Relative Perspective

Thinking vs. Doing

2008-08-19T06:54:00.007-05:00

It's hard to believe I haven't posted on this blog in 8 months! Well, actually, no, it's not hard to believe. I have a tendency to begin things with a lot of gung-ho enthusiasm but then lose interest or not carry them through. I spend a great deal more time thinking than doing. There is an old song by the Indigo Girls that I like (from their Nomads Indians Saints CD of 1990) called "Hammer and Nail." The refrain is:

Gotta get out of bed get a hammer and a nail
Learn how to use my hands, not just my head
I think myself into jail
Now I know a refuge never grows
From a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose
Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose.

Gosh this is me. I often think myself into my own prison of inactivity!

I do value this thinking side, as it is one of my greatest strengths. However, I have realized that I "think too much." In Jungian theory, we all have four psychological functions: Thinking, Sensing, Feeling, and Intuition. We all have these functions. We just have them in different proportions, you might say. Each of us has a superior function, which we prefer and which is best developed in us, a secondary function, which we are aware of and use in support of our superior function, a tertiary function, which is only slightly less developed but not terribly conscious, and an inferior function, which is poorly developed and so unconscious that we might deny its existence in ourselves.

For me, the Thinking function tends to overpower everything else. I've taken the Myers-Briggs personality type test-- years ago I took the full-blown, written test, and then since then I've taken various online tests at different times. I always come out as a "rational," with a high level of the "N." The other functions have come out differently at different times in my life. I think this is due to the fact that I have struggled with depression for most of my life. I know I'm basically an extrovert, because I am energized by interacting with other people, rather than drained. But depression is very subtle and insidious. It shades responses, disrupts thought patterns, and, in my opinion, masks one's true personality.

I am relatively free of depression these days (yes, thank you, it's wonderful!) due to effective medication and long-term therapy. One of the things I've learned in therapy is that I tend to bury and subjugate my emotions. I suppose this means that my Feeling function is "inferior." A long time ago, in a Jungian study group I was in, we learned that a way to strengthen an inferior function was to focus on developing the tertiary function, which is a little easier to get at.

I am not completely sure which function goes where and how to classify everything, but I do realize where I need some balance. I have existed in my mind to the detriment of being "in the world." I have discounted simple sensual experiences, like cooking my own food, making the house look better, pursuing physical activity, and just DOING things. So I have been trying to change this. I am cooking more, and trying to pay more attention to what I eat. I attempt to get outside, and take the dogs for a walk. I started learning to play the guitar. I know that I have a long way to go, and some of it entails changing habits and doing things I don't particularly "want" to do. I do not want to turn this into a list of things I "should" do. (The word "should" is not allowed in therapy, and for good reason.) A list of tasks is just work, and feels like a burden, and I need to find the joy in doing things for their own sake, and learn to appreciate how doing them makes me feel.

But writing about doing things, and actually doing them, are two different things, so I will stop here, and go and DO SOMETHING!

Community by email

2008-01-17T07:12:00.000-06:00

An interesting "social network" has evolved on my campus. I work at a small institution, located in a very small rural community. It is often said that "everyone here knows everyone else." While that might have been true 20 years ago, it's not true any more, because the number of people living and working here has probably doubled since then. However, we are still small, and there is a high degree of interconnectedness.

Perhaps because of this relatively small size, people have no qualms about blanketing the campus with emails about any number of things. In order to reduce this stream, about ten years ago the email system administrators created some "opt-in" email lists and put out the word that the large group mailing nicknames, like "facstaff" were for university business only.

The list that really took off was one called "Classifieds." This was originally for posting items for sale or wanted to buy. However, in the absence of any other list to use for announcements or non-sale messages, people began using it for all kinds of things.

So now, the "classifieds" list has become the place to go to stay "in the know." Not only do you get announcements of non-campus events, but people commonly post questions like "Who should I get to fix my roof?" "Does anyone know a good massage therapist?" "Has anyone seen the Fed-Ex guy?" Even: "Can someone tell me how to pronounce the name of this famous architect?" People ask for phone numbers, copies of articles that appeared in the newspaper, even books. It's been useful for finding lost pets. People get quick responses during the workday, and frequently post thank yous and comments like "classifieds rocks!"

One of the reference librarians has said that "classifieds" has taken the place of library reference for information. He does answer some questions as a librarian when it's appropriate.

Occasionally there are conversations or funny exchanges, but most of the time people prefer to answer questions directly to the asker, so unless the original person posts a summary of responses (like about experiences with roof repair) you don't get the answer! This bothers me-- I want to see the answers to the questions, but as in any list, there are varying approaches. Many people are afraid to post publicly, and others think it "clutters up the list."

Recently there was a notice about some shady people going door to door asking for money for some undefined reason and asking strange questions about the community. Several people had the same experience, and posted it. Several people recommended calling the police when it happens, not several days later (duh.) One person asked that this exchange be taken off-list so that everyone didn't have to get these messages. Another person responded that this was important to the people who live here, and that it was a fine way to use the list.

One person in the community took it upon herself to create a "community" email list, off the university network. She reposts selected items on this list for people who can't subscribe to the classifieds list-- not all the buying and selling, but the announcements and events and lost pets. The campus department has also begun to participate, posting alerts about weather and other safety issues. They can post to all the lists, of course, but they also post to classifieds, and this is repeated on the community list.

In my opinion, this is social networking. It's happening on email, which is not a new technology, certainly not "2.0." But it's the common denominator, and it is the way to reach the most people in this community. In my work with organizations, I've found that email is still new to a lot of people, and they often don't really know how to use it very well. Many people have no idea how to attach documents or forward things correctly. And yet, it's still a basic. Everyone on the net has some kind of email address. They might not join a group, or read a blog, and have the faintest clue what RSS is or how to use a wiki. But they can shop and send email.

And lastly, I have a pet peeve about the use of the word "classifieds." These postings are not classified at all. Our local weekly newspaper, which is packed full, well-edited, well-designed, well-respected and full of advertising, has been misusing this word for decades. They have a "classifieds" section with small ads, but the ads are not classified at all. They are all mixed up. Now granted, there is only one page, but it's a very packed full page, and you have to read all of the ads to find what you are looking for. At the times I've mentioned my irritation with this to others, they think I'm just being obsessive. I had the opportunity once to sit next to the editor of the paper at a charity event. She is a very smart and educated person who is active in the community. I told her how wonderful the paper is, and also mentioned this issue about the "classifieds" not being classified. She listened, and I don't think she took offense, but nothing changed, so I expect that nobody else at the paper felt that it was an issue.

One person said that the word "classifieds" has taken on a new meaning. People have no idea what classfication is, and so to them "classifieds" simply means small ads or postings. That could be true, but it's rather sad, in my opinion.

Happiness Project and a digression about depression

2008-01-02T07:34:00.000-06:00

I've been reading a blog by Gretchen Rubin called The Happiness Project. Rubin is writing a book with that title, about "test-driving every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study" she can find about making oneself happier. She says she has indeed made herself happier, by making very small shifts in behavior. I think her lists of "resolutions" are too big, and rather overwhelming, but I'm interested in finding out how she actually makes these small shifts in behavior.

When it comes right down to it, my main goal is to be a happier person. I don't mean I want to have more hedonistic pleasures. I have joked that I have "anhedonia-- a psychological condition characterized by inability to experience pleasure in normally pleasurable acts." That's not really true-- I do experience pleasure. I joke around and laugh a lot, and generally am not a morose person.
But I've been told by a professional that I have "dysthymia-- a chronic form of depression characterized by moods that are consistently low, but not as extreme as in other types of depression." Yes, medication helps. Yes, exercise helps. No, I'm not complaining. I have many things to be grateful for and proud of, and realizing this just baffles me sometimes and leads me to self-chastisement along the order of "you are very fortunate and gifted, and you can do anything you set your mind to, so why don't you just get over it." But anyone who has had any experience with any kind of depression (and the numbers of us are legion) realizes that depression is totally insidious. It eats away from the inside and robs a person of rational thought. Or, as has happened to me at times, leaves nothing left but rational thought with no emotion.

A few years ago I read a well-known book on depression, The Noonday Demon : an Atlas of Depression, by Andrew Solomon (2001.) Solomon described depression in such a way that I was moved to type out a few excerpts and save them in a file. (The emphasized parts are my doing.)

From pp. 15-16:

Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair. When it comes, it degrades one's self and ultimately eclipses the capacity to give or receive affection. It is the aloneness within us made manifest, and it destroys not only connection to others but also the ability to be peacefully alone with oneself. Love, though it is no prophylactic against depression, is what cushions the mind and protects it from itself. Medications and psychotherapy can renew that protection, making it easier to love and be loved, and that is why they work. In good spirits, some love themselves and some love others and some love work and some love God: any of these passions can furnish that vital sense of purpose that is the opposite of depression. Love forsakes us from time to time, and we forsake love. In depression, the meaninglessness of every enterprise and every emotion, the meaninglessness of life itself, becomes self-evident. The only feeling left in this loveless state is insignificance.
...
Depression has been roughly divided into small (mild or dysthymic) and large (major) depression. Mild depression is a gradual and sometimes permanent thing that undermines people the way rust weakens iron. It is too much grief at too slight a cause, pain that takes over from the other emotions and crowds them out. Such depression takes up bodily occupancy in the eyelids and in the muscles that keep the spine erect. It hurts your heart and lungs, making the contraction of involuntary muscles harder than it needs to be. Like physical pain that becomes chronic, it is miserable not so much because it is intolerable in the moment as because it is intolerable to have known it in the moments gone and to look forward only to knowing it the moments to come. The present tense of mild depression envisages no alleviation because it feels like knowledge.

From pp. 292-293:

In the fifth century, Cassian writes of the... noonday demon spoken of in the Nintieth Psalm... The section in question would be literally translated from the Vulgate: His truth shall compass thee with a shield: thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night, of the arrow that flieth in the day, of the business that walketh about in the dark: of invasion, or of the noonday demon. Cassian presumed that 'the terror of the night' refers to evil; 'the arrow that flies in the day' to the onslaught of human enemies; 'the business that walks in the dark' to fiends that come in sleep; 'invasion' to possession, and 'the noonday demon' to melancholia, the thing that you can see clearly in the brightest part of the day but that nonetheless comes to wrench your soul away from God. Other sins might waste the night, but this bold one consumes day and night.
...
I have taken the phrase as the title of this book because it describes so exactly what one experiences in depression. The image serves to conjure the terrible feeling of invasion that attends the depressive's plight. There is something brazen about depression. Most demons-- most forms of anguish-- rely on the cover of night; to see them clearly is to defeat them. Depression stands in the full glare of the sun, unchallenged by recognition. You can know all the why and wherefore and suffer just as much as if you were shrouded by ignorance. There is almost no other mental state of which the same can be said.

I have spent many years trying to think my way out of depression. It doesn't work. What seems to work best for me is to feel a sense of accomplishment. I tend to get bogged down in making lists of things I need to do and then feeling too overwhelmed to actually do any of them. I also have a hard time getting started on a project, and get sucked into procrastination and avoidance behaviors. When I actually manage to complete something, I feel good about myself and am able to do more.

All of these writing is an attempt to approach change differently so that I can actually accomplish the goals I set for myself.

Thoughts on the New Year and resolutions (Part 1)

2008-01-01T08:54:00.000-06:00

I'm not immune to the New Year's resolution craze. The beginning of a new year offers a powerful incentive to look back, reassess, and set goals for improvement. I think most people want to improve something about their lives. Few of us have reached a state of total satisfaction and happiness. Striving for something better is a healthy and natural human trait.

I can't tell you how often my reflections about goals and life and motivations have gone back to something I learned in a beginning psychology class-- Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

According to Maslow, the higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus when the lower needs in the pyramid are satisfied. Once an individual has moved upwards to the next level, needs in the lower level will no longer be prioritized. If a lower set of needs is no longer being met, the individual will temporarily re-prioritize those needs by focusing attention on the unfulfilled needs, but will not permanently regress to the lower level. (from Wikipedia)

People who are struggling with meeting the more basic needs often look at the new year with hope: "Maybe this year I'll find a better job so I can afford to get a car that works, or move my family to a safer neighborhood." "Maybe I won't hurt so much this year." "Maybe we'll get enough rain for a decent corn crop." "Maybe the war will end and life can get back to normal." I feel extremely fortunate that my basic needs are met, when there are so many people in the world who are lacking so much.

Most New Year's resolutions are goals that fit into the esteem or self-actualization category: "I'm going to write every day in my blog." "I'm going to get organized." "I'm going to train for my first triathlon." Or maybe in the love/belonging category: "I'm going to spend more quality time with my spouse (or family.)"

However, what about the most common resolutions: lose weight, quit smoking, get more physically fit. Aren't those related to health? Yes, and self-esteem, and maybe even love (attracting a partner.) Human nature and psychology are complex and Maslow's model doesn't tell the whole story, but is still a useful tool for understanding.

Behind many resolutions is a yearning to break free of addictions. The following excerpt is adapted from Power, Freedom, and Grace, by Deepak Chopra, as presented on the Green Living website:

Addiction is the No. 1 disease of civilization, and it's directly and indirectly related to all other diseases. Besides physical addictions, such as the addiction to food, tobacco, alcohol, and drugs, there are psychological addictions, such as the addiction to work, to sex, to television, to shopping, to appearing young, to control, to suffering, to anxiety, to melodrama, to perfection.

Why are we addicted to all these things? We are addicted because we are not living from source; we have [lost] our connection to our soul. The use of food, alcohol, or drugs is essentially a material response to a need that is not really physical at its foundation.

I emphasized that last sentence, because it resonated with me. Of course, this is not the first time I've read or heard this. Years of therapy have taught me that falling into self-destructive behavior is usually the result of some other problem. How often do we eat when we are tired or depressed, not because we are really hungry. Or numb ourselves with books and television shows because we don't want to face what's really bothering us. Understanding this is the first step to breaking the habits we do not want, but it's not enough.

The Loose Cannon Librarian posted recently about her "constant project" to reduce the inefficiency of processes in her library. Her introduction is what caught my eye:

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. I’m all for the holiday, for a little mid-winter joy for the turning of our rather arbitrary calendar system. But another revolution around the sun doesn’t provide enough impetus for me to declare a personal revolution. Most resolutions are hour-by-hour affairs, not watch-the-ball-drop-and-it’s-a-new-me overnight sensations. This may be the year I stop biting my nails, loose twenty pounds and send holiday cards, but it won’t be because this is the year I *really* wanted to- it will be because this is the year the incremental work built up to a new habit. We mostly become better people, learn more, improve our skills, break bad habits, build good practices in a creeping, inefficient way. Tempting though it is, the quick fix raises our eyebrows and suspicion. We change ourselves by creating new connections, internally and externally.

She was referring back to Penelope Trunk (The Brazen Careerist) on How to make a New Year's resolution that you'll keep:

Most resolutions are goals to change our behavior: Stop smoking, stop eating crap, stop being late. This is not a small change. This is a change that requires a massive overhaul of our daily life - hour by hour.
...
We can each meet one or two big goals a year. We can’t change a lot of bad behavior - the more resolutions we make the less likely we are to keep them, according to Roy Baumeister, psychologist at Florida State University. But we can change one. Pick the one that’ll mean the most to you. And, you will be pleasantly surprised to find out that changing one habit actually requires so many small changes in your day that you also end up being able to change other habits, because the patterns of your life change.

So after this long compilation of other people's ideas, what is my point? My point is that I really want to set some goals and make some changes in my life in 2008, but I want to do it thoughtfully. I don't want to list a bunch of resolutions that I'm not going to keep. I want to make a commitment to something and develop a plan to actually do it. More thoughts coming.

Progression

2007-12-21T19:46:00.000-06:00

2007: The year I rediscovered the web

1. Discovered all the blogs about librarianship and information technology. (Before this I thought all blogs were about child rearing, dealing with a disease, adventurous sex lives, or politics.)
2. Learned how to use a feed reader. Became a big fan.
3. Subscribed to many LIS blogs and read them voraciously. Learned about the 2.0 stuff. Learned who all the "popular" bloggers were.
4. Started my own blog just for a test.
5. Coordinated a Learning 2.0 program at MPOW.
6. Put some pictures in Flickr.
7. Decided I wanted to start a "real" blog. Wrote a few posts.
8. Started twittering.
9. Couldn't figure out what I wanted to write about on my blog. Seemed like everyone else was already covering everything interesting, or if I got a good idea, I was too tired to write about it.
10. Started getting tired of reading all the feeds. Maybe I'll prune them down somewhat.

Current status at the end of 2007

I'm suffering from information and idea overload. The world got bigger, but it also got distracting. I need to focus on what I want to accomplish this next year and really try to direct my energies toward those goals.

On Blogging

I often feel like a sponge. I sit at my computer and soak up all the ideas, personalities, insights, issues, and I feel like I know a lot. However, distilling all of that into cogent paragraphs is more work. It takes time and energy. The old adage is that you don't really know something until you teach it to someone else. Teaching... writing... explaining... communicating. I have to learn how to squeeze the sponge. More than that, I have to be more than a sponge, because a sponge just spits out the same stuff that went in, unchanged. Useless, except for moving the stuff to a different spot.

I think the real key is what Walt Crawford titled his book on writing for the library profession: "First, have something to say."

Giving Thanks

2007-11-21T19:16:00.000-06:00

These are some things I am thankful for this year:

a warm and comfortable home.
my health.
freedom from debilitating depression.
my partner, Tony, who brings laughter and love into my home, and who has taught me how to relax without guilt.
my secure income and ability to pay for necessities and some luxuries, such as my computer and internet connection.
the discovery of a rich and thoughtful community of librarians on the net.
my therapy group with whom I share challenges and celebrate insights and victories every week.
my coworkers who are such a joy to work with.
the opportunity to try new things in my library and volunteer work.
the donors who keep our animal shelter financially solvent.
a great manager to run the animal shelter on a daily basis.
my pets and and the dogs I foster, who keep me grounded in simple things, and show unconditional love.
the beauty of the natural surroundings on this mountain in Tennessee.

Java Jackets and Fortune Cookies

2007-11-20T11:38:00.001-06:00

I am in a "PR Group" where we have spent some time thinking up ways to promote the library and library services on campus. I am so proud of some of our first efforts!

We don't have a coffee shop in the library, so we ordered these "java jackets" for the popular campus coffee shop across the street. There were lots of ooh's and ah's and "how cute!" comments the day Cari delivered them.

< We ordered the fortune cookies with an assortment of ten different library-related fortunes. We took them to the dining hall to be put out near their popular stir-fry station. Here are three of the fortunes. (Click on photo to view larger version on Flickr.)

<Here's a closeup of the java jacket. (All photos link to images in Flickr.)

Budget Time

2007-11-18T08:49:00.000-06:00

Academic Librarian wrote recently about some reasons why librarians wouldn’t want to be administrators. I sent a comment about how in smaller libraries, there are often more opportunities to build management skills, and to have some administrative responsibility, and yet still do "librarian" work.

One of the administrative duties I have found most difficult to learn how to do is budgeting. At MPOW, we are now preparing our budgets for Fiscal Year 2008-2009, which starts July 1, 2008. This is my fourth time through the budget process since my position was changed. Until this, as head of cataloging, I was not involved in buying things or deciding what to buy. I just cataloged it when it got there. My colleagues in Acquisitions and Serials (who now "report" to me) had been involved, and I basically relied on them to do what they had always done, and tried to understand it all. The process is complicated by the fact that our library accounts are all in our ILS, and the University accounts are all in the Banner system. They match, for the most part, which is good, but it's still confusing.

Each year I have understood the process a little more. We have steadily been moving money from print to online, just like every other library, and we've been shifting money from monographs to serials because faculty are requesting fewer books and we've been spending that money on databases and periodicals. The administration really only cares about the bottom line-- the total, rather than what's in each account. But I have to supply explanations or justifications for increases in individual line items that are over 2 or 3 percent. This is the first year I'm actually going to make some adjustments in certain accounts as a method of planning for what I think we need to be spending our money on, rather than what we've spent.

What I find especially difficult is that we are constantly making decisions about buying things throughout the year, based on requests from faculty, consortial offers, and "deals" offered by vendors. Whatever we add or cancel between now and the end of June will not be reflected in the next budget, because we are submitting the budget now. So the budget request always lags behind what we are actually doing.

This is another one of those things they don't teach you in library school. I really don't see how they could, since every institution has a different process. So every year I flounder through it and learn a little bit more. Also, I am fortunate to work in a very collegial environment, where we make most resource decisions in a group, and I feel very comfortable asking for input and help with the budgeting process from this group and my director.

My director, by the way, is in a similar boat, being a new Associate Provost for the entire IT division. My budget confusion probably pales in comparison to hers. Rather than try to take it over with an iron fist, she has left resource decisions to us librarians in that group I referred to above. This makes us feel more responsible and work harder to explain and justify what we are doing, in order to provide her with the information she needs to present the budget request to her superiors. In fact, she extends this style of management to most of the "running of the library," which I think has strengthened our sense of purpose and made us feel that what we do as administrators actually matters.

This Blog's Reading Level

2007-11-16T07:38:00.000-06:00

This is my first meme.

Several bloggers I read have applied the Blog Readability Test to their blogs. So I tried it with this blog:

Part of the reason I started writing this blog was to improve my writing (which is hard to do when I don't post, I know.) But I didn't think my writing was so convoluted that it took a genius to read it. So this had me worried.

But as others have commented, we don't know what it is measuring and how. So maybe I don't feel so bad.

Talking about volunteering

2007-11-05T07:09:00.000-06:00

I've been asked to talk to a group of high school seniors tomorrow morning about my work with the Humane Society. A private school in my community has a program called the Senior Lecture Series - A Sense of Place. One of the components is learning about community and service. They have a speaker come in on Sunday evening and then on Monday, they go out in groups to meet with various community members who are vested in the non-profit outreach sector. They are scheduled to visit the animal shelter and the shelter manager will give them a tour and talk to them about what we do and why it's needed. The focus of my talk will be more of a personal approach about why I got involved and what made it "click."

This is the gist of what I'm going to talk about.

Finding what you are "passionate" about
Early volunteer experiences
The "click" of how I got involved in animal stuff
Why it's rewarding to me (my convictions)
No cause is "better" than another one
Do the kind of work you enjoy
Levels of involvement and life stages
The danger of burnout and importance of balance and sustainability
Fulfill your commitments, but you choose them, and you get to pick, because it's volunteer work!

I don't know if this will be too long-- I might run out of time. It might be over their heads. I'm hoping to make it conversational and that I will notice if their eyes glaze over. I've never talked to a group of high school students before.

Walking the dogs

2007-11-04T14:49:00.000-06:00

Both yesterday and this morning, I took the dogs walking at beautiful Lake Cheston on the campus of the University of the South, in Sewanee, TN.

More pictures on my flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/pthompson/

In defense of online

2007-11-03T20:06:00.000-05:00

This may come as a surprise to many in the blogosphere, but there are still a lot of people who dislike and distrust the online world. They have no desire to sit in front of a keyboard, or send text messages, or read blogs, or do more than what their work may require of them as far as a computer is concerned. Some people only use their email to send the joke or the cute puppy picture on to the people in their address book. To them, the whole idea of online social networking is that it's a waste of time, at best, and dangerous and unwholesome at worst. Many of the people I know in real life fall into this category.

I am a rather gregarious and social person. I enjoy social events and talking to people and I'm one of the people at work who shows up pretty regularly in the break room at 10 AM and 3 PM (part of the culture at our library) when I am not in the middle of something. I smile a lot and can do small talk. I can be a good listener. I'm not afraid to express an opinion. I don't have a busy social life, but I am active in volunteer work and I think I am fairly well-liked by the people who know me. In other words, I do not think I am socially backward.

However, I like interacting online. I like email. I like twitter. I like reading blogs. I even like online dating sites, although I'm not doing that these days. I've met some great people online. Sometimes I've even met them in real life.

But all of my family, and most of my close friends, are completely not interested in these things. Some of them will email me, but that's it, and even some of them prefer the phone. I am met with blank stares or a look of incomprehension or even pity if I try to explain something like twitter to them. Spending time in a chat room (such as the Library Society of the World!) is considered to be a poor substitute for "getting out there in real life and meeting people and doing things."

So I'm a little defensive about my online activities. I feel like I constantly have to justify the time I spend on the computer. I am fully cognizant of the dangers of living vicariously and never really doing anything. You never get any exercise doing that, and you get fat and pale and your eyes hurt. But, um, isn't that what happens when you watch too much tv? Or read too many books?

Yes, we need people in our lives and we need to go out and do things. But we are greatly enriched by this thing called the internet.

Email discussion lists rant

2007-11-01T20:28:00.000-05:00

I have been participating in email discussion lists for a long time. I think it was around 1989 or so when I subscribed to the cataloger's list called AUTOCAT. It was on "Bitnet" which was a precursor to the internet. I was a new cataloger, and I loved having a place to ask questions about what I was doing, and even answer a few when I knew something. AUTOCAT is still around, and is very active, and there are many other library-related lists as well. I have been on and off of several of them over the years. I can't keep up with reading all this email, but since I discovered RSS, I've put the ones with web archives on my reader and that makes it easier.

One of my pet peeves is the reluctance of people to actually post to the list. When I ask a question or ask for input, usually I get great responses from helpful people, but many people respond to me privately and not to the list, even though they are not conveying anything private or confidential. And then several people write to me asking me to summarize to the list whatever answers I get, or share with them because they are interested too. That's what the list is for! What good is a list full of questions and no answers? It's a DISCUSSION list, for pete's sake. If people won't discuss anything publicly, it becomes nothing but news items and job listings. I don't have time to summarize responses, and I never know whether to forward private responses to others without asking permission. And it takes time to do that too. I try to thank everyone who responds to me, and I've started adding the following questions:

Is there any reason you did not post your response to the list?
Is it ok if I post it to the list?
If so, would you like to remain anonymous?

I did this recently, and the answers to the first question were that they didn't want to "clutter up" the list.

Last year, I was trying to launching an initiative to step up my department's assistance with the archives. (Subject of another long post.) I knew very little about archives, and so joined the archives list and posted a number of questions. I got great answers, but none of them were to the list! I got frustrated and posted a rant on that list, and several people used the same rationale-- that rather than everyone answering, the questioner should summarize the answers to save everyone's time.

Now if I'm taking a poll, then yes, a summary is appropriate. But if I'm asking how you do something, like, say, what kind of numbering scheme you use for your archives, or how you are managing workflow for e-journal cataloging -- or if someone else asked this, and I was interested -- it is much better to read the responses and where they are coming from than to read a summary. I think wanting to reduce the list traffic is mainly a result of not knowing how to manage one's email application (ever heard of filters, anyone? Another topic for another day) or, as I've said, not knowing about RSS.

I think many people are just afraid to see their words posted for everyone to see. They are insecure and think they don't know enough to be so public, or they are afraid of looking stupid, etc. I remember one person saying that she didn't like to post on a list because she couldn't take it back or correct what she wrote. That's pathetic. There was a huge controversy on the AUTOCAT list about going public with the archives for the same reason. Come on people, it's list traffic, not a thesis.

National Blog Posting Month

2007-11-01T19:34:00.000-05:00

I just found out via another blog that November is National Blog Posting Month, or "NaBloPoMo." There is a NaBloPoMo network on Ning, which I joined, and tried to get my blog listed there, but the posted instructions didn't work for me. Also, it appears that you are expected to post your blog there, or double post if you have an outside blog. I dunno about that.

I have been wanting to write more, so I think I will take this on. As long as I don't make it a requirement that every post must be literary or thought-provoking, or worthy of honorable mention in the blogosphere, then I should be ok. If nothing else, my writing should improve.

E-journal cataloging redux

2007-10-30T19:59:00.001-05:00

I am struggling with how to handle the workload of cataloging our e-journals in a logical way. From what I can tell from my experience and from reading whatever I can find, there are three approaches being used:

1. Put all of them in the catalog. Make your catalog the "go-to" place for all titles. This usually entails loading batches of marc records for the titles included in aggregator databases. These batches are regularly deleted and reloaded to account for changes in coverage. Depending on the system, service, and setup, there could be multiple records for each title (one for every database where the title can be found) or they could be merged so that there is only one record for each e-title, with holdings for each database.

2. Don't catalog them at all. Rely on your A-Z list, link resolver, and/or other tools to provide access to e-journals.

3. Catalog some of them, but not all. This is what we have been doing. The rationale behind it was that we would catalog titles to which we had a real "subscription" but we would not try to include all the titles in aggregator databases.

Up to now, this has sort of worked. I loaded our print titles into our A-Z list (through Serials Solutions), and we promoted this as the most complete place to go for journals. In the catalog, we used the single-record approach, and put electronic holdings on print titles where we had e-access. The display for this is fairly clear. If a title was online-only, then we would enter a record for the electronic version. I had some basic edits I did for a title in multiple formats, including adding a 246 for the title with (Online) after it so that it would show up in a browse list.

However, when we entered into a shared catalog, I began pushing for the use of separate records, because it became obvious that we could not share hybrid records if we didn't have both versions, and because of other concerns. I pushed for this knowing that I would have to change all the ones we had already done. Eventually the shared catalog administrator made the decision to go with separate records. I have not gotten all of mine changed yet.

In the meantime, other things began happening. I fell way behind in activations of "free" online access and even where we paid for print + online, I had trouble matching what Ebso said we were supposed to have with what was really available when I went to the publisher's site. Then this past summer, we entered into some "big deal" arrangements with a consortium where we agree to maintain our current subscriptions, pay an additional modest fee, and get access to all the titles in the whole package. So do I have to catalog all of those titles? We don't really have "subscriptions" to them. Then another journal collection started adding "free" titles along with the ones we actually subscribed to. Do I add them?

Then a reference librarian asked me about a title he couldn't find in the journal list, but that was in our catalog. It turns out he got to it using an alternate title. The A-Z list does not have added entries or cross-references. (Yes, catalog records do add value.)

So now I'm in a quandary. Why should some titles have catalog records and some not? Where is the cutoff line? How can I keep up? What should be our approach?

Besides providing access for users, we use the ILS for our record-keeping: our payments, stats, department codes-- all that management data that we put in there to take advantage of such a robust and powerful (and expensive) database system. If I abandoned this and just used an ERM, I would have to duplicate everything.

I found this article recently: "Single, Separate, or Something in between: Results of a Survey on Representing Electronic Serials in the Catalog" by Abigail C. Bordeaux. It's available on her blog at http://abigailbordeaux.net/ where she says it is in press at Journal of Internet Cataloging, modified on March 6, 2007. She focused on the single vs. separate records issue, but she did touch upon alternatives to cataloging.

One commonality among a variety of respondents was recognition that, no matter how electronic serials are cataloged, many patrons are not using the catalog in any case. As one serialist wrote, “We are beginning to accept that the OPAC is no longer the center of the universe. Most patrons access ejournals via our A-Z list or Google Scholar.”

This post is less than concise, but I'm getting my thoughts in order to post a question on this to some of the discussion lists I subscribe to. I think I need some advice.

Revamped Blog

2007-10-30T19:52:00.000-05:00

Up to this point, I've only used this blog for the Learning 2.0 program, but I think I'm ready to start writing about other things. I've stewed over whether I want to use this only for library-related topics, and find a "niche," which is the advice for "blogging successfully." (I guess a successful blog is one that gets read by a lot of people.) I've decided that I might want to write about non-library subjects, such as topics related to my Humane Society work, or just random thoughts about life. So... I'm just going to do it, and I'll tag my posts. Since most people seem to read blogs via a reader, maybe eventually I will figure out how to produce more than one feed, so that people who want to read my tremendously insightful library posts will be able to screen out the other stuff.

The end of the program

2007-10-18T16:34:00.001-05:00

I created this blog to participate in the Learning 2.0 program at Sewanee, which I organized and carried out, pretty much on my own. I had some help at the beginning. It was not original work; I borrowed freely from a number of other existing programs.

In addition to the original program at PLCMC, some of the ones I used are:
Ohio University Libraries Learning 2.0
EKU Library Learning 2.0
Emerging Technologies Group at McMaster University Library
Lucy's Librarians Learn Library 2.0
Learning Web 2.0 by Diving In at Allegheny College

I launched our program in June, and then at the end of July I got sidetracked with other work and ended up not posting another lesson until late September. A lot of people who had started the program lost interest during that time and I feel bad about that. We ended up having 12 people complete the program out of a 57-person division. That's about 21%.

Vicki and I have been talking about keeping the site up, having a "second round" with incentives that are maybe worth less (like a $10 gift certificate instead of $20) and even inviting some faculty to do the program.

I think in order for it to be a standing program, it needs to be turned around so that it's in the right order, rather than chronologically backwards the way blogs are. I'm not sure how to reformat it. Maybe a website or a wiki or something. Also there are errors that I could correct.

There are some things I wanted to include but didn't have time, such as Library Thing, Google Apps, and Second World. I also left out some good content from some of the other programs that were aimed specifically at libraries, because I wanted to be inclusive. So I'd like to continue this somehow, and focus more on library issues.

As for this blog, I've been thinking about what I want to do with it. I think I'm just going to leave this one sit here, and start another blog. I've been reading a lot of blogs, and there is nothing magic about it, except that you have to have something to say. Sometimes I do. I waver a lot on whether this should just be a library blog, include personal stuff, or even include the humane society stuff. I don't think a single blog could be all of those things and be interesting to any audience, and I don't think I can manage three blogs! So... I'm still thinking about how to do it. And then of course there is the issue of time and actually writing.

So I'm not sure what will be next.

Podcasts Schmodcasts!

2007-10-04T07:14:00.000-05:00

I have a confession to make. I don't like podcasts. I did the exercise. (I prepared the exercise!) I looked for podcasts, I tried listening to a few. But I just don't like them. I don't want to sit and listen to an audio. I'd rather read. The only time I turn on the radio is in the car. I do like it in the car, but that's because I'm listening while I'm doing something else. I used to be a fan of NPR, but that was when I had a fairly long commute to work. I hardly even listen to music outside the car. If the music has words, I can't read or do any work because the words distract me. If I find music that I can read or work to, it's because I can tune out the music, which means I'm not really listening to it.

I realize that I am very odd in today's world where music is a constant companion to many people.

As for video, well I do watch TV. But I do get bored with it sometimes. I don't watch the news on TV because I get frustrated when they are on a story that I'm not interested in, or keep giving me tidbits of an interesting story "still to come" just to keep me viewing to the end. Instead, I get my news (with some video) on the internet, where I can pick and choose the items I want at my own speed.

In analyzing this, I guess that means I prefer a non-linear approach and I'm more visual than aural.

So that's why I haven't linked to any podcasts for this exercise.

Video sharing with YouTube

2007-09-26T11:44:00.001-05:00

This is one of my all-time favorite videos. Someone sent it to me several years ago via email. I found it on YouTube and embedded it here. This is an example of Canine Freestyle.

Canine Freestyle is a choreographed performance organized with music, illustrating the training and joyful relationship of a dog and handler team. Freestyle is an excellent discipline to illustrate the conformation and movement of the dog. The reach, drive and beauty of an athletic, trained dog moving to music can take one’s breath away.-- From the Canine Freestyle Federation web page.

Tagging and Social Bookmarking with Del.icio.us

2007-09-24T13:25:00.001-05:00

I just completed preparing the lesson on this subject on the main Learning 2.0 at Sewanee blog. I have fiddled around with Del.icio.us and have a page there, but it doesn't have much on it. Eventually I would like to go through all of my favorites in my IE browser at work and transfer the ones I still want to a del.icio.us page.

There are pieces of code you can add to a blog account that publish your del.icio.us bookmarks on your blog. You can also add them to your profile in Facebook, I think.

I don't know what happened to the program in August. I guess I just got bogged down with other stuff and couldn't seem to get back to this project. But the Oct. 23 meeting deadline got me going on it. I have two more lessons after this one, and I'm trying to decide what to cover. There are three main topics that I had planned to cover: Podcasts and Video, Online applications and tools, and I really wanted to do an intro to Second World. I also left out Library Thing, which is very popular even outside of the library world. So... I have to choose. Maybe we can do a second round of these lessons later in the year and cover those plus other things. I have seen that the original library that did this, the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, has an ongoing extension of the program, called Learning 2.1. (This one is continuous and there are no prizes.)

Besides the topics above, there are things like social networks (including Facebook and Ning), Twitter, and lots of library-specific uses for the categories of things already covered.

If anyone is reading this, and has a suggestion about which two of the three remaining topics I mentioned they would be most interested in, please leave a comment.

Wiki lesson in Learning 2.0

2007-07-26T12:13:00.000-05:00

I just completed Lesson 5 of the Learning 2.0 program-- about wikis. I am so far behind on this project! I need to get several lessons done ahead of time and just post them at the beginning of the correct week!

Anyway, my thoughts on wikis: Many library technical services departments have used them to post policies and procedures on a website that everyone can find. It's easier than making a web page another way. Betsy started one, at http://dupontlibraryrms.wikispaces.com/ and posted a couple of documents on it. We need to add more things and update a lot of our procedures.

We have had a library wiki for news, but it's on a different platform, Tikiwiki I think. I think it's a little more difficult to use.

Using RSS and Google Reader

2007-07-12T16:59:00.000-05:00

I just started using Google Reader early this year, and I've found it to be very helpful in keeping up. Actually, what happened was that I discovered library blogs. I started reading a few and they would refer to another one, so I checked that one out, and added it. I now have over 50 subscriptions to blogs written by librarians about various things. This is a testing phase, because I can't possibly read them all all the time. I've deleted some, and I will continue to delete after I've picked my favorites. Meanwhile, here are some blogs I enjoy reading or find useful:

ALA TechSource
Planet Cataloging
Free Range Librarian
Hectic Pace
Lorcan Dempsey's weblog

Not just for libraries:
Infodoodads
zenhabits

Flicker Mashups and Tools

2007-06-20T16:37:00.000-05:00

I spent a great deal of time trying to pick good examples of Flickr mashups and tools for the project blog. Some of the ones I tried I could not get to work correctly. I liked the "Spell with Flickr" thing, so I used it, but it took me a long time to figure out how to actually save the image of the words spelled out with images. (I ended up doing a screen print, (Ctl-Print Screen) and then had to paste it someplace, so I opened up PowerPoint and pasted it into an empty slide, and then saved the image. Then I had to use a photo editor to crop it and resize it. So it wasn't simple.

I find most of the Flickr things to be kind of dumb, and they don't appeal to me. But then I'm not really that big on pictures anyway. I do realize that some people are more "visual" than others and that images can be a very strong way to communicate.

I tried an application called fotocrib and used it to alter my picture on my profile.

Blogging from Flickr

2007-06-19T08:40:00.001-05:00

Beula
Originally uploaded by Patricia Thompson2007

This is a picture of one of the foster puppies I had back in April. I am posting this blog entry from within Flickr to see how it works.

Here I am!

2007-06-11T08:46:00.000-05:00

I've started this blog as part of the Learning 2.0 program at Sewanee. OK, I've had a little practice since I developed the blog for the program. However, I did it for the first time just a few short weeks ago.

I started getting interested in what was going on with libraries and Web 2.0 just in the past few months. Up until then, I thought blogs were things that teenagers and 20-somethings did to post what they did every day, and wondered why anyone would care, and decided that I didn't have time for that. I knew that some people blogged about politics, and that didn't interest me either. But lately, I have found that there are all kinds of blogs on nearly every topic imaginable, and I began reading some librarian blogs. Since they all quote each other, I soon found a few more, and then I found some directories of blogs, and then I set them up on my RSS reader (which we will cover in Learning 2.0 in week 4.)

I also found a blog written by Tim Goodman, the Television Critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. I started reading him because he wrote articles about episodes of the Sopranos. Not only does he write interesting analyses of the shows, there are lots of users who follow him and write comments. Of course, I didn't find all this until last month, and as you may know, last night was the final episode of the show. I'm going to miss it. Any other Sopranos fans out there? What did you think of last night's "finale?"

Well, getting back to work issues, in reading the things I was finding in these librarian blogs, I learned a great deal about new tools and how people are using them to share information, and I think it's important that we as information technology professionals need to be aware of them. There is a lot more out there than email. In fact, I keep hearing that students don't even read their email any more. So how do we communicate with them? We need to find out!