Musings
CATALOG AT HOME!
What’s the ultimate library geek accessory (well, aside from a tattoo)? Your very own card catalog, of course! It carries all the retro-chic of vinyl record players, 35mm cameras, and typewriters, plus that something extra-special that reveals your affinity for books and the Dewey Decimal System.
Holy Names University in Oakland is selling two vintage cabinets. A quick survey via Google suggests they should sell somewhere in the amorphous hundreds-of-dollars range. If you’re not in Northern California, various other libraries are selling off their cabinets on eBay.
The narrow drawers are perfect for a variety of crafty purposes, like skeins of yarn or children’s art tools and toys. Or you could fully catalog your home library if digital tools like LibraryThing aren’t your thing. Alternatively, you could use it to house your cocktail recipes.
What would you do with your own card catalog cabinet?
ON TATTOED LIBRARIANS
To be fair, the recent Salon.com interview with writer Marilyn Johnson about her new tome, This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All, is not the first place I’ve seen the “librarians can be hip! Librarians can have tattoos!” theme. In fact, that’s part of the problem — I’ve seen that canard a few too many times now and it’s beginning to bug me. Even the director of my graduate school is guilty of the same maneuver.
Of course librarians have tattoos.
Some even have professionally relevant tattoos! I have one friend, an MLIS, with an entire scene from Where the Wild Things Are across her back (the subject of a children’s lit research paper she wrote at SLIS). But tattoos are hardly new. Body art has a legacy stretching back thousands of years, and the contemporary, widespread popularity of tattoos — blossoming in the early nineties, still going strong twenty years on — shows no signs of abating. Tattoos aren’t limited to record store clerks anymore. My wife has two tattoos — and she’s an accounting paraprofessional. So are accountants considered hip now too?
At the root of all this is a defensiveness about our profession that some librarians have adopted. Are we really so afraid of hair buns and cardigans? Libraries and librarians have real-world challenges to deal with. Budgets are being slashed. Technology is transforming information use. We’re still figuring out what is the 21st century librarian’s skill set.
Meanwhile, any and all trades with practitioners under 40 are going to have plenty of tattooed or otherwise hip professionals, just as they are bound to also have a few nerdy, bookish types. Heck, there are plenty of people over 40 with tattoos. It’s become…unremarkable. So the more we remark on it, the more we try and make a big deal about the appearance of librarians, the more silly and vain we look. Librarians can and do come in every stripe, every style, every age. That’s no longer the point.
Johnson does point out a number of great things libraries do — this entire passage is on point: “As for librarians, they’re civil servants. They deal with all kinds of social welfare problems, from childcare to homelessness to people who can’t navigate the bureaucracy to get benefits or help finding a job. The buck stops at the library. If we keep cutting library aid, people who can’t figure out how to file for taxes, or how to use e-mail, are going to be out of luck. About 20 percent of the population is not wired; they don’t have Internet access or a smart phone.”
These are the talking points librarians should use when trying to influence public perception, not the punkish color of our hair or the trendiness of our musical taste (though it’s unfortunate, as my friend Nicole pointed out to me, that Johnson doesn’t highlight the value academic and special librarians bring as well; public libraries are only one sector of the profession).
When you get down to it, that kid who always talks about how hip or popular he or she is is never actually hip or popular. Let’s stop being afraid of a harmless stereotype and have a little fun with it, and get serious when we talk about all the good things we can do.
REVISITING LIBRARIES ON FACEBOOK
Last week David Lee King wrote an excellent blog post on academic libraries and Facebook, and it forced me to rethink some of the assumptions I made a year ago in a blog post on the same subject. At that time, I felt that Facebook was far more useful for networking with other professionals and staying in touch than it was for institutions, but some of the newer features on Facebook have really changed the landscape.
The single biggest change as far as institutions are concerned is that Fanpages can now post updates and have them automatically appear in the Newsfeed of their fans. This was implemented in the spring of 2009 and it allows libraries to create a far more active relationship with their fans. This simple but key difference means that instead of the user needing to visit and revisit the fan page in order to interact with the library, all they have to do is sign up as a fan and the news will come to them. Instead of fans having to post on the wall of the fanpage, they can post comments right on each update, creating a dialog.
That is, as long as the library remembers to post news. And that was the biggest element of King’s post. If libraries want to gain fans and have relevant fanpages, they can’t just set up a page and walk away. They need to keep a frequent stream of updates relevant to their institution, invite their fans to events using Facebook’s Event feature, and add photos and videos, much like an individual uses their personal Facebook page.
I can imagine a few groans now. Who has the time to keep posting these things on Facebook when the library is busy and (likely) understaffed? Well, it’s worth remembering that the library is already creating all this content. It already hosts events. It already publishes guides and pathfinders to its website. Perhaps it already has a blog. All of these things can be fed through Facebook updates with just a few clicks. If the library also has a Twitter feed, the tweets can be linked to the fanpage account and be posted simultaneously in both places.
I’d like to add one point to King’s. Ultimately, a library (or any institutional fanpage) will be most successful if they spread the responsibility between staffmembers. I heard this from two different colleagues in the last week — one my former Technology Tools professor, and the other a former SLIS classmate — and the reasons why are pretty obvious. If only one person is keeping the Facebook page going, any time they go on vacation or get too busy the Facebook page withers away. Instead, if several people are involved it is easier to maintain momentum and vary the content.
Does anyone know of any particularly good library Facebook pages to recommend?
ON FEATHER CLOAKS AND CANNIBALS
I’ve made another contribution to the California Academy of Sciences library blog From the Stacks. It’s about pioneering ichthyologist and first Superintendent of the Steinhart Aquarium Alvin Seale and his adventure memoir Quest for the Golden Cloak. The book is the account of his turn of the century exploration of the South Seas in search of a feather cloak to rival King Kamehameha I’s, and to determine if cannibalism still held sway upon any remote or forgotten island.
To quote my post on From the Stacks, “in his adventures he also came across high cliffside caves strewn with ancestral bones, went diving on a forgotten island searching for oysters with golden pearls, and even had a chance to shoot the devil himself.”
If that whets your appetite, read more here.
CHECK OUT “FROM THE STACKS”
In addition to the digital archiving I’m working on for the California Academy of Sciences, my new job also entails various other services — including the occasional addition to the Research Library’s blog, “From the Stacks“.
I recently wrote a post about Fur Seals, San Francisco and exploring the Bering Sea — the subject of an exhibit I curated in the C.A.S. Library Reading Room during my internship. Please go check it out, and while you’re there, take a look at all the other excellent Academy blogs — there is a lot going on at one of San Francisco’s great institutions!
CONFESSIONS OF A LURKER
Apparently today is “delurk” day in the blogosphere, as lurking readers are encouraged to actually comment on their favorite blogs that they normally read in secrecy. I admit to being guilty of lurking on a number of blogs; either I have nothing to add or say in reply, or I’m shy because I don’t know the blogger personally and feel out of place commenting, or it’s a really popular blog and I see no point in adding my two cents when there are hundreds of other comments. I should know better — I certainly appreciate the small handful of comments I get here and on my feed on facebook, and I’d bet the blogs I read (particularly the “smaller” ones) would in turn appreciate the attention themselves.
So I thought I’d highlight a handful of my favorite blogs to lurk, some widely read, others not. Don’t be offended if your blog didn’t make my list…this is just a small sampling from my Reader, and I probably don’t consider myself a lurker on yours!
Blogs by librarians:
- Carolyn the Librarian: This blog is written by a friend and former classmate of mine. She’s an academic reference librarian and one of the most organized, cogent and sharp colleagues I’ve had. Her blog is serious-minded, as she is, focusing on evaluating the library services she takes part in, and analyzing changing trends in academic librarianship. I read it regularly (or as regularly as she posts), and her blog has always featured in my “friends” blogroll at left, but I’ve only commented a couple times.
- Silversprite: This blog is authored by John Kirriemuir, a library consultant who resides in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland (an area of the world recently featured in an evocative National Geographic piece). He travels extensively and blogs about the libraries and library services he witnesses in his journeys.
- The Cataloguing Librarian: I’m not a cataloger, but I might be some day – it’s hard to know what direction my career might take. I have taken courses in the subject and done some archival cataloging during my recent internship, so I know the basics. Reading Laurel Tarulli’s blog, a frequently published Canadian cataloging librarian, keeps me up on many of the bigger questions in cataloging, thus helping me remain informed should I find cataloging a part of my job duties some day. Plus, she writes well and keeps what might be a dry subject pretty interesting. I think I’ve commented once.
- Librarian in Black: Sarah Houghton-Jan’s blog on library web services is one of the gold standards on the subject — widely read, influential, and positive about the possibilities in library services. Reading Librarian in Black is a great way to stay informed about the technological possibilities out there (along with the occasional horror story).
- The Travelin’ Librarian: This interesting blog is a hodgepodge mix of professional observation, personal musings and interesting links (not unlike my own, but generally better written!). The author is veteran librarian Michael Sauers of Lincoln, Nebraska.
Plus a music blog:
- Dust Sleeve. I love, love, love this music blog, though I’ve only commented on it a couple times. I first found it googling for reviews of a Wolf Parade album (anyone who knows me understands I am a fanatic) but kept reading it due to the well-written reviews, the entertaining song mixes, and links provided by writer Erin Fox. After reading her blog for nearly a year, I can definitely say I trust her taste in music. And unlike some music blogs, she writes without pretension.
Now, I suppose I ought to go out and delurk on each of these blogs by posting some comments…in the meantime, I suggest you check them out!
And of course, I’m always happy to get comments here on The Pinakes. No need to be shy. Perhaps you can tell me your favorite blogs to lurk?
HIRED! TEMPORARILY
I have been hired. It’s temporary, but it’s still very exciting regardless. I’ll start working 30-hours a week for the California Academy of Sciences Research Library after Martin Luther King Jr. weekend (I officially started last month, but it’s been just one day a week for training so far). I’ll be the temporary fill-in for the Archives and Digital Production Assistant as she goes out on maternity leave.
So what will my responsibilities entail? The bulk of my workload will be digital archiving — scanning the Academy’s impressive collection of archival and curatorial photographs (from prints, books, slides and transparencies) to CDL standards, creating the accompanying Dublin Core-based metadata, organizing the servers, and operating the Cumulus digital asset management system that stores the collection. I will also pitch in on archival reference questions, serving as the aide-de-camp for the Archives and Digital Collections Librarian as needed.
Of course, it’s great to find a paying job in the current economic climate. But beyond the wages, this job is a fantastic opportunity because of the new digital archiving skills I’m learning, the fantastic workplace and coworkers (with whom I’ve been interning since the summer), and the overall mission and orientation of the Academy, very much in line with that of my former longtime workplace, The Nature Conservancy. It further burnishes my credentials in the natural sciences, an area of interest of mine.
As a temporary position, this role adds to my résumé while still leaving me free to pursue longer-term appointments for after it wraps in mid-April. It all adds up to being the perfect opportunity.
A NOT UNFORTUNATE EVENT
One of the most satisfying book series I’ve read is Lemony Snicket’s magnum opus (ostensibly for children), A Series of Unfortunate Events. A verbose, witty look at the unceasingly unfortunate lives of the Baudelaire Orphans, it was the brainchild of San Franciscan (and fellow Lowellite) Daniel Handler, the author of such grown-up books as Adverbs and The Basic Eight — the latter being set at a thinly disguised version of Lowell High. The subject of Handler came up when I was out with friends Saturday night. One of the friends went to Lowell with me, while another is a fellow fan of The Magnetic Fields, a band with whom Handler has played (accordion). With the one friend I discussed The Basic Eight and its portrayal of our high school, and with the latter I discussed the upcoming Magnetic Fields tour and their shows in San Francisco and Oakland.
I openly wondered if Handler would be playing his accordion live with the band.
Lo and behold, today I ran into no less an authority on the subject than Mr. Handler himself, apparently taking a stroll in a Victorian neighborhood near one of San Francisco’s hilltop parks. It must have been a strange encounter for him — it was a chilly day, and I was on my bicycle with my three-year-old daughter, who was clad in a rainbow of colors, with silver sequined shoes and a shimmery silver scarf, sitting in her rear-mounted seat. I suddenly stopped mid-street, just ahead of him, and waited for him to catch up before disrupting his reverie. After verifying his identity (needlessly; I was certain it was him), I said I had just one question — would he be playing with The Magnetic Fields during their upcoming local shows?
I suppose it might have seemed less odd if I explained that I had just been asking that question (to people of lesser expertise) in a bar the prior night. Or, perhaps, that would have made it more odd.
In any case, he graciously said yes, he would, and that he was excited about the new album they were releasing. In fact, he didn’t seem startled by my shock assault at all.
I didn’t bother him for an autograph. I was on my bike, already confusing my daughter with my bizarre behavior, and without a pen or paper. That, and I already have his signature. I let him return to his brisk walk, and resumed our brisk ride.
When we got home I introduced Mather to the music of the Magnetic Fields, to which she responded, predictably, by dancing. A few years down the line she’ll no doubt be introduced to Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire. Hopefully she can one day mirror their ingenuity, but hopefully without a series of unfortunate events.
PLAYING DRESS-UP
I’ve been remiss on recapping the card catalog cocktail party! Some two-dozen current or recent SLIS graduates assembled at our house a few weeks ago to celebrate the newest set of MLIS-degree recipients. And to put an entertaining twist on things, we all (well, most of us) dressed up in our best stereotypical librarian garb for the occasion.
My attempt to go a more formal route was undone by Tom and his husband Mike, who forced me to wear Dame Edna-esque cat-eye glasses, but I was impressed by the efforts of many of my peers. Of course, at least two party-goers declined to participate in the official costume contest on the basis that that’s exactly how they usually dress. Of course, I’m equally guilty. In the run-up to the party, my wife was surprised to see me changing clothes — since I had been already wearing an argyle sweater.
Here’s an assorted few photos:
Not actually prescription glasses.
Yes, that’s exactly how Adina usually dresses.
I wouldn’t dare complain about my overdue fines to Carolyn.
Tawnie went with pink argyle and knee-high stockings.
Sjuli went classy with fancy footwear and a pearl necklace.
Greg stepped up as resident guybrarian.
Ironically, with all those MLIS-holders present, the winner isn’t a librarian at all, but rather my wife’s co-worker and best friend Anastasia, who came as an austere, stern shusher:
Her grand prize was a set of argyle-and-skull stockings, which she promptly added to her look:
The runners-up each won their very own stub-length pencil. To which Tom (a page at an SFPL branch) responded, “It’s my job to stock those!”.
Happy New Year’s, by the way…
iMUSÉE?
Shortly after writing about “Digital Museums“, I came across a curious iPhone app called “Musée du Louvre“. Officially produced by the namesake majestic Parisian palace (the most visited museum in the world) it bills itself as a virtual tour and information source. Now, it hardly replaces a visit to France on your itinerary. It features text, videos, and photos of only a handful of the museum’s most famous works of art (such as the Venus de Milo, the Law Code of Hammurabi, Winged Victory, the Coronation of Napoleon, and of course the Mona Lisa). Still, since it includes floor plans, museum hours and historical information on each wing, it could make a nice companion to a physical tour.
While it’s ambition may be limited, it’s certainly a highbrow app to carry on your phone — it certainly looks better than the latest “Blond Jokes App” if you loan your phone to a friend (make sure to place it on the same screen as the Works of Shakespeare and New York Times for extra snob appeal). The price is also right — it’s free.
And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t toss in this decade old photo of my wife doing her best Mona Lisa impression during our real life trip to the Louvre…
I do think this app shows a certain potential for individual institutions. Since programming applications for iPhones and Google Android products is relatively simple, many information institutions — museums and libraries — have the capability of designing their own apps.
Should larger public and academic library systems take the time to design and publish dedicated smart phone applications? What tools and capabilities might a library’s app feature? Are there existing examples?
