, wonderful, glad to hear it. If they eventually get frustrated and realize they need help, we [librarians] will be waiting at the Reference Desk down at the library, like we always have been. We will not dumb down our search tools or degrade the quality of our bibliographic data just for your sake, though we may give you a simplified interface as the default setting.

I realize I'm railing against prevailing, possibly inevitable trends, but prevailing trends seem to be such a gathering dirty snowball of stupid (or teh st00pid as the 'net nerds say) I can hardly help myself.

Names above have been disguised to protect the misguided.

=====================

My like-minded friend also related this to me...

"...Tried to interject Neil Postman into the meeting on the topic of “critical thinking” and was told that the age of the renaissance man was gone and we should only be concerned about knowing what works for our immediate work and personal life; the vocational vs. scholarly argument. The example of understanding “war” was summed up as being completely explained by pictures and “Band of Brothers” as opposed about reading books of sociology, history, anthropology. ….. "

I asked him straight up, "Did you respond appropriately with deep, mocking laughter?"

(rhetorical question—I know the real power relations of his workplace aren’t exactly favorable)

Just because we can’t reasonably know truly “a bit of everything” like the Renaissance men of the 18^th century, it does not therefore follow that we abdicate on understanding at all beyond narrow, instrumental vocational needs…you can still come to understand a great deal. The human mind yearns for understanding once more base needs have been satisfied by the paycheck…

Since when, by the way, was the age of the Renaissance Man repealed? Was that one of the secret provisions of the USA Patriot Act that I missed? I hear they also went and repealed Godwin's Law, too. Must've been the paragraph after that one. Nobody read the damn thing before voting on it anyway...

Anyway, on the social front, I enjoyed hanging out with the UTD Skeptics and UNT-Freethought Alliance End of Semester Bash. Good to meet fellow atheists, agnostics, etc. But also a reminder about Marx declaring something to the effect that that "criticism of religion is the beginning of critical thought"; Freeing oneself of religion is but the first step, but many seem to rest on their laurels after that, as if that was all that need be done, not recognizing powerful cultural myths (often nationalistic), that, though ostensibly secular, hold just as much power over the mind and often stand in, in place of critical consideration of unpleasant facts, wherever such deliberations may lead...

Anyway, I do look forward to their resuming campus activity in the Fall. I'm going to miss that group this summer. I guess I will take up again with the North Texas Church of Freethought, maybe check out some programs with Texas Master Naturalists and Texas Master Gardeners.

I'm definitely looking forward to the ELUNA Conference in Long Beach, California, which will be her very very soon.

TLA impressions

I started this next bit as a reply to a posting on AUTOCAT, but realized I was descending into a rant better suited for the Blogosphere. I did respond on AUTOCAT, but changed the direction of my public reply in that professional community.

Anyway, below is the text of my original thoughts, and the original line of thought I wanted to talk about but saved for this setting instead.

Brief quotation then comment on the original thread:

an AUTOCATTER opined recently that:

> I think cataloguing is both complicated and difficult. But it

> _seems_ simple and easy. This is the curse of the cataloguer. Like

> Cassandra, we are cursed to be forever explaining to other people how

> difficult our work is but never really being believed.

To which I began my reply...

One thing to remember about the mythic Cassandra was that she was RIGHT, in the end.

Patrons maybe don't appreciate good cataloging, but they will sure miss it quickly if it ever goes away.

(sort of the point of the Cassandra myth, too)

Try doing typical academic research on Amazon.com (looking for relevant works on a specific topic) versus a typical library catalog, or LC's main OPAC. Yes, for very general topics, Amazon works just fine, at a superficial level.

And for the majority of Library users, general, superficial searching is all they ever do...or much care about.

But if you really want to chase down specific topic areas, "researching" a la Amazon becomes eventually a hit-or-miss exercise in utter frustration fairly rapidly, especially in obscure areas not a lot of people make purchases in, so that even the "people who bought this also bought this" engine breaks down and becomes useless. The typical Library OPAC using LCSH and LC Classification well gives a level of specificity that Amazon will never match. Nor does Amazon need to, as their database serves the ultimate mission of selling lots of books, and it does that very well already. But the Library's mission is to promote scholarship, and with effective, quality cataloging, it does that very well, too. I think what Thomas Mann, Michael Gorman, et. al. are saying is let's try not to unintentionally punish expert users in our efforts to make OPACs more easy to use and accessible to the "average" patron. What I see Michael Gorman saying is that the "Good enough for gov't work" mentality, where some library managers prize through-put speed above all other considerations, does exactly that.

Slightly off topic but not wholly unrelated, I say give the "average" user their single, simple "Meta" search box as the default display if that's truly what they want, but don't disable those "scary" advanced search features for people who actually know what they're doing, or Reference Librarians who can better guide users with these sophisticated tools!

Last week I attended Roy Tennant's recent talk/presentation to the Texas Library Association, and I hated it, or at least the first half of it, just as I expected I would. But I've come to understand that "shock value" is just one of the language games of academic discourse (another is the "old wine in new bottles" game, while another is "exposing the 'old wine in new bottles' language game."), and that saying things like "the Catalog has No Future" is just another example of this feint. He doesn't *really* mean that, or at least not without lots of caveats and verbal somersaults--I got it that he's mostly just yanking chains to stir things up, encourage librarians to "think outside the box", put ourselves in the shoes of Mr. & Ms. Average User, etc.

Aside from a basic disagreement on what Libraries are for...Walt Crawford, for one, challenges Library 2.0 gurus like Tennant when they assert that Libraries are "about Information", which as both Crawford and Gorman recognize, is an almost meaningless, overbroad generalization that rapidly gets us into trouble because it obfuscates rather than clarifies...aside from that there's a basic undercurrent of anti-intellectualism in Roy Tennant's basic line of argument that really really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. He seems to dismiss out of hand any notion of the efficacy of bibliographic instruction efforts, leaving the impression he considers it a waste of time and not worth the effort. Tennant himself referred to the average library user as "brain dead" several times during his talk.

When pressed, Roy did concede that "advanced" search features, which he all but put the kibbosh on in his opening remarks, should be left intact for skilled Reference librarians to make use of when they need to.

Roy was even intimated local SLIS professor who challenged him as basically having just advocated a dumbing down of library search tools and methodology. He hotly contested this, of course, claiming he was advocating that we "smart up" our search technology. The SLIS professor brought up the issue of bibliographic instruction, but Tennant declined to follow that tangent.

The 2nd half of Roy's talk discussed new ILS innovations like Koha and Evergreen that really are quite exciting, and I enjoyed that a lot. I had already attended the Evergreen talk put on by Georgia Public Libraries earlier in the conference, and had sat through several live Koha demonstrations on the exhibition floor, which were impressive. Most impressive to me were a Koha feature where you could right-click on a call number and pull up a shelf-map of the library and show a patron where exactly in the stacks to look for a particular book. That was wicked cool.

When I got back to work after the conference, as luck would have it our local Ex Libris Rep walked us through a demo of PRIMO, their latest "Discovery Tool", basically a meta-search interface that will overlay the traditional catalog (Voyager or Aleph)...this was the sort of thing Roy Tennant was pushing in his talk. And I piddled around with some libraries that had installed it, and yes, it was kind of neat. But I also know that in more advanced research, the question is not finding a little bit of everything about a given topic, but winnowing away vast amounts of things you decide you don't need and focusing on the one or two gold nuggets of research material you really do need. In advanced research, knowing what you can safely ignore becomes nearly as important as knowing what to read. One thing I strongly disliked was that in one library, call number browsing was no longer possible. This was an outrage. It is a powerful way to browse a collection virtually, by subject matter. Do patrons know how to use it? No. Would they miss it? No. But librarians DO know, and I DID notice. And I exclaimed out loud WHY!? Why would you do that, disabling call number browsing...what a stupid thing to do. But then again, Roy's dictum is, "Librarians like to search, everyone else prefers to find". Nevermind that Librarians know better how to search than even some expert users, and can find things faster than unaided patrons flailing about, even in a user-friendlier, google-ized Discovery Interface. A colleague of mine who is of a similar mindset also says "is it wrong to demand a minimum of search competence in our patrons? They are college students, after all--some of them graduate students"; and if they lack that competence at first, is it so unreasonable to teach them, via bibliographic instruction? I'm just not convinced that ALWAYS catering to the lowest common denominator is necessarily wise, especially in relation to the ILS and associated discovery tools. Elitist? I don't care. It works, librarians know how to do it, and it's a powerful search strategy. Quit tying our hands and dumbing down our tools and getting in our way. Tennant spent a good chunk of his talk ridiculing an interface put together for librarians by librarians out in California, bemoaning how user-unfriendly it is, etc. And while you can maybe make the case for a simpler interface for the general public, the one designed by librarians for librarians probably works very well at highly discrete searching that keeps the librarian expert user from having to plow through a long google-like results list or give up if what they're looking for isn't in the first page of results. We use those complicated tools so there ISN'T even a full page to wade through. Tennant should know that, but he pretends not to care.

The other major talk of note that I attended was Walt Crawford's talk on "Balanced Libraries", the same title as a book he wrote last year and that I purchased a couple of weeks before the TLA conference but didn't have a chance to read beyond a few brief paragraphs. I love Crawford's general outlook and body of work, and I'm sure I'll enjoy Balanced Libraries as well. The talk was pretty good, mostly good common sense. I wish it had been *after* Tennant's talk, so that everyone could get a healthy dose of reality. I did try to see if I could get Walt to comment on the recent management decisions at LC regarding no longer doing serials authority work and giving as their rationale a desire to spend more energy and focus on making available to the public their digital resources instead, and if he felt these decisions were "balanced" or "unbalanced". But Walt, to my disappointment, declined to comment on it, claiming not to have
kept up enough with the issue to comment intelligently. Others in the audience did say privately it was a good question, though.

The other major talks I attended were the Evergreen seminar hosted by Georgia Public Libraries, and a discussion of Library building plan do's and don't's, whether for a brand new library or a renovation plan. The speakers were Library directors from Austin Community College and the University of Houston, and the talks were great. The UH story was one of remarkable heroism in fund-raising, and no one can deny that the results are visually impressive--I've seen it with my own eyes, and the UH main campus library today is very beautiful and much more open and less dark/depressing than the way the library used to be. It does make better use of natural light, though I personally worry about wasted space in the new layout. Also, it was hard to tell from some of the photos provided, but some of the study spaces looked not very inviting, not a place I'd like to go study...something about being surrounded by the stacks is something I would definitely miss in the study area depicted. I don't want to criticize the new layout too much, but there is something that makes me a little uneasy about it as a library space. Of course, it's hard to be humble when you work in a classically designed Library as beautiful as my own. Our collection is not as robust as over at our cross town academic neighbor, UNT, but then again we are a MUCH smaller campus with a correspondingly smaller student body, and also, we have satellite library locations--more than they do, in fact.

Anyway, all in all it was a very good TLA conference. I was struck how much the spaces in between conference rooms at the Dallas Convention Center resembles nothing so much as it does an airport concourse. I half expected to see metal detectors and passport control stations and money exchange windows and arrival/departure displays as I walked through this space. Next year the Texas Library Association will hold its conference at the George R. Brown convention center in Houston, Texas. I plan to attend that conference as well, since I have free lodging in Sugar Land. I would plan to drive up each day to the free stadium lot at Rice University, and then walk over to the Dryden-TMC rail station, ride up to Bell Station, then walk over to the G.R.B. That's much easier than spending $10 trying to park close and having to fight downtown Houston's traffic. I will probably skip it when TLA goes to San Antonio and Austin, though (the usual rotation for TLA).

Although I was grateful for DART, it was less convenient than I'd hoped it would be, vis a vis the convention center. You had to walk nearly two blocks underneath the massive concrete structure in a very poorly lit, pedestrian-unfriendly setting to get to the actual convention center DART station. It was doable, but very badly designed. You can reach West End via DART from the convention center, though by the time you're finished walking to the station, able to buy a ticket, then ride the train up to the West End station, you could almost have covered the distance yourself on foot, walking up a few more city blocks--it's really not hardly worth it. What is worth it is going a bit further to St. Paul's station, near the Dallas Museum of Art, which I did on the last day of the conference, after all the sessions were over. I spent an hour there at the Museum, viewing the exhibits (focusing on 20th century and contemporary pieces), then took the DART back over to West End, had lunch at Landry's, then wandered over to Dealey Plaza and into the Sixth Floor Museum. I took the guided audio-tour, and checked out the home movie exhibit (including the Zapruder film) up on the 7th floor above, then browsed the Museum bookstore. I made a lucky find in locating a director's cut edition of Oliver Stone's JFK on DVD, which contains a second DVD of special features and a short documentary film. The dual DVDs were moreover packaged for sale with the companion book, JFK: The book of the film, which has the complete annotated script and review articles pro and con in the major media, often with a critical review followed by a response from Oliver Stone or Zachary Sklar, or one of the film's expert advisers, like Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, USAF (ret.), upon whom the Donald Sutherland character Mr. X was partly based. Of the Museum's bookstore offerings, this was one of the few materials for sale actually questioning the official story of the Warren Commission. Not present were any of the early critics' works...authors like Mark Lane, David Lifton, Josiah Thompson, Jim Marrs, Jim Garrison (though some of these books are, admittedly, probably out of print). Vincent Bugliosi's newest tome was there of course, as well as the newest "Mafia did it" book by David Kaiser, and Posner of course. All to be expected, I guess, though Stone's JFK in DVD and the JFK : Book of the Film do a lot of heavy lifting all by themselves. I passed on the other DVD with Kevin Costner, Thirteen Days in October, a drama about the Cuban Missile Crisis, but may pick it up the next time I'm in town. When I got back to Denton (having to drive back on that fateful stretch of Elm Street each day from TLA), I went over to our local used book store, Recycled Books, and picked up a used paperback copy of Jim Garrison's 1988 book On the Trail of Assassins. I managed to finish the book just this past weekend, in the middle of the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival. It makes for very gripping reading and is very hard to put down. Already being a First 48 A&E television fanboy, Garrison's work read like any good true crime book ought to. I'm trying next to tackle Jim Marrs' Crossfire, which is the other major work that Oliver Stone used to make his film. It was especially unfortunate that the Sixth Floor Museum did not have a copy of Crossfire for sale, since Jim Marrs is a local author, native to the DFW area and still living here, who also lived through the time of the assassination in 1963. But that's just the way things are at the Sixth Floor Museum. What was funny was listening to Warren Commission defenders 'debunking' critics of the Warren Commission in the audio tour, only to later read on my own the debunkers debunked themselves. I'm just dabbling in this material, don't intend to get sucked in or become obsessed by it, but it is fascinating and disturbing.

Anyway, to sum up, the Texas Library Association Annual 2008 Conference was a worthwhile experience. I am looking forward to the ELUNA Conference this summer in Long Beach, California, and hoping to have time to have dinner, or at least coffee, with a Flickr friend who is a grad student in Art attending USC and living in Los Angeles, which is relatively close to Long Beach; I may well be flying into LAX for all I know. It would not be my first time in Southern California, having visited San Diego Naval Station as a NJROTC cadet in the late 1980s, but it would be my first time to visit the greater LA area. I will miss going back to Chicago where I attended the penultimate EndUser conference not long before Endeavor Information Systems was ultimately bought out by Ex Libris, who will be hosting the ELUNA Conference in their home town of Long Beach, California. Endeavor Information Systems, which is no more, was based in Chicago. ALA is based there also, come to think of it. I had a great time in Chicago and would welcome any library business related reason to go back there. I'm not crazy about their crappy local gun ordinances, so actually living there is less appealing than it once was, but that too may change in the next decade in the wake of the final forthcoming SCOTUS decision in DC v. Heller. I'm told I would like NYC, too, and I probably would, but I would have to be pretty tough minded to hack it in NYC, I think. Probably I could do it, but it would be quite a challenge. And their local firearms regulations would have to change, too, for me to actually consider a move there for full-time work. And Washington DC too, for that matter--though that should happen sooner than in NYC or Chicago. Well before I land that dream job at Library of Congress or Georgetown Univ. someday *wink*.

Recent Campus Non-Event

I'm a bit behind in my blogging and will get to my highlights at this year's Texas Library Association conference soon, hopefully. I'm a little tardy because of wireless networking issues at the apartment, and my slow-as-molasses Desktop PC, which is my only functional computer at home, which has been a major pain. I know it's probably something simple, like as in I need to power cycle the Modem/Router, which I had to do in January, but I threw away those instructions, not thinking I might need them again for the exact same problem in the Spring Time.

I also had a blast at the annual Denton Arts & Jazz Fest, which was within easy walking distance of my apartment. I volunteered at our campus fund-raising booth as a cashier (we were partnered with a local North Texas chain of taco shops based in Fort Worth that has a presence in Denton as well). The weather was nice both days, though unseasonably chilly on Sunday.

Anyway, last week was the annual protest week for Students for Concealed Carry On Campus (SCCC). I personally wish it was "Students, Faculty and Staff for Concealed Carry On Campus" (SFSCCC) but it is the older students (21 and up) who do, of course, have to take the lead on this issue. In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry last year told the Texas State Rifle Association he would work on this issue so that Texas would never enable a VA Tech-type incident.

Now, as it turns out, our campus has no students actively involved in SCCC, and thus no one to serve as a rallying point, and as such, though I did not personally go out of my way to look, I did not see any students with T-shirts and empty holsters participating in the protest. Nevertheless, our campus news service made everyone aware of the event in advance, to avoid any confusion about it. The email that was sent out was strictly informational in nature, implying no endorsement. I am going to quote some of the campus traffic this generated, but I will leave the names & positions out to protect the identity of the respondents.

Back around the ides of April, this informational message was broadcast on the general campus list:

During the week of April 21-25, there is a national campaign set by the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. We may have students who choose to join the initiative by joining college students across the nation to protest against state laws and campus policies that prohibit concealed handgun license holders from carrying their concealed firearms on college campuses. Students who participate in the protest are asked to wear t-shirts and empty holsters and may pass out flyers. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Office of Student Life.


Innocent enough, I thought. Others, though, engaged their fingers and emotions first...

"This is appalling that this is coming across [campus] e-mail much less faculty list. The promotion of any self-serving agenda is inappropriate at this level. Please take me off of the faculty list if this is the kind of garbage I have to receive. Respectfully submitted, Prof. X."

oh-kay, way to NOT read the original email there, Prof. If this were a reading comprehension test question, you would not be passing that one.

someone else in campus Admissions felt the need to sound off next:

"This is a bit shocking to me.

Does the University have any plans to educate students about gun violence and how concealed weapons are the WRONG way to protect themselves?

It seems we have a responsibility as educators not let this pass by without comment."

And the "right" way, presumably is to dial 911? Even on a small campus like ours, and with a good police force such as we have, the truism still stands--when seconds count, the police are only minutes away. Let me recommend a book for you:

Dial 911 and Die (Paperback)
by Richard W Stevens (Author), Richard W. Stevens (Illustrator), Garn Turner (Author)

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: Distributed by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc (September 14, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0964230445
• ISBN-13: 978-0964230446

This book definitely makes you think, and is a kick to one's complacency.

Professor Y was right to point out:

"Whether appalled or shocked by the announcement, we as a faculty cannot forget that we work for a STATE institution and, as an agent for the state, the university cannot prohibit or limit the rights of any student to FREEDOM OF SPEECH. We are all guaranteed the right to peaceable assembly and and demonstration.
If you are opposed to any potential demonstration, you have the right a public forum as well."

Right you are, Professor. Thanks.

Another faculty member noticed that the original messenger had been unfairly maligned and had this to say:

"As much as I disagree with the agenda of the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, I do feel compelled to thank [Dr. __ ] for giving us forewarding that this protest might be coming to our campuses. ([who] was not promoting the event, simply stating it might happen.) I would rather be aware of what I might find coming to work one morning next week that simply show up to a protest. I would want to know if any other group might be organizing as well - whatever the issue. Every campus has a free speech area for a reason: we are encouraging our students to think and develop opinions of their own, even if we disagree with them. And, yes, it would be good to see accurate information about gun violence disseminated to our students. Perhaps this is something we could work on?"

I laughed out loud at the last line. I mean, yay, good pro-Free speech "even for speech we dislike", yada yada yada, but I'm guessing this person considers the Brady campaign and IANSA and related anti-gun groups as a good source for "accurate information". As a Librarian who cares about accuracy of information, if you had accurate information about gun violence, you could not reasonably oppose the aim of SCCC, pure and simple. Be careful what you wish for.

Yet another pro-Free speech commentator, and possible supporter of SCCC (at least that's how it reads, though in fairness may not be what the person *meant* to say):

"Well this certainly stirred debate, which is a good thing. While we may not agree or even find such an activity offensive, our country was founded on the principles of freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. This is a right which we must honor even if we oppose their stance. As a university we of all groups should understand this right as we also support academic freedom for faculty and students to express sometimes unpopular views. Please don't attack the messenger, [Dr. ____] , [who] was simply informing us of the event not endorsing it. Those of us who oppose the concealed handgun policy should also let our voices be heard."

Mmmm, yeah, you go first. I'm too new here to boldly denounce the policy in person; I'm taking a big enough risk with this blog, and doing my utmost to focus on what is being said and not the personalities saying them. I'm not a "gun blogger", though I do read a number of them. I'm just not that avid of a shooter or that knowledgeable to blog the topic 24/7. And let me re-state for the record that I'm politically Left-wing/Pro-Green, even downright socialist/anti-capitalist in some of my views. But the anti-gun stance has been crippling to Democrats, especially well-to-do, otherwise well educated Democrats who have nice jobs, live in nice houses or apartments, donate generously to NPR, buy from L.L. Bean. I know, as I semi-sorta belong on the fringe of that demographic. It utterly alienates Democratic politicians from great swaths of the American working class. Not that the Republicans have ANYTHING to offer them but a promise (sometimes broken) to respect their basic gun rights and sometimes pander to their pet religious prejudices. At least you get more good quality civil liberties pie with Libertarians, even if their economic policy is just as brutal on the working class, if not more so, than regular GOP economic policy.

Anyway, a senior faculty member weighed in next:

"...As repulsed by the idea of students carrying concealed handguns on campus given the recents events across the country, I am dismayed over the outrage that has stemmed from this most recent email. We are supposed to be instilling in our students the drive to go out and make a difference in the world, and stand strong for what they believe in, despite how outlandish it might be to some.

I regular remind my students that if it weren't for a vocal minority a century ago, they would not have the opportunity to participate in the upcoming election, much less have one of the top tier be a female. I encourage my students to use the free speech areas on campus, knowing full well there are bound to be political, social, and cultural perspectives that clearly violate my own personal standards.
Quite frankly, given the social temperament of our campus, I can't imagine this protest to very large at all or spark any significant change in the way most members of the student body or faculty feel about this particular issue. The issue of concern here is the number of faculty who have voiced a concern, not over the topic being addressed, but the right of students to take a stand on an issue that intersects with personal opinions. As faculty who are attempting to mold the minds of the future, we should be applauding students, not for the stance they're taking, but for taking a stance at all. We should be reminding them that as citizens, they have the freedom to think, the freedom to speak, and the freedom to be wrong.

Dr. Q."

I am glad that our faculty are willing to at least stand up for Free speech and all. That really is wonderful and no small thing. But clearly a lot of work remains to be done to change attitudes about the basic human right of self-defense in this country, on or off our college campuses.

The most even-handed response came from this senior staff member:

"...I would like to offer my view on this issue as one who has been at the university for many years and has seen issues come and go on campus.

First, I must remind you that [Dr. ___ ] original message was only informational. It was neither an endorsement nor a criticism of the issue.

Many years ago, now, a group I would describe as overtly passionate about their beliefs in the right-to-life came to campus, as part of a national campus tour, to display information about their anti-abortion position. This included large graphics of fetuses, etc. They were allowed on campus because they were sponsored by a legitimate [campus] student group and displayed their information in a free speech area designated by the university. I would say that the event was successful in that student and faculty were informed in advance that the group would be on campus, students with opposing views were given a free speech area at the same time to allow for other opinions, and a healthy discussion of issues seemed to take place. Information about how to avoid or ignore the display was also provided to students so that those who wished not to participate could do so.

So, now we have the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. And, they have organized what they believe will be a national “Empty Holster” campaign, designed to inform more people about individual states’ gun laws regarding the ability to carry concealed handguns on college campuses. Similar to other “informational awareness campaigns", this will ask students to wear a particular item to represent their views. This allows individual students to identify themselves as having beliefs similar to the group organizing the campaign.

Let us remember a few things:

• Wearing an empty holster is not against any state or federal law.

• Wearing an empty holster does not entitle the wearer to discuss issues within a classroom, unless it is part of the curriculum or the instructor allows it – that is, free speech areas are available to any students who wish to make use of them by signing up for a particular time and particular free speech area.

• University campuses have been, are, and will remain, the safest places one can spend one’s time. Statistically, when you drive off campus, you increase the risk of felonious assault by incalculable odds. The number of college students killed on all campuses by other students over the past fifty years has not surpassed the number of citizens (some of whom were university students) murdered in each of the major metropolitan areas of our country in any one given year.

• Students, faculty and staff who do not wish to be part of any discussion or debate of these issues have the right to ignore those who do.

I hope, just as others have expressed, that the university campus can remain a place where civil discourse about issues is always welcome and that we challenge our students to learn or clarify the process of understanding issues which impact the beliefs they form or hold. I believe that if we can teach [our] students this skill, they will find themselves better able than others to be successful in their work and in their communities.

The [Campus] Counseling Center is available to faculty and staff for consultation regarding this issue. "

Lastly, a faculty member posted a "me too" response thus:

"Thank you, [Q,] I applaud your message!
I am nauseated by the very idea of carrying concealed weapons on campus. Even more intolerable, though, is the thought that as faculty we may stand opposed to the very idea of allowing others to exercise free speech. It is essential to our way of life that we defend the freedoms of all of us. Our freedom has been bought with a dear price--the least we can do is appreciate that sacrifice."

And there you have a round up of faculty views on SCCC and its aims at my workplace. Ugh.

Even if state law changes, it will still be an uphill battle to change university policy. And I would only quibble with the "statistical" part of the even-handed statement by pointing out that campuses tend to under-report crime, and that campus police are often at cross purposes, fighting crime on and near campus, but also reporting to university presidents who want their university to look good and encourage students to enroll there versus somewhere else.

I obey the law and campus policy. I may hate them, but they are what they are, and right now I need this job. If I were a bit more senior, in an institution with faculty status for Librarians including tenure, I might be more vocal than this. But for now this quiet space in Cyberspace is all the freedom of expression I choose to exercise at this stage.

I reiterate that it's going to have to be the students who will do the heavy lifting on this issue. Those of us faculty and staff who support the aims of SCCC are way too much in a minority among our colleagues to be effective. Students on the other hand, pay tuition, and the university wants to keep getting their tuition money and fees. Thus they have to at least nominally pay attention to you if enough of you complain. Take time to educate yourself about firearms, about self-defense, and then really study what happened at places like VA Tech and why, and what would be your best chance for surviving something like that on your campus.

The more recent tragedy in Illinois is more food for thought--Illinois is already one of the most heavily gun-controlled states in the entire USA. There is no right to concealed carry there. And yet they had a bloody campus shooting. If restrictive gun control were really the answer, you'd think universities that allow concealed carry on campus--out in Utah--would be like going to school "at the OK Corral", with "blood in the streets" (everyone's favorite pair of tired simile and/or metaphor)...except that it's not. It's pretty tranquilo out there.

I patiently await the decision in the DC v. Heller case. It should be a victory for freedom, and our 2nd Amendment rights if preliminary analysis of the oral arguments by various experts and commentators are accurate.

At least some in the anti-gun movement are acknowledging that in order to implement their full agenda it will take nothing short of a repeal of the 2nd Amendment--which, lemme tell ya, ain't gonna happen.

I reiterate that I'm not a gun blogger, I'm a Librarian and library blogger who happens to care about this issue. I just wish my colleagues were as passionate about the 2nd Amendment as we unambiguously agree we are are about the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

As it turns out, I did not view any students wearing SCCC t-shirts nor wearing empty holsters. Unless more students make a visible showing, faculty and staff are not going to go out on a limb to join you. Thank you, SCCC for all that you do...I just wish our students would get involved and get informed.

Thoughts on Student Plagiarism

Our library recently put out an instructional video on the do's and don't's surrounding the writing of term papers, with special focus on accurate citation and avoiding plagiarism.

It's a good video, very informative, etc, and yes, I hope students get the lecture early on, from conscientious High School English teachers before they ever get to the university.

But I remember being a student once and I can understand the frustration and temptation of plagiarism. Because until one has read widely enough, and thought deeply enough to have one's own thoughts and ideas (however illusory this may actually be), and the confidence to speak one's mind...it's hard to go out on a limb and take a stand...even if you find supporting evidence you can cite from other authors, it's intimidating...for the longest time you feel more like an amateurish editor than a real creative writer...most of your original sentences seem like mere filler in between significant QUOTES that are much more eloquent than anything you could ever come up with on your own. The whole exercise in the beginning feels a little like glorified cheer leading..."yeah, what he said!!".

It takes a long, painful process to find your own voice, to develop critical faculties, etc, and I think many students engage in sporadic plagiarism as a cover for their own underdeveloped and developing critical faculties...they don't want it to be so obvious they are merely stringing together ideas of other people with no original thought of their own to contribute. Such neophyte students are much more susceptible to "argument from authority" than an adult writer who has found his own voice. It takes a long time to learn to read critically, to see not only how a certain writer bolsters one's own position, but how one need not accept an ally's thesis in toto if it clashes with one's own tentative conclusions based on other evidence already evaluated.

It is a necessary skill to learn not only for the academic world, but the workaday world as well. I'm a little embarrassed by the high esteem my insurance colleagues held for me because of my academically refined writing style...I could be clear, concise, diplomatic, and to the point. My remaining vice is a tendency to long-windedness, if I don't watch myself. I am easily derailed by tangents and my Germanic language training makes me apt to ape extreme German academic grammatical style, with imbedded clauses, perfectly natural in German, but requiring multiple parentheses in English.

My heart does go out to all students trying to find their voice in the academic setting. You will find it, and try not to be ashamed how much you may rely on the quotes of others at first. Your own voice will out, eventually.