Banned Books Week

This week, the ALA and libraries in many places are celebrating Banned Books Week. It's a wonderful idea, and something I am proud of my profession for - the active advocacy on behalf of our right to free speech here in the United States.

New Yorker iPad App

After months of patiently waiting and hoping... The New Yorker iPad app has finally arrived! It even includes a great intro video:

How to Open a New Book

This has been floating around the internet for a while, and I'd like to share with you some thoughts about the image and why it has such interest now. First, though, here's the graphic:

The Privatization of Public Libraries

I was going through my Google Reader feed recently when I came across this post about lazy librarians. The trend of privatizing formerly public libraries is disgusting and abhorrent to me. It seems completely counterintuitive to the concept of a free public library. I don't think I need to go into the details, but I did click through the post I linked to to this article in The New York Times:

Anger as a Private Company Takes Over Libraries, by David Streitfeld

The most disturbing quote (I think) appears in the mid-point of the article:

E-Books and Data Integrity

I started reading a new book this weekend that Jen was kind enough to let my buy at Half Price Books: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward R. Tufte. I am working through the chapter on data integrity and thought it was apropos to share this article with you about E-Books.

Last Tuesday's post to the MIT Technology Review blog Mims's Bits had a wonderfully literary title: The Death of the Book has Been Greatly Exaggerated. I liked the reference to Mark Twain's remark upon reading his own obituary.

Technorati Code

Hi all,

Jen and I are getting out blog registered with Technorati. So, ignore this!!

CE537582J89K

Google Books and the Importance of Good Metadata

(It's Friday, and so it's time for me to wave the librarian/metadata flag once more. I wonder what a flag like that would look like? MARC fields? If you have a thought about that, let me know.)

If you keep track of any metadata-related librarian blogs, I feel sure that you've seen Laura Miller's article on Salon - The Trouble with Google Books. The Google Books project has been fraught with problems since its inception, chiefly licensing rights associated with the scanned works still under copyright. We've all heard about this, and I think that the issues surrounding rights resolutions will continue to be dealt with for years to come. What appealed to me about this article was that it takes one of the fundamental problems associated with Google Books - metadata and searching - and explains it in plain English. Librarians, and especially those of us that catalog, tend to use a great deal of acronyms and jargon in speaking to one another (MARC21, XML, DCMI, LCCS, DDC, LCSH, Authorities, Main Entry, Chief Source of Information, etc, etc.) so it's nice to see the problems highlighted and well illustrated in the article.

Makr Carry Goods: Flap Wallet in Shell Cordovan

The final item I want to talk about this week that arrived recently is my new wallet. In reflecting on the things we have acquired recently, I think I am seeing the value of quality work over brand names, and my selections speak to this. Makr Carry Goods are made in the US by hand, and exude wonderful quality. I love the simple design of the flap wallet, and it fits well in a front pocket - where I carry my wallet. I like that it will hold a few cards, and the great business cards Jen made for me as a wedding gift - I seem to be needing to carry a few more of those recently.

BOOK for iPad

It's hard to find a really cool and "good" iPad case. When we bought our iPad originally, I bought one of the little neoprene sleeves that the Apple Store was selling. It worked well enough, but getting the iPad into and out of the case was hard - as you had to stretch the case around the iPad. I started looking for a new case about a week after I brought our iPad home, but with it being a new product, I had limited success in my search. All of the cases out then looked like overgrown iPhone cases, and that just didn't seem to work well for me. The iPad is a device for information consumption, not for voice communication and such. There were a few slightly better cases available, but nothing that I really liked. So, I kept searching every few weeks without finding anything until I found the case I have now.

Visual Explanations, Classification, and Libraries

I mentioned earlier here that I am in Theory of Classification this semester, and I am really enjoying the course - maybe more so than any of the other courses I have taken for my MSLIS at Syracuse. The texts that Dr. Barbara Kwasnik suggested for the course are dense, but fascinating. Here's a quote from Bowker and Star's Sorting Things Out, one of the readings for the course:

Firefly Press

(Over the past several weeks, I have been fortunate enough to acquire some new items for myself and Jen. I want to share the items with you all I thought you might like to know about, and might be of interest to you.)

You, reader, should not be surprised when I say that I love letterpress printing. I love the bite it leaves on the paper, the knowledge that the work was done by human hands - not by some digital process powered by Binary code. So, when the time came for me to order new notecards, I (of course) wanted letterpress cards. Last month, I commenced a search for a good print shop that could help me with my needs. I looked far and wide, virtually, and found some interesting shops - but nothing that was exactly what I was seeking. Then, I remembered this video I watched long ago:

Cosby and Cats

It's Friday - and so let's do something a bit off-topic. Let's talk about Cosby, and cats in general. When Jen and I first met, I did not like cats - at all. She had a cat named Dexter, and he was the first cat I ever really liked, and I think who might have liked me. When we lost Dexter to cancer, we waited about a year before a little tiny cat named Cosby worked his way into out hearts:

Andrew Bird at the Guggenheim

I know I've been talking about libraries a lot over the past week or so. I'd like to switch gears a bit and talk about one of mine and Jen's favorite musical artists: Andrew Bird. We enjoyed his music for a while, but when we went to one of his shows last year and heard this:

Hidden Gems (Or, Why I love Libraries)

I'll say it here: I love libraries, and I love being a librarian. Today I want to share something very specific that I love about libraries - their hidden gems. Over the past year and a half at the Carter, I have discovered a few of these - like Amon Carter's Makers of Fort Worth, bound in leather, with his name embossed on the front. Or his biography of Ringling with his hand-written notations. A few days ago, Jen sent this along to me, and it reminded me very strongly of one of those hidden gems one might find in a library:

A Weekend of Reading Contrasts

I am not entirely sure as to whether I shared this or not but this weekend, but I went "Unplugged" again. I didn't really get on the internet at all this weekend, thanks to the kind assistance of Jen. I really enjoyed doing this, and I think it came at a perfect time.

Recently...

It's Friday morning, and Jen just dropped me off from taking our cat, Cosby, to the vet. He's doing fine, he just needed his regular checkup. Dr. Hotchkiss gave him a clean bill of health, but they have to get a sample of his "used water" so Cos is at the vet now. It's odd and quiet without him here - I usually write posts for you all with him in my lap. I miss him, but we will get to see him again at 5. (Although it is nice that he is not attacking the various papers and magazines out on the desk now.) I don't have any single thing on my mind I want to share this morning, so let me do some housekeeping and update you on a few smaller things today.

M. Diderot and Classification

Note: as you might remember, I recently cataloged the Carter's copy of Diderot's "Encyclopédie," which I talked about previously on The Dean Files (Here) and on the Amon Carter's blog (Here). This week for my class on classification, I examine the classification scheme Diderot employs in his "Encyclopédie," specifically as to how it fits in as a schema for classification, as well as any flaws. What follows below is my response to that prompt:

Old Family Photos

As I am sure you read here recently, Jen and I went to visit my family in Lubbock last weekend. This side of the family includes my grandpa Jack, my aunt Joni, her daughter (my cousin) Anna, and my mother Gretchen. My grandpa has a huge number of photos from across the years, which he has been kind enough to loan to me for scanning. I was inspired in this project by our new friend, volcanojw on flickr. She scanned many older slides of her family, and is now sharing them - and the photos are great! You can check them out here:

My eBook Challenge

You know, it hit me this weekend that I talk a big game about eBooks and ePubs, but I have never even tried reading them for any extended period of time. So, on the way home yesterday, I came up with a challenge for myself: read only from my iPad this week. One of the advertised functions of an iPad is reading, and rather than trying a Nook, or a Kindle (which I have tried and don't like), I should use that which I already have.

Oxford English Dictionary in Binary

I imagine that you, good reader, know of the special place in my librarian heart that the Oxford English Dictionary holds. This happened about a year ago, as I examined common reference titles in libraries, and evaluated the OED. It's an incredible piece of work, and a very early example of what is now described as "crowdsourcing." In print, the dictionary is imposing and substantial. Sam Duncan, knowing of my interest in the OED, brought this article to my attention recently:

The Oxford English Dictionary Definitions of ‘Print’ And ‘Digital’, by Tim Carmody

In Defense of Catalogers

If you are a regular reader of The Dean Files, and specifically my posts here about my library experience, you know that I love cataloging. I might be one of, oh, a hundred people in library schools across the country right now that would say that. My love of cataloging comes from my belief that cataloging is the key interface between a library's patrons and the information resources a library holds. I was re-reading this blog post this morning:

Reading Tea Leaves, by Diane Hillmann

A Dearth of Manners

My grandmother was a stickler for good manners. Of course, this was a point of incredible annoyance to me as a kid and teenager - but the efforts to imbue politeness bear fruit much later it seems. Only now have I come to a point where I see the actions of a polite individual as being very important. I try and hold the door open for women (including my wife) and other than Jen, I rarely get a "thank-you" in response. I think this is just the latest symptom of the decline in common manners among people today. (I don't want to be one of those naysayers who claim that the next generation is the worst ever - something said since Juluis Caesar was Consul of Rome.)

What is a Digital Library?

As I discussed earlier this week, my final semester at Syracuse as an MSLIS student started on Monday. During the course of the semester, as I have done in the past, I want to share with you discussions that arise from class, as well as questions that come to mind. This week, I (and my fellow students) have been asked to answer this question:

What is a Digital Library?