Oh the ineffableness

Alright, I am definitely going to layoff the 3 am blogging as soon as I can. Really. I would rather sleep. The dog would like it, too. But in the meantime, no biblio, but much blather...

The move thing is going swimmingly. The containers arrived Thursday right on time. I got the permit to park them in front of the building, the police put up the no parking signs on time as promised, the neighbors moved their cars. Just flawless. Understand that parking is a blood sport where I live. Cannot underscore the karma involved in pulling this off. Incredible. I even found two brand spanking new padlocks in the bottom of the toolchest. Some forgotten gift with purchase. Finding anything in the condo at all in the last few weeks is amazing. Do not take you eyes off anything, including your doughnut.

An assembly of the best friends ever took it in shifts to help me as I packed and packed and packed. Truly exemplary. Thank you. Thank thank thank you you you. Entire contents of apartment were weeded, sorted, and packed by the time boyfriend arrived at 5:20 am Sunday. Then, around noon, more friends and family gathered to load the container. Eleven people did it all in slightly under three hours. There is not enough beer and pizza in the world to express my thanks. They were flawless. I'm thinking if I were staying, I could hire them out. Three hours. Plus we got everything into one 5x8x8 foot container. Understand that a 46-year-old clutter-prone packrat got four rooms into what, 480 cu. ft., though the math is suspect. Something like that. I will accept all kudos graciously. Money is a great motivator, i.e., two containers=twice as much money.

In amongst all of this, so many goodbyes, so many really nice nice experiences. Kind of a high emotional tenor; terror mixed with hope, brutal physical labor, mountains of trash and discards. Freecycling and curbside donations. So much stuff. I am taking a vow not to accumulate so much stuff in future. Stuff is not where my wealth lies.

Now it's off for three nights at the beach with extended family, i.e., more emotional tenors, sopranos, altos, baritones, bass. But for once, I can almost bring myself to say, "It's all good." Then I remember I still have to clean this place. Oh well, karma points for that, right?

Saved from oblivion

I just found the set list I jotted down during Patti Smith's closing set at the WXPN All About the Music Festival in July. I was about to throw it away, but realized what it was just in time. Since I got up at 4:30, I decided this meant I finally got to blog it. (Boyfriend is snoring down the house, plus I am wired for sound.) It's also my last Sunday morning with Keith Brand and Sleepy Hollow--the most interesting music mix EVAH. But I digress.

Imagine sundown overlooking the Delaware River and the Philly skyline as backdrop. L'heure bleu morphing into gray and silver, river, clouds, sky. Red and purple glints off the cimbals. Patti Smith with Lenny Kaye and Jay Dee Dougherty, plus a drummer whose name I didn't catch. Old friends. The original black-haired indies, now with silver hair but still punk.

Opening: Dancing Barefoot. (I got up and danced barefoot in the grass.) Ghost Dance (We Shall Live Again chorus); Redondo Beach (as intense as ever); Southern Cross (with a long trance break); Camden riff--tone poem composed for this event?; Free Money; Like A Rolling Stone (great cover!); The People Have The Power; Rock and Roll Nigger; and of course, Gloria. It was glorious.

Can't take you home with me and the offspring on the ferry. Patti provided a soundtrack for both our lives. It's fascinating seeing her songs reach young people. Of course, she got in an anti-war message. The middle-class middle-aged women were there lipsynching the lyrics with me. It was still empowering--I think that's the thing about Patti.

Who's a boo?

That is the question I pose to my dog at least five times a day. She still hasn't answered. Sorry for the dog aside, but I am dog tired and she is being neurotic and in constant physical contact. She doesn't like luggage. Or furniture being moved. Or the doorbell ringing repeatedly. Or me keeping strange hours. This is all stressful and exhausting. It even interferes with naps! Dreadful. On the up side? Comforting her comforts me.

Today the PC, printer, scanner, tablet, speakers and headphones moved to Norristown. I am allowed to borrow this ibook until the end of the week for everyone's continued sanity. I have been very touched by the concern people have expressed about my state of connectivity. I am also concerned about what that says about me. I can live without a Treo, I swear. I am merely spoiled. I don't NEED the net, you see. Agh, I sound like every junkie I've ever known. Something to ponder in the red states, I suppose.

Ok, that last paragraph was a pathetic attempt to distract from the fact that the offspring and most of her possessions went with the PC. This is a bigger issue than connectivity. Or it is connectivity to the nth degree. I am having empty nest kind of in reverse, since I am the one really leaving the nest. Quite shocking. I expected the offspring would come with. Keep forgetting that fully-developed-human-who-is-captain-of-own-destiny thing. Did I mention she got her learner's permit? We have to do all this and more all at once. We know no other way.

So I am already figuring I must adopt a teen or teens in San Diego soon. There are bound to be some unsuspecting innocents available. It is the only thing that made saying goodbye to "my" teens at MPOW bearable. My belief in positive youth development is the veriest snare.

Oh, the reason I am allowed on to blather this evening, even though I have to pick up Matt at the airport at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow? Believe it or not, I have failed to finish another book! Definitely a record setting year. I left The March by E. L. Doctorow on the bedside table, thinking it was safe because it was too disturbing for bedtime reading. But any port in insomnia, right? Well, I was doing ok with the bullets in the brain, and the dismembered parts floating in the swamp, and the surgeon doing brain surgery, etc. But clunky dialogue, grasping transistions, no sympathetic characters? Feh. Better to pet the dog.

Forgot, read a putrid romance while flying back and forth. Too lazy to go look at the cover...and do not wish to give it the least nod anyway. Actually bought for $6 and it sucked! Already got SDPL library card and boyfriend placed hold on new Sue Monk Kidd--what a nice way to live! No word expected on interview until 9/1 or 2...deep breaths and visions of a universe in harmony.

Harlequin Shojo!

AlterNet: WireTap: U.S. Teenage Girls Prefer Japanese Heroes

Article is mostly dumb. Have they been under large rock? But Harlequin is going to publish Shojo manga, via Dark Horse, in the US. EEEEEEEEE!

Four hours in O'Hare

I am willing to pay $0.65/minute for internet access, it turns out. I would share some pix of beautiful (like gorgeous) libraries in Chula Vista, CA, but I don't have my cable. I fly out Sunday for an interview yesterday, then left last night...red-eye with 3.5 hour layover at 4:00 am in Chicago. The place with 'net access for hire did not open until 7:00. My plane boards SOON...to continue in Philly...

Two days later and the worst of the jet lag seems to be over. Hoo boy. Ran out to San Diego for an interview. Cross toes; everything seemed fabulous. Like a visit to the future: self checkout, marketing, wifi, cafes, teen areas with couches, daily story hours, discussions of information literacy. I am jealous, as well as wishful.

Plus I got to sign the lease on the new place and see it! It has big trees, two pools, hot tub, tennis court, business center, gym. A very different planet. The apartment has lots of closets, lots of kitchen cabinets, good countertops, and a balcony shaded by big trees. Boyfriend moved in yesterday and found free wifi and basic cable already in place. This could all work!

A library farewell

I am not sure I can ever really say good-bye to a library. I sort of carry them around in my head: that one at some Catholic school where I spent a summer reading the lives of the saints--just fascinating for a nice Presbyterian girl. Of course, the one over town hall in Upstate New York. That library is gone, but I can get there in a minute any time. The stacks at Butler. The geology library. The geography library at Barnard--OMG, the flood! Waaaaa. I have been on such intimate terms with several libraries that I literally had touched every book.

I never came close to touching every book in the Central Library of the Free Library of Philadelphia. I loved the fact that there would always be more books than I could read there. I am truly happy in a building with three million volumes. But I did indeed say good-bye. You know the old saw about leaving something some place so you have a reason to return? Well. After I spent all day packing up my desk and saying farewell to all kinds of friends, I got home and realized my purse was still in my locker! The guards did let me in.

I am excited to be moving to San Diego. Even though I try to be thoroughly pragmatic and anti-romance (the interpersonal kind, not novels!), I am letting a bit of wonder creep in. Every once in a while, I allow a glimmer of thinking maybe this will all work out. Maybe I will get a job in a library with a growing tax base and a forward-looking administration. Maybe boyfriend and I will live happily. I think driving across country will be fun, and that the dog will like the winters even more than I do.

The Free Library has a saying, "Art has always been in Pepper Hall." It is code for "we will never change." The picture above is the fabulous ceiling of Pepper Hall. The skylights were painted during World War II, then covered with plywood chicken coops in the 80s. The plan for the expansion and renovation of the Central Library calls for the skylights to be restored. Yippee! In the new plan, the art will no longer be in Pepper Hall. Maybe other changes will follow. I won't have a ringside seat, but I am sure I will hear.

Inside CDL: Metasearch Infrastructure

Inside CDL: Metasearch Infrastructure

Oh for the time to read this. No, must write memo on department's preservation needs! Someone wonderful will blog it, I know. I'm just leaving it here as a reminder to read it. Once I am at a California library?

Thanks to Roy Tennant and Web4Lib, as always.

Insomniac anonymous

Awake here at 3:44 am, since around 2:30. Trying to make it useful by typing up talking points for the non-speech at tomorrow's (today's!) work bon voyage party. Definitely not something I learned in library school.

Tone is so important. I still need a reference! There are issues around why I am leaving that I cannot mention at all, not even here :( So I am painting a rather rosy picture. Mostly, I need to thank lots of people, my staff, my friends, my mentors. (There are people I will not be thanking, but not too pointedly.)

I will take lots of pix and post them on Flickr. Party pix and beautiful old building pix. You can guess what my Flickr username is.

Meanwhile, I had another phone interview tonight. Cross your toes, as the cost of that COBRA health coverage is truly breathtaking. This spring, when it was still a big secret, I took lots of heart reading Caveat Lector, Information Wants to Be Free, and Random Access Mazur (see the blogroll for links). Now, Dorothea, Meredith and Rochelle are all ensconced in their new homes and positions. Color me pea green with envy.

They are all recent LIS graduates. I keep thinking that there needs to be job search for the over-forty librarian somewhere. People whose resumes are maybe a little too deep. Like, should I have put that my BA was awarded in 1980, before some LIS grads were born? I have been applying for such a gamut of positions. Though I drew the line at entry level. One interviewer actually suggested I consider a Librarian I position. Could not do it.

Then there's the over-forty blogger. I read the statistical study Walt Crawford did at this month's Cites & Insights. It was fairly interesting, though I am terrified of looking at the blogs I don't know, since I will end up adding them to my ever-burgeoning Bloglines subscriptions. I recently discovered Library Dust. Consider this is a recommendation. Also look for Michael's essay on "Homeless in Paradise" on WebJunction. Michael is indeed over forty. As is Walt. And Karen Schneider. I wish Walt could somehow have done a breakdown by blogger age, though I know it would be fairly impossible. There are days when I feel like Methuselah in biblioblogland. I know that the age should skew higher as the technology is embraced more widely. Meanwhile, I cringe a bit thinking of being a voice of the over-forty blogger. I am not unhappy at all to be middle-aged. I am thankful for the wisdom I have earned, some of it the hard way. But just as the next-gen librarians have issues around the "lack of experience" Catch-22, us geezers may have too much experience, and are not that thrilled to be up against folks who have been wired since, like junior high.

I used to like telling people that I first touched a computer in 1974, if you consider feeding in a card stack "touch." Now, although I am still proud of that Snoopy calendar on that green bar paper, I am not looking to regale newbies or new employers with that information. I guess the DEC workstation in 1981 is off limits, as well as the absolutely fabulous Xerox workstation in 1989. Ah, computers, I have known ye. But I can't market those long-ago skills! Even much more recent ones are kind of embarassing, residing as I have in something of a technology wasteland. Mind you, I still consider it fortunate that most of my colleagues and supervisors are unaware that blogs are updated frequently. Most of them, if they came here, came here once. Sweet, huh? Oh right, maybe that was a comment on the content, as it were.

Time limits

Limits can be helpful--thank god I know how to limit results in all kinds of databases. But living under a time limit is something different. "You, young lady, are allowed exactly fifteen minutes to post all those deep thoughts you have been thinking and then BACK TO WORK!" Argh. What deep thoughts? More like runoff from the babel in my brain, but quick!

I want to get in here some expression of sympathy for public library patrons whose computing needs are supposed to be met with one one-hour session a day, six days a week if they are lucky. I mean seriously, I do understand that this may not be enough. Don't think for a minute that I could do it. Give me almost any reason, and I personally will extend your session. Job search, family crisis, homework assignment, inexperienced user, what have you. Do not tell me you just want to surf around some more. I can't justify that one, due to the twenty people behind you. And really, you should be able to check your email in an hour, at least the really important stuff. Yes, you have to talk to me, and before your session ends, thank you kindly.

Eek, brings up being unwired while on the road to my new home. Boyfriend will be unsympathethic. I can do it, I tell myself. But some part of me says, "I will miss me." How's that for daft? May end up "blogging" to a spiral-bound notebook. But who will comment?

Exciting news: Traloo, tralay, the 45s not only sold on Ebay, they have been purchased by a loyal BBB reader who is also a pal from LISNews! w00t! w00t w00t W00T! Online community in action. How cool is that? I CANNOT BELIEVE. Thank you Mock Turtle! I hope you do find gold in them thar hills. Or create art, or something.

Someday, in some way, there will be a post giving Patti Smith's set list from 7/24, plus a lengthy paean to LISNews. Both are very good places to visit.

Status: Anxiety

Getting rid of 3/4s (5/8s?, 13/16s? Agh, Whatever is the biggest fraction you can think) of my possessions turns out not to be the hardest part of this move. I am saying goodbye to a lot of people I really like or love. It may not seem shocking to you that this would be difficult. But it is for me. I moved a ton as a child. My father was an engineer. It's akin to being an Army brat. Or an oil brat. Or a foreign service brat. You learn to detach at an early age.

I have been in Philadelphia for ten years. It is true I have lived in four different domiciles in Philly, but they were all within a mile of each other. One zip code. This is the longest I have ever lived anywhere except NYC and environs. I spent nineteen years in I think 12 places including Hoboken and Jersey City. Bunch of different zip codes. I worked in Manhattan the entire time. When I left J.C. ten years ago, it was as a refugee. I was fleeing. Of course, leaving Philly is bringing back some of those feelings. Like I ever need reminding.

I haven't been handling this stuff too well. I have said the wrong things to the right people and the right things to the wrong people. I have managed to mangle my own feelings as well. Even though the Alan de Botton book was very thought provoking, I have not made great strides in thinking philosophically. Meanwhile, I have been denying myself books! You see how crazy I have been making myself? But there is so much to do, and so many things I want to do. I definitely need to read ...the thoughts are broken... (I don't want to get the link from Bloglines because I don't want to lose the twenty-two posts waiting for me, but I DO recommend it, and truly, I will read/respond when I can! When is that, she wails...

Homeless in Paradise

WebJunction - Printer Friendly Content

Word. Completely applies to homeless in the birthplace of liberty as well. I met Michael at ALA at the OCLC bloggers' do...he seemed like a great guy. Now I wishe I had talked to him more...

Google Isn't Everything

Forbes.com - Magazine Article

All right, who told him?

"Swallowing a cuttlefish" while others "pirouette around"

Library Books Are OK, But Here's What Google Should Really Be Concentrating On

Well, the headline threw me once, and again. He's talking about Google Print, though he seems a little behind the news. In any case, he is making the case that Google is wasting resources digitizing old library books. I cannot agree with that. I agree that access to the deep, hidden or opaque web is something else we want and need.

"Web pages that are spawned on the fly from database queries, and/or are hidden behind the CGI'd, Session ID-URL'd moats of password-protected and fee-accessed Web sites." Frustration. Those "page cannot load" messages, et al. Some users are beginning to express the belief that if information does not turn up in Google within ten hits of one or two keywords, then it does not exist. This terrifies me.

I had to work hard on Saturday to convince an intelligent young woman that MPOW's subscription databases could get her more and better info than the big G on her search topic. I did convince her, and possibly made a convert. But I know she really just wanted to do it herself. Even though I was nice and helpful and showed her how to do it herself, it was clearly not the same. I think she will turn to a librarian next time she really gets stumped, but only if she has no other choice.

I do not want to be the user's last resort. We need to find ways to bring information to them, to be where the user is (as the OCLC 2003 Environmental Scan said), to make it feel more empowering. Google Database is a possible answer, if G can outmaneuver those damn pirouetters.

P. S. Library books are more than ok.

Saint Hiram the Hebrew

In my current "purge all unneccesary possessions" cycle, I decided to gift a library trainee of whom I am particularly fond with my antique library stamp holder. Someone gave it to me while I was in library school. His response:

I would love the stamp holder!  my branch has something like it, and I've admired it.  I still stamp cards and books, and I actually enjoy it.  It's satisfying in the same way that typing an angry letter on a manual typewriter is. Thwack!  Thwack-thwack!  So there, take that!  Whenever one of my colleagues makes fun of me (which is often, and always good-humored), I raise a stamp threateningly and warn them that they're about to be taken out of circulation.

I have something a little less tangible for you to take along:  a patron saint named Saint Hiram.  I recently created him.  One of the Library Assistants at my branch is very culturally Catholic, and I'm impressed that she can invoke the name of a saint who specializes in interceding in whatever situation she happens to be in at the moment.  So I decided that we needed a good Jewish saint, and that, since no saint has yet claimed patronage of gravitational lensing (my brother's dissertation topic), Saint Hiram will step in and take up the slack on that one.  Another Library Assistant, a very funny man and a gifted poet, wrote this "Prayer to Saint Hiram the Hebrew:

Although the Pope in Rome may not approve
Nor think that it should ever well behoove
The Holy Church that Hiram might be sainted
(Who with meek Jesus is but ill acquainted),
I haggle ever humbly nonetheless
That Hiram intercede in my distress!
And if I do not get my way with Hiram,
I'll call upon the Lord above to fire him! 

By BG

I should warn you, though, that so far when I have asked Saint Hiram for help, he's told me to get off my lazy tuchas and fix it myself.  Sigh.

I thought being gifted with a Jewish saint to call on was wonderful, and I had to share the poem.

Now to find homes for all the other incredible ephemera. I mean the stuff too weird to put on the Psychic Shopping Network. I may need to call on Saint Hiram.I've launched my first Ebay auction ever. So far, I've made my starting bid. Which will at least save them fom the curb. Now, about the wedding china...

Continuous Partial Attention

There's a name for watching Now on PBS while checking the Phillies score on AM while weeding bookshelves while talking to offspring while reading IM messages!

Dog says what we have here is complete impartial inattention. Time for a walk! Read this meaty beaty big and bouncy article when you get the chance--more than just my nonvirtual address is changing. (But thank gods and goddesses that that isn't!)

Continuous Computing Blog: Social Machines

via blg3 at BlogJunction

What's the subject?

Library Journal - Research at Risk

Wow, sign me up to carry a spear! Oh, I am not an academic librarian, dagnabbit. This article does such a great job of explaining some of the problems with keyword searching. I refuse to allow that it doesn't affect pulic library reference service.

I have always stumbled a bit trying to explain why the catalog is better than Google or Amazon. (In some iterations, it is not. Chagrin.) I have had to explain the concept of controlled vocabulary to patrons and staff, like it is an idea from Mars, or some as-yet undiscovered planet. Most of our newspaper electronic resources have little to no subject headings. We have a new product that gives you a hit list with "near" spellings. So far, I can't make out how they decided what was "near". I was very excited to see 18 hits for my surname in historic newspapers. It turned out they were for McKinney, M'Henry, MacKenna, etc. No cigars. So this product and its family may seem to promise much to genealogists, but deliver disappointment.

But there's much more meat to the article--read it! Pick up a spear. We are interested in better access to information. That does not have to mean "dumbing down".

Google's relevance ranking of keywords is not the same as conceptual categorization of sources accomplished by LCSH. The difference is finding "something quickly"—isolated, unstructured, and disconnected information—versus gaining a systematic overview of the conceptual field.