Name (& subject) authority work in E-books

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

Inquiring minds want to know.

Unfocused Bibliographic Rant

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

Comment to a like-minded colleague...

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

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

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

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

>static."

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

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

Or "Let them eat wikis..."

then this one; quote first, then comment

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

From: AUTOCAT On Behalf Of [X]

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

To: AUTOCAT

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

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

excellent recommendation of the Working Group to "Redefine the Bibliographic

Universe" to include all potential partners who create bibliographic

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

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

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

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

databases.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Names above have been disguised to protect the misguided.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TLA impressions

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

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

Brief quotation then comment on the original thread:

an AUTOCATTER opined recently that:

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

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

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

> difficult our work is but never really being believed.

To which I began my reply...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recent Campus Non-Event

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

"This is a bit shocking to me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Professor Y was right to point out:

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

Right you are, Professor. Thanks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, a senior faculty member weighed in next:

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

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

Dr. Q."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let us remember a few things:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts on Student Plagiarism

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

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

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

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

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

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

Denton blues

Just a quick update...I had lost my password, been busy with work, found out my Ex not only lives in the same stinkin' town, but is now studying Library Science at the same place where I work (I must've inspired her, who knew?), and she's joined the same activist librarian organization that I sit on as a member of its coordinating committee; It's an organization dedicated to a Left/Progressive worldview, which is ironic since I know my Ex is NOT a Leftist, Progressive, or anything like that. She is anti-war, and doesn't like Bush, but that's not saying much these days. Her world view is probably somewhere between Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. Maybe she's changed, but I'll never be convinced.

Anyway, I'm blogging from a hotspot downtown because my wireless network at home is acting screwy and won't stay connected for more than a few minutes--if that. This is still an improvement over yesterday, where it was completely offline...even if I brought the stupid laptop into the same room as the slow-as-molasses, crappy E-machines desktop I use as my "hub".

I'm exhausted, but I can't sleep thanks to the Diet Coke I drank to give me energy to keep fiddling with my home network, which I gave up on. I have a date with the Linksys guys this weekend, when I can devote time to it.

The cataloging gig is going well...still need to read the latest Thomas Mann critique of the Working Group Report on the Future of Bibliographic Control. I am a strong supporter of Mann, and look forward to his latest critique. It has generated a lot of AUTOCAT and RADCAT traffic, to be sure. In the meantime, I continue the quiet tradition of subversive cataloging founded by Sandy Berman...enhancing shared records with additional subject access not found on OCLC, but relevant to the work in hand as a finding aid.

Berman was/is a lot more braver than I'll ever be--but he was an inspiration to me in Library school and still is in my professional life.

Anyway, I feel badly about posting so infrequently. I had an idea for a post about a month ago but never got around to it. Will try to do better. Signing off for now.

From Umployed to Newly Employed

As I alluded to in my last post, I've gone from being unemployed to being newly employed. I now work for a slightly larger academic library in the greater DFW Metroplex. I'm still in Texas, but a long ways from my native Houston. Houston's still where my heart is, and my long term plans now include a triumphal return to Houston, to one day finally land the cushy, prestigious Librarian gig at either Rice University or the University of Houston, that have thusfar eluded me at every turn.

My current objective therefore is to excel in the new job and gain enough valuable and varied work experience in my new Library to make myself attractive to bigger and better universities in Texas or elsewhere.

It was with some trepidation that I continued applying for cataloging positions alongside Reference jobs. And yes, this new job is a cataloging job, too. But it is ONLY cataloging, not Tech Services Librarian as before. So the scope of my responsibilities is somewhat more narrow. And what a difference a dedicated Library I.T. staff makes!! Yes, I am dealing with the same Voyager ILS as before at TAMUG, but this time, the damn thing WORKS! and when it DOENS'T, I have people who actually know how to MAKE it work, so I can get back to doing my job. There is admittedly a lot of overlap with my 2 copy-catalogers, as I do my fair share of the copy cataloging as well. But now that I am on the scene, all original cataloging shifts to me, and I have already done some, which was kind of a rush! I've even gotten to handle a Russian book and a German book! Pretty neat! I'm told that there will be music scores and other odder stuff on its way to me soon, all of which fills me with further trepidation but all of them are just good learning experiences, too. If I actually get to be any good at music cataloging, that would be a rare set of skills to acquire and should serve me well in future job search pitches.

I also answered a cataloging question from the Circulation desk about AUDN codes in MARC denoting the intended audience of a particular work. Since the institution of higher learning whose library I work in serves in part to train new teachers, it has a substantial children's collection in the lower level, so this particular fixed field in a MARC record becomes pretty important. The CIRC person was not familiar with it and was most thankful to me for pointing it out to her. It all boils down to cataloger judgment, of course, so let's hope most of the copy cataloging we download from OCLC for kids books first received their original cataloging from a school librarian cataloger who is conscientious enough to fill out the AUDN fixed field with care and due thought given to the audience beyond "blank" or "juvenile".

I'm still a little unsure of myself, but I have my copy of AACR2,R2 close by, and OCLC's BibFormats page (which I like the layout of better than LOC's MARC21 pages) is saved as a favorite in my Firefox browser, while I use IE to open the browser-based version of OCLC's main bibliographic Connexion database. I also downloaded the latest version of IE with tabs so I can open LC's Classification Web next to the OCLC Connexion display.

I'm planning to get on the Saturday rotation for the Reference Desk. I'm fortunate to now have a library job that affords me to the opportunity to do this, so I can get my feet wet in Public Services work while learning cataloging in depth, on the job.

A lot of my initial anxiety has gone away after having realized that our local iteration of Voyager actually works and would not be the bane of my existence. Also, I'm not nearly as obsessed with the collection and collection development here as I was back at TAMUG. It's in the hands of a team of dedicated professionals and sufficiently broad in scope to not overly pique my interest unduly.

I'm writing this in Houston, but will return back to the Metroplex after the MLK holiday.

It's too early on to speculate on future jobs, but the long-term game plan is still to work for Rice University or UH back here in Houston, either in cataloging or reference. It's a worthy goal, something new on the horizon to strive for, which I believe we all need ahead of us lest we get listless and bored. The concrete things I can do to realize these long term goals is to learn as much as I can on my current job, especially the "hard" cataloging of "strange" materials like musical scores, maps, etc. There's no point in running away from "hard" cataloging tasks, you have to jump right in there and do them, and learn. Easy to say, potentially terrifying in real life, but probably nothing really worth doing is ever easy, right?

I don't know how often I will keep this blog updated now that I am actually working again. We'll just have to see.

Musings on reading & personal reading experiences.

Fair warning, this blog post today is not a scholarly treatise. It is a semi-focused bibliophile’s rant, railing against yet another assault on the sacred preserve of reading, especially the reading habits of children. I originally composed this in December, before I moved back up to the greater DFW Metroplex area to start my new library job. (more on that later).

During most Decembers growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, family vacations to visit the grandparents, aunts and uncles still living in Missouri were a regular occurrence.

My first 9 years of life I grew up in and around Columbia, South Carolina, and we trekked to Oran, Missouri, home of my maternal grandmother. It was never cold enough to snow (that nearly always came to Missouri AFTER Christmas, to my perennial childhood disappointment), but it did sometimes rain and sleet, and if we were really lucky, we got the Faux-White Christmas of lots of frost on the rolling hills of farmland up around Caledonia, Missouri near my paternal grandmother’s place. If you squinted and used your imagination you could BS yourself into believing it was snow. I think I experienced a genuine white Christmas, with actual snow on the ground that accumulated, maybe ONCE my entire childhood.

When I visited my maternal grandmother, I at least had cousins my own age to play with. But at my paternal grandparents, no such luck. Mostly a lot of adults having boring conversations that, as a kid, I couldn’t stand. I would sneak off to my guest room in the attic and curl up with a good book. I remember I once read one of Tom Clancy’s books…one of the ones not long after The Hunt For Red October…from cover to cover the whole night through, just could not put it down. My elbows ached from propping up in bed reading. So I’d switch positions until I got uncomfortable again.

I read so much on family vacations…in later years, as a grad student on winter break, I read more mature stuff like a book on the Vienna of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s day, or a biography of Arthur Schopenhauer.

We’d always start our trips in the wee hours of the morning, before sunrise, “to beat the traffic”, my dad always said. Usually I’d drift off back to sleep in the back seat. Then I’d awaken with the morning sun streaming in the car’s windows. Before long we’d stop for breakfast and when I came of age, had to do my own fair share of the driving before turning the car back over to mom and dad after lunch.

On those stretches of road where I was passenger rather than driver, my head was usually buried in a book. I read the whole Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series that way, much to the annoyance of my parents, who couldn’t understand why I was erupting into irrepressible belly laughter every few miles or so. They learned to dread buying me FAR SIDE comic book compilations for the same reason, too. My mom was one of those people who could just never “get” Gary Larson’s FAR SIDE; Her funny bone just wasn’t in tune with Larson’s bizarre thought patterns the way mine was and still is.

Sometimes I’d listen to music when driving, sometimes as a passenger in the front seat, sometimes there would be a good NPR program on that was worth listening to, but mostly unless I was behind the wheel, I’d read.

I look around me today, though, at contemporary children sitting in their parent’s SUVs, their eyes glued to smallish TV monitors built into the back of their parent’s front row car seats, watching the latest Disney animated epic, or playing video games or what have you. Sure, in my day, sometimes played hand-held digital football and digital baseball, even digital space-invaders, but these seldom held my attention for very long and I was usually back reading a book again before too long. But kids today don’t have a chance. Even if they wanted to, the lure of the screen is probably too much. Their attention span is shot, even shorter than in my day, and like their parents themselves, they’re deathly afraid of boredom—and without the joy of reading, or productive yet rewarding physical labor, or physical play, boredom can loom as a palpable threat.

A typical child today can ride with mommy and daddy from Texas to California and not once crack a book, I’ll bet. I can only hope that maybe the charm wears off, that one can only watch the Lion King and the rest of the Disney favorites on DVD only SO many times, one can win the hardest Call of Duty missions or Fantasy Superbowls only so often, before boredom creeps back in and the attractive cover of a book beckons. But this is way stiffer competition for books than the admittedly crappy handheld digital football & baseball old school electronic games of my day.

I just marvel at how much of my childhood, adolescent and young adult reading got done on the open road, or during the lulls in family get-togethers, either in Missouri or at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where one summer at a family reunion I finished a used copy of Journalist Hendrick Smith’s non-fiction personal narrative titled THE RUSSIANS, about the Russian people and his reflections as a journalist assigned to Moscow during the Soviet era. It was a tad out of date (his sequel, dealing with the Yeltsin era, THE NEW RUSSIANS, had already been published), but still an important piece of living history to read.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve taken one (of many) of Neil Postman’s cautions to heart, namely that eventually it becomes just as important to decide what NOT to read, what one can duly ignore without detriment, as it does to decide what one will take time to read. The bibliographic universe, just like the physical universe it exists in, is so mind-bogglingly huge it really is quite difficult to appreciate at first just how large it is, what its contours are, etc. It eventually teaches the folly of thinking one can read everything there is on a given subject; That may have been possible for the 18^th Century scholarly gentleman, but it is no longer the case in our time. Reading and the production of professional texts has become too massive in scale to ever make it possible to read every last jot and tittle on a particular subject. You do what you can. The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the over-examined life is not lived. And what value is reading after a certain point if one doesn’t share what one reads, discuss what one read and what one got out of the experience? On the one hand the act of reading is a profoundly anti-social activity and yet can foster the deepest communities of interest, etc.

In relationships, it doesn’t matter if your partner also loves to read or not; that’s irrelevant, so not the point. The point is, are they able to keep themselves sufficiently entertained without resentment while you indulge your reading addiction. They may love books as much or more than you…but if they’re emotionally needy, none of that will matter and you will raise their ire immediately if you put a book in front of your nose and between your nose and theirs. They will never want to read when you do, however much you may encourage that. No, mutual love of books is wholly insufficient to keep a reading life going while in relationship. I hope I never finish another book in the same way that I finished Peter Sack’s Standardized Minds, namely cramming in a page here, a page there when my then wife went to the ladies room or took a shower without me (which was rare in itself), covertly putting the book away when she’d come back into the bedroom. It was crazy, no way to nurture a reading life. More of a measure of desperation, sort of keeping one’s reading life on crucial life support to keep it from dying out altogether, hoping someday it shall awaken once more from the coma it inadvertently slipped into. I did finish the book, though, and felt some smug satisfaction at having done so. It was one among a number of twisted little passive-aggressive emotional wargames we played with each other until the marriage broke up.

These days, people will examine my casual reading and ask “is that for a class?”, as if reading has instrumental value only; But this question is still better than one I have actually received… “Why are you reading?” Not, “What are you reading”, no, but “why”. I usually ignore the question, since anyone dumb enough to ask it is usually someone I want nothing further to do with.

I'm fortunate to have found work with a slightly larger academic library than TAMUG's, actually, as I'm able to continue my refined reading habits, most of which are seldom satisfied by the average public library fare. I can learn to make due, but much of what I like to read is of scholarly interest and too narrowly focus to fit within the collection development plans of the typical public library. Luckily one of the perks of my job is that I now have borrowing privileges again, and for the entire semester to boot, unlike at Rice U, where I had a mere month as a Friend of the Fondren Library. Since I no longer live in Houston, I've let my membership expire in that particular Library Friends' organization.

I've managed to finish a couple of new books and may or may not post a review soon. One of them was Joe Bageant's Deer Hunting with Jesus, which was a very good book, somewhat reminiscent of What's the Matter with Kansas, but told in first person, by Joe, moving back to the native rural Virginia of his youth after a full and colorful adult life lived elsewhere. The book is an attempt to come to terms with the contrasting working class consciousness's of Bageant himself and those of his neighbors and classmates who stayed behind in Virginia while Joe saw the world and got enlightened. Like I said, good book, but thoroughly and relentlessly depressing. The Empire has plenty of ripe fodder; fascism depends on the incurious who don't want to be bothered to think for themselves, prefer patriotic pieties to reasoned discourse, etc.

Bageant ties so much of this to the Scots-Irish (Ulster Scots, Borderers as they are otherwise called) immigrant heritage of America. Back in Ulster, their ancestors were the Bulwark of Empire then, too. Warlike, deeply religious, heavy drinkers, those who treat personal subjective political opinion as some kind of inviolate political high truth, as long as it "sounds right", and they're utterly resistant to any egg-headed investigation into the facts that might move them from "sounding right" to actually being more certain. Doesn't matter. I don't know how true this is, but Bageant's thesis is certainly provocative. Makes me glad, moreover, to be straight Scots (with some German intermarriage), and not Scots-Irish. I am a native Southerner, but through reading and education and life experiences have come to repudiate so much of unreconstructed White, Southern heritage and worldview.

At least I'm living close to a old friend who hails from California (UC Berkeley alumnus), we agree on nearly everything except guns (I am a TEXAN, after all).

Waffenrecht ist Menschenrecht

Some news: I recently interviewed face-to-face for a cataloger position at the Blagg-Huey Library of Texas Woman’s University, having been invited after doing well on a telephone interview with them a few weeks prior. I felt ambivalent driving up to Denton, Texas again, having fled Denton in the wake of an ugly, dissolving marriage on the rocks and eventual divorce, all while struggling to finish the rest of my MLS degree online. I got to stay in a historic home that was donated to TWU by a deceased faculty member and is now used as a guest house and presumably for swanky university-related shindigs and the like. The interview went ok, I guess, though I was probably less passionate than I was at the University of South Carolina earlier this year, and the lunchtime conversation had precious little to do with Libraries, whereas at the University of South Carolina, most of my formal meals with library staffers involved polite discussions of professional issues, past library work experiences, etc. It felt very collegial.

By contrast, the whole interview process with TWU struck me as a good deal less structured, less formal. I know the main reason I’m even being considered at all is that I have hands-on (albeit limited) experience with the Voyager ILS, and I also have the one EndUser Conference 2006 under my belt as well. It puts me one length ahead of both fresh out of library school candidates and also ahead of more experienced librarians who are familiar with other ILS’s besides Voyager and would have to play catch up to reach where I am with Voyager, at least in theory. I am wary of being once again the only MLS in the Cataloging side of things, though this time if hired I’d have 2 experienced copy catalogers, one of them with many years of experience, including with original cataloging under her belt. I would not be completely alone, the director reassured. Again, my ideal set up in a first library job would be in a larger department with co-equal co-workers I could turn to first, and bosses with a cataloging background. The head of Tech Services does at least have cataloging experience, though her emphasis, career-wise, has been with the acquisitions side of Tech Services operations, which is probably common for Tech Services administrators.

I may get offered the TWU position, I may not; if not it would not be the end of the world; If I was offered it, I’d probably accept, but I’d surely miss metro Houston, and though I find Denton ok, I make no secret of my distinct loathing of the greater DFW metroplex just down the road a ways.

Anyway, to kill time on the long drive up to Dallas, I had the good fortune to read the audio-book version of this book:

That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right (Independent Studies in Political Economy) (Paperback)
by Stephen P. Halbrook (Author)

· Paperback: 275 pages

· Publisher: Independent Institute (March 1, 1994)

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 0945999380

· ISBN-13: 978-0945999386

The audio-book format I best enjoy when making those long commutes between Houston and Dallas. Halbrook demonstrates a very high level of erudition, especially in his marshaling of historical evidence for the intellectual history of the right to keep and bear arms, which Halbrook irrefutably demonstrates was always understood first and foremost as a natural right of self-defense pre-dating the US Constitution and merely recognized implicitly by the 2nd Amendment. He demonstrates the origin of the term "a well-regulated militia" as denoting the whole of the populace, armed against aggression, tyranny, and usurpation, either against criminal elements seeking to do harm to the individual, or to repel a foreign invasion. Indeed, in earlier drafts of what was to become the 2nd Amendment, it was more explicitly defined "a well regulated militia, consisting of the whole body of the people", which was later (regrettably, I think) deleted from the 2nd Amendment merely for brevity's sake, though in hindsight this was probably a mistake as later generations (and regrettably some ill-informed courts) have misunderstood the truncated version and made much mischief on its account. But in the framer's day there was no mistake about what "a well-regulated militia" (regulated in this sense meaning well-trained/drilled/proficient in the use of arms, incidentally, not ‘regulated’ as we understand that term today in usual political discussions such as EPA regulations, FDA regulations, etc), what this distinct whole phrase, actually meant--it meant the whole populace of the country, as opposed to a standing army; It also emphatically did not mean what the framers identified as a “select militia” like the National Guard, which they described as being staffed by an over-reliance on younger men without property or other gainful employment, e.g. without much else to do but train for military service, even if only part time, and in the process making the shopkeepers, prosperous gentleman farmers, etc, disinclined to military exercise--this probable outcome was also (rightly) regarded by the Framers as really little better than a professional standing army and just as much a threat to Liberty. So these Constitutional Framers, in contradiction to contemporary gun-rights critics and pushers of crackpot “collective rights” theories, most emphatically did NOT mean "something like the National Guard", as the anti-rights crowd would have it; That sort of specialized, select 'militia' was, in fact, explicitly rejected.

Admittedly the writing can tend to be a little bit dry, and it is a tough slog to work your way through this book, even in the audio-book format, but at least it forces you to keep moving forward at an even clip. I had initially started this book in paperback form, but found I had to switch to audio-book if I was ever going to finish it, as a way of forcing myself through the material, thanks to the aforementioned lengthy business trip to the North Texas region. It was ultimately totally worth it, and I'm glad to have the paperback as a reference work to refer back to later. As others have stated, this work is the definitive intellectual history of the origins of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution and its subsequent legal history.

My feeling is, this ought not be a partisan, left-versus-right issue; I agree wholeheartedly with Halbrook here and yet I'm a libertarian Socialist and anti-capitalist Green. Halbrook agrees, incidentally, in the last chapter, citing, among others, the Black Panther Party (for that matter, he could have also cited the Weather Underground. Moreover, some hippies living in poorer urban areas did in fact carry guns for self-defense, their opposition to the Vietnam War notwithstanding)

No, it's a human rights issue that was clearly understood and accepted until roughly the late 1960s and 1970s, when a few poorly reasoned court decisions were made, and some very bad public policy, such as DC's gun ban; The reason the DC gun-ban was shot down recently by the DC Circuit Court is because the anti-gun argument is built on a house of cards and ought to be struck down, and I am hopeful that the Supreme Court will agree with the lower court ruling in this matter. A good ruling there will lay the groundwork for overturning the most restrictive bans in Chicago, Illinois, and then later the only slightly less ridiculous regulatory environment of New York City and San Francisco and Baltimore. Once we move onward from the DC case, future arguments will be able to push for “incorporation”, via the 14^th Amendment, and make the Second Amendment the law of the land, keeping our self-defense gun rights safe not only from Federal Infringement but also from more local tyrants in our State capitals and behind the walls of City Hall.

The most interesting part of Halbrook's work is the ambivalence he highlights about the legal opinion of the status of concealed weaponry.

It has something to do with the nature and mindset of 19th Century society, I think, where open carry was preferred to concealed carry...Open carry was "manly" while concealed carry was "dastardly", "underhanded", etc. As a Modern, I do not share these opinions, and some courts have not either, but others have. I think Concealed Carry has been a boon for reducing crime everywhere it's been enacted into law in our day, and it actually serves as a better deterrent than open carry, since anyone, even women and the elderly, could potentially be carrying concealed. Halbrook seems to conclude that more and more courts are viewing concealed carry as protected by the 2nd Amendment. Concealed carry licensing should in point of fact not even be necessary--the 2nd Amendment (via “incorporation” through the 14th Amendment) should suffice country-wide--but we're sadly a long way away from that state of affairs, though the upcoming DC case is the proverbial crack in the gun-ban dam.

Honestly, what’s refreshing about this book is that it becomes plainly clear that you don't have to be a right-wing ideologue to be pro-RKBA. You don't have to accept our sucky for-profit health care system to be pro-RKBA. You don't have to be an asinine global warming skeptic to be pro-RKBA. You don't have to be anti-union or anti-abortion to be pro-RKBA. You just have to have a respect for the American legal tradition, understand what the lessons of history actually say, and understand that the right of self-defense pre-exists any constitution, as it is a fundamental human right that is merely recognized by the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.

My fellow Leftists who ARE anti-RKBA ought to read a little more history, because it should make them ashamed of the very racist roots of nearly all gun-control legislation, both in the 19th century--and in the 20th. As recently as the JFK administration, JFK, a northern liberal Democrat, would’ve most closely associated gun control proposals with Jim Crow laws.

There are Democrats, Greens, even Anarcho-Syndicalist Socialists who are quite proud to be pro-RKBA.

My recommendation is to read this book, learn the history, and if you find it compelling, learn to just say no to anti-gun policies and those who would disarm us. As a once and future Academic Librarian, do I support Concealed Carry on Campus? You bet I do. For students as well as faculty and staff. Including the Library itself, including on the job, whether working reference, or at one’s cubicle in tech services, or managing circulation.

Recently I’ve been doing a good bit of browsing on right-to-keep-and-bear-arms (hereafter rkba) issues. Superficial in depth, perhaps, but, I hope, respectably broad in scope. I am an internationalist at heart; I can’t not be. It’s in my blood.

most US gun-rights advocates (and, I would argue, their detractors, too) tend to keep narrowly focused on the issues in the USA, to argue about the original intent of the 2^nd Amendment, etc This is completely understandable, as the most immediate fight is here on our own soil. The anti-gun/pro-control crowd likes to pride itself on being more worldly, more “international”, citing firearms restrictions in other countries. But in fact, as with the facts domestically, they do so dishonestly. In fact, crime in the United Kindom and Australia have gone up since the imposition of their draconian gun control laws. An honest examination of the true international RBKA struggle puts things in a much different light.

I wanted to know for myself if there were Europeans who take a pro-RKBA stance, or are the all hopelessly anti-gun zombies who will always ridicule “American gun culture”. If I may indulge in a long aside that is slightly off-topic, I remember once, for example, how shocked I was indeed to meet a pro-death penalty Canadian (Canada doesn’t have a death penalty anymore). I’ve gone back and forth on this issue myself over the years. I’ve argued against the death penalty on moral grounds, then more narrowly on more conservative, financial, cost-prohibitive grounds, and there is still a lot to give one pause when one considers whether or not American juries generally are really fair with equal application of the penalty regardless of the race of the defendant. I would agree that the evidence suggests they’re not able to apply the penalty fairly and impartially, and it’s an ongoing problem in our society. But just when I’ve about made up my mind to be opposed to the death penalty completely, some ultra-violent scumbag will lower the bar yet again and commit a string of crimes so heinous, with such wanton disregard for his fellow human beings that I want justice done, and that state execution of such a heinous individual is the only way to adequately serve justice. Vengeance wrong, you say? I don’t give a shit. The Canadian I met had gone through much the same thought processes and arrived at the same conclusion I did. She felt Canada needed to restore the death penalty, at least for the most heinous crimes.

Returning to the gun-rights issue again, there are fortunately other Canadians, too, who know full well what draconian gun laws like the UK have done for the UK, and would do for Canada if they adopted that course, and they don’t like it one bit. They already chafe at what successive Liberal governments in Ottowa have done to wreck gun-rights in the Dominion of Canada. Many are, as you would probably expect, from Western Canada, where the National Firearms Association (www.nfa.ca) is headquartered, in Edmonton, Alberta. Alberta is widely regarded as the “Texas” of Canada, for those who don’t know. What even Western Canadians (who can be a bit too francophobic, for my tastes) also possibly don’t know is that they have an ally in a fiercely independent minded Quebecois professor who is pro-RKBA named Pierre Lemieux who hosts a personal/political website at http://www.pierrelemieux.org/index.html . Professor Lemieux (not to be confused with conservative MP Pierre Lemieux, btw) has rather anarchist/libertarian views and is quite vehemently pro-RKBA.

He’s even written some provocative books on the subject in French:

Le droit de porter des armes (Broché)
de Pierre Lemieux (Auteur)

· Broché: 244 pages

· Editeur : Belles Lettres (8 octobre 1993)

· Collection : Iconoclastes

· Langue : Français

· ISBN-10: 2251390200

· ISBN-13: 978-2251390208

http://www.amazon.fr/droit-porter-armes-Pierre-Lemieux/dp/2251390200/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195012476&sr=1-9

This book tackles RKBA head on and argues for gun rights and provides a philosophical defense for the right of self-defense.

His later book is a more generalized political rant, from a proud Quebecois viewpoint, but it also looks quite fun to read:

Confessions d un Coureur des Bois Hors la Loi (Broché)

by Pierre Lemieux (Author)

· Paperback: 160 pages

· Publisher: Varia (2001)

· Language: French

· ISBN-10: 2922245616

· ISBN-13: 978-2922245615

http://www.amazon.ca/Confessions-coureur-bois-hors-loi/dp/2922245616/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195012741&sr=8-2

Canadian awareness is growing and there is also an activist site of note to be found at www.rkba.ca

The Germans are becoming slowly aware of the RKBA issue, too. I am reading on German blogs and internet forums a growing dissatisfaction with strict gun control and a realization that it does not reduce criminal activity but merely disarms law-abiding citizens. There are and always have been various shooting clubs and shooting societies in Germany and Austria, but none seem to be quite so directly politically engaged as the new Forum Waffenrecht, which tackles the issue head on. They are on the web at http://www.fwr.de ; I joined their discussion board to learn, to meet Germans who care about RKBA as much as I do, and, of course, to practice my German reading comprehension.

The Austrians, too, are becoming aware of RKBA and have even created their own pro-RKBA political organization dedicated to a liberalization of Austria’s gun laws. It is called the Interessengemeinschaft Liberales Waffenrecht in Österreich (ILWÖ for short), or the “Special Interest Group for Liberalized Gun Rights in Austria”, which is quite a mouthful but at least their URL is short and sweet and and can be found on the web here: http://www.iwoe.at/

They have the right idea:

The Swiss, by contrast, have always been way ahead of both Germany and Austria when it comes to gun rights, are widely admired by RBKA advocates worldwide, so I need not talk of the Swiss very much, other than to note in passing that Stephen Halbrook has written a few books about them:

SWISS AND THE NAZIS: How the Alpine Republic Survived in the Shadow of the Third Reich (Hardcover)
by Stephen Halbrook (Author)

· Hardcover: 256 pages

· Publisher: Casemate (May 2006)

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 1932033424

· ISBN-13: 978-1932033427

· Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches

Target Switzerland (Paperback)
by Stephen P. Halbrook (Author), Alex Van Buren (Editor)

· Paperback: 352 pages

· Publisher: Da Capo (December 1, 2003)

· Language: English

· ISBN-10: 0306813254

· ISBN-13: 978-0306813252

· Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches

Have not read either work, though browsing the critiques on Amazon.com, I’d hazard to guess that in his emphasis to stress Swiss armed citizenry as a deterrent to the Nazi war machine, he possibly downplays other relevant factors like Swiss geography and its difficult mountainous terrain (something the USSR mostly lacked, but proved quite a stumbling block in Greece and Yugoslavia for the Nazi Wehrmacht) and their lack of abundant strategic natural resources. The conquest of Switzerland simply wasn’t worth it. Also, there was some Swiss complicity with the Third Reich, at least in the early stages of the war, and they were less than welcoming to all who fled the rising Nazi tyranny.

In any case, “Waffenrecht ist Meschenrecht”, to paraphrase somewhat Oleg Volk’s favorite slogan into proper German. Germans and Austrians are beginning to become somewhat aware of this. Gun control laws in Germany also have racist roots in so far as Jews were the target of disarmament legislation.

RKBA has a much longer way to go in the Spanish-speaking world, I think, but I did discover a few blogs out there that strike a pro-RKBA note; Most notably was this Argentine blog:

En Defensa Propia : Contra Las Armas Illegales y el Desarme Civil (In Self Defense: Against Illegal Arms and Against Civilian Disarmament)

http://endefensapropia.blogspot.com/

This Venezuelan blog, El Liberal Venezolano, also has an archived post directly addressing a pro-RKBA position, “Sobre el derecho a portar armas” :

http://liberal-venezolano.net/blog/index/2005/11/22/sobre_el_derecho_a_portar_armas

One individual has even put together a website containing an international directory of pro-RKBA groups, which is quite impressive and can be found here: http://www.afn.org/~afn18566/

What’s interesting for me in all of these blogs, forums, and websites of these individuals and social organizations is how these people in other countries, who don’t have the good fortune that we do to simply make direct reference to the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, have to go about defending the pro-RKBA position based on fundamental concepts of human rights and a right to self-defense. All of which exist in every human being prior to the US Constitution as a natural right, which the US Constitution merely affirms and guarantees. It also has a basis in English common law, and some Englishmen today are once again becoming aware of this and speaking out; see the website of The Great British Gun Ban Con, for example: http://members.aol.com/gunbancon/Main.html

The English experience was also tainted by sectarian prejudices against its minority Catholic population whom it only reluctantly, over time, came to trust with the possession of firearms. Similarly, the roots of modern gun control in the United States have very racist roots in the post-Civil War period of Jim Crow and the rise of the KKK. It took awhile for both societies to come to their better natures and recognize this fundamental human right as applying to all, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, etc, which is why RKBA is too important to be left only to the traditional Conservative base which foams at the mouth when “God, Guns and Gays” is invoked.

No, like it or not, my US Republican friends, you NEED folks like Pink Pistols (http://www.pinkpistols.org/ ), LiberalsWithGuns ( http://liberalswithguns.com/index.html ), and ProGun Progressive (http://progunprogressive.com/ ) on your side in the RKBA fight. This fight is bigger than your parochial conservative movement. Shit, I’m unabashedly an anarcho-socialist, and a ecological anti-capitalist Green and yet I’m pro-RKBA to the hilt.

Why? How can I maintain that? Because it’s about freedom, it’s about standing up for the common man. The wealthy will always have guns, regardless what the law says, just as women of wealth will always have access to abortion, even if it’s outlawed in the USA. RKBA is completely consistent with Left/Populist value systems if you analyze deeply enough and accept the facts and what is reasonable to conclude from the facts rather than engaging in wishful thinking. One statement made recently by “Lenin” of the UK blog Lenin’s Tomb I must say I especially love…basically to the effect that the Socialist struggle is the unflinching, gritty Realpolitik of the poor. And an unflinching, gritty Realpolitik of the poor and dispossessed must of necessity be pro-RKBA. Anyone remember the Ludlow Massacre? Anyone?

It’s inadequate, as libertarians and American conservatives to rail wholesale against “big gubmint” as an undifferentiated bogey-man. Rather, we ought to worry, truly, about the shadowy National Security State pulling the strings and serving higher interests, the real ruling classes, just behind the elected, visible government and its agencies and bureaucracies. It’s not enough for the people to seize the reigns of the visible, elected government. Former Chilean president Salvador Allende had done that; it wasn’t enough—and he learned that lesson a little too late to save his life.

If you’re going to talk like Mao, you better be willing to fight like Mao. The working class can’t resist counter-revolutionary, fascist backlash if it is disarmed. QED,

No, these are the kind of Dark Alliances that can bring about a Waco massacre, or lend the high yield stuff that really made OKC go “bang” in 1994. BATFE and the IRS are merely pawns…JBTs to be sure, but lower order terrors compared to false flag black ops that have no name. No Such Agency. Area 51. FEMA not being quite all it seems. REX 84. Central Intelligence Agency, Drugs, that “Mena airport thing” with related “train deaths”, the Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, et. al. This is why I read activist Stan Goff’s books and blog, why I subscribed to Michael Ruppert’s From the Wilderness newsletter for over a year, and why I also keep and maintain a couple of SKS rifles, and a WASR-10. It makes you consider that IANSA ( http://www.iansa.org/ ) is not just some UN-based example of muddle-headed political correctness run amok, but rather more probably a politically correct sugar coating hiding a darker counter-insurgency / neocolonialist / neoimperialist disarmament agenda of trans-national elites.

Maybe you’ve heard of the book about Black Box voting. Good start but you don’t know the half of it until you see Daniel Hopsicker’s investigations—uncovering mob/organized crime connections to these shadowy corporations and their holding companies literally controlling our vote.

When you understand just how despotic the National Security State is, what it’s capable of, get the collusion between organized crime and the Intelligence community, and take to heart Ike’s warning about the military industrial complex, and the writings of Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, and use all that as a touchstone for understanding what really happened in Dallas on 22 NOV 1963, and on the morning of 09/11/01, it makes you pro RKBA to the hilt.

Incidentally, the mob loves gun control and many former gangsters have penned rather sardonic commentary on their opinion of gun control legislation. Makes their own work—preying on the innocent—so much easier.

My contention remains that you don’t have to swallow a lot of right-wing crap to support RKBA. You can be a genuine progressive, against the war, for national health care, pro women’s right to choose abortion, pro civil rights for homosexuals to marry, etc, and *still* be pro-RKBA. Being pro-RKBA doesn’t entail supporting a lot of unrelated, odious crap you might strongly object to.

I say again this isn’t a Right versus Left issue (though it may be a Top [anti] versus Bottom [pro-RKBA] one). It’s most profoundly a human rights issue, as Oleg Volk contends and I agree.

Not that it’s necessarily easy to maintain a pro-RKBA stance in more mainstream Leftwing circles, even in Library circles, but it is necessary. Sometimes maybe I’m in the closet on this issue among fellow Left-leaning Library friends, but I’m working on the “coming out pro-RBKA” part. It’s also necessary for traditional libertarian & conservative RKBA advocates to acknowledge they do have allies across the aisle on this one issue of vital importance, because facts and reason bear out the pro-RKBA position.

Granted, most of the foreign sources I have quoted here are of a Libertarian or traditional Conservative bent. Most pro-RBKA voices in the United States are from those political persuasions also.

Keeping RKBA confined to those circles is one of the most effective elements of political control used by the powers that be today.

Thus it’s my view is that this issue rises above petty politics. You don’t have vote in any old GOP fool who’ll let moneyed elites loot the treasury and send countless young men from poor families off to die on some godforsaken patch of hell untold miles away from American soil just to affirm the RKBA. Or at least you ought not to have to feel you must.

Most Green party members are quite probably anti-gun, but actually it makes more sense to be pro-RKBA to pull in hunters, who have tended to be more and more sympathetic to environmental issues and are necessary allies in the struggle for ecological conservation. Probably a good many self-described socialists are also anti-gun, but this is sheer stupidity. Regardless what Lenin did once he came to power, he and the Bolsheviks would’ve gotten nowhere without the arms of enough deserting Tsarist soldiers coming over to their ranks, and bringing their Mosin-Nagant rifles and Nagant revolvers over with them. Socialists of anti-gun persuasion are just as much suffering from an infantile disorder as Lenin described in excoriating his Left-of-Center rivals back in his day. Mao Tse Tung moreover recognized that “political power flows from the barrel of a gun”.

As Eric Blair, a.k.a. George Orwell, who died a convinced Socialist, once stated "That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or laborer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."