Movies I Liked in 2010

I had started a 2010 music post, but realized halfway through that I have a strange taste in music, and so I switched to movies. Ah, that feels better. Also, I warn you that these movies can be from any year, as long as I saw them first in 2010. I know. I'm a huge cheater.

Red Riding Trilogy

I'm a fan of trilogies. Not your standard blockbuster ones, mind you. And Aliens doesn't count, since it's a quadrilogy. No, I'm talking about trilogies like Refn's Pusher trilogy, where we get to follow characters through multiple stories and shifts in perspective. It's the perfect length of time to build an adequate amount of exposition, but not so drawn-out that we couldn't bear a main character's death or have to indulge another filler episode.

The Red Riding Trilogy is loosely based around the times of the Yorkshire Ripper cases in Yorkshire England during the 1970s. What's interesting is that the killings serve as compelling backstory to the main conflict, that is, one or two lonely people in the entire town who are against everyone else, who are either explicity taking part in corruption, or are apathetic toward the general societal decay. Each movie in the trilogy is directed by a different director, but I noticed no change in tone, pace, or quality. Each tale is harrowing, infuriating, and tragic. Once it starts to pick up steam midway through the first story, it is hard to look away from. An amazing set of films.

Brazil

Yes, I am incredibly late to the party on Brazil, but it was a bit before my time. Part of my enjoyment in films like Brazil or Metropolis is seeing what older generations thought the future might look like. It's always unique, intriguing, and rarely accurate. It's difficult to convey the film, besides saying it's dystopian and has elements of 1984. It also has the undeniable touch of Gilliam going for it. This film actually has a commentary I want to listen to, because Gilliam puts so much in the film that would only make complete sense to him. And even better, often times he comments that he has no idea what a certain scene means or where it came from. It's still an imaginative film and makes one contemplate how free they really are in their daily life.

Kick Ass

I don't like superhero movies in general. Which is probably why I enjoyed Kick Ass so much. It deals with how crazy and naive a person would have to be to want to be a superhero, and realistically, what would happen to them. That is, they would be gravely wounded or killed in short order. Despite some problems (like how the film strays from its adherence to quasi-realism at the end), Kick Ass is enjoyable and funny, while never taking itself too seriously.

Flame and Citron

There have been some good films dealing with the French Resistance during WWII, but Flame and Citron focuses on the Danish Resistance, specifically two agents with the handles Flame and Citron. We learn relatively early on that they are not really agents, just two men who stubbornly hold onto the idea of what their country once was, despite the awful things they have to do in order to maintain that idea. The sense of danger and dread in this film is palpable, and it does a remarkable job of not painting the circumstances in strict black-and-white, which is always tempting when portraying Nazis. How the characters deal with moral ambiguity and the sacrifices to their lives and sanity are ultimately the best parts of this excellent movie.

The Baader Meinhof Complex

This film is nothing short of amazing. It is a testament to the notion that real life often gives the best story lines. This film follows a band of revolutionaries, who seek to right the wrongs of the previous generation in Germany. Of course, they overcompensate just a tad. Both sides in the film are quick to result to violence to achieve their aims, making either side an unlikely source of protagonist sympathy. The acting is superb and visceral, and the story always picks up when it seems to be dragging.

The Big Bad Swim

I'll warn you right away that a lot of people won't like this film, which deals with the disappointments in life and how the characters deal with them. I found it to be an engaging drama where I really cared about the characters. The main character was relatable because he dealt with avoidance behavior and anxiety, but some viewers may simply see his character as withdrawn and sulky. Characters like these are hard to portray in movies, because we tend to stick to our archetypes. So with that caveat, you will like this film if you have patience.

Goya's Ghosts

If you see one movie about Spanish painters this year, make it Goya's Ghosts! Seriously though, this film is fascinating. Bardem does his usual job of coming off as intense and vaguely creepy, and his character is a pure mess, a reflection of the world he inhabits. I was surprised I didn't enjoy Natalie Portman's performance more. Her accent was a bit weird, and her crying seemed inauthentic at times. Even so, her character is an interesting one and her acting doesn't get in the way too much. When I first saw some of Goya's works, I wondered how the powers at be thought about them, and what the conflict with the Church was like. This film does a great job of sorting that out, and giving us a nice story with unexpected twists.

So, that's it. I didn't want to include documentaries and Frontline episodes, because I am seriously addicted to those and they are relatively straightforward. Although, I do recommend Heavy Metal in Baghdad. Oh, and TRON was OK. Happy New Year!

Old Books Learn New Tricks

The L.A. Times has another great article in their series looking at libraries and the publishing industry. This one deals with how ebooks have caused an unlikely infusion of creativity in the print world. Now that print can no longer compete in terms of low cost and convenience, print can differentiate itself in new ways. This includes things like making the book extremely rich and colorful, or even making the book itself part of the message of the text, not just a container. The example in the article has a book that resembles human flesh.

Meanwhile, ebooks are starting to expand in their own right. Instead of merely being a long text file, publishers are trying to find ways to have little snippets of ebooks ready to share when pertinent world events take place, and I could see great potential in this if it's utilized in conjunction with social media.

Social Media and Libraries

As someone who marvels at the intricate evolution of ideas within our culture, or what Professor Dawkins refers to as "memes," I find current debates in libraries and society as a whole regarding social media intriguing. How much time should we really spend with this technology? Is there a way to do it where you can actually increase visibility in the community, or is it simply a matter of keeping up with the times?

These are important questions, because the success of a trend is impossibly hard to predict. The only surefire way to talk confidently about a trend is in retrospect. Trends almost always are safe, hesitant steps out from the branch of ideas that preceded it: rarely is a trend a whole new tree. I remember panning the Nintendo Wii as soon as the details were announced. A remote control for a controller? Motion control? Didn't they try this with the horrible flop that was the Power Glove? The Wii was such a radical departure from the slow evolution of the video game console that I feared it would be ridiculed and ignored, yet it was an immediate and unmitigated success.

I had much the same attitude towards Twitter when it first launched. I am now on Twitter (all my recent Twitter posts are there on the right side, in all their glory and inside-jocularity), but it's still hard to get the exact sense of what we're supposed to do with this thing. It's a tool with no instruction booklet. And a recent post I read regarding the actual use of Twitter seems to echo that problem. Twitter is seen as a titan in social media, yet only 8% of the people use it. Does that mean we shouldn't bother, or does it mean we can reach part of that 8% to make them excited about libraries?

The obvious upswing regarding integrating social media into libraries is that almost all of it is free. I recently wrote a paper regarding library catalogs and cited a wonderful example of integrating social media using Library Thing as an extremely cheap way to use already extant sources of metadata that easily relate to library patrons. But is there a risk?

Yes. Time is valuable to library staff. Assigning a librarian to tweet and type up Facebook updates might be a casual lunch-time frivolity now, but what if social media starts becoming more of a force in our lives? I believe we are on the precipice of combining the escapism and instant gratification of Massively Multiplayer Online Games with the idea of social media. Second Life and Facebook games are but the tip of the iceberg of the coming age of an almost total online presence. Companies will be there: should libraries be there, too?

It has been posited that this type of total online presence will also spill into the real world, where game concepts like scoring points and completing tasks will be assigned to real world, daily tasks. This mentality has already taken hold to some effect in my generation, where we commonly refer to daily events as either "fail" or "win."

The risk is coming off like, for lack of a more tasteful word, a trendhumper. Five years down the line, someone will write in an academic journal about the disastrous program you implemented, because you took innovation too far from logic and decency. Somehow, you have to have that vision, and make sure you always discern how exactly people will use this tool effectively, instead of getting blinded by flashy bits.

The Half Year in Review

I wasn't going to make a retrospective post, but Jill really convinced me it is an important thing to do to unwind after the semester. So, here goes...

It's hard to imagine just four months ago I was driving across the country, trying to escape the Memphis heat and humidity. It had reached 108 degrees, and felt immensely worse than the 120 degree summer days I've experienced in Los Angeles. This past week, I've experienced almost 4 feet of snow in as many days. Quite the contrast, and a lot of stuff happened in between.

I suppose this is the place where I tell you what I've learned. I think the most important thing for the process that happened is that all my preconceptions of this profession have been shattered. This is a good thing. After initially being fascinated with metadata and digital libraries, I flirted with cultural preservation, and now I want to get involved with gaming in libraries. Prof. Lankes really hit home last night when he told us this profession will just amplify everything we've been been passionate about and interested in. That man deserved his full professorship and then some. I hope I stay in touch with him: his passion is infectious and I think he feels the same way about my class.

I can't forget Prof. Qin. What initially seemed like my hardest and most boring class turned out to be the most practical and the one I most enjoyed this semester. That class made me feel like I can really start to push myself in learning the technical aspects of the profession.

Yea, I could rattle off all the schemas, theories, and facts I learned this semester, but what I really come away with is the strong relationships I feel to my classmates and professors. What I want to work on next is more involvement in ALA and other organizations, and to volunteer more at Bird Library in some capacity. The other stuff is important, but I'll tell you all about it next year!

Winding Down

As I write this, the semester only has a couple days left in it (Looking at the mountains of snow outside, maybe the world is ending in two days also?). I promise not to get all teary-eyed or make vague allusions to the drunken debauchery I will engage in to blow off steam after a tough first semester. Instead, I'll keep it short and sweet.

Let's not forget the year is also winding down, and that always brings us face-to-face with a new year and... resolutions. So I'll start early.

I hope to make this blog more entertaining and readable. It will still have all the classic wide-eyed library student charm, but I hope to add a bit more professionalism and at the same time make it a bit more fun. I'm also working on hopefully getting my portfolio and samples either in here or on a new site.

So if I don't see you, have a great holiday break, and look for some more bloggin' to come!

Libraries Might Be Screwed... Then Again, What Isn't?

For an online discussion in one of my classes, we looked at an interesting screencast by Eli Neiburger, whose thesis generally boils down to: libraries are screwed. Granted, it's not all gloom and doom, and his purpose (in my opinion) is to make people face the stark reality of the current state of libraries in order to facilitate action. Still, there are indeed huge problems as we look to the e-book situation.

Even if libraries wanted to be filled entirely with e-books (one famous library is), publishers will not allow many new and bestselling books to be so openly shared by a library. Despite the fact that libraries possess software that erases the e-book after a certain period, akin to a normal library book, publishers know very well that there is no limiting mechanism. That is, when a library has 5 copies of a bestseller, only 5 people can have that out at one time. Spread across the country, this is manageable monetarily for a publisher. E-books don't have this limiter. You could have millions of people check out the e-book, finish it, and have no need to buy it from Amazon or what have you. Publishers are hip to this, and have consequently held back from giving libraries the right to rent out e-books to patrons... and since these are de faco the most popular items in the library, libraries are forced into appearing antiquarian (Where are the e-books? Libraries are stuck in the past, man). This situation could and very likely will change, but it's just another area where the public can point to libraries not meeting patrons' needs, and not keeping up with the times. One more reason not to give them so much tax money. Basically, we're screwed.

That said, who or what isn't "screwed" these days? Companies are still lean and mean, more profitable than they ever have been, as productivity expands due to the revelation that productivity goes up as more people exit the workforce. Is anyone happy with that little truth, that 10% of us will probably just have to remain unemployed for the foreseeable future? Is the publishing business really stable and solid? (Maybe this will give you some ideas) Are we in the midst of another tech boom or something? How's China doing lately? Honestly, if the sky is falling for libraries, the same case could be made for each and every industry that resides in the good ol' US of A. I even saw a laughable news story (more story than news) that honestly tried to make the case that the USA is destined to fall like Greece and Rome. First of all, the Greeks and the Roman Empire never really "fell" in concrete or easily explained ways. Rather, their empires eroded systematically over hundreds of years, culminating in either dramatic events (as in the case of Imperial Rome, who nevertheless survived another thousand years in the East) or rather unremarkable circumstances (Greece eventually becoming a solid league after Rome becomes a hegemony). Secondly, we can't even get the reasons these empires "fell" straight: what makes us think we could foresee our own demise and when it would take place?

Anyway, I'd be a lot more worried about libraries if these were prosperous times and all the industries linked to libraries were doing excellently. The fact is, for the past 2 years and for the foreseeable future... we're all screwed.

Bird After Dark

This weekend, I had the pleasure of volunteering for the Bird After Dark event, which was held on National Gaming Day (technically, the event started the day before, but midnight to 2 a.m. counts in my book). Usually, this day has libraries hosting game tournaments (video games included) and the like. The ALA website for 2010's events can be found here. The purpose is to "connect communities around the educational, recreational, and social value of all types of games."

Bird After Dark had games, to be sure, but a large part of the event was having fun while also learning a thing or two about Bird Library. Students browsed the stacks, browsed databases, and used the OPAC to answer a game quiz. In addition there were hilarious timed physical events, blaring music, mountains of candy, the motivation to win at trivial things (this is a very real phenomenon by the way), and the chance to win some neat prizes, like a Kindle or an SU Snuggie.

Bird's event is likely different form other libraries' events, because the audience and mission are different. An academic library, as Prof. Lankes pointed out last week, has a mission that focuses more around teaching, research, and service. It can even be broken down further, because universities differ from colleges, and there are even further breakdowns within both universities and colleges. Suffice to say, Bird's event did an excellent job of bridging the gap between unadulterated fun and their mission. Although I'd like to see an event that does just have straight up gaming (there might be some as far as I know!), Bird After Dark is an innovative way to get undergraduate students into the library without just begging them via e-mail or LMS spam. And who can turn down a chance to win a snuggie these days?

There's actually a growing field within LIS that deals with games with regard to libraries. I know Prof. Lankes is involved in this area. This is a very challenging prospect, especially with regard to video games. Striking a balance in the game selection between casual and more enthusiast games must be difficult with the typical library budget.

Regardless, Bird After Dark was great fun, and I was glad to participate. I'll be there next year!

The Value of Aesthetics

This last week we had a pretty lively discussion about what to do with artifacts in a library. It got heated. I mean, in a librarian way. It never got worse than in England.

A part of the discussion that ruffled a few feathers had to do with aesthetics. Prof. Lankes made the rather sober point that a lot of these old books do not contain information we "need" anymore: their value comes from pure aesthetics. His point is spot on in my view. But I could see how this would offend some people. After all, we've been taught for years that aesthetics is a surface value. We've been taught critical thinking, deep and profound thoughts, and original information is the ultimate goal. Three signed copies of Alice in Wonderland? Why do we need three?

Well, I concede these old books are pure eye candy, but they should be preserved. For me, aesthetics does involve critical thinking. I'm not talking about an antiquated view of aesthetics where there's an actual objective aesthetic "value" we can assign to a piece. No, aesthetics will for the most part be a case-by-case thing. It's an intricate dance between society's and one's own values.

That takes us back to the original problem. Maybe the culture at large doesn't care that a 16th century man took the pains to paint an entire landscape along the edges of a book that can only be seen when the book is manipulated a certain way. I do. I can't base this on information value per se, unless we start to define information in an extremely fuzzy way that information is anything that interacts with our brain. No, this thing is worth saving because new knowledge and art are so unique to the human experience, yet so vital to it, that I would save all the best examples we have of it. If I fought to keep a book that was merely signed by a long dead Queen of England (and the contents were pretty useless), I wouldn't expect the public's support. But we're not running a democracy here: we're running a library. As a citizen, I don't expect my tax money to go to a library to reinforce everything I know and like: I'd want to give my money to experts that know about subjects and perspectives on books and art that I might not have seen or read before. Otherwise, what's original about a library, and why would I need to go there? I'd want to be shown something that makes me go, "Oooooooooh!"

I have seen the power of aesthetic pleasure. Some people walk into the Sistene Chapel and are never quite the same. I count my days going to museums as some of the best of my life. Can I tell you I received a lot of information those days? Not really. I have studied art in great detail, but that was separate from my raw experience in looking at the art. As a librarian, I want to preserve those things that are so close to being thrown into the dustbin of history because it's only "pretty."

Week 8: Buck the System or Reform It from Within?

Last week in IST 511 we didn't have a lecture, but got to hear from two great librarians. I am sure they didn't think of themselves as being strikingly different from one another, as librarians tend to really band together as colleagues. But the contrast for me was stark.

One librarian's style bordered on rebellion. Her aim was to redefine librarianship itself, and if what she did sometimes had nothing to do with librarianship (or preconceived notions of librarianship), so be it. She emphasized creativity, thinking so far outside the box you might throw the box away, and a passion to truly make librarianship what you want it to be. She had planted a garden on library property, brings a dog to the library for kids to check out, and she aims to create an intriguing library that isn't in fact a traditional library. I'd like to call it a "non-library," but I think she'd prefer a classier name.

The next librarian was more traditional in the sense that she tries her best to work within the system given, making what change she can. I could relate to her in the sense that she got her MLIS education later in life than most of her colleagues, since I am 28. I also can identify with her urge to pick up any task in the library that needs attention. Her devotion bordered on workaholism, but she seemed grateful to offer her services not just in her community, but nationally, carrying out virtual reference across the country.

These two contrasts in librarianship made me reflect on what type of attitude I will take on as a librarian. Do I work within the system, trying to reform it? Is that selling out? Do I rail against pre-conceived notions of the profession, which might put me at odds with administrations? Is this kind of rebellious attitude even feasible in an academic library setting? These are all questions I struggle with.

This conundrum of rebellion versus reform seems particularly fitting given our current political and economic environment in America. We are a nation formed by rebellion, after all. But at what point does rebellion become merely rebellion for rebellion's sake? There is immense disruption caused by rebellion, and almost every rebellion has at its root some unjustifiable pretense.

But it is far more interesting to be confused... I'd be more concerned if I had no internal debates about the future.

Week 7... Déjà Vu

This last week we had a lecture about "information organization." This lecture was pretty familiar, because I am currently taking a course on information organization, IST 616. It's my favorite course so far, besides the wonderful IST 511 of course. But Prof. Lankes managed to put a unique spin on it and fit it into the big picture.

I first learned that I should really stop calling my 616 course "cataloging," as it's really not the same thing as information organization. Oops, my bad.

But a big part of the organization is wading into the sea of acronyms and trying not to drown. It's not that there's just a lot of acronyms, either, but that there's lots of layers of different concepts, each housing lots of different acronyms. I have a sense of what FRBR is and does, but where does it fit in? It's not a schema or encoding language/format, but I know it has certain rules, and I know it has a role to play in MARC. But it's not a cataloging standard, like AACR2(R2). Wikipedia calls it a "conceptual entity-relationship model." See what I mean?

A more coherent part of the subject is that the end goal is facilitating intellectual access to anything. That "anything" can be a book, an article, a paragraph within an article, etc. Of course, the rub here is that librarians use controlled vocabulary, and users of the library use natural (every day) language. This can create problems with users getting access, since we're using two different languages. This is why attention to users and natural language is a big deal when we are talking about how to classify documents or document-like objects.

Another important goal is collocation. We've all had collocation events, where we go to the library thinking we want a certain book on a certain subject. We go to the stacks, and we find out the book we thought was great turns out to be a dud. But then we check the book next to it, and suddenly we see this new book is perfect. This experience is hard to replicate in an online catalog. The whole point of the catalog is to find an exact match. It can't read your mind or just throw books at you to recreate the collocation experience. I've had some ideas about how to make collocation possible in an online environment. The best one involves virtual mapping of a digital or physical collection. So what we're talking about here is when a user pulls up that specific book, he/she will be presented with an interface that is a virtual bookshelf. The specific book that was searched for will be highlighted, but the other titles' spines will be on display next to it, just like a normal bookshelf. The user can highlight the other books to get summaries or what have you. That way, collocation has the same sort of feel as a traditional walk through the stacks.

Serendipity and Planned Chaos

As I continue the struggle to find meaningful and desired employment, I keep getting hit over the head with the fact that it's hard to get a job when you're looking for a job. What I mean is the jobs people really want come to them, sometimes when they already have a job, and sometimes when they aren't looking for a job at all. The key to this serendipity is knowing a lot of people. A lot. So, knowing this, instead of looking for jobs in a traditional sense, I am trying to get to know as many librarians and LIS professors as I can. To me, this is better than a job search, and seems far more promising.

That said, this is a silly way to run a country's job market (that is to say, no one's running it). Part of me loves the fact that you can know people, be totally unqualified, and still get ahead. Maybe that's one of the final remnants of the American Dream. But it's unfair and unsustainable. What we really need is an actual way to find jobs and hire qualified people. I know: it's a revolutionary idea, but it has never been done. An astonishingly high number of job postings are bogus or outright scams. Even if a job is legitimate, the people on the employer end are usually scanning for keywords, or looking at aesthetic qualities of documents, or randomly picking people. Maybe they pick the first person who applied. Maybe they liked their name. I might get HR hate mail for saying these things, but I am basing my statements on countless HR people I've known or talked to (or the more usual case of someone who is in charge of hiring with little or no HR experience). If they know someone, they will take that person over the unknown.

I've heard several truisms lately regarding jobs that are both funny and frightening at the same time. One is that faking it is half the battle during a job or job interview. Yes, I already know this. Still, I don't lie about my abilities. This puts me at a huge disadvantage to everyone else looking for the same job, because they are all lying about their cataloging experience or knowledge of XML. If everyone's lying and we all know it, why even state the qualifications? Why not just say "Hey, if you're an LIS student or grad., apply to this job and we'll have an interview" and let's ditch the exaggerated resumés: you're probably just responding to the font I used or the layout, anyway.

Another truism is that communication is everything. If you are a great public speaker and a salesman, you can get any job. I'm not hating on great orators: they have a place in just about any occupation. But I shouldn't have to be a salesman. There should be some process by where it becomes clear I am right for the job. If that's a CV, a background check, a professional recommendation, or trial, so be it. Let's save the elevator pitches for people who actually need to sell things.

So let me close this post of epic whining by saying that looking for a job is just one more confusing card placed atop the house of cards that we call an economy. Firing a lot of people increases productivity. Increased savings rates among the public spells disaster. Cutting taxes actually costs money (I know, right?). These problems are all here to say, but it has guys like me sitting around thinking, "Does it have to be this way?"

Maybe E-books Aren't the Future

If I had to pick one theme that sums up this blog so far, it's that as librarians (and those of us in training), we really need to overcome our fear of technology. The fear is understandable, but largely irrational. The fear sort of goes like this: technology makes everything digital and intuitive for the user, making the librarian obsolete. This is understandable, because in the modern age we have the classic assembly line analogy. A new machine is produced that can do your job 10 times faster at half the cost. The obvious result is that a lot of assembly line workers are losing their jobs.

There's several problems with this analogy in its application to librarianship, some of which I've hopefully outlined before. But I see this sort of mindset rearing its ugly head any time a new technology is discussed. Most recently, this discussion has centered around e-books.

Let me just come out and say that I'm not a huge fan of e-books, and a lot of people in my program share my reluctance. I don't think we're a particularly irregular representative of the population. Yes, e-books are selling incredibly well, and the growth will eventually be so large that we will all have one. It's well past the early adoption phase, but not yet in the "iPod" phase, where even your grandma has one but still might not know quite how to use it (sadly, this phase is permanent). For the record, I own a Zune. Yes, I know how shameful that is. You might even have to Wikipedia "Zune."

Despite my poor media player choices, I'm not stupid. Eventually resistance will be futile, and I'll have some 3rd generation e-reader that syncs with sports scores and spams me offers for car insurance when I'm trying to read about Teutoburg Forest. But is this the terminus? No! Then we will have some other future to worry about.

What I want people to do is to stop being myopic about the future. We tend to think that a future trend is finality. Who's to say that once e-books become ubiquitous, we won't come up with a way to project legible text via holography onto a good, old-fashioned, hardbound, ever reusable, pulp fiber, acid-free paper book? Or as someone else told me, a type of material that arranges itself to display the text intelligently based on whatever e-book information its given? Think about a library with a collection of empty books, just waiting for users to come in and display whatever they want onto the pages, that they'd otherwise need to pay out the nose for. The information is still the thing of value, and that will never change, whatever the medium or interface.

Once again, technology usually only makes the librarian's job more challenging, not obsolete. The problem is to rise to those challenges, and make your service more valuable, because now it's "worth" more. New shiny things cost lots of money, and there will always be a need for a library to be a "community early adopter," to help those who can't afford said shiny thing in order to really reap some rewards from their hard-earned taxes.

E-Books aren't the future, because the future doesn't exist. The future is always changing, and in fact never really happens. There is only the present. The rest is just stuff that may or may not happen. Why not work on the stuff you can change?

Arriving somewhere... but not here (Week 5)

OK. I'll just admit it. I was trying to come up with a way to make "collection development" sexy and interesting to even the most jaded internet junkie, but I have failed. You're just going to have to walk with me here, and hopefully you'll see the light. You can look at lolcats later.

The thing that will really make collection development interesting, I think, is to skip ahead to the end. That is, the vision that Prof. Lankes has put forth of the library as the publisher of the community. You might not think this vision and collection development have a necessarily strong link. And honestly, today's libraries might reinforce that impression. But as librarians, we could in fact make the library the place where the community goes to create new knowledge.

The key to making that vision become a reality is being in tune with the community's needs. This is far from an easy task. People are increasingly moving their identity, and even their entire social lives, online. Thus, libraries must make the move too. Even if you get a random tweet at 2 a.m. complaining about how you don't have the new Twilight novel (*shiver*), you are providing a way for the community to express its needs in a way that wouldn't happen otherwise. People are blatantly honest online, which can be beneficial when gauging needs. It can also backfire tremendously when abused *cough* Price Chopper.

I also think that in the collection process (i.e. acquisition-> processing-> circulation-> weeding), weeding seems to really stand out as a problem. As a Humanities student, and one who has never thought there is a useless book or useless information, weeding sets my teeth on edge. There's no doubt that it is a vital part of collection development: libraries are only so physically big, so some old stuff has to go. But how on earth do you prioritize that? Even if we go for the stock answer of, "whatever the community doesn't use," how do we know the community won't use it in the future? Perhaps the library has done a bad job of making the community aware of a certain section. Maybe it's a section that is not high-traffic, which has nothing to do with its content. These issues are perplexing.

As it stands now, the library might have to become the community publisher not because of altruism, but from necessity. As new editions of books skyrocket while material budgets decrease, and every library needs more and more licenses, subscriptions, etc., there's just no other real option. I think it would be wonderful to be a librarian that supports local artists. There's great potential for finding the kind of knowledge that would make a home in the library, that it might not otherwise make in the public sphere, where it is based on marketability.

Tai chi in the Library (Week 4)

This week has been a lot about picking the brains (mmmm... brains) of librarians. In 511, we heard from two different school librarians. In 605, we visited the SU Law Library reference desk. And I conducted my interview with [name redacted for privacy] at a local library. So, you would think after this week, I should now have a complete picture of librarianship. Well... yes and no.

More than anything, I am getting to see that this profession is not monolithic in any way. Even my thoughts that every librarian was as "pro-freedom of information" as possible was tested, as the Law Library really can't offer anyone off the street specific legal advice. The library itself is closed to the public a large part of the day. I'm sure special collections can operate in the same way at times. "Yes, we have really rare, old manuscripts. No, you cannot see or touch it."

But, I think breaking all my preconceptions is useful in the long run. If some aspect of librarianship starts to feel old or dull, guess what? there's a million other opportunities that barely resemble that job. And it's probably all to the good that I have an open-ended view of the profession, so I can make it my own if need be (and it doesn't get me fired).

The "Unquiet Librarian" presentation was specifically pretty interesting, if a bit daunting. It goes along with a common theme I've heard a lot this week—of just jumping in and embracing any technology that you or your users could possibly use. It sounds easy and obvious, but you'd be surprised. Engaging in social media as an individual is intuitive, and is really only limited by how much expendable time the user has. But engaging in social media as an institution, to have a "face" and presence online that brings people into the bricks and mortar; that could be very challenging.

Last week, we also had the conversation about bees. While we have been urged from the get-go to be leaders, innovators, world-changers, and whatever other cool-sounding appellation, Lankes also talked about the reality of the situation. Some of us work better in teams instead of leading them. Some of us are good at the humdrum aspects of work, and manage to make that work creative or add some value to it. There's a place for people like this in the structure.

I suppose what I really struggle with is determining if I can do it all. Can I get the certification in Digital Libraries, while still trying to become a special subject librarian at an academic library (which will require another Master's), all on top of cataloging/web development/general awesomeness at being a librarian? I suppose I can only bite off so much in two years. I just don't want to start pruning my interests.

IST 511 Week 3 in Review

Week 3 (which was almost a week ago now) was less about lecturing, and more about finding our groups for various projects we have scheduled this semester. Still, there were some good takeaways. Sigh, I've seen "takeaways" work itself into my lexicon, and it annoys me.

So, a big part of the lecture I liked was an overview of the classical model of the library. But rather than looking at a system and taking it at face value, Prof. Lankes urged us change the system. I don't think I've ever been told that in a university setting. Only entrepreneurs, politicians, and popular culture at large have ever really put forth the attitude that if the current structure isn't working as well as it could be, it's time to knock it down and build something that works. That said, the structure is giving me a big picture, and my other classes are really starting to make it all come together in a big picture way. Now it's time for the fine detail, and doing lots of practice with MARC and a legion of other acronyms.

We also got some nice examples of the way a librarian can really diversify, and at a certain point they really do fit the title of "information professional" more than "librarian." The embedded librarian seems like a dream job, but certainly requires a specific skill set that may or not be easily obtained. Being a researcher for public or private interests is also very appealing, if you've got the time and patience. The many options make the field stronger than it otherwise would be if librarians were just a bunch of people with access to book catalogs.

Then there's the difficult task of assessment. When we talk about how libraries try to sing their praises yet still get lots of funding from sources, I was reminded of an old Economics professor I had. He said that, in business, you go to the investors and press events in your best suit: you go to the IRS in rags and squalor. It's a tough balancing act. I'm also skeptical of any metric that claims to have a "bottom line" of whether a library should stay or go. I always cringe when people try to cram such a world of nuance into a neat little package.

Tagging Can Be Socially Redeeming

One of the progenitors of hip hop, the great DJ Afrika Bambaataa, laid out the four elements (five if you count beat-boxing) of hip hop culture: DJing, MCing, b-boying (I love you if you actually do some research into b-boying), and graffiti, also known as "tagging." 

Sure, I'm playing on a homophone/homograph/homonym, but let me set up the parallel between graffiti tagging and social tagging on the Web. Tagging was regarded in the 1980s as vandalism. Despite there being extremely beautiful, expressive, and aesthetically attractive instances of tagging, it was still condemned by community leaders. This very rejection and refusal to grant these artists some space only led to further vandalism.

This antediluvian viewpoint is misplaced in modern society. Some truly forward-thinking artists went out and rented space in cities, gathered a crew of taggers, and showed that this art form (an ancient art form dating back to at least ancient Rome and probably much earlier), once viewed as degenerative, could actually beautify a space if given the chance.

So it was with great confusion that I read in one of my LIS books today that social tagging's utility is a subject of debate. I do credit the book for elaborating the potential uses of social tagging in metadata schemes, but I really have to question why they question the utility? 

Now, I'll be the first to admit I wince at the pure craziness that will ensue if/when library books are being tagged en masse by the public, not to mention librarians. Trust me, I've heard some weird tags for things over the past few weeks. Yikes. But aren't we afraid of every new and powerful idea? It only takes the human mind one second to go from, "That sounds cool." to, "The machines will ruin our lives!" The idea of "user-contributed" information is pretty old hat by now, but does anyone remember the pretentious ridicule that professors hurled at Wikipedia? The idea that people, and not experts at institutions, could contribute to knowledge! Inconceivable!

I'll relate a personal example of tagging that happened tonight. Let me preface this by admitting I have a special place in Hades mapped out in Dante fashion (right before the ninth circle, Cocytus) that would house the creators of chain e-mails. I can't think of some poetic justice right now -- perhaps setting a tick on him, then bringing 10 of the tick's friends, and 10 of his friends, and so on. And yet, as I saw one of my friends on Facebook complete a silly "Top 15 Albums in 15 Minutes," because he tagged me in the post, I couldn't help but participate. I would even call it, dare I say, fun.

So, what was really all that different between a chain e-mail and this Facebook exercise? Well, besides not occurring during my morning, when every thing not deadly urgent in my e-mail inbox makes me angry? One crucial difference: (instant) communication. Every one was commenting on each others' picks. Why we should have put an album someone else had put down. Albums we would have picked if we had more slots. Some of us started talking about music taste in general, and a large discussion was being had across many different profiles. Communication and information while being socially involved... isn't this what libraries are trying to facilitate? 

The problems might be there, but the utility of social tagging is real and cannot be doubted. If institutions don't get in on this now, they will have left yet another big idea to Facebook or Google to pioneer. Tagging, even if it leads to a dead end in libraries, could ultimately branch out to some innovation we've always wanted when it comes to classification discrepancies between member and information professional.

Week 2 Musings

One of the challenges that seems to loom in the mind of the public, if not my professors and colleagues, is how a librarian stays relevant in the world of Google (and sometimes these thoughts turn into articles that masquerade as journalism). To the library student and the professor, the justification is strong and reasoned. But as I talk to friends and family outside the profession; they aren't so sure. Some have suggested that libraries are still relevant because some people aren't computer literate, and so can't use Google. This obviously means that libraries would strive to teach everyone digital literacy, and then slowly fade into obsolescence. A drawn-out seppuku, in other words.

Besides the technical distinctions that make libraries still retain value over search engines (one huge factor has to be that in catalogs, you don't have to sort through 10 million blogs and umpteen million sites of unsavory character), Prof. Lankes highlighted that this profession has a unique core set of values. A business like Amazon, Borders or Google will get you to a book or two that you want, and the idea is to funnel you to the check-out line and get you to punch in your debit card as soon as possible. A librarian, however, will hopefully not funnel your interest at all. A librarian might expand your interest, or turn you to a source you never thought you wanted in the first place. A search engine or commercial catalog will not have this capacity in the foreseeable future. And in my opinion, it would usually lead to decreased sales, because it's much easier to point to one book to buy than to display 20 resources. Heck, one might actually have to go to the library if they wanted 20 sources on a subject.

Another big part of this week has been starting to think about the different types of libraries, and which I would feel most fits my backgrounds and interests. I see many potential paths, personally. I could easily see myself as librarian tech or something similar at a public library, especially since the majority of librarians go on to work in a public or academic library. Eventually I would want to become a specialist in Classics and possibly Latin manuscripts.

Another possibility is working in a private collection or special collection within a larger library. As we have been learning, certain collections have become more like museums as of late, and conversely museums have begun to classify things more like libraries. Perhaps there will be an interesting opportunity to combine those two ideas into a simply place of learning and information. Would it be a lyceum? Or maybe you could call it a "muserary."

"All Art is Propaganda"

The title of this post is both a quote and collection of essays by one of my favorite authors, George Orwell. My interpretation of the quote is that in both obvious and subtle ways, art can direct our emotions into action, or at least change our thoughts in a measurable way. Obvious examples are Guernica or Goya's The Third of May 1808, where the viewer can't help but be horrified and enraged at the events occurring in the painting. Even if it's a "good" cause objectively speaking, art nevertheless relies on emotions and feelings to convince the viewer of the artist's stance: yup, propaganda.

Now I'm going to be talking about video games, in particular the BioShock series. Don't leave; this will be painless.

Despite its downright pedestrian title and standard "shoot 'em up" mechanics, BioShock creates a convincing dystopia in two separate games: the first game focuses on an Ayn Randian underwater city called Rapture where the inhabitants are free to genetically modify themselves, and live off whatever they can produce without any sort of government entity (the prescience of this game to predate the Tea Party movement by a full year should be noted), while the second game returns to Rapture years later where a collectivist cult has spawned a dictator that must be stopped. Amidst it all, the player takes an active role in destroying this world gone mad. The player can act benevolently and risk being shot in the back, or be ruthless to a culture that would dare base its principles in anti-civilization. Of course, for me this is a moment of serious thinking while being entertained. For Orwell, dangerous nation-building was a reality, and so important to him that he fought in a war for a country not his own!

It's only recently that I have begun to think about how video games get closer and closer to a legitimate art form. So, knowing this, it makes me next worry about preserving them. Thankfully Wikipedia is a great resource to at least keep some metadata and information about the game itself (as opposed to just commercial listings for purchase at Amazon or Gamestop), and enterprising YouTube users capture what they can. The unique form of video games presents many problems if one wanted to place it in a, say, digital library. It's clearly a heavily visual form of art, so some sort of video clip would be imperative in my opinion. Yet every "playthrough" is different, and can potentially take 2 to 100+ hours. Trailers for games are notorious for looking nothing like the actual game (because of CGI), and containing irrelevant information. Would you simply house the entire piece of software itself, or would that be necessary? Would you be able to use emulators, or does this violate copyright? Games are usually tied to operating systems, further complicating matters. I must admit part of me wouldn't mind being one of a coterie that would only know certain obscure games that have almost no record.

If nothing else, you should at least look into the works of George Orwell, even though I have forever tainted his legacy by mixing in video games and general nerdiness.

IST 511 Week 1: What I did over the summer

IST 511 is the gateway course to my graduate field, as well as the impetus of this blog, humble as it may be. When I read the textbook's introductory chapter, I was pleased to find that it contained a brief history of libraries through recorded history.

I'm sure many of my friends' eyes glazed over as they quickly skimmed to the meatier parts of the chapter, but this was the part that intrigued me. As a Humanities and Classics nerd, I have always been fascinated about the diverse range of people that have filled the role of gatekeeper to knowledge, or have the task of "carrying the torch" to other parts of the world who could benefit from specific knowledge. Historically, these weren't stuffy people wearing argyle sweaters. They were Greeks enslaved by the Romans to tutor their children. They were monks who battled their own orders and a willfully ignorant society to spread knowledge. They were Muslim scholars and warriors who held important documents that were long forgotten in Western Europe.

As Prof. Lankes points out, we need not get caught up in the functions of what these people did, or seek out labels for them. The main thing is that they, and hopefully someday I, will have the ability to "improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in... communities."

I still really wish I could have seen the library at Alexandria, though!