Well, I had dismissed it as a silly fad/trend; I believed it was something all the young kids were into but something I had no use for. Then I heard about a colleague at work downloading MP3s of audiobooks from Houston Public Library. I did a little research. I noticed that Deutsche Welle, the German News service, had some of these here "podcasts" available. Some in English, some in German, some in other languages. Then I thought about the possibilities a little. Did some price comparisons, some shopping around online, and made my decision.
Giddy as a schoolgirl in love, I rushed out to my local big box store and up and bought myself an iPod. Specifically the iPod nano. More memory than the iPod shuffle, not quite as big (storage wise) as the latest high end model. Just in the middle, just Goldilocks right. I liked the GUI display, because I needed that interactivity to be sure I knew what the heck I was doing, for good or ill.
It was late Saturday evening when I acquired the thing, so I put it aside and went to bed; next morning I got up like it was Xmas morning to try out my new toy. Shame, too, since it was the first dry, sunny Sunday we've had in awhile in SE Texas...oh well. It took a little while to get things hooked up, charged up, fired up, etc. But with enough time, I downloaded bona fide podcasts from GERMANY. AUF DEUTSCH! EHRLICH! JA, also WIRKLICH!
I do sometimes listen to DW on shortwave radio. Sometimes it's really good, other times, the quality of the signal leaves a lot to be desired--and even when I get a clear signal, the program itself is sometimes boring; pretty mixed bag.
But the podcasts? Goodness! Crystal clear sound quality, and I can pick and choose between various programs...and not just Deutsche Welle, either but also Süddeutsche Rundfunk, and other traditional brodcasters turned "Podcasters". And I can listen at MY leisure, to a whole slew of quality German programming--and the best part? ALL OF IT FOR FREE. NOT ONE RED CENT! Wow.
Let the kids keep paying to download the newest Green Day album or whatever, I'm plugging into Deutsche Welle, et. al. for FREE and LOVING IT.
My only regret? Man, not playing with this sh*t sooner, because I failed to realize the true, non-standard artsy/humanistic possibilities beyond the commercial hip-cool hype.
Now, I remain dubious that there's much call for LIBRARY & INFORMATION SCIENCE PODCASTING "an sich", i.e. of and for itself, nor that Libraries can really do much other than podcast short PSAs like commercials, to those who might be remotely interested...brief library news like "the hours this week are...", "the speakers this week are...", or "the Fort Bend County Sierra Club meets upstairs in Room X of Library Y on Wednesday this week", etc.
I guess it's cheaper than real radio adverts, but how many potential users to you HONESTLY think you'd reach? I mean think about it--for the imaginary "typical" library podcast listener, you're talking about A) someone who actually knows what podcasting is, period--that cuts out a large chunk of the population right there. B) not only knows what it is but knows how to subscribe and C) actually cares enough about the local library to SUBSCRIBE to its podcast and listen to it among thousands of other podcast choices round the globe. Which means, basically unemployed librarians like me who are also ravenous bibliophiles AND moderately technophilic to boot. So yeah, *I* would subscribe to my local library's podcasts, if they had one. And maybe the handful of UNT SLIS students who live in the greater Houston Metro area any given academic year--maybe. If you put it on the library's web page, explained it, pushed it in your print newsletter, handed out fliers...maybe that number would inch up a tad, but...
On a different LIS tac, is podcast content worth cataloging? At an entity level, probably not. As a note field in a larger record for a resource, sure, we can catalog the RSS feed and put it as a link in a MARC record or something...maybe even tweak the ILS to make it interactive--give you an "iTunes" button to press, or at least a link to a page where you can do so...not everyone is swift enough to do the manual way of podcast subscribing (cutting & pasting the URL of the feed, etc INTO iTunes or similar software).
Podcasts, like weblogs, are fun because they change frequently. New content is regularly downloaded to iTunes and ready for uploading/synching onto your iPod when you plug it in to recharge the battery, etc. I do need to get a stand-alone charger so I don't have to reformat the iPod every time I want to recharge it. I know I could switch off the automatic update on the thing, but for now I don't bother. I also need to get a car charger. I also need to see if my other portable MP3 player/CD player's "cassette adapter" thingy will fit the iPod or not. If not I'll have to get an iPod compatable cassette adapter so I can listen to iPod content while driving as well; yeah, my car doesn't have an internal CD player, so the only way I can listen to CDs and CD-based audiobooks is by an external, portable CD player designed for use with car cassette tape deck sound systems. It's less than ideal, but it works...or works well enough.
Anyway, the librarian in me is mildly curious about podcasts, while the ex-German Studies Master's student in me... ist TOTAL BEGEISTERT! SUPERGEIL! MENSCH, TOLL!
Apple, Inc. probably never strongly considered, or at best only vaguely considered, as good advertising fluff, this particular, peculiarly transnational use of iPod...because it's not a monetized area of the Info-Economy (yet), but it is a profound tool for promoting the understanding, learning, and appreciation of foreign languages and cultures...while we can still keep industrial/hi-tech society running, that is, before the next, quite inevitable, dark ages of post cheap Petroleum. Petroleum Man's days are very numbered indeed. International Podcasting literally is a "last chance to see/experience/hear/feel", so don't miss out!
Another Quite Nice Thing about Podcasting is, unlike Ham radio and "pirate" radio, Podcasting is completely legal, basically free (once the requisite equipment is purchased, high speed internet connection set up, and correct software installed), completely unregulated, and basically an anarchic commune unspoilt by commercial diktat. I suppose among the Podcast cognocenti, if you're good enough, interesting enough, word of mouth gets around and your subscribers will come to you. Like blogs, though, you have to keep up the output or people lose interest and go elsewhere. Sure, if you were good enough--professional enough--people *might* pay for that content; But the thing I love about the Blogosphere, and about the Podcast universe, is that it often shows the proverbial emperor with no clothes on, i.e. the so-called Experts may be well paid and have a bigger megaphone, but reduced to a level playing field, their actual intellectual prowess next to autodidactically-inclined "amateurs" isn't as stunning as you might in fact imagine, and in fact are sometimes embarrassingly cut down to size. It shows up the real operation of illegitimate POWER in the world, revealing a bit more iron fist through the velvet glove than most of the elites are comfortable with. This is something, I admit, that my hero Michael Gorman doesn't quite get, doesn't seem to recognize the glass-half-full side of the argument. We Librarians by training tend almost instinctively to genuflect to "authorized sources of information" as a kind of Holy Grail. It's been the long term mission goals of PLG and SRRT to disabuse Librarians of that ultimately misguided reflex; We've had mixed results, but keep on trying. Sure, it's still a worthwhile yardstick, and a good rule of thumb, but practiced blindly it blinds one, too, to the role of (illegitimate) Power in the world. That's what we have to be on guard against.
Anyway, sure, there's a commercial side of MP3 production & sale, etc, but there's also a lot of content out there of high quality that is just given away out of love by those producing the material, whose primary purpose is to spread knowledge and enlighten rather than make money. It's a damn beautiful thing, so let's enjoy the heck out of it while it lasts. It's very much in the spirit of what Librarianship is about, after all. This instrument (the iPod) can teach, but only to the extent that we use it for such ends.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Crisis in Public Librarianship - some local stories.
There's been a good discussion on SRRT and PLG circles about an ongoing crisis in Public Librarianship, and luckily for me, I was able to contribute something to that discussion from our local media, specifically our local mass market "indy" rag, The Houston Press.
here is the original local Houston story I contributed to the discussion:
======================================================
"...Someone recently posted this article about Sacramento librarians
concerned that the Sacramento Public Library is becoming too 'pop-
fixated' :
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/190564.html
I am reposting it because what is happening at SPL is not an isolated
phenomenon. I have seen the same sort of restructuring taking place
at public libraries in PA..." [snip]
(-from a concerned SRRT member)
================================================
POST-SCRIPT: The "Give 'em what they want" vs. "Give 'em what they need" argument goes as far back as Socrates/Plato, who expressed dismay at the position of the philosopher in society, comparing his position vis a vis the huckstering sophist to that of the nutritionist versus the confectionery-maker in trying to sway little children. The Confectionery-maker has what the kids ostensibly want ("sweets and treats" ) but the nutritionist knows what the children need (a well-balanced diet, with sweets only in moderation). And yet the nutritionist very much has an uphill battle to persuade the children to take what he's offering versus what the candy-man has.
-JJR, aka "Aggie Librarian"
PPS: All of this is bound up with issues discussed at length by the latest books from John Buschman (Dismantling the Public Sphere) and Ed D'Angelo (Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library). One wonders if HPL Express would be a hip/new "innovation" *shudder* of the sort that ISC's otherwise sensible John Pateman approves of, rather than fuddy-duddy "old fashioned" libraries serving only "narrow middle class interests".
More "Let them Eat Pixels!", In my view. (-jjr)
here is the original local Houston story I contributed to the discussion:
A colleague and close friend responded with these observations:Houston Public Library, Fondren Southwest gets a mini-libraryAs told to Richard ConnellyPublished: June 21, 2007 (The Houston Press)
The Morris Frank branch of the Houston Public Library sits near the intersection of West Bellfort and Fondren, an area that's been ground zero for Katrina evacuees and ensuing problems with violence.It's a tough environment for a kid — or anyone who likes reading, we guess — to grow up in, but the city has good news: You're getting a new library!!Umm, just don't expect many books in it.The library system was planning a renovation of the Frank branch, which has foundation problems. They discovered, unfortunately, that new studies now place the building squarely within the 100-year flood plain."We'd either have to lift the building up 18 inches or build a two-foot berm all the way around it, and there wasn't enough money to do that," says Tim Douglass, chief of staff for city council member Anne Clutterbuck.There wasn't enough money to build a completely new similarly sized branch, so the neighborhood is getting what the Houston Public Library System is calling "an exciting concept" known as "HPL Express."What's an HPL Express? It's a rented storefront that holds about half the 90,000 items that the Frank branch currently has."It'll have all the popular books, it just won't have a plethora of books," Douglass says.But there'll be plenty of computers, says the HPL's Greg Simpson, and anyone who wants a book that isn't on the shelves can order it and pick it up a couple of days later.On the one hand, this idea sounds like an innovative way to stretch scarce dollars. On the other hand, it sounds awfully like Metro, which promised light rail to low-income neighborhoods but is now instead offering special buses that kinda, sorta look like trains."Could somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about, who doesn't understand the concept, who doesn't see the betterness they're getting, could they complain?" says Douglass. "Maybe, but the alternative is nothing. The alternative is closing the Frank branch completely.""I think it's just going to be a matter of us educating our customers how to use the facility," Simpson says. "But we're excited about it and think it's going to work great."Future HPL Expresses — including one in the similarly troubled Gulfton neighborhood — might offer only a "very small collection" of books. Future sites might be entirely book-free. But those sites will be in addition to existing libraries, not replacing full facilities like the Frank branch.Ah, what the hell — it's not like kids today are reading anyway. Maybe HPL should just set up a Facebook page and be done with it.
======================================================
Thanks for posting. This is something to be concerned about. We might call this HPL Express a Library Lite or a Fast Food Library. It appears it will function in a similar way that fast food functions to real food. I don't need to remind people on this list that customers love fast food, unfortunately it is not good for their health. And a library without intelligent books is not good for democracy.
This is a good illustration of a library getting out of the knowledge and education venue and moving to solely focus on entertaining (pacifying?) their "customers" with only popular works (known in some circles as crap or fluff). In theory, this HPL Express will feed the mind but it is really only full of empty calories. It will look like a library, but will most likely have none of those awkward resources that might actual assist a person in becoming an engaged citizen. I am betting that they will be sure to order a copy of Paris Hilton's autobiography as soon as it is published
-M
=======================================================-M
I responded thus:
Thanks, M! It is also an illustration of our disposable consumer-culture mentality....there is no longer a willingness, as there was in the age of the great Carnegie Libraries, which coincided with the historical Beautiful City* (?) movement of the late 19th and early 20th century (now championed by the New Urbanism school of architecture, of which James Howard Kunstler is a passionate devotee)...there is no longer that willingness to build structures intended to last beyond the lifetimes of those building it, to pass down that permanent building as a legacy for the ages, etc....
Thanks, M! It is also an illustration of our disposable consumer-culture mentality....there is no longer a willingness, as there was in the age of the great Carnegie Libraries, which coincided with the historical Beautiful City* (?) movement of the late 19th and early 20th century (now championed by the New Urbanism school of architecture, of which James Howard Kunstler is a passionate devotee)...there is no longer that willingness to build structures intended to last beyond the lifetimes of those building it, to pass down that permanent building as a legacy for the ages, etc....
There was money enough in HPL's budget to utterly renovate the downtown main Branch library (still ongoing as of this writing)...but the Main Branch library is in the heart of the downtown Business district, and has a not inconsiderable business clientelle, with a considerable ECON/BUSINESS section taking up most of the entire 2nd floor. So there are race and class issues that intersect here as well. The "either/or" choice posited is utterly false & misleading.
I suppose it would be also impertinent to ask if there is any Gates Foundation seed money propping up McLibrary projects like HPL Express storefronts, etc, since they will have "plenty of computers". Inquiring minds want to know.
There used to be a provocative show on KPFT 90.1, locally produced by some University of Houston faculty, called "Class Notes", which tackled local issues from a class perspective. Since its content was very intellectual, it did not have a broad appeal and perhaps because of its inability to raise more funding dollars compared to other programming (like World Music or Lone Star Jukebox or Democracy Now!), it was eventually dropped from the lineup. This Houston Press story would've been perfect for the "Class Notes" show to treat at length. I suppose we should be glad the Houston Press at least gave the blurb it did. I don't think the story even made it in the Houston Chronicle.
--JJR
*sorry, don't have a copy of GEOGRAPHY OF NOWHERE or HOME FROM NOWHERE handy to look this up and verify the name.
Incidentally, my own posting of the Houston Press story was inspired by an SRRT contributor who reposted this story to PLG/SRRT circles:
=============================================="...Someone recently posted this article about Sacramento librarians
concerned that the Sacramento Public Library is becoming too 'pop-
fixated' :
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/190564.html
I am reposting it because what is happening at SPL is not an isolated
phenomenon. I have seen the same sort of restructuring taking place
at public libraries in PA..." [snip]
(-from a concerned SRRT member)
================================================
POST-SCRIPT: The "Give 'em what they want" vs. "Give 'em what they need" argument goes as far back as Socrates/Plato, who expressed dismay at the position of the philosopher in society, comparing his position vis a vis the huckstering sophist to that of the nutritionist versus the confectionery-maker in trying to sway little children. The Confectionery-maker has what the kids ostensibly want ("sweets and treats" ) but the nutritionist knows what the children need (a well-balanced diet, with sweets only in moderation). And yet the nutritionist very much has an uphill battle to persuade the children to take what he's offering versus what the candy-man has.
-JJR, aka "Aggie Librarian"
PPS: All of this is bound up with issues discussed at length by the latest books from John Buschman (Dismantling the Public Sphere) and Ed D'Angelo (Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library). One wonders if HPL Express would be a hip/new "innovation" *shudder* of the sort that ISC's otherwise sensible John Pateman approves of, rather than fuddy-duddy "old fashioned" libraries serving only "narrow middle class interests".
More "Let them Eat Pixels!", In my view. (-jjr)
Saturday, June 09, 2007
De Lange Conference VI Proceedings now available
Got this in the mail, thought I'd share, since I attended this local shin-dig.
(and found people actually reading this blog--gaack!)
-JJR
======================================================
Dear Attendee,
The web site for the De Lange Conference VI Proceedings may be found at:
http://delange.rice.edu/VI/
In addition, many attendees have ask for the attendee list be sent out
via email to ONLY those who attended the conference. The information
that would be on this list includes name, affiliation and email only and
would be in the form of a PDF document. If you are opposed to having
your information sent out to the attendees, please respond to this email
by July 2, 2007.
Thank you again for making this conference one of the best we have had yet!
Sincerely,
De Lange Conference Committee
==========================================================
My affiliation will say "University of North Texas", since I was pressed for time and just put my library school affiliation instead of, say, Progressive Librarians Guild, which I'm actually a member of (I sit on the Coordinating Committee, in fact). PLG would've been better, I realized, but by the time I reached that conclusion the conference was already underway, the name placards already printed, etc. I did put "Alumnus, UNT/SLIS" but the Alumnus part got chopped off, making me look like a SLIS adjunct faculty member or a UNT Libraries professional librarian something, which was acutely embarrassing. Oh well.
It was worth going to, even though in the main it was still De-Pressing.
Good CV fodder, I guess.
(and found people actually reading this blog--gaack!)
-JJR
======================================================
Dear Attendee,
The web site for the De Lange Conference VI Proceedings may be found at:
http://delange.rice.edu/VI/
In addition, many attendees have ask for the attendee list be sent out
via email to ONLY those who attended the conference. The information
that would be on this list includes name, affiliation and email only and
would be in the form of a PDF document. If you are opposed to having
your information sent out to the attendees, please respond to this email
by July 2, 2007.
Thank you again for making this conference one of the best we have had yet!
Sincerely,
De Lange Conference Committee
==========================================================
My affiliation will say "University of North Texas", since I was pressed for time and just put my library school affiliation instead of, say, Progressive Librarians Guild, which I'm actually a member of (I sit on the Coordinating Committee, in fact). PLG would've been better, I realized, but by the time I reached that conclusion the conference was already underway, the name placards already printed, etc. I did put "Alumnus, UNT/SLIS" but the Alumnus part got chopped off, making me look like a SLIS adjunct faculty member or a UNT Libraries professional librarian something, which was acutely embarrassing. Oh well.
It was worth going to, even though in the main it was still De-Pressing.
Good CV fodder, I guess.
Rough stuff, real tough, Texas A&M
I'm sure there's more than one Maroon blooded purebred Aggie out there with an MLS who disdains an intentionally ironic, self-mocking 2%-er & godless commie bastard like moi squatting on the moniker Aggie Librarian. Fine, call go yourself the "Real Aggie Librarian" or something.
I do still bleed maroon myself, believe it or not, and I don't forget my humble beginnings at dear old Aggieland.
Here's where Aggies can go to check out the latest info on the most ridiculous Aggie-joke of an Intellectual Property lawsuit I've ever seen:
http://www.sawemoff.com/
Which is a battle between the University of Texas and this popular collegiate apparel vendor:
http://www.aggielandoutfitters.com/
(short URL is www.ao12.com )
As an atheist, I admit I'm not overly fond of the versions of the shirt that quote the bible verse out of the book of Psalms, but whatever. I know there are WAY more religious nutjobs in Aggieland than rational atheists, so that's just good marketing strategy.
I think the "Saw 'Em Off" 12th Man towel thing looks COOL. It's straight out of the goddamn Aggie War Hymn. We used to build Bonfire to express our burning desire to beat the ever livin', ever lovin' HELL outta t.u. (Which, as I never tire of pointing out, was a class-based resentment; Thanks, Dr. Resch, for introducing me to Uncle Karl, even if I resented the hell out of it at the time; it was real growth for me to find myself agreeing with ol' Karl & Fred way more than I expected I would)
Anyway, Watch out...and mark my word if the T-sips win this one, they'll go after our expression "t.u." next and any private vendor that dares sell t-shirts "defaming" their "logo" in that way; I mean, SERIOUSLY, WTF here!? I'm no intellectual property lawyer, but where the F*CK do STATE schools get off with this proprietary logo crap?? They ought to be goddamn public domain...our tax dollars go to support them and keep them OPEN, for fuck's sake. Private Universities, like Rice University (another of my Alma Maters), OK, I can understand THAT argument, were it at issue, but for PUBLIC universities? I just don't get it, but then again, I'm just a dumb Aggie, what do I know.
It amused (and annoyed) me to no end to watch my library school, the University of North Texas, go to enormous lengths to research and "rebrand" itself. There were SERIOUS meetings taking many months to find just the right "fit"; enormous funds were expended to better "market" the UNT "product" to its "consumers" (i.e. parents, students, employers, and UNT sports franchise fans). It was madness and folly from start to finish, but there it was.
As regards the Aggie Outfitters lawsuit, I do hope they (AO) prevail---not just because I'm an Aggie alumnus myself, but because UT-Austin's case is stupid and were THEY to prevail, the legal precedents set would be just awful and would take decades, maybe even a few generations, to reverse/overcome.
I do still bleed maroon myself, believe it or not, and I don't forget my humble beginnings at dear old Aggieland.
Here's where Aggies can go to check out the latest info on the most ridiculous Aggie-joke of an Intellectual Property lawsuit I've ever seen:
http://www.sawemoff.com/
Which is a battle between the University of Texas and this popular collegiate apparel vendor:
http://www.aggielandoutfitters.com/
(short URL is www.ao12.com )
As an atheist, I admit I'm not overly fond of the versions of the shirt that quote the bible verse out of the book of Psalms, but whatever. I know there are WAY more religious nutjobs in Aggieland than rational atheists, so that's just good marketing strategy.
I think the "Saw 'Em Off" 12th Man towel thing looks COOL. It's straight out of the goddamn Aggie War Hymn. We used to build Bonfire to express our burning desire to beat the ever livin', ever lovin' HELL outta t.u. (Which, as I never tire of pointing out, was a class-based resentment; Thanks, Dr. Resch, for introducing me to Uncle Karl, even if I resented the hell out of it at the time; it was real growth for me to find myself agreeing with ol' Karl & Fred way more than I expected I would)
Anyway, Watch out...and mark my word if the T-sips win this one, they'll go after our expression "t.u." next and any private vendor that dares sell t-shirts "defaming" their "logo" in that way; I mean, SERIOUSLY, WTF here!? I'm no intellectual property lawyer, but where the F*CK do STATE schools get off with this proprietary logo crap?? They ought to be goddamn public domain...our tax dollars go to support them and keep them OPEN, for fuck's sake. Private Universities, like Rice University (another of my Alma Maters), OK, I can understand THAT argument, were it at issue, but for PUBLIC universities? I just don't get it, but then again, I'm just a dumb Aggie, what do I know.
It amused (and annoyed) me to no end to watch my library school, the University of North Texas, go to enormous lengths to research and "rebrand" itself. There were SERIOUS meetings taking many months to find just the right "fit"; enormous funds were expended to better "market" the UNT "product" to its "consumers" (i.e. parents, students, employers, and UNT sports franchise fans). It was madness and folly from start to finish, but there it was.
As regards the Aggie Outfitters lawsuit, I do hope they (AO) prevail---not just because I'm an Aggie alumnus myself, but because UT-Austin's case is stupid and were THEY to prevail, the legal precedents set would be just awful and would take decades, maybe even a few generations, to reverse/overcome.
Reflections on Cataloging
I've read lots of Michael Gorman, Walt Crawford, and Sanford Berman, and so I'm VERY dismayed by sentiments of commentators like this:
===================================================================================
"I don't see much future in academic or public libraries for what we
usually think of as "catalogers", those that sit and create original
records in OCLC for traditional materials. .
===================================================================================
As probably Michael Gorman would point out---hell, somebody's gotta do it somewhere!
Especially with LC stepping back from being the cataloger-of-record, as de facto national library.
Those catalog records don't self-generate, don't you know...
===============================================================
Those who plan to enter the profession and do cataloging need to refashion themselves as metadata librarians,
==================================================================
Pardon me, but I still can't help but think of "Metadata Librarians" as translating
to something equivalent to:
"Hip, Cool Techno-Geeks who love LINUX & XML, hate MARC & can't be bothered to really learn AACR2r2"
===================================================================
... and be prepared to deal with systems, electronic and
internet resources, aggregators and databases, and archival and
digitized resources, and work with the local automated systems to
incorporate those resources.
==============================================================
--Which Arlene G. Taylor points out can easily be handled adequately well using AACR2r2 and MARC effectively.
I can't help but come back to Michael Gorman's considered judgement that Metadata is trying to do an end-run around professionally done library cataloging;
Traditional library cataloging-->More costly? yes.
Worth it? Absolutely.
Damaging to scholarship if done half-assed? You BET!
--this, incidentally, was basically the thrust of my talk at USC, and a thinly veiled J'accuse aimed at Library directors who would defy those truisms; maybe that's part of why I got passed over...?
==========================================================
Another way to go is as the system
coordinator for a library, or the web director."
=========================================================
Systems librarians have their own role to play---bibliographic control, strictly speaking, isn't precisely one of them.
And what the hell is a "web-director?" and what is he supposed to do for a library?
(I know, very Gorman-esque of me to even ask such an impertinent question)
...What's ironic is that I am a young librarian (30-something), moderately techno-savvy, but I find myself in complete agreement with traditional catalogers and traditional cataloging principles and highly suspicious of the metadata shuck-and-jive. Which makes me decidedly UNCOOL.
But I can't seem to get hired into a cataloging job, nor get an experienced, wizened cataloging mentor to show me the ropes, etc.
The profession's dying in part, I think, because too many old catalogers are unwilling to pass on what they know, or have the patience to teach it, even to those willing and receptive to what they know and believe and practice.
You would think after so many bitter personal disappointments i would just say "screw cataloging" and leave that part of the profession to its own fate; and I would do so except for the realization that Cataloging impacts every aspect of what librarians do in libraries, from Reference to ILL, to collection development...and makes all those other jobs so much harder if the cataloging is done poorly or haphazardly.
It anguishes me greatly, but in the absence of real, gainful library employment, the most I can do is write about it and blog about it...maybe churn out scholarly articles or even, god forbid, a book someday. I'm partly reluctant to publish because of my humble lack of real job experience, but I have read and thought about these issues for several years now, even BEFORE I sat down and formally applied to Library school. I'm reluctant to publish for fear of librarians saying "oh what does he know, he only worked as a librarian for 6 months and was non-renewed--what can he know...?"
---Of course, that...lack of professional library experience... hasn't stopped all manner of outside-the-profession "experts" from publishing reams of over-hyped, simplistic garbage about "all digital libraries", etc. So maybe there's hope for me yet.
An older colleague counseled me to go along with the metadata fashion trend, if only to be able to do traditional cataloging covertly. Live like the Spanish Moranos/Conversos, then, I guess.
She did note that Dublin Core gets more complex every year, approaching a MARC-like complexity, in fact. Which is of no surprise to either of us, since we both already know MARC got that way by bumping up against the real-world complexity of the real, existing bibliographic universe (or Recorded Informatic Universe, if I want to be excruciatingly PC/trendy about it), and not because catalogers just love to be obtuse and generate rules for their own sake. We both chortle as "tag clouds" and "folksonomies" begin to "regress" (we'd say progress) "back" to authority control. Thomas Mann still has written most eloquently on the virtues of Authority Control in LCSH (and I recently kicked off a nice sh*t storm on a professional email list for saying so while simultaneously condemning a recent target of Mann's sharp professional wit); You can accept all of Sanford Berman's critiques of LCSH and still stand by Authority Control as a guiding general principle. Indeed you MUST, I think, if you genuinely want to serve users well and promote scholarship and learning. Uncontrolled vocabulary may have a useful subordinate role to play in finding materials....Amazon.com's SIPs and CAPs are an excellent example of this--but not at the cost of abandoning traditional controlled vocabularies altogether. No matter how much the Google-philes may argue, they cannot square that circle. MARC21 records created using AACR2R2, using LCSH for subject access and either LCC or DDC to generate a classification number, remains the single best way to organize a collection of recorded information for easy access, use, sharing, etc. We can tweak that paradigm, add useful features, etc, but the core remains the same.
Don't even get me started about Peak oil, energy depletion and the implications for online shared cataloging. The library profession as a whole remains largely asleep when it comes to recognizing, let alone responding to, these emerging trends & realities. Nicholson Baker may well be proved right, but not for the reasons he initially imagined nor the arguments he made in favor of restoring the card-based catalogue. No, imagine a scenario where the power in your neighborhood library is as sporadic and unpredictable as electricity service currently is in Baghdad today...when the power might go off for half the day, or half a week. With no card catalogue, the only way to find the books is to physically scour the shelves, presumably with a flashlight or some other portable light-source. The card catalog saves the time of the user in such a library, because if the OPAC is off-line that much, its value and utility are greatly diminished. We may not get to that point in our lifetimes. But then again, we just might.
I remain deeply internally divided whether or not to give up on cataloging and focus full-bore on reference work; It's certainly tempting, it certainly seems to fit better, given my diverse reading interests and desire to share what I know, to help people make connections, etc. But I still worry about the fate of cataloging. And if there's something I can still personally do about it, I want to. I find I can't give up on it yet.
I really don't feel like going back to get re-credentialed as a school librarian, though. I only have 1 year teaching experience, and though many school districts have scaled back the classroom teaching experience requirement from 3 to 2 years, that still leaves me 1 year short, even if I did have the school library graduate-level coursework behind me, which I don't, despite my ALA-accredited general-program MLS. The most I'd like to do in that direction is take the one cataloging course on Dewey Decimal, because subject cataloging using DDC22 is one area that I am deficient in, and I think it'd be fun. I'd like to learn IDC (International Decimal Classification) which is a truly international offshoot of the DDC. But in any case, IDC and DDC both are more recognized world-wide and more universally applicable regardless of alphabet used--since it's wholly based on Arabic numerals (while LC uses the Latin alphabet in combination with its own enumerated system and Cutter additions). LC is gaining ground, however, which is not necessarily a good thing, but demonstrative of just how influential the US Library of Congress still is, world-wide, and Anglo-American scholarship more generally.
Thus concludes my rant for the evening. Thanks.
===================================================================================
"I don't see much future in academic or public libraries for what we
usually think of as "catalogers", those that sit and create original
records in OCLC for traditional materials. .
===================================================================================
As probably Michael Gorman would point out---hell, somebody's gotta do it somewhere!
Especially with LC stepping back from being the cataloger-of-record, as de facto national library.
Those catalog records don't self-generate, don't you know...
===============================================================
Those who plan to enter the profession and do cataloging need to refashion themselves as metadata librarians,
==================================================================
Pardon me, but I still can't help but think of "Metadata Librarians" as translating
to something equivalent to:
"Hip, Cool Techno-Geeks who love LINUX & XML, hate MARC & can't be bothered to really learn AACR2r2"
===================================================================
... and be prepared to deal with systems, electronic and
internet resources, aggregators and databases, and archival and
digitized resources, and work with the local automated systems to
incorporate those resources.
==============================================================
--Which Arlene G. Taylor points out can easily be handled adequately well using AACR2r2 and MARC effectively.
I can't help but come back to Michael Gorman's considered judgement that Metadata is trying to do an end-run around professionally done library cataloging;
Traditional library cataloging-->More costly? yes.
Worth it? Absolutely.
Damaging to scholarship if done half-assed? You BET!
--this, incidentally, was basically the thrust of my talk at USC, and a thinly veiled J'accuse aimed at Library directors who would defy those truisms; maybe that's part of why I got passed over...?
==========================================================
Another way to go is as the system
coordinator for a library, or the web director."
=========================================================
Systems librarians have their own role to play---bibliographic control, strictly speaking, isn't precisely one of them.
And what the hell is a "web-director?" and what is he supposed to do for a library?
(I know, very Gorman-esque of me to even ask such an impertinent question)
...What's ironic is that I am a young librarian (30-something), moderately techno-savvy, but I find myself in complete agreement with traditional catalogers and traditional cataloging principles and highly suspicious of the metadata shuck-and-jive. Which makes me decidedly UNCOOL.
But I can't seem to get hired into a cataloging job, nor get an experienced, wizened cataloging mentor to show me the ropes, etc.
The profession's dying in part, I think, because too many old catalogers are unwilling to pass on what they know, or have the patience to teach it, even to those willing and receptive to what they know and believe and practice.
You would think after so many bitter personal disappointments i would just say "screw cataloging" and leave that part of the profession to its own fate; and I would do so except for the realization that Cataloging impacts every aspect of what librarians do in libraries, from Reference to ILL, to collection development...and makes all those other jobs so much harder if the cataloging is done poorly or haphazardly.
It anguishes me greatly, but in the absence of real, gainful library employment, the most I can do is write about it and blog about it...maybe churn out scholarly articles or even, god forbid, a book someday. I'm partly reluctant to publish because of my humble lack of real job experience, but I have read and thought about these issues for several years now, even BEFORE I sat down and formally applied to Library school. I'm reluctant to publish for fear of librarians saying "oh what does he know, he only worked as a librarian for 6 months and was non-renewed--what can he know...?"
---Of course, that...lack of professional library experience... hasn't stopped all manner of outside-the-profession "experts" from publishing reams of over-hyped, simplistic garbage about "all digital libraries", etc. So maybe there's hope for me yet.
An older colleague counseled me to go along with the metadata fashion trend, if only to be able to do traditional cataloging covertly. Live like the Spanish Moranos/Conversos, then, I guess.
She did note that Dublin Core gets more complex every year, approaching a MARC-like complexity, in fact. Which is of no surprise to either of us, since we both already know MARC got that way by bumping up against the real-world complexity of the real, existing bibliographic universe (or Recorded Informatic Universe, if I want to be excruciatingly PC/trendy about it), and not because catalogers just love to be obtuse and generate rules for their own sake. We both chortle as "tag clouds" and "folksonomies" begin to "regress" (we'd say progress) "back" to authority control. Thomas Mann still has written most eloquently on the virtues of Authority Control in LCSH (and I recently kicked off a nice sh*t storm on a professional email list for saying so while simultaneously condemning a recent target of Mann's sharp professional wit); You can accept all of Sanford Berman's critiques of LCSH and still stand by Authority Control as a guiding general principle. Indeed you MUST, I think, if you genuinely want to serve users well and promote scholarship and learning. Uncontrolled vocabulary may have a useful subordinate role to play in finding materials....Amazon.com's SIPs and CAPs are an excellent example of this--but not at the cost of abandoning traditional controlled vocabularies altogether. No matter how much the Google-philes may argue, they cannot square that circle. MARC21 records created using AACR2R2, using LCSH for subject access and either LCC or DDC to generate a classification number, remains the single best way to organize a collection of recorded information for easy access, use, sharing, etc. We can tweak that paradigm, add useful features, etc, but the core remains the same.
Don't even get me started about Peak oil, energy depletion and the implications for online shared cataloging. The library profession as a whole remains largely asleep when it comes to recognizing, let alone responding to, these emerging trends & realities. Nicholson Baker may well be proved right, but not for the reasons he initially imagined nor the arguments he made in favor of restoring the card-based catalogue. No, imagine a scenario where the power in your neighborhood library is as sporadic and unpredictable as electricity service currently is in Baghdad today...when the power might go off for half the day, or half a week. With no card catalogue, the only way to find the books is to physically scour the shelves, presumably with a flashlight or some other portable light-source. The card catalog saves the time of the user in such a library, because if the OPAC is off-line that much, its value and utility are greatly diminished. We may not get to that point in our lifetimes. But then again, we just might.
I remain deeply internally divided whether or not to give up on cataloging and focus full-bore on reference work; It's certainly tempting, it certainly seems to fit better, given my diverse reading interests and desire to share what I know, to help people make connections, etc. But I still worry about the fate of cataloging. And if there's something I can still personally do about it, I want to. I find I can't give up on it yet.
I really don't feel like going back to get re-credentialed as a school librarian, though. I only have 1 year teaching experience, and though many school districts have scaled back the classroom teaching experience requirement from 3 to 2 years, that still leaves me 1 year short, even if I did have the school library graduate-level coursework behind me, which I don't, despite my ALA-accredited general-program MLS. The most I'd like to do in that direction is take the one cataloging course on Dewey Decimal, because subject cataloging using DDC22 is one area that I am deficient in, and I think it'd be fun. I'd like to learn IDC (International Decimal Classification) which is a truly international offshoot of the DDC. But in any case, IDC and DDC both are more recognized world-wide and more universally applicable regardless of alphabet used--since it's wholly based on Arabic numerals (while LC uses the Latin alphabet in combination with its own enumerated system and Cutter additions). LC is gaining ground, however, which is not necessarily a good thing, but demonstrative of just how influential the US Library of Congress still is, world-wide, and Anglo-American scholarship more generally.
Thus concludes my rant for the evening. Thanks.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Well, shit...
FYI, I did not get selected for the USC Cataloging Librarian position, it has been filled by someone else, presumably a "better fit". Their mistake, but whatever.
I'm back on the job trail, and possibly starting on the book and article publishing trail, maybe...hoping maybe that might make a difference on my C.V.
Also given some thought to picking up some more SLIS courses...maybe even taking--in sequence--the school library certification required courses.
Even though I do not WANT to make a career as a high school librarian---well, any port in a storm, right?
Just one of the notions I toss round in my head from time to time...that or looking more earnestly at Corporate librarianship (despite my moral misgivings)
I do sometimes apply to Law library jobs, but without the JD, seems kind of pointless (and kind of silly to think about law school just to get a leg up on law library positions--I did wonder if paralegal training would give me an edge on law library jobs without going full monty and getting a law degree, but most people's opinions tended to be negative or "meh"---i.e. couldn't hurt but probably wouldn't really help either; I have thought about law school before--yet another fantasy notion I kick around in my head from time to time---Law is a topic that I find perversely fascinating--I feel very ambivalent love-hate feelings about the entire legal profession).
For now, I'm just staying focused with my corporate non-library gig, keeping on keepin' on, y'know?
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Irony Redux
Once more: (this time from OCLC WorldCat)
...I bring this book up because one of my new bosses (i.e. the new Medical Director) is pushing the Paperless Office concept again, much to the consternation of just about everyone. This on top of the crappy new Database I griped about earlier. I sent this off via email to some trusted colleagues at work as "recommended reading, of possible interest..."; hopefully as an antidote to the madness. Just acting as the friendly, neighborhood wanna-be company/corporate librarian, don't you know...*whistles innocently* (actually I don't want to be a corporate/special Librarian, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish)
Incidentally, according to WorldCat, the two closest libraries where this book is available in tangible form is good ol' Fondren Library over at Rice University (where I have limited borrowing privileges) and the MD Anderson Library at the University of Houston (where I don't, so it'd be "library use only"; Fondren is just barely affordable, but UH charges an arm & a leg to their "Library Friends" who also want borrowing privileges--or at least last time I checked they did). None of the public libraries that are convenient for me to use---Fort Bend (below) nor Houston Public, have it in hard copy, only digital.
Y'know what this says to me?
"LET THEM EAT PIXELS!"
This is a scholarly book with lengthy, discursive prose, not a reference book you'd consult for short excerpted bits of information; It's an exceedingly poor candidate for an E-book.
You note that the two serious research universities have this book in hard copy, and for good reason. Serious scholars wouldn't have it any other way.
The myth of the paperless office
Language: English Type: 
Book
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©2002. Other Editions ...
ISBN: 0262194643 9780262194648 OCLC: 46872316 Cite this Item
=========================================================...I bring this book up because one of my new bosses (i.e. the new Medical Director) is pushing the Paperless Office concept again, much to the consternation of just about everyone. This on top of the crappy new Database I griped about earlier. I sent this off via email to some trusted colleagues at work as "recommended reading, of possible interest..."; hopefully as an antidote to the madness. Just acting as the friendly, neighborhood wanna-be company/corporate librarian, don't you know...*whistles innocently* (actually I don't want to be a corporate/special Librarian, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish)
Incidentally, according to WorldCat, the two closest libraries where this book is available in tangible form is good ol' Fondren Library over at Rice University (where I have limited borrowing privileges) and the MD Anderson Library at the University of Houston (where I don't, so it'd be "library use only"; Fondren is just barely affordable, but UH charges an arm & a leg to their "Library Friends" who also want borrowing privileges--or at least last time I checked they did). None of the public libraries that are convenient for me to use---Fort Bend (below) nor Houston Public, have it in hard copy, only digital.
Y'know what this says to me?
"LET THEM EAT PIXELS!"
This is a scholarly book with lengthy, discursive prose, not a reference book you'd consult for short excerpted bits of information; It's an exceedingly poor candidate for an E-book.
You note that the two serious research universities have this book in hard copy, and for good reason. Serious scholars wouldn't have it any other way.
Irony...
Sunday, May 20, 2007
An applied History Lesson in the workplace
Today, my workplace brothers & sisters,
Let's meet...Frederick W. Taylor
Let's meet...Frederick W. Taylor
most famous for his contributions to the analytical method called..............
Time and motion study
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A time and motion study (or time-motion study) is a business efficiency technique combining the Time Study work of Frederick Winslow Taylor with the Motion Study work of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth (best known through the biographical 1950 film and book Cheaper by the Dozen). It is a major part of Scientific management (Taylorism).
A time and motion study would be used to reduce the number of motions in performing a task in order to increase productivity. The best known experiment involved bricklaying. Through carefully scrutinising a bricklayer's job, Frank Gilbreth reduced the number of motions in laying a brick from 18 to about 5. Hence the bricklayer [or Travel Assistance Coordinator, in our case] both increased productivity and decreased fatigue.
The Gilbreths developed what they called therbligs ("therblig" being "Gilbreth" spelled backwards, with a slight variation), a classification scheme comprising 17 basic hand motions.
See also
References
- Management (3rd Edition), Robbins, S.P., Bergman, R., Stagg, L, & Coulter, M. (2003) . Sydney, Australia: Prentice Hall
===========================================================================================================
I thought about all that for a minute, then I thought about our current hurdles with our two competing Databases at my workplace, BRIO (old DB) v. Liberty (new DB). Our contemporary situation turns Taylorism, a.k.a. Scientific Management, on its head, frankly...
....Unless the objective is to decrease productivity, increase employee fatigue & burnout, and run the company into the ground. Heck if I know, I'm not in management.
Despite its mid-1990s vintage, BRIO is the clear winner of the overall efficiency & productivity contest...no matter how experienced your users are, they will ALWAYS be slower with the Liberty DB than with BRIO. Those "extra steps" in Liberty DO matter--A LOT, especially when multiplied...the growth over time of net inefficiencies is exponential.
I don't know what analytical method was used to justify the switch from BRIO to Liberty, but it damn sure wasn't Scientific management theory.
Scientific management applies equally well for tangible products like cars and bricks to intangible products like insurance policies & related assistance services.
Makes you wonder...
This is why a Liberal Arts education is useful---and dangerous.
-JJR
This is why a Liberal Arts education is useful---and dangerous.
-JJR
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Rebranding librarianship: what do you think?
"It Stinks!" - Jay Sherman, a.k.a Jon Lovitz
You might want to give your opinion here. I did.
--JJR, a.k.a. Aggie Librarian.
=========
Rebranding librarianship: what do you think?
http://plablog.org/2007/05/rebranding-librarianship-what-do-you-
think.html
Friday, May 4th, 2007 by Andrea Mercado
Brendan Gallagher, a participant in Leslie Berger´s Emerging Leaders
Initiative, posted to the Mentors, Masters, Leaders blog today about
the survey that´s been making the rounds through various digital
venues:
I´m one of the ALA Emerging Leaders this year, and I´m part of a
work team that is looking at options for "rebranding the library
profession in the digital world." We´ve decided to survey as broad a
spectrum of library professionals as possible in order to see what we
think of ourselves.
This survey is part of Project KK. You can read more about the
project and other projects on the ALA Emerging Leaders wiki. I´ve
seen the survey mentioned on Twitter, in emails, in IM chats, and on
blogs, and I´m hoping that ALA will actually post a link to it from
the ALA home page, which would make a lot of sense and increase the
outreach of such an important request for feedback.
You might want to give your opinion here. I did.
--JJR, a.k.a. Aggie Librarian.
=========
Rebranding librarianship: what do you think?
http://plablog.org/2007/05/rebranding-librarianship-what-do-you-
think.html
Friday, May 4th, 2007 by Andrea Mercado
Brendan Gallagher, a participant in Leslie Berger´s Emerging Leaders
Initiative, posted to the Mentors, Masters, Leaders blog today about
the survey that´s been making the rounds through various digital
venues:
I´m one of the ALA Emerging Leaders this year, and I´m part of a
work team that is looking at options for "rebranding the library
profession in the digital world." We´ve decided to survey as broad a
spectrum of library professionals as possible in order to see what we
think of ourselves.
This survey is part of Project KK. You can read more about the
project and other projects on the ALA Emerging Leaders wiki. I´ve
seen the survey mentioned on Twitter, in emails, in IM chats, and on
blogs, and I´m hoping that ALA will actually post a link to it from
the ALA home page, which would make a lot of sense and increase the
outreach of such an important request for feedback.
Pass it on -- "Future of Bibliographic Control"
This came in the mail this morning, so I'm passing this along from my inbox to you all, of possible professional interest to those in the Cataloging/Metadata side of things.
... in other news, I should hopefully know by the end of this upcoming week
if I am moving out of state (new job) or staying here.
Will keep ya'll posted either way.
Enjoy!
--JJR, aka The Aggie Librarian.
PS: My friend PT in Clear Lake describes herself as a "reluctant cataloger"; I like that. For all my attempts to get library jobs, I must admit I've gotten more phone and face-to-face interviews from the cataloging jobs I've applied for. I've gotten a few reference position phone interviews but NONE have gone to the next level of face-to-face interviewing among other finalists. It's a hard club to break into, but once you do, it seems you get first dibs on all the good cataloger jobs out there. Anyhow...check out the professional info below.
-----Original Message-----
From: Radical Cataloging [mailto:RADCAT@LISTSERV.
mlindner@UIUC.
Sent: Sun, May 13, 2007 12:20 PM
To: RADCAT@LISTSERV.
Subject: 2nd meeting of the LoC Working Group on the Future of
Bibliographic Control
Please excuse the cross-posting: I have sent this to AUTOCAT, RADCAT,
EduCAT, NGC4LIB, and the Metadata Librarians lists. Please feel free to
forward it wherever you feel it may be of use; that is, I give you explicit
permission to do so.
On Wednesday, May 9th, several colleagues from UIUC and I attended the 2nd
meeting of the LoC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control at
ALA in Chicago.
I have transcribed my notes, and those of Kathryn La Barre, in a series of
blog posts on my blog in the hopes of getting as much of this information
out into the public sphere as possible. Comments are certainly welcome.
A teaser and links to Diane Hillmann's posts at the LITA Blog:
http://tinyurl.
Part 1: Welcome(s):
http://tinyurl.
Part 2: David Bade
http://tinyurl.
Part 3: Diane Hillmann
http://tinyurl.
Part 4: Jane Greenberg
http://tinyurl.
Part 5: Jennifer Bowen
http://tinyurl.
Part 6: Public testimony and wrap-up
http://tinyurl.
There is still time to provide written testimony to this Working Group and I
highly encourage you to do so. Those of you outside of academic
libraries/LIS schools are highly encouraged to do so, as there seems to be
little explicit representation by these communities in this process.
Written testimony instructions can be found here:
http://www.loc.
Mark
Mark R. Lindner
Certificate of Advanced Study candidate
Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign
Graduate Assistant, Serials Cataloging, Content Access Management
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library
1408 W. Gregory Dr.
Urbana, IL 61801
Graduate Assistant, Illinois Fire Service Institute Library
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
11 Gerty Drive
Champaign, IL 61820
mlindner@uiuc.
Happy Mother's Day
"Mother" by Pink Floyd
-------------------------------------------------
Mother, do you think they'll drop the bomb?
Mother, do you think they'll like this song?
Mother, do you think they'll try to break my balls?
Mother, should I build the wall?
Mother, should I run for President?
Mother, should I trust the government?
Mother, will they put me in the firing line?
Is it just a waste of time?
Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry
Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true
Momma's gonna put all of her fears into you
Momma's gonna keep you right here under her wing
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing
Momma's will keep Baby cozy and warm
Oooo Babe
Oooo Babe
Ooo Babe, of course Momma's gonna help build the wall
Mother, do you think she's good enough
For me?
Mother, do you think she's dangerous
To me?
Mother will she tear your little boy apart?
Mother, will she break my heart?
Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry
Momma's gonna check out all your girlfriends for you
Momma won't let anyone dirty get through
Momma's gonna wait up until you get in
Momma will always find out where you've been
Momma's gonna keep Baby healthy and clean
Oooo Babe
Oooo Babe
Ooo Babe, you'll always be Baby to me
Mother, did it need to be so high?
===================================================
I always thought the line was "she won't let you fly, but she might let you sink".
Imperfect rhyme, yes, but semantically more coherent with the overall direction and theme of the song itself, though I suppose that misheard lyric reveals more about myself than anything else.
Song hits closer to home than I'd like it to.
Mom's a retired school librarian, so it took me longer than it probably would have otherwise to come around to Librarianship as a viable career path for myself; and even then, even though getting school library certified on my way to getting the MLS would've been the financially smart and savvy thing to do, it was impossible for me at a psychological level. I've been stubbornly determined to work in either academic libraries or public libraries, PERIOD. No interest neither in school libraries nor corporate/special libraries--unless we're talking Museum Libraries--I still think back to the really good phone interview I had with SCAD, the "Savannah College of Art & Design"; I had them talking face-to-face interview, the whole 9 yards. They really digged me, for some reason. But then just as suddenly, the employment offer vanished, owing, they cited, to budgetary shortfalls. Too bad, really, as I think SCAD would've been a VERY cool place to work for, surrounded by all those artistically talented people.
During my interview at USC, I did comment that the fact that there was NOT a senior cataloger in their Tech Services Department would be a reason for declining their offer IF I had an otherwise identical offer from another institution that DID have one. My therapist correctly diagnosed that it was a sign of wanting/looking for a replacement mother/father authority figure in the workplace; and a bit irrational, because although the 30-something catalogers I would be interacting with had many years job experience over me, many of them moreover having started out in library school at a much earlier stage in their lives than I did--I was still hoping to learn on bended knee from a gray-haired sage of either gender. *sigh*. That's archetype for you, folks.
Anyway, I did not go the school libraries route, and now it would be quite costly to me financially to backtrack and try to get that credential, either here in Texas or in South Carolina, assuming I get an offer of employment out there soon. It would be basically taking out an insurance policy against future joblessness or underemployment, and a fast-track back to the library world, a way of hedging bets. But the truth is, I just plain don't WANT to work in School libraries, not even in a High School setting. Still too traumatized from my 1 year teaching stint while living in Webster, Texas, I guess. Then there's the question of eventual PhDs...a PhD in Library Science would be the easiest route, I feel, but Intellectual History ultimately more gratifying. Rice U's Intellectual History program is still first-rate, even if some of the professors I most admired have moved on and are no longer on the Rice Faculty. But I can't conceive of taking time NOW to go pursue that. Just doesn't make any good financial sense to do so. I don't even aspire to Library administration beyond a department head job someday. And a PhD is not even required for a Library Director (though it is increasingly expected), only for a "Dean of Libraries" in a multi-Library university system. I'm still just trying to get in on the ground floor, so the thought of scaling such dizzying heights in the library world is pretty far removed from my immediate consciousness.
I do hope that USC pans out, I really think it's a job I could sink my teeth into and work my ass off and gain a lot of valuable knowledge, insight, and practical experience in, with good colleagues that I have good rapport with, etc. But if it doesn't, well, just keep plugging away for the faceless corporation I still work for, try to manage the transition to the new DB as best I can, etc. If I do end up in South Carolina, I may ultimately hire a lawyer to help me track down my biological parents, or at least my biological mother; not that I would ever embarrass the poor woman by meeting face to face; I'm more curious from an ethno-biological standpoint and a medical history standpoint. A friend of mine at work brought me a work of fiction wherein the author (or the copy-writer/editor) had included on the jacket blurb that "all children mythologize their birth"; She was skeptical of this and wanted my opinion. I stated "well, I did, because I'm adopted and have no hard evidence about what really happened, so myth is my only alternative". I speculate that one or both of my biological parents were alcoholics, and as such was probably conceived while they were drunk at the time. I was obviously unplanned, and it was probably not a happy time for my biological mother. My arrival obviously made my adoptive parents very happy, and for that I'm grateful. My biological mother had other alternatives, and me-today still supports the full range of choices she could have taken. Once I was in the world, it sounds as if putting me up for adoption was certainly best for me, and likely best for her as well...I'd like to believe it enabled my biological mother to go ahead and go to college and get on with her life in ways that would not have been possible, would have condemned the both of us to lives of dire poverty and desperation had she tried to raise me on her own. I guess I've lived with the mental interpretation of myself as a mistake, as an accident of carelessness, etc, but suppressed those thoughts so deeply...refusing to deal with them directly but nonetheless being deeply impacted by them regardless. It's not easy territory to cover, and I'm grateful to have my current therapist as a guide.
My adoptive family background is of Scottish decent. It's possible my biological roots are Scottish as well, but they're just as likely Anglo-Saxon (English) or some other European ethnicity. I doubt I have any Jewish ethnicity but that would be pretty neat to discover. Irish would be very cool, too. Or Russian or Polish. I think I would like to know, though, rather than just to exclusively celebrate the Scottish heritage alone based on my VERY Scottish name.
It's perhaps mythically significant that when I married CRC, I was married wearing a Kilt, but it was a generic rental, not in my (adoptive) family's Tartan. I would've preferred a Royal Stewart, but owing to availability and short notice and expense, I ended up wearing a Clan Gordon tartan, which is a mostly Green-Black-and-White pattern. Ironically, CRC, who is not adopted, is biologically tied to Clan MacDonnell of Keppoch, which is my (adoptive) family's Clan as well...the folks with my surname, well, we're a "Sept" of that Clan. CRC also had some Irish in her, which I always joked came out in her at times ferocious temper. CRC was brunette, but at times her hair would wax reddish in colour, to almost an auburn hue. She looked really great wearing my Rice U. sweatshirts; she was certainly smart enough to have gone there, but she decided not to. How happier life would've been if she had done so, for the both of us, perhaps.
To speak of mythical significance, etc, is precisely the sort of liberal-artsy talk that I relish but sets off the woo-detectors of fellow freethinkers who are more hard-sciences grounded, and it's what separates them from me on some level. I'm no less a materialist and scientific rationalist than they are, it's just that when you're analyzing human culture, you have to delve into these referents, become acquainted with them, etc. It confuses the hard-science types equally as the religious types. It's harder on the religious, because while I accept myth AS myth, they want (their own) myth to be substantized as hard reality, and this I'm unwilling to concede. They also want THEIR myth to be exalted over all others. Again, I'm unable to give them that either.
Scientific & Technological know-how is at best a tool to augment human virtue and aesthetic longing...but they make for a poor REPLACEMENT of these things. Organized religion hurts more than it helps, by ossifying free flowing patterns and creating hard dogmas. My point is, I find I am in broad agreement with James Howard Kunstler's musings on this stuff in his book Home from Nowhere, which is the follow up book to his groundbreaking Geography of Nowhere.
Anyway, enough Mother's Day Musings for today.
"Maybe you should put some shorts on, or something, if you want to continue fighting evil today."
-------------------------------------------------
Mother, do you think they'll drop the bomb?
Mother, do you think they'll like this song?
Mother, do you think they'll try to break my balls?
Mother, should I build the wall?
Mother, should I run for President?
Mother, should I trust the government?
Mother, will they put me in the firing line?
Is it just a waste of time?
Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry
Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true
Momma's gonna put all of her fears into you
Momma's gonna keep you right here under her wing
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing
Momma's will keep Baby cozy and warm
Oooo Babe
Oooo Babe
Ooo Babe, of course Momma's gonna help build the wall
Mother, do you think she's good enough
For me?
Mother, do you think she's dangerous
To me?
Mother will she tear your little boy apart?
Mother, will she break my heart?
Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry
Momma's gonna check out all your girlfriends for you
Momma won't let anyone dirty get through
Momma's gonna wait up until you get in
Momma will always find out where you've been
Momma's gonna keep Baby healthy and clean
Oooo Babe
Oooo Babe
Ooo Babe, you'll always be Baby to me
Mother, did it need to be so high?
===================================================
I always thought the line was "she won't let you fly, but she might let you sink".
Imperfect rhyme, yes, but semantically more coherent with the overall direction and theme of the song itself, though I suppose that misheard lyric reveals more about myself than anything else.
Song hits closer to home than I'd like it to.
Mom's a retired school librarian, so it took me longer than it probably would have otherwise to come around to Librarianship as a viable career path for myself; and even then, even though getting school library certified on my way to getting the MLS would've been the financially smart and savvy thing to do, it was impossible for me at a psychological level. I've been stubbornly determined to work in either academic libraries or public libraries, PERIOD. No interest neither in school libraries nor corporate/special libraries--unless we're talking Museum Libraries--I still think back to the really good phone interview I had with SCAD, the "Savannah College of Art & Design"; I had them talking face-to-face interview, the whole 9 yards. They really digged me, for some reason. But then just as suddenly, the employment offer vanished, owing, they cited, to budgetary shortfalls. Too bad, really, as I think SCAD would've been a VERY cool place to work for, surrounded by all those artistically talented people.
During my interview at USC, I did comment that the fact that there was NOT a senior cataloger in their Tech Services Department would be a reason for declining their offer IF I had an otherwise identical offer from another institution that DID have one. My therapist correctly diagnosed that it was a sign of wanting/looking for a replacement mother/father authority figure in the workplace; and a bit irrational, because although the 30-something catalogers I would be interacting with had many years job experience over me, many of them moreover having started out in library school at a much earlier stage in their lives than I did--I was still hoping to learn on bended knee from a gray-haired sage of either gender. *sigh*. That's archetype for you, folks.
Anyway, I did not go the school libraries route, and now it would be quite costly to me financially to backtrack and try to get that credential, either here in Texas or in South Carolina, assuming I get an offer of employment out there soon. It would be basically taking out an insurance policy against future joblessness or underemployment, and a fast-track back to the library world, a way of hedging bets. But the truth is, I just plain don't WANT to work in School libraries, not even in a High School setting. Still too traumatized from my 1 year teaching stint while living in Webster, Texas, I guess. Then there's the question of eventual PhDs...a PhD in Library Science would be the easiest route, I feel, but Intellectual History ultimately more gratifying. Rice U's Intellectual History program is still first-rate, even if some of the professors I most admired have moved on and are no longer on the Rice Faculty. But I can't conceive of taking time NOW to go pursue that. Just doesn't make any good financial sense to do so. I don't even aspire to Library administration beyond a department head job someday. And a PhD is not even required for a Library Director (though it is increasingly expected), only for a "Dean of Libraries" in a multi-Library university system. I'm still just trying to get in on the ground floor, so the thought of scaling such dizzying heights in the library world is pretty far removed from my immediate consciousness.
I do hope that USC pans out, I really think it's a job I could sink my teeth into and work my ass off and gain a lot of valuable knowledge, insight, and practical experience in, with good colleagues that I have good rapport with, etc. But if it doesn't, well, just keep plugging away for the faceless corporation I still work for, try to manage the transition to the new DB as best I can, etc. If I do end up in South Carolina, I may ultimately hire a lawyer to help me track down my biological parents, or at least my biological mother; not that I would ever embarrass the poor woman by meeting face to face; I'm more curious from an ethno-biological standpoint and a medical history standpoint. A friend of mine at work brought me a work of fiction wherein the author (or the copy-writer/editor) had included on the jacket blurb that "all children mythologize their birth"; She was skeptical of this and wanted my opinion. I stated "well, I did, because I'm adopted and have no hard evidence about what really happened, so myth is my only alternative". I speculate that one or both of my biological parents were alcoholics, and as such was probably conceived while they were drunk at the time. I was obviously unplanned, and it was probably not a happy time for my biological mother. My arrival obviously made my adoptive parents very happy, and for that I'm grateful. My biological mother had other alternatives, and me-today still supports the full range of choices she could have taken. Once I was in the world, it sounds as if putting me up for adoption was certainly best for me, and likely best for her as well...I'd like to believe it enabled my biological mother to go ahead and go to college and get on with her life in ways that would not have been possible, would have condemned the both of us to lives of dire poverty and desperation had she tried to raise me on her own. I guess I've lived with the mental interpretation of myself as a mistake, as an accident of carelessness, etc, but suppressed those thoughts so deeply...refusing to deal with them directly but nonetheless being deeply impacted by them regardless. It's not easy territory to cover, and I'm grateful to have my current therapist as a guide.
My adoptive family background is of Scottish decent. It's possible my biological roots are Scottish as well, but they're just as likely Anglo-Saxon (English) or some other European ethnicity. I doubt I have any Jewish ethnicity but that would be pretty neat to discover. Irish would be very cool, too. Or Russian or Polish. I think I would like to know, though, rather than just to exclusively celebrate the Scottish heritage alone based on my VERY Scottish name.
It's perhaps mythically significant that when I married CRC, I was married wearing a Kilt, but it was a generic rental, not in my (adoptive) family's Tartan. I would've preferred a Royal Stewart, but owing to availability and short notice and expense, I ended up wearing a Clan Gordon tartan, which is a mostly Green-Black-and-White pattern. Ironically, CRC, who is not adopted, is biologically tied to Clan MacDonnell of Keppoch, which is my (adoptive) family's Clan as well...the folks with my surname, well, we're a "Sept" of that Clan. CRC also had some Irish in her, which I always joked came out in her at times ferocious temper. CRC was brunette, but at times her hair would wax reddish in colour, to almost an auburn hue. She looked really great wearing my Rice U. sweatshirts; she was certainly smart enough to have gone there, but she decided not to. How happier life would've been if she had done so, for the both of us, perhaps.
To speak of mythical significance, etc, is precisely the sort of liberal-artsy talk that I relish but sets off the woo-detectors of fellow freethinkers who are more hard-sciences grounded, and it's what separates them from me on some level. I'm no less a materialist and scientific rationalist than they are, it's just that when you're analyzing human culture, you have to delve into these referents, become acquainted with them, etc. It confuses the hard-science types equally as the religious types. It's harder on the religious, because while I accept myth AS myth, they want (their own) myth to be substantized as hard reality, and this I'm unwilling to concede. They also want THEIR myth to be exalted over all others. Again, I'm unable to give them that either.
Scientific & Technological know-how is at best a tool to augment human virtue and aesthetic longing...but they make for a poor REPLACEMENT of these things. Organized religion hurts more than it helps, by ossifying free flowing patterns and creating hard dogmas. My point is, I find I am in broad agreement with James Howard Kunstler's musings on this stuff in his book Home from Nowhere, which is the follow up book to his groundbreaking Geography of Nowhere.
Anyway, enough Mother's Day Musings for today.
"Maybe you should put some shorts on, or something, if you want to continue fighting evil today."
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
rejection letter(s)...
Well, shit...a good library job and Texas just don't seem to be in the cards. My rejection letter from UH arrived today, dated 3 May 2007, for the Modern & Classical Languages position. They regretfully inform I am no longer under "active consideration".
Just goes to show you...it's like a Murphy's Law of Library Science....any position you sound PERFECT for you will always be rejected in the first round.
Weird-ass positions you apply for on a lark, you'll at least wrangle a phone interview out of.
I give up trying to make any sense of it. It makes me a little sick to my stomach, because it means so much more is riding on USC now.
(I don't seriously think I have even a prayer when it comes to the Oregon-based "Slavic Cataloger" job I applied for a few weeks ago--I knew that was a longshot going in)
Anyway, I'm biding time until my counseling session tonight listening to James Taylor sing "Going to Carolina in My Mind" on YouTube, which is some comfort.
Just keep rolling with the punches...it it comes, it was meant to be...if it don't, it weren't.
Our medical director up and quit while I was off in SC, and I've been approached by the new director to help manage the transition to the new database at work.
It would've been better to have involved staff much much earlier in this thing, but better late than never I guess. I gave my honest opinions on how things stand with the new DB and pointed out some of the material things we need to do our jobs better---heavier duty fax machines and more than just one going to the same line, etc.
There are actual "authority control" and "controlled vocabulary" problems to tackle, too.
So, whatever, y'know?
I'll always be "the Librarian" in any organization, no matter what my official job-title says. It's too much in my blood now not to be. It's part and parcel of who I am, for better or worse.
I'll always be "the Librarian" in any organization, no matter what my official job-title says. It's too much in my blood now not to be. It's part and parcel of who I am, for better or worse.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Aggie Librarian returns from Gamecock Land.
I flew back into IAH from CAE yesterday on a bumpy regional jet, tired but profoundly satisfied with my business trip and glad to be home. The weather, actually, was beautiful for flying, both coming and going, but it's just with those smaller regional jets, you can feel even the slightest turbulence quite profoundly, and if you're like me, you're pretty much white-knuckling it shortly after takeoff until the plane hits cruising altitude and levels off, and also when you begin to start the final decent and bank hard to line up with the runway. Just unsettling--to me at least.
I don't fear flying any more than I fear driving, I just don't take any particular pleasure in either activity.
Anyway, the job interview went very well, and I guess I had rehearsed my presentation sufficiently, because it seemed to flow very smoothly, and was, per staff comments, "just right", timewise--neither too long nor too short. I also apparently inspired them with my ideas, many of them took careful notes and many agreed I touched on new concepts and ideas they hadn't considered before. The collection development library said out loud, "well, we have some posters to buy now." And the archives cataloger was really excited about my proposed use for the 653 field that I mentioned, and as he tells it, rushed over to tell his colleagues about it before coming back to the main library.
The staff, both the librarians and the paras, were very friendly, courteous, and knowledgeable. I did have to give a rigorously honest account of what went down at Texas A&M-Galveston. I owed up to what I did wrong, cited lessons learned, spelled out what I think THEY did wrong, and why I was glad to be outta there. I think I gave a fair and honest account, which they appreciated and seemed to accept. I had to tell the tale (with varying degrees of detail) a total of three times in fact...almost a ritual Mea Culpa, but good for the soul. Gets it out in the open and off my chest. My thanks to the search committee for asking that question first thing in the morning, to give me a dry run at it (they had to know it was going to pop up later from others).
It was a good, though tiring day. Aggie Librarian got to meet another former Aggie Librarian, too, who had worked on main campus (though not a TAMU alumna, whereas I am a TAMU alumnus). She expressed regret there was not better coordination between main campus at TAMUG during my brief employment there. I commented only that I was still grateful for MDW's workshop on NACO, which was positively excellent. This cataloger had also worked at the Naval Academy after leaving TAMU. Though she could not have been much older than me, I gathered she started out her library career much earlier in life than I did, and had a lot more experience to show for it, too. I admit, it took me a good many years to come to the decision on my own to go to Library school. The fact that mom is a retired school librarian (and was actually a working school librarian while I was in library school) did not make it easier to decide on librarianship as a career...if anything it delayed that decision and made it harder, as it was a path I had to choose for myself, to take ownership of, etc., and I had to be convinced that going for a Humanities PhD was utterly fruitless. So my thanks are also to Michael Berube and Cary Nelson, also, for unexpectedly nudging me in the direction of Librarianship, by first nudging me AWAY from the idea of picking up a PhD in either German Studies, Cinema Studies or Intellectual History along the way. I concluded (correctly, in my view) that Libraries were the best route to gainful university-level employment. A lot of unemployed PhDs are belatedly figuring this out as well, for good or ill.
Anyway, for now I remain an underemployed MLS working for a faceless corporation.
Come mid-May, everything could change, significantly and in a positive direction.
It's true that I once lived in Columbia, and on this trip I did go by my childhood home. My old Elementary school didn't look anything like it did in the 1970s, which is good, because in the 1970s it looked straight out of the 1950s.
I had a vague memory of the older USC Coliseum, where we used to watch a few Carolina Gamecocks basketball games (USC football in those days was utterly pathetic, nothing like the powerhouse it has become today). The Basketball team today has a new, completely modernized Coliseum, and the old Coliseum is used mainly for concerts, monster truck rallies (I shit you not), rock performances, etc.
Columbia is a nice, sleepy college town. It's laid back...maybe not as hip as Austin, but pretty darn good for South Carolina. The campus is a major part of the downtown landscape, and they definitely have "walkable communities" of the kind that the New Urbanist movement in architecture raves about (and which I am in agreement with as a desirable thing). If I end up moving there, I do plan to live downtown within walking/biking distance from work, driving only when I have to.
Columbia, SC is "Deep South", but it is just as profoundly "East", as in Eastern seaboard. It was one of the original 13 colonies, and this is unmistakable when you walk the city streets and absorb the history around you. It has a feeling of deeper tradition beyond Dixie that even Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana (and certainly NOT Texas) just don't have.
More thoughts / news later, perhaps.
Signing off for now.
I don't fear flying any more than I fear driving, I just don't take any particular pleasure in either activity.
Anyway, the job interview went very well, and I guess I had rehearsed my presentation sufficiently, because it seemed to flow very smoothly, and was, per staff comments, "just right", timewise--neither too long nor too short. I also apparently inspired them with my ideas, many of them took careful notes and many agreed I touched on new concepts and ideas they hadn't considered before. The collection development library said out loud, "well, we have some posters to buy now." And the archives cataloger was really excited about my proposed use for the 653 field that I mentioned, and as he tells it, rushed over to tell his colleagues about it before coming back to the main library.
The staff, both the librarians and the paras, were very friendly, courteous, and knowledgeable. I did have to give a rigorously honest account of what went down at Texas A&M-Galveston. I owed up to what I did wrong, cited lessons learned, spelled out what I think THEY did wrong, and why I was glad to be outta there. I think I gave a fair and honest account, which they appreciated and seemed to accept. I had to tell the tale (with varying degrees of detail) a total of three times in fact...almost a ritual Mea Culpa, but good for the soul. Gets it out in the open and off my chest. My thanks to the search committee for asking that question first thing in the morning, to give me a dry run at it (they had to know it was going to pop up later from others).
It was a good, though tiring day. Aggie Librarian got to meet another former Aggie Librarian, too, who had worked on main campus (though not a TAMU alumna, whereas I am a TAMU alumnus). She expressed regret there was not better coordination between main campus at TAMUG during my brief employment there. I commented only that I was still grateful for MDW's workshop on NACO, which was positively excellent. This cataloger had also worked at the Naval Academy after leaving TAMU. Though she could not have been much older than me, I gathered she started out her library career much earlier in life than I did, and had a lot more experience to show for it, too. I admit, it took me a good many years to come to the decision on my own to go to Library school. The fact that mom is a retired school librarian (and was actually a working school librarian while I was in library school) did not make it easier to decide on librarianship as a career...if anything it delayed that decision and made it harder, as it was a path I had to choose for myself, to take ownership of, etc., and I had to be convinced that going for a Humanities PhD was utterly fruitless. So my thanks are also to Michael Berube and Cary Nelson, also, for unexpectedly nudging me in the direction of Librarianship, by first nudging me AWAY from the idea of picking up a PhD in either German Studies, Cinema Studies or Intellectual History along the way. I concluded (correctly, in my view) that Libraries were the best route to gainful university-level employment. A lot of unemployed PhDs are belatedly figuring this out as well, for good or ill.
Anyway, for now I remain an underemployed MLS working for a faceless corporation.
Come mid-May, everything could change, significantly and in a positive direction.
It's true that I once lived in Columbia, and on this trip I did go by my childhood home. My old Elementary school didn't look anything like it did in the 1970s, which is good, because in the 1970s it looked straight out of the 1950s.
I had a vague memory of the older USC Coliseum, where we used to watch a few Carolina Gamecocks basketball games (USC football in those days was utterly pathetic, nothing like the powerhouse it has become today). The Basketball team today has a new, completely modernized Coliseum, and the old Coliseum is used mainly for concerts, monster truck rallies (I shit you not), rock performances, etc.
Columbia is a nice, sleepy college town. It's laid back...maybe not as hip as Austin, but pretty darn good for South Carolina. The campus is a major part of the downtown landscape, and they definitely have "walkable communities" of the kind that the New Urbanist movement in architecture raves about (and which I am in agreement with as a desirable thing). If I end up moving there, I do plan to live downtown within walking/biking distance from work, driving only when I have to.
Columbia, SC is "Deep South", but it is just as profoundly "East", as in Eastern seaboard. It was one of the original 13 colonies, and this is unmistakable when you walk the city streets and absorb the history around you. It has a feeling of deeper tradition beyond Dixie that even Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana (and certainly NOT Texas) just don't have.
More thoughts / news later, perhaps.
Signing off for now.
A Library Vingette
scenes in my mind....
Reference Librarian: I told you to quit using all those complicated Cataloger terms!
Cataloger: "Authority Control" is a basic LIBRARY term, NOT just a cataloging term, you AIRHEAD.
Reference Librarian: I told you to quit using all those complicated Cataloger terms!
Cataloger: "Authority Control" is a basic LIBRARY term, NOT just a cataloging term, you AIRHEAD.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Writer's Block & overcoming/brainstorming again.
I'm sort of stuck right now, have some vague ideas what I want to do with my power point presentation, but still haven't committed pen to paper, or pixels to processors yet. I know its my perfectionism flaw rearing its ugly head. I know what I need to do is just START, start & just say ANYTHING...just jump in and do it...it's always easier to edit and revise mercilessly later than it is to just get started. My mom the retired school librarian is anxious too and wants to help but usually ends up just making it worse. I'm craming a bit, doing some last minute research, devouring Michael Gorman's (2003) The Enduring Library, which is a damn good read, by the way, if your Library "faith" or inner fire is a dwindling down a bit. I also slogged through the cataloging sections of Whole Library Handbook 4, which I also recommend (the whole book, not just the cataloging chapter). I've also procrastinated by re-ordering my assorted Wish-Lists on Amazon.com; I think I'm up to four of them now. I used to have only one, but that got unwieldy. Then I created one for the stint at TAMUG, called "Maritime, Marine, and Naval Sciences", where I dumped all the collection development ideas in a common pot to stew over later. More on that in a bit. I also created a "Permaculture & Green-stuff" list, for all my ecology/permaculture related reading matter of interest. I also decided it was high time to create a separate LIS wish list, and so I did, to chuck all my directly-library related professional reading interests AND also any ancillary technology/social criticism books that are interwoven enough with LIS issues to be on the same list, like Theodore Roszack's The Cult of Information or Tom Standage's The Victorian Internet (about the rise of the telegraph and the hoopla that surrounded it, very reminiscent of the late 1990s Dot.Com era and our time as well).
While I was sorting through the Maritime, Marine & Naval Sciences list (mostly parsing out the permaculture stuff into its separate group), on a lark I jumped on OCLC's WorldCat to see how many of the books that I know I put in as suggested purchases actually DID get purchased and added to the collection after I got sacked. I was impressed that a fair number did actually make it into the collection. Not as many as I would've liked to see be added, but a goodly number, and I still think the collection is much better for it as a result of my singular efforts. Some of the areas of knowledge I added to hadn't been updated since the 1970s, for Pete's sake. I was disappointed more of my maritime heritage liberal arts selections didn't make it in, but I guess that was to be expected...it's such a sci-tech school anyway, you more or less should expect Liberal Arts to get the short end of the stick, even if it is falling within the narrow limits of their liberal arts vision down there, focused on seafaring cultures, etc. I had some really creative and interesting titles, few of which got selected, except for one on the history & culture of the societies bordering the Great Lakes of Africa, which DID get added, and I'm especially proud of that acquisition. There was a fascinating book on diaspora Jews in maritime port communities that I strongly felt SHOULD have been added, but wasn't. I'm sure that our Reference Librarian would've never thought of it in a million years. I still marvel at how often I got the impression that the print collection down there was outdated, neglected, etc. Not in all areas, no, but in many--indeed most areas on topics I knew a thing or two about. Their coverage of the modern Middle East, for example, was woefully inadequate for today's world. Fixing THAT oversight is I think my proudest achievement of all. Their library now has very up to date survey books on the UAE, Pakistan, Libya, and many other important Islamic/Middle Eastern countries, including guides to doing business in those countries. As we were ostensibly in the business of training Navy officers and Maritime businessmen, I thought it might be a good thing for them to--I dunno--know something about that part of the world--maybe? Call me crazy, but I think it was a good call.
Anyway, it was interesting also comparing the WorldCat bib records with Amazon's own item records. Amazon is starting (slowly) to incorporate seemingly more LCSH into their subject offerings--more so than when I first compiled my collection development list for TAMUG, that's for sure! It's not as robust as a well-done OPAC, but it's a surprising and welcome improvement over what they had before. Don't get me wrong, I freakin' LOVE Amazon.com, and sometimes their "if you liked this you might also like" is like a godsend when doing bibliography work. But when you're using Amazon for collection development in an obscure field like Maritime & Marine Sciences, well beyond my narrow expertise (ha!) in Naval Science, the usual features..."those who liked X also liked Y" and their already anemic "subject cataloging" starts to break down, and you are pretty much limited and stuck with hit-or-miss keyword searching, and it really starts to feel like you're panning for gold. Feels great when you find a nugget or two, but you have to sift through a lot of sand to get there after a time. Some of the books I selected were rare enough to pop up in WorldCat in only 4-5 libraries WORLDWIDE. So not likely to have made it on to anyone's LISTMANIA or anything, either, we can safely assume.
One of the talks at EndUser 2006 that impressed me the most was about "hacking the OPAC" to add some nifty "Amazon" features to plane-jane bib-records and really sex them up. It was actually pretty cool, what they were doing at this particular library in New Jersey, but I was shocked they DIDN'T incorporate what stands out to me as their PRIMO feature that is most valuable to libraries and library users....I refer specifically to their SIPs and CAPs program which is part and parcel of their "Look Inside" feature; it is basically automated indexing that parcels out Statistically Improbable Phrases (as compared to the rest of the books in the Look Inside program) and Capitalized Phrases. What I love about it is how this so readily captures bleeding-edge trendy buzzwords and current talking points that people are using in conversations about current issues today...and captures them and indexes them and makes them searchable and usable....terminology that it will take months, even YEARS to worm its way into controlled vocabularies like LCSH, if they ever do. This to me is valuable metadata worth purchasing for integrated library use, and I'm not sure Amazon quite fully appreciates just what a good thing they've got going, and what a valuable service this could be to libraries (and enhanced profit to them!), if they partnered with libraries to enhance bib record displays in OPACs in this way. I'm not enough of a tech head to know the ins and outs of how this would be done, but I know with Voyager it would mean tweaking WebVoyage at some level...I'm not technology savvy enough to do that myself, but there are plenty of IT/Systems people out there who are and can do this. The demonstrated Amazon "hacks" were cool, but they are also not sanctioned by Endeavor Information Systems; What I'm talking about would be a purchasable, fully supportable add-on to existing bib records, and obviously it would be limited to those items held by any library in particular that is also a participant in Amazon's Look Inside program, but considering the main objective is to nab up-to-date buzzwords and the like and make them searchable/indexable, etc, it's not a big deal that older records wouldn't have this feature the way many new books (though certainly not all) would have. Of course, in more obscure areas--like Maritime and Marine Sciences, for example, many of those books were new/contemporary but NOT in the Look Inside book program, so no SIPs and CAPs to be had either.
I've also been browsing/reading/re-reading LC Librarian Thomas Mann's most recent articles, more brain fodder for me. In the next day or two I'll need to sit down and really synthesize Gorman/Mann plus my own ideas and be able to talk at length (45 min) on a coherent theme in cataloging/metadata of interest to the search committee over at USC. Got my work cut out for me. Wish me luck.
While I was sorting through the Maritime, Marine & Naval Sciences list (mostly parsing out the permaculture stuff into its separate group), on a lark I jumped on OCLC's WorldCat to see how many of the books that I know I put in as suggested purchases actually DID get purchased and added to the collection after I got sacked. I was impressed that a fair number did actually make it into the collection. Not as many as I would've liked to see be added, but a goodly number, and I still think the collection is much better for it as a result of my singular efforts. Some of the areas of knowledge I added to hadn't been updated since the 1970s, for Pete's sake. I was disappointed more of my maritime heritage liberal arts selections didn't make it in, but I guess that was to be expected...it's such a sci-tech school anyway, you more or less should expect Liberal Arts to get the short end of the stick, even if it is falling within the narrow limits of their liberal arts vision down there, focused on seafaring cultures, etc. I had some really creative and interesting titles, few of which got selected, except for one on the history & culture of the societies bordering the Great Lakes of Africa, which DID get added, and I'm especially proud of that acquisition. There was a fascinating book on diaspora Jews in maritime port communities that I strongly felt SHOULD have been added, but wasn't. I'm sure that our Reference Librarian would've never thought of it in a million years. I still marvel at how often I got the impression that the print collection down there was outdated, neglected, etc. Not in all areas, no, but in many--indeed most areas on topics I knew a thing or two about. Their coverage of the modern Middle East, for example, was woefully inadequate for today's world. Fixing THAT oversight is I think my proudest achievement of all. Their library now has very up to date survey books on the UAE, Pakistan, Libya, and many other important Islamic/Middle Eastern countries, including guides to doing business in those countries. As we were ostensibly in the business of training Navy officers and Maritime businessmen, I thought it might be a good thing for them to--I dunno--know something about that part of the world--maybe? Call me crazy, but I think it was a good call.
Anyway, it was interesting also comparing the WorldCat bib records with Amazon's own item records. Amazon is starting (slowly) to incorporate seemingly more LCSH into their subject offerings--more so than when I first compiled my collection development list for TAMUG, that's for sure! It's not as robust as a well-done OPAC, but it's a surprising and welcome improvement over what they had before. Don't get me wrong, I freakin' LOVE Amazon.com, and sometimes their "if you liked this you might also like" is like a godsend when doing bibliography work. But when you're using Amazon for collection development in an obscure field like Maritime & Marine Sciences, well beyond my narrow expertise (ha!) in Naval Science, the usual features..."those who liked X also liked Y" and their already anemic "subject cataloging" starts to break down, and you are pretty much limited and stuck with hit-or-miss keyword searching, and it really starts to feel like you're panning for gold. Feels great when you find a nugget or two, but you have to sift through a lot of sand to get there after a time. Some of the books I selected were rare enough to pop up in WorldCat in only 4-5 libraries WORLDWIDE. So not likely to have made it on to anyone's LISTMANIA or anything, either, we can safely assume.
One of the talks at EndUser 2006 that impressed me the most was about "hacking the OPAC" to add some nifty "Amazon" features to plane-jane bib-records and really sex them up. It was actually pretty cool, what they were doing at this particular library in New Jersey, but I was shocked they DIDN'T incorporate what stands out to me as their PRIMO feature that is most valuable to libraries and library users....I refer specifically to their SIPs and CAPs program which is part and parcel of their "Look Inside" feature; it is basically automated indexing that parcels out Statistically Improbable Phrases (as compared to the rest of the books in the Look Inside program) and Capitalized Phrases. What I love about it is how this so readily captures bleeding-edge trendy buzzwords and current talking points that people are using in conversations about current issues today...and captures them and indexes them and makes them searchable and usable....terminology that it will take months, even YEARS to worm its way into controlled vocabularies like LCSH, if they ever do. This to me is valuable metadata worth purchasing for integrated library use, and I'm not sure Amazon quite fully appreciates just what a good thing they've got going, and what a valuable service this could be to libraries (and enhanced profit to them!), if they partnered with libraries to enhance bib record displays in OPACs in this way. I'm not enough of a tech head to know the ins and outs of how this would be done, but I know with Voyager it would mean tweaking WebVoyage at some level...I'm not technology savvy enough to do that myself, but there are plenty of IT/Systems people out there who are and can do this. The demonstrated Amazon "hacks" were cool, but they are also not sanctioned by Endeavor Information Systems; What I'm talking about would be a purchasable, fully supportable add-on to existing bib records, and obviously it would be limited to those items held by any library in particular that is also a participant in Amazon's Look Inside program, but considering the main objective is to nab up-to-date buzzwords and the like and make them searchable/indexable, etc, it's not a big deal that older records wouldn't have this feature the way many new books (though certainly not all) would have. Of course, in more obscure areas--like Maritime and Marine Sciences, for example, many of those books were new/contemporary but NOT in the Look Inside book program, so no SIPs and CAPs to be had either.
I've also been browsing/reading/re-reading LC Librarian Thomas Mann's most recent articles, more brain fodder for me. In the next day or two I'll need to sit down and really synthesize Gorman/Mann plus my own ideas and be able to talk at length (45 min) on a coherent theme in cataloging/metadata of interest to the search committee over at USC. Got my work cut out for me. Wish me luck.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. - Rest in Peace
Sad News for the World of Letters today (actually late yesterday)
Kurt Vonnegut Dies at 84
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041207K.shtml
By Ron Jacobs
We Join Kilgore Trout In Mourning: Kurt Vonnegut Moves On
Remembering Kurt Vonnegut
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ron_jaco_070412_we_join_kilgore_trou.htm
The Aggie Librarian read Slaughterhouse 5 while studying abroad and finished it sitting in an outdoor cafe in Dresden, Germany, appropriately enough. While employed at TAMUG, he read the unabridged audiotape edition of Breakfast of Champions or Goodbye, Blue Monday, and loved it. Through the years Aggie Librarian has read Vonnegut's assorted interviews and articles, too, and all that was enough to appreciate the magic and genius of this man. He is truly the 20th Century's Mark Twain reborn, or perhaps its Ambrose Bierce.
Reading Slaughterhouse 5 was a moving experience for me, and from it, I moved on to Joseph Heller's Catch 22; the irreverence of both of these books, their exposure of the insanity in the heart of so-called civilization, helped restore me to some measure of sanity, and to lift up my spirit and keep me going...helped me shake off a long funk of dark depression and loneliness I was experiencing while living abroad in Germany, and made me feel ok about being an American again. Vonnegut's writing was so...out there, but so damn good. Funny, insane, wild-eyed...yet wracked by self-doubt and self-deprecation, as reflected in Vonnegut's doppelgänger, Kilgore Trout, the washed up science fiction writer. This was Vonnegut's real image of himself, I think--a talentless hack and a failure. It is a tragically sad flaw of so many great men, that they view themselves essentially as failures. Vonnegut was anything but, but no one of this earth could probably have convinced him otherwise.
I have a collection of Vonnegut novels which I've yet to wade through, but I treasure them all the more today. He was a great ally in the cause of human dignity, and human community against the forces of Imperialism, crony Capitalism, technological de-humanization, War, stupidity, and the Powers that Be. He will be sorely missed.
May Libraries across the land institute a READ VONNEGUT month in his Honor!
Kurt Vonnegut Dies at 84
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/04120
By Ron Jacobs
We Join Kilgore Trout In Mourning: Kurt Vonnegut Moves On
Remembering Kurt Vonnegut
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne
The Aggie Librarian read Slaughterhouse 5 while studying abroad and finished it sitting in an outdoor cafe in Dresden, Germany, appropriately enough. While employed at TAMUG, he read the unabridged audiotape edition of Breakfast of Champions or Goodbye, Blue Monday, and loved it. Through the years Aggie Librarian has read Vonnegut's assorted interviews and articles, too, and all that was enough to appreciate the magic and genius of this man. He is truly the 20th Century's Mark Twain reborn, or perhaps its Ambrose Bierce.
Reading Slaughterhouse 5 was a moving experience for me, and from it, I moved on to Joseph Heller's Catch 22; the irreverence of both of these books, their exposure of the insanity in the heart of so-called civilization, helped restore me to some measure of sanity, and to lift up my spirit and keep me going...helped me shake off a long funk of dark depression and loneliness I was experiencing while living abroad in Germany, and made me feel ok about being an American again. Vonnegut's writing was so...out there, but so damn good. Funny, insane, wild-eyed...yet wracked by self-doubt and self-deprecation, as reflected in Vonnegut's doppelgänger, Kilgore Trout, the washed up science fiction writer. This was Vonnegut's real image of himself, I think--a talentless hack and a failure. It is a tragically sad flaw of so many great men, that they view themselves essentially as failures. Vonnegut was anything but, but no one of this earth could probably have convinced him otherwise.
I have a collection of Vonnegut novels which I've yet to wade through, but I treasure them all the more today. He was a great ally in the cause of human dignity, and human community against the forces of Imperialism, crony Capitalism, technological de-humanization, War, stupidity, and the Powers that Be. He will be sorely missed.
May Libraries across the land institute a READ VONNEGUT month in his Honor!
Thursday, April 05, 2007
ACRL's Top Ten, and Aggie Librarian's reaction.
from ALA's web pages:
==========================================================
The ACRL Research Committee developed the top ten assumptions after surveying member leaders and conducting a literature review. A panel representing community and liberal arts colleges, research university libraries, as well as an observer of the higher education environment reacted and commented upon the assumptions at the ACRL National Conference.
===========================================================
So shall I, here, presently.
=======================================================
“These assumptions underscore the dominant roles that technology and consumer expectations are increasingly playing in libraries,” said Pamela Snelson, president, ACRL and college librarian at Franklin and Marshall College. “The underlying trends offer new opportunities for academic libraries and librarians to embrace the future.”
=======================================================
What about opportunities to ENGAGE and SHAPE the FUTURE....?
Anyway, on to the top ten list...
1. There will be an increased emphasis on digitizing collections, preserving digital archives, and improving methods of data storage and retrieval.
...all without much thought given to the consequences of doing so or the propriety of doing so for long term preservation issues, which remain problematic as ever.
2. The skill set for librarians will continue to evolve in response to the needs and expectations of the changing populations (student and faculty) that they serve.
Translation: get high tech, or get the hell out, you book nerds and sentimental reading advocates. Heaven forbid you forget the "customer is always right" and you darn well better obey the unquestioned law of "give 'em what they want".
3. Students and faculty will increasingly demand faster and greater access to services.
And will resent the hell out of anyone who tells them to slow it down and be a bit more reflective and contemplative and maybe engage in some meaningful dialogue.
4. Debates about intellectual property will become increasingly common in higher education.
And will get increasingly ridiculous as Freemarket Fundamentalists continue to try, in the words of the late Bill Hicks, to "stick a fucking dollar sign in front of everything on the goddamn planet."
5. The demand for technology related services will grow and require additional funding.
Perhaps to the point of starving, crowding out low-tech resources, including the human kind, in a mad scramble for an ever smaller slice of funding pie..?
6. Higher education will increasingly view the institution as a business.
Who increasingly pays the piper calls the tune I guess. I for one do NOT view this as a good thing; and moreover this is not a future trend, it's right here, right now. Remember that until the major land-grant institutions, like my Alma Mater, a University education was the exclusive purview of the wealthy and well-to-do upper middle class. History Lesson, Aggies--that's why we call 'em T-sips!! "State" schools have gone from "State funded" to "State supported" to "State-repressed", some would say. Their tuition certainly keeps spiraling upwards and out of the hands of the ordinary citizens of merely ordinary means they were created to serve in the first place.
7. Students will increasingly view themselves as customers and consumers, expecting high quality facilities and services.
You get what you pay for...either collectively or as an individual. Caveat Emptor.
8. Distance learning will be an increasingly common option in higher education and will co-exist but not threaten the traditional bricks-and-mortar model.
At least the digital barbarians have scaled back their ambitions a tad, perhaps. Though part of me says "traditional face-to-face instruction for the wealthy, let the rabble eat the pixels and bytes of online education", which will be the only "education" we permit them by ratcheting up their weekly workloads just to make ends meet.
9. Free, public access to information stemming from publicly funded research will continue to grow.
10. Privacy will continue to be an important issue in librarianship.
You bet it will. Privacy will continue to be an important issue in all facets of human life, but especially in the library context, as it goes so much to the root of our timeless library ethics.
Good luck to all RML's out there who keep passively resisting and fighting the good fight on this one.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Pop-culture break - Frank Miller's "300"
I wasn't sure how I would react to the new Frank Miller film 300 which proports to tell the story of the Battle of Thermopolyae, via the medium of Frank Miller's own graphic novel retelling of this history. This film has been getting pooh-poohed in Left wing circles, so I was predisposed to be wary of it. And on a certain level, yes, to produce the film 300, at this specific moment in our history, with all the overtones to the present moment, at least in obscene Neocon private wet-dream fantasies...makes it at some level a fairly crude propoganda film, that, no doubt, neocons, militarists, and passionate Rightwingers and Cruise Missile Liberals will embrace quite uncritically and praise as their new anthem.
But putting that aside for the moment, and laying aside all the other politically correct sniping of the identity politics crowd, and the "historical accuracy police", and taking 300 on its own merits as cinema, I may damage my Lefty cred in saying so, but I rather enoyed the film...both as an action flick, and as a Foundations of Western Civ object lesson. It gave me a new admiration for the Spartans...not so much from the film itself alone, but from the interest it sparked in me to hit up Wikipedia after I got home and just read and read and read. I may go check out Edith Hamilton's The Greek Way again from Houston Public Library. It taught me that the adjective "Laconic", which I often am myself (and I admire fictional characters who are), stems from a region in Sparta, and it was an personality trait common to Spartans. Socrates also admired the Spartans...their ability to "play dumb", to hide their true wisdom. I've done the same thing periodically in my life, Inspector Colombo style.
For you see, as much as I admire Athens, and the Athenian way, until recently I was all Athens and No Sparta. This was unbalanced. I am getting back in touch with my Spartan past, my unbridled masculinity, love of guns, etc. In Texas universities, we have our version of Athens (UT-Austin) and Sparta (Texas A&M). It's no mistake I wound up at Texas A&M, and my first year there as a freshman in the Corps of Cadets was very much described by the adjective "Spartan"....no frills, ruthlessly utilitarian, harsh, military-life existence. My first semester of my Sophomore year was equally so. A tad more privileged but mostly still pretty Spartan.
Watching the end credits of 300 , with its blackened 3-D silhouettes meant to evoke the images of ancient Greek pottery, it sent chills down my spine. I felt a twinge of pan-Western Civ pride seeing the Greeks--particularly the Spartans--in their iconographic Greek helmets...Not Roman, but distinctly GREEK. The Cradle of Western Civilization, or at least one of its main legs. The Hellenistic and the monotheistic Hebrew heritages are the main superstructure of Western Civilization as we came to know it. I love the wisdom of Socrates/Plato/Aristotle, and the thought of Democritus before them, and the Historian Herodotous, a.k.a. "The Father of History", as understood in the Western Tradition. (and damn, I do love Gyros pita sandwiches too, for that matter). The Spartans were brutal bastards, but the Greek world might well have been wiped out and lost to history were it not for their military prowess.
Neocons will of course wet themselves with mental masturbation over this film, but the analogue to the present simply does not hold true. The Greek story that DOES carry over to the present moment is the story of Alexander of Macedon, aka Alexander The Great, and his eventual over-extention and collapse. Bush & Cheney are trying to one-up ol' Alex, knocking over a lot of the same territory because of the oil resources to be had there. There's also a Greek word worth learning for our present times---HUBRIS.
But to compare Bush's foreign wars and foreign entanglements with the Battle of Thermopolyae and the brave 300 that held that narrow pass against the invasion of Xerxes....that is offensive to their memory. Those were men directly defending their homes, their families, their way of of life. That is NOT what the US Military is doing today, no matter how much GWB may insist it is. No, we are engaged in an ever-expanding Imperialist enterprise, which like Alexander of Macedon, called The Great, and like the later Roman Empire after the fall of the Roman Republic, it is an enterprise that cannot be sustained over the long term.
Some criticize 300 for not accurately portraying the Persian Empire of Xerxes. They point out Xerxes was a short, fat man with a beard. All well and true, but in this celluoid vision of Persia, what is shown is Persia as reflected (and yes, distorted) in the fervid Western Imagination...and in that, 300 succeeds masterfully. It dramatically tells the tragic tale of King Leonidas and his brave 300 Spartan warriors who held the narrow mountain pass at Thermopolyae. It also softens some of the history...the man who survived the battle because he was ordered home by Leonidas to tell the tale of what happened...was in real life condemned as a coward. He did not--as the movie would have it--sustain a war wound which robbed him of an eye--but rather, caught an eye infection that rendered one eye blind. Another man suffered a similar infection, losing sight in both eyes, and he too was ordered by Leonidas back to Sparta, but on the way home he turned back and fought the in the final battle at Thermopalyae and was slain. The surviving man, who obeyed Leonidas's orders, was treated as a coward back in Sparta, but later redeemed himself in the ongoing war against Xerxes, but he was denied honors for valor because he was too recklessly suicidal in his fighting style, which was not the Spartan way, I learned to my surprise, and this humane aspect of the Spartan way I found most heartening, reading it later.
Anyway, I credit 300 with rekindling in me a love and interest for all things Ancient Greek, and that is surely a good thing. If it inspires the same in others, so much the better. It is through the study of "ancient" history that one learns a bit of humility, that, like Ecclesiastes proclaims, there's not much new under the sun...the "profound" ideas one may have in a lifetime you quickly learn were already said by some Greek, some Roman, some Hebrew, or some Egyptian, or some Ancient Chinese man thousands upon thousands of years before you, and said much better than you managed to articulate it yourself.
"Ancient" History, one learns, isn't so ancient after all. A lot of it becomes shockingly "modern", at times, under careful examination. One French writer, Bruno Latour, goes so far as to proclaim "we have never been Modern", as the title of one of his books has it. Michael Parenti's The Assasination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome really brought that home for me very strongly, as have other lecturers on the Classics, who are of recent vintage, recent enough to poke fun at Postmodern pretentions.
Anyway, for all its warts, 300 is a superb film and well worth the full-ticket price I paid for it.
But putting that aside for the moment, and laying aside all the other politically correct sniping of the identity politics crowd, and the "historical accuracy police", and taking 300 on its own merits as cinema, I may damage my Lefty cred in saying so, but I rather enoyed the film...both as an action flick, and as a Foundations of Western Civ object lesson. It gave me a new admiration for the Spartans...not so much from the film itself alone, but from the interest it sparked in me to hit up Wikipedia after I got home and just read and read and read. I may go check out Edith Hamilton's The Greek Way again from Houston Public Library. It taught me that the adjective "Laconic", which I often am myself (and I admire fictional characters who are), stems from a region in Sparta, and it was an personality trait common to Spartans. Socrates also admired the Spartans...their ability to "play dumb", to hide their true wisdom. I've done the same thing periodically in my life, Inspector Colombo style.
For you see, as much as I admire Athens, and the Athenian way, until recently I was all Athens and No Sparta. This was unbalanced. I am getting back in touch with my Spartan past, my unbridled masculinity, love of guns, etc. In Texas universities, we have our version of Athens (UT-Austin) and Sparta (Texas A&M). It's no mistake I wound up at Texas A&M, and my first year there as a freshman in the Corps of Cadets was very much described by the adjective "Spartan"....no frills, ruthlessly utilitarian, harsh, military-life existence. My first semester of my Sophomore year was equally so. A tad more privileged but mostly still pretty Spartan.
Watching the end credits of 300 , with its blackened 3-D silhouettes meant to evoke the images of ancient Greek pottery, it sent chills down my spine. I felt a twinge of pan-Western Civ pride seeing the Greeks--particularly the Spartans--in their iconographic Greek helmets...Not Roman, but distinctly GREEK. The Cradle of Western Civilization, or at least one of its main legs. The Hellenistic and the monotheistic Hebrew heritages are the main superstructure of Western Civilization as we came to know it. I love the wisdom of Socrates/Plato/Aristotle, and the thought of Democritus before them, and the Historian Herodotous, a.k.a. "The Father of History", as understood in the Western Tradition. (and damn, I do love Gyros pita sandwiches too, for that matter). The Spartans were brutal bastards, but the Greek world might well have been wiped out and lost to history were it not for their military prowess.
Neocons will of course wet themselves with mental masturbation over this film, but the analogue to the present simply does not hold true. The Greek story that DOES carry over to the present moment is the story of Alexander of Macedon, aka Alexander The Great, and his eventual over-extention and collapse. Bush & Cheney are trying to one-up ol' Alex, knocking over a lot of the same territory because of the oil resources to be had there. There's also a Greek word worth learning for our present times---HUBRIS.
But to compare Bush's foreign wars and foreign entanglements with the Battle of Thermopolyae and the brave 300 that held that narrow pass against the invasion of Xerxes....that is offensive to their memory. Those were men directly defending their homes, their families, their way of of life. That is NOT what the US Military is doing today, no matter how much GWB may insist it is. No, we are engaged in an ever-expanding Imperialist enterprise, which like Alexander of Macedon, called The Great, and like the later Roman Empire after the fall of the Roman Republic, it is an enterprise that cannot be sustained over the long term.
Some criticize 300 for not accurately portraying the Persian Empire of Xerxes. They point out Xerxes was a short, fat man with a beard. All well and true, but in this celluoid vision of Persia, what is shown is Persia as reflected (and yes, distorted) in the fervid Western Imagination...and in that, 300 succeeds masterfully. It dramatically tells the tragic tale of King Leonidas and his brave 300 Spartan warriors who held the narrow mountain pass at Thermopolyae. It also softens some of the history...the man who survived the battle because he was ordered home by Leonidas to tell the tale of what happened...was in real life condemned as a coward. He did not--as the movie would have it--sustain a war wound which robbed him of an eye--but rather, caught an eye infection that rendered one eye blind. Another man suffered a similar infection, losing sight in both eyes, and he too was ordered by Leonidas back to Sparta, but on the way home he turned back and fought the in the final battle at Thermopalyae and was slain. The surviving man, who obeyed Leonidas's orders, was treated as a coward back in Sparta, but later redeemed himself in the ongoing war against Xerxes, but he was denied honors for valor because he was too recklessly suicidal in his fighting style, which was not the Spartan way, I learned to my surprise, and this humane aspect of the Spartan way I found most heartening, reading it later.
Anyway, I credit 300 with rekindling in me a love and interest for all things Ancient Greek, and that is surely a good thing. If it inspires the same in others, so much the better. It is through the study of "ancient" history that one learns a bit of humility, that, like Ecclesiastes proclaims, there's not much new under the sun...the "profound" ideas one may have in a lifetime you quickly learn were already said by some Greek, some Roman, some Hebrew, or some Egyptian, or some Ancient Chinese man thousands upon thousands of years before you, and said much better than you managed to articulate it yourself.
"Ancient" History, one learns, isn't so ancient after all. A lot of it becomes shockingly "modern", at times, under careful examination. One French writer, Bruno Latour, goes so far as to proclaim "we have never been Modern", as the title of one of his books has it. Michael Parenti's The Assasination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome really brought that home for me very strongly, as have other lecturers on the Classics, who are of recent vintage, recent enough to poke fun at Postmodern pretentions.
Anyway, for all its warts, 300 is a superb film and well worth the full-ticket price I paid for it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)