Jon Frater

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Archives for June 2005

Technology, Time and Archives

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Occasionally the internet drops something totally suited to librarianship-oriented wiriting into my lap. This happened this morning as I cleared out the past week’s e-mail from my Yahoo account. It’s an article written by Gary North, whose politics I almost never agree with but who is one of the most prolific writers and researchers I’ve ever encountered. The article in question has to do with how he cleared out his old files and why. He’s not a librarian, but these sort of issues plague all of us, librarian or not. I guess the ultimate point is that we are not the only ones whothik about these sorts of things in our daily work.

I’ve clipped the most pertinent bits and stored them behind the link, but the entire article sits here for those interested in reading more.

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Doing Data Differently

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Take a look at Roy Tenant’s column ("Doing Data Differently") in the latest Library Journal and tell me again that "anyone can catalog". No, sorry, they can’t. If they could, than everybody would be a cataloger. In my cataloging class at Queens College, we had maybe 45 people in the class, a few of whom did "well" (showing a real affinity for the work), some more who were "not bad" and the rest did so poorly that the class literally had to be dumbed down to the point where everyone could master the basic elements in time for the end of the semester. I took a metedata class with the same professor later that year where we had the same problem. People are generally bright, but cataloging is like  machine coding or any other kind of intensive detail-oriented work–it’s not an intuitive skill. Certainly it can be taught but matering it takes time, patience and a lot of work. My point is that it’s not for everyone (but neither is reference work, so it goes both ways) –and the overal quality of metadata resources suffers if people don’t have the time or inclination (or imagination) to think about smarter ways of integrating existing data structures into existing access systems. It happens here, too–project deadlines loom and when all the smaller tasks for the week/month/quarter are completed, there’s less time and energy to think about how to improve our ILS at the macro level. Argh . . . reality . . .

Having said that, we’re hip deep in finishing up all the records we’re creating to send to OCLC in CatME because we found out through trial and error last week that MARC records can’t be swapped between CatME and Connexion. The work file database formats are different. So we’re going to do pretty much what the  NYC William Hallock Park Memorial Public Health Library did earlier this year . . . code like crazy in CatME, finish the grey lit entries, and then empty out the work files by the switchover date (July 1, 2005 as I write this). Then, we’ll start up a new Connexion database and work from there. It’s probably not the best solution (actually, it’s certainly not the best solution) but it will work and it will make us pull less hair out of our heads than some of the alternatives.

House Blocks a Provision for Patriot Act Inquiries

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The U.S. House of Representatives appears to have done something positive this year. (Librarians, celebrate!) Now to see what the Senate (which is much less devoted to privacy and liberty these days) does with the bill. The full story from the NY Times is behind the link.

I’m going over my notes from the NYLink class from the day before yesterday–I’ll have that up later today. For the moment, I’ll just note that Connexion 1.3 (which is the current version as of March 2005) works very much like CatME, but rather slower: Connexion scans an Oracle database instead of OCLC’s. Still, if you’re used to CatME, you should have few problems making the transition in the next few weeks.

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Privacy & Downing Street Memo Part II

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I know this is not strictly library news, but this is becoming genuinely disturbing. Actually, it was genuinely disturbing a month ago when the story first broke, but now it’s mind bogglingly insane.
This bit by Ted Koppel is not much better.

Training in the art and science (!) of Connexion Client at the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University. Wish me luck and I’ll let you know how it went.

Real Books vs. Schoolbooks

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"One way to see the difference between schoolbooks and real books like Moby Dick is to examine different procedures which separate librarians, the custodians of real books, from schoolteachers, the custodians of schoolbooks. To begin with, libraries are usually comfortable, clean, and quiet. They are orderly places where you can actually read instead of just pretending to read.

"For some reason libraries are never age-segregated, nor do they presume to segregate readers by questionable tests of ability any more than farms or forests or oceans do. The librarian doesn’t tell me what to read, doesn’t tell me what sequence of reading I have to follow, doesn’t grade my reading. The librarian trusts me to have a worthwhile purpose of my own. I appreciate that and trust the library in return.

"Some other significant differences between libraries and schools: the librarian lets me ask my own questions and helps me when I want help, not when she decides I need it. If I feel like reading all day long, that’s okay with the librarian, who doesn’t compel me to stop at intervals by ringing a bell in my ear. The library keeps its nose out of my home. It doesn’t send letters to my family, nor does it issue orders on how I should use my reading time at home.

"The library doesn’t play favorites; it’s a democratic place as seems proper in a democracy. If the books I want are available, I get them, even if that decision deprives someone more gifted and talented than I am. The library never humiliates me by posting ranked lists of good readers. It presumes good reading is its own reward and doesn’t need to be held up as an object lesson to bad readers. One of the strangest differences between a library and a school is that you almost never see a kid behaving badly in a library.

"The library never makes predictions about my future based on my past reading habits. It tolerates eccentric reading because it realizes free men and women are often very eccentric. Finally, the library has real books, not schoolbooks. I know the Moby Dick I find in the library won’t have questions at the end of the chapter or be scientifically bowdlerized. Library books are not written by collective pens. At least not yet.

"Real books conform to the private curriculum of each author, not to the invisible curriculum of a corporate bureaucracy. Real books transport us to an inner realm of solitude and unmonitored mental reflection in a way schoolbooks and computer programs can’t. If they were not devoid of such capacity, they would jeopardize school routines devised to control behavior. Real books conform to the private curriculum of particular authors, not to the demands of bureaucracy."

—From "An Underground History of American Education", by John Taylor Gatto

Content in the Age of XML

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I found this tidbit byBruce Silver in the Intelligent Enterprise. The article is titled "Content in the Age of XML" and since I work with XML issues on a more or less daily basis I figured it’d be something to look at. I was kind of hoping that Silver had something usefult o say on the subject of utilizing XML-centric database models to help manage content, but that’s not where the article goes. Having said that, he raises a few good questions–and then fails to answer them very effectively. Oh, well. Anyway, the piece is short, so happy reading.

For History Buffs and Researchers

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Military Personnel Records
Source: National Archives and Records Administration

Opening of Military Personnel Records and Archival Research Room "Opening the Door" to the National Archives in St. Louis

"At 11 AM on Saturday, June 11, 2005, the National Archives National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis will formally open the records of Charles Lindbergh, President John F. Kennedy, General George S. Patton, Steve McQueen, Clark Gable, and Jackie Robinson, among others…. For the first time, nearly 1.2 million official military personnel files of former US Navy and Marine Corps enlisted personnel who served between 1885 and 1939 will be open to the public. This first opening also includes 150 ‘persons of exceptional prominence’, including former Presidents, famous military leaders, celebrities, entertainers and professional athletes who served in the military and have been deceased for at least 10 years."

Free Business Management Library

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Here’s something you might want to take some time to look through if you’re so inclined: The Free Management Library, hosted by MAP for Nonprofits and developed by Carter McNamara from Authenticity Consulting, LLC. THey’ve got links to 75 different categories and subcategories, along with embeded links and extra links to outside online references. Not a bad deal at all.

If you’re more into printed matter on these subjects, take a stroll through the Small Business Administration’s website–they print hundreds of booklets every year and they’re free (or almost free in some cases.) They even have an online library.

Remember folks, your tax dollars pay for this stuff, so if you’re inclined towards starting a small business, these are the places to do some homework. Enjoy!

How to Write & Publish a Best-Seller

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This one comes from the "Yes, It’s a Shameless Plug and I Don’t Care Who Knows It Dept.":

My wife, who is a public health librarian at the NYC Dept. of Health, is having her first book published next week.  It’s a big deal to her and to me, because I know how hard she worked on it and how much time energy and just plain having no life is involved.  It’s a major project, no matter how one looks at it, and I won’t even mention the summer that we’re devoting to sales, marketing and various other forms of promotion we’re doing to help it out of the gate.  For the record, advanced ordering is in effect.

So when I spotted this bit in today’s ETR, I decided to put it here (behind the link.) Yes, it sounds like a sales talk–all of Masterson’s writing does–but that doesn’t detract from the quality of the information. I kept the money-making link in the text, mostly because I figured it was the least that I could do, seeing as how he’d be  contributing to today’s post.

Anyway, buy the book.

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Take The Red Pill

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I was turned on to a site named Why-US.org this morning. It’s not a proper library-oriented site (except maybe in the most abstract way) but regardless of the author’s lefty politics (and badly overusing his movie references), it’s not a bad little site which should probably be listed as a resource for those who do reserach, or are learning how to do research.

The reason I say this is because he keeps repeating a mantra for research, wherein one asks oneself three questions:

  • Is this true?
  • How can I find out?
  • Why have I never heard this before?

This is not a bad way to get started, IMO. Obviously, there’s more to it: scanning the literature, noting the primary and secondary sources, seeking out competing (non-confiming) data, evaluating data sources, etc. But (also IMO) getting started is the worst part.

Anyway, take a look.