Memory catalog

ometimes, months or years later, things come back to me that I once read in some book, some article, somewhere in the wide world. If I'm very lucky, I can track the fragmented memory to the source. Maybe I remember hearing the ocean wind whistling in my ears alongside the words that have pushed to the surface of my thoughts, or perhaps the context of surrounding material has remained, a preceding essay in a collection or the experience of an online newspaper. If I'm so lucky, I can usually find the original piece and catalog it more thoroughly for the next time (thereby guaranteeing that there will be no next time).

In this case, I had a thought bubble up about explaining the size of one's library to guests when they ask "So, you've read all of these?" What a silly question. It's usually posed by someone who has no library of their own, no understanding of the value of such a collection as insurance against dullness and the possibility of suddenly finding oneself with nothing to read. Sure, I have read a large number of the books on my shelves, and I keep them around as reminders of good times, comforting me with the knowledge that I absorbed something from each of them, and can easily open them up again as I please.

It's this last point that is relevant here. The book in question turned out to be A Passion for Books, appropriately enough. I brought this somewhat large paperback along on a solo bike trip last summer under the assumption that I would have time and energy left for reading after biking 60 miles a day. I did not. Nonetheless, I got through a couple of the essays and whatnot while in various B&Bs and the memory link stuck. The book, my friend, had traveled with me and formed that particular synaptical [sic!] connection while in the middle of strange lands (Western Maryland, you know) and unfamiliar furnishings.

Here now are the three passages by assorted authors from the Passion for Books collection which each mention (independently!) the arduous task of explaining one's library to unsuspecting visitors:

In the gradual growth of every student's library, he may – or may not – continue to admit literary friends and advisers; but he will be sure, sooner or later, to send for a man with a tool-chest. Sooner or later, every nook and corner will be filled with books, every window will be more or less darkened, and added shelves must be devised. He may find it hard to achieve just the arrangement he wants, but he will find it hardest of all to meet squarely that inevitable inquiry of the puzzled carpenter as he looks about him. "Have you really read all these books?" The expected answer is, "To be sure, how can you doubt it?" Yet if you asked him in turn, "Have you actually used every tool in your tool-chest?" you would very likely be told, "Not one half as yet, at least this season; I have the others by me, to use as I need them." Now if this reply can be fairly made in a simple, well-defined, distinctly limited occupation like that of a joiner, how much more inevitable it is in a pursuit which covers the whole range of thought and all the facts in the universe. The library is the author's tool-chest. He must at least learn, as he grows older, to take what he wants and to leave the rest. 

Books Unread by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (what a name)

In the two years I had been coming there, maybe two or three hundred days spent in that apartment from morning till night, I never saw anyone else there – no visitor, no delivery person, no handyman – no one. I asked Chaim about this on one of our walks (I later understood that great Yiddish writers simply do not have or permit visitors; then again, maybe it was the threat of coffee that kept everyone away), and he said something about not wanting people to think him strange for having too many books. I thought he was talking about the annoying line all book collectors endure: Have you read all of these books? I told him about Dr. Johnson's stock response: Yes, and some of them twice! Chaim stopped walking and looked at me disdainfully. "If anyone asks you if you've read all those books," he said, "it means you don't have enough books."

They Don't Call It a Mania for Nothing by Harold Rabinowitz (also the editor of Passion)

About the time of the discovery of America a book came out called The Ship of Fools, by one Sebastian Brant. In it was an attack on the book fool: a satire on the passion of collecting, in which the author said that the possession of books was but a poor substitute for learning. That phrase which the layman reader asks the book collector so often with a smirk of condescension, "So you really read them?" undoubtedly originated then. The real book collector, with suppressed murder in his heart, smiles acquiescence, assuming an apologetic air for his peculiar little hobby. His invisible armor is his knowledge, and he has been called a fool so often he glories in it. He can afford to have his little joke. So much for this threadbare gibe.

Talking of Old Books by A.S.W. Rosenbach (perhaps the most successful modern book collector of them all)

Book Snark: Earth Abides

Perhaps, he felt in his mind, that was the difference! That was the difference between woman and man. She felt only in terms of the immediate, and was more interested in being able to spot her child's birthday than in all the future of civilization. Again, he felt superior. 

Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart (1949).

In fact, in reading this book about the fall of civilization, I am possessed by a great urge to preserve and protect the history of the world for posterity, just in case something should happen. If humanity vanishes for whatever reason, and/or if electricity eventually fails, what will be left? ebooks? I certainly think not. While electronic formats may be "the future," may be convenient, may be efficient, they will not last beyond the next wave of advancements. Neither will mp3 files, dvds, or all the information on the internet. In this fantastic future world, when perhaps everyone will be gone, those who are left, or those who make a galactic archaeological dig of the planet Earth may find files that are in no way compatible with their technology, or they might find vast libraries of knowledge on paper, which have only to be translated.

Earth Abides was a fantastic book, but in the end very frustrating. It became evident that it was not just the aforementioned woman who was uninterested in preserving civilization, but all of the "stolid" people who happened to survive the plague. Apparently it was beyond their capabilities or caring to teach their children how to read or write so much as basic numbers, much less entire books. Strange that in a novel about a post-apocalyptic world that was what I found most unbelievable.

The future may be defined by forward movement, but that movement should not assume complete abandonment of the past.

Tidbits

To say that I'm a little behind on my reading would be putting it mildly. To say that I'm a little behind on my blogging would be just plain true. So it is with great pleasure that I bring you [totally dated] noteworthy blurbs from the January 2010 issue of Wallpaper* magazine.

First off, this issue used a customized version of QR codes (example above right) to supplement the physical magazine content with online content. They called these "Augmented Reality" or "AR" graphics (below right). Unfortunately for those of us without the requisite cutting edge technology of a webcam, the idea fell a bit flat. In theory, one would find the AR graphics (little pixelated squares) throughout the magazine and hold them up to a webcam while on the appropriate Wallpaper* website and see some spiffy extras. As yours truly doesn't have a webcam to test this with, you'll just have to believe that it was awesomely augmented. QR codes are a pretty neat idea in general, but I haven't seen them catching on much in the States. I like the idea of being able to easily access information on the fly. Someday, someday we'll catch up to all these bits of the future. Someday I'll have a car that flies, dangit.

Anyway!
The interesting bits (which I summarily tore out of the issue, the better to blog about) were these:

Gapminder: From Sweden, a data toy that makes statistics about social, economic and environmental development do things like cartwheels. What makes me most happy about the service is that they neatly list where the data comes from. With 430 tidy data sets, it's a pretty handy tool for the general public. I'd be interested to hear what people who work in data services think about it.

Gapminder also offers that you can make your own visualization using Motion Chart in Google docs, and since their data is downloadable, you're free to use it. It's also the same gadget that does visualizations in Google Analytics, from the looks of it. I wanted to embed one of their graphs here, but I don't think "Trendanalyzer" will let me do it. Click through the sample image for the real thing:


And then there's Enhanced Editions: Again with the augmented, this time with plenty of peripherals added into an ebook to make the experience more, uhm, contemporary. It looks like you can alter (annotate and change the font size) your ebook on your iPhone (and only your iphone) to your desire the extent that they allow, as well as get video and audio content interspersed with the text. Personally, I don't think our short attention spans needed any encouragement. However, this is a much better use of ebooks than simply putting text on a digital screen and expecting a revolution to come through the front door carrying flags and blowing trumpets. Their premise is that everyone goes to video for their "information" these days (quotes because I don't think the greater part of youtube could be called a research repository), and this is certainly reflected in their features page. There isn't even an option to read, you have to watch the video.

Quite frankly I find that frustrating and I never watch video unless it tells a story itself (you know, movies, music videos...) because if it's informational, I can get that information much faster by scanning text. I suppose I'm old fashioned, but I just haven't got time to sit around watching video after video, no matter how short they are.

And now I can check "get that pile of stuff I've been meaning to blog about into the recycling" off my to-do list. Hoorah!

Mobile:Library:Toy:CIL2010

I... am a lazy, lazy blogger.

Back in early April, I attended* the Computers in Libraries conference in Crystal City, took extensive notes, and then sat on them for the last few weeks. (Bad blogger, no cookie.) So, now that we've all had sufficient time to process, here's a quick run through of my thoughts from those two days.

CIL2010 was my first conference of any kind, and I admit that I was a bit starry eyed and excited about the whole business. I did not, however, feel out of the loop during the sessions, or as if I didn't fit in with the crowd (although the librarians who have been to a lot of these are a bit clique-ish). There were more sessions than I could manage to attend all at once (where's a time-turner when I need it?), but I got to one in every time block while I was there. In all honesty, the subject matter was a bit disappointing. I was hoping for more cutting edge stuff I'd never heard about, and instead I got... "cool blue alien hot stuff" and way too much hype about smartphones and ipads. In some ways, the conference solidified my desire to be some sort of special or academic librarian, not a public librarian. I'll try to reserve judgment on a lot of the conference on the grounds that it was my first and I don't know the presenters or the insider drama very well.

On to my notes!

The first session I went to was a presentation of a fancy, interactive, online, visual collection exploration application that was entirely fake. The Smithsonian Commons is this big idea for a way to get visitors into the collections from outside the physical museum, allowing them to develop personal collections and so on. But it's only a prototype! It's a huge project, oodles of effort and money spent on something that doesn't exist. Argh. Plus I disagree with the concept of an online version of the collection in the first place, but I'm just kind of elitist about museums and keeping things proper.

Which brings me to a question I had a lot: do people really want all this change, all this web 2.0, ebooks, mobile devices... or do they want Classic Library? It's certainly true that librarians are a bunch of geeks, and think that all this 2.0 stuff could be useful/cool/blue, but are they also forcing it down people's throats? I heard a lot about how books are dead. Well guys, personally, I can't afford a smartphone, or an ipad, I dislike reading on a screen, and I love collecting hard copies on my shelves. I'm not the only one (even if I can't find a supporting study right this second).

The counter argument is that librarians are "complacent," and are saying "we're great, why change?"

I also made long lists of things to research and understand better in the future: Drupal and OCLC, par example. I signed up for Google Analytics right away, and now I can collect ridiculous amounts of data on traffic to this very website. I'm a sucker for pretty charts and information visualizations, especially if it live-updates! Watson Library created a spiffy "dashboard" that does this kind of thing. Another neat tool I heard mentioned was the Google Public Data Explorer. (Further exploration and maybe a post on the Google tools later).

I just realised that this post will be epically long and dull if I don't cut it into bits. Consider this Part I.

*It should be noted that a very kind co-worker/mentor loaned me his conference pass for two of the three days, for which I am very grateful.

Classic library image from Trinity College Library, Dublin, by Candida Hofer.

Modern library image from Francis Martin Library, a branch of the NYPL. Design by 1100 Architect.

ps. Some of the random links in this are well-worth clicking...

EDIT/PPS: at some point the formatting got all screwy on some of my archived posts. Sorry about that, maybe I'll fix it all in the future... [9.7.2012]

This makes me sad::

I wonder sometimes if writers read other stories in their own papers. The New York Times earlier this week published articles about veganism and the healthfullness of organic, local farming, promptly followed by an article on Saudi Arabia buying up Ethiopia for arable land. Half the time one writer elucidates a problem and suggests a solution and then another writer publishes something on a similar topic that ignores the first writer's exposé completely.

*sigh* It's just really been getting on my nerves. I may have mentioned before, but it was listening to NPR for an extended period of time that made me really acknowledge how much I want to disseminate information amongst the masses. Also known as being a librarian/information tech etc. It was the hour or two of listening to people reporting on misinformation and rumor and not covering all the points that could have been very relevant that put me over the edge. Point being, I make it my personal goal to educate as many other people about as many things as I can. Hey, a blog's not a bad place to start trying.

The entire point of this post, however, is to present the ironic juxtaposition of two articles on tonight's Washington Post (online) lead page. On the right we see a picture of some icebergs near New Zealand which have broken off of Antarctica and are threatening ships in the South Pacific. Right next to it is an article entitled "Skepticism on Global Warming: Percentage of U.S. that believes in global warming dips from 80 to 72."

...

Icebergs? anyone?* Part of me wants to be fair and say that perhaps science *is* a belief, maybe I worship the all-mighty laboratory gods instead of Allah, Zeus, Vishnu, whoever. But then my degree in biology comes over and kicks me and makes me repent my blasphemous words against the doctrine of Fact. Am I any better than a TV evangelist if I go around saying "Yes! Convert to my way! Science is truth!"? While pressuring others to take up your own beliefs is a questionable practice, the facts (cough) remain: science is tested, true and tangible, and I'll be damned if those ice caps aren't melting.

*To be fair, these things do happen as the result of local shifts in weather and temperature, and may not be linked to global warming. The irony stands.

Self-development...

...is really what this blog business is about for me at this point. It's a good way to get my thoughts out in a somewhat public way without too much pressure, but still enough to keep me on my toes (hopefully). In lieu of spending a few hours collecting links and thoughts right now, and in the interest of posting *something* (it's been a while), here are some thoughts I've written out in other forums recently.

Someone asked me how I relate my interests to each other, specifically, Biology, Photography and Librarianshippy:

I would have to say that it's a lot about documentation and archiving visual information. I started out taking photographs (years ago) with the intention of putting them all in albums and preserving them for posterity. My intentions have shifted since then, and now I feel as if I try to document fleeting feelings I have about a place or time. This is actually extraordinarily difficult. How do you capture all the feelings, nostalgia and hopes of a sunrise without making it look like just another sunrise? I can't say as I've found the answer to the problem. My interest in biology also motivates me to examine landscapes and fauna [especially in close-up form].

And in the process of applying for a job I wrote out this, in response to some questions on the application:

The degree I received from Marlboro College is in photography and biology because I am also a photographer with a passion for knowing how things work on the molecular level. You could say I have a weakness for genetics. However, on a recent 13 hour solitary drive, I came to the conclusion that I really want to make information and knowledge available to as many people as possible. This solidified my conviction that I would like to become a librarian, which had previously been based on my love of books.
It is hard for me to pinpoint specific areas of literary interest. My personal collection is greatly varied, ranging from classic children's books to mysteries and science-fiction, with themes of food, history and, of course, books about books. It's always been very difficult to name my favorite books, but the two that spring to mind are Gastronomical Me, M.F.K. Fisher and The Big Golden Book of Elves and Fairies.

So that's kind of what I'm up to these days. Thinking a lot about what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, where I'm going, and trying to make long and short-term plans make sense together. Meanwhile, my life, built here in Vermont for the last four years, and in this apartment for the last two, is being packed into boxes and shipped off to the future. How strange it will be when I get there to meet it all, and open box after box full of the past.

On Books and Sharing

I have determined that sharing books makes them more enjoyable for all parties involved. This means that being a librarian is a fantastic job! I've also found that passing off a book to a friend, or receiving one, makes reading a shared experience, instead of a private one. I used to always have my pile of books that I would blaze through and not really talk about with anyone. Books were a private affair, something personal and intimate that had nothing to do with anyone else. Of course, books present themselves differently to each reader depending on that person's history, but there are certainly things that may be common to multiple readers, and this is what is enjoyable when sharing.

And in the vein of sharing, don't forget about Bookcrossing, where you can tag and release a book into the wild. I found my first Bookcrossing book in Glastonbury Tor, lying on a bench in the corner. It was Caught in the Light, and it was a very odd read, but something new and different that I might not have picked out for myself. Having another person's insight (un-informed in this case) into what I might like broadens the spectrum of book possibilities.

Recently, I've shared the following books in some way:

MFK Fisher's Gastronomical Me, originally lent to me by Tristan (who might in some circumstances be called my boss) when he found that I was helplessly interested in the culture and cooking of food. The book came to me at a critical turning point in my life in the Fall of 2008, and gave me great hope for the future, not to mention inspiration for a way of living fully. I received my own copy as a birthday gift this year, and immediately passed it on to Dan, who is plodding through it and enjoying it thoroughly.

Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate, came to me from D, although we found the copy together in the Arlington Public Library's bookshop. There's a theme emerging here about food writing, which goes on to include Deep Economy (to some extent. Also lent to me by T) and Secret Ingredients, which I picked up in a moment of impulsiveness at Brattleboro Books (website has issues).

I just passed off The World Without Us to T last night, my copy of Ex Libris is with D, and I'm moseying around in D's copy of High Tide in Tuscon. I ritually post links in my twitter to interesting reviews, poke people when I think they might like something, and talk to shopkeepers and librarians for recommendations. The nice guy in Mystery on Main (David?) and I spent a while perusing shelves for books about books (a new favourite category, along with food/cookbooks). We came up with The Last Detective and The Oxford Murders, which I need to go back and get. At the time I bought Booked to Die and The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. All of this was inspired by The Club Dumas (made into the movie The 9th Gate), which was lent to me by Don, mid 2008. At some point I'll collect more of Arturo Pérez-Reverte's books.

Of course, before any of my books leave home, I brand them with my embossing stamp, just to be sure then come back.

Questions for readers: Too many links? Would you prefer links to Amazon for books? I think Library thing is more useful for seeing recommendations, tags and similar works with.

LC-Primary Sources

I recently became more interested in exploring the Library of Congress both as a resource, an entity, and (because everything is right now) as a place to potentially work. Today I ran across this in my news feed: The Library of Congress Teacher's Page. It's intended to provide primary sources for the typical classroom lesson, and dabbles in most of the standard themes we all went through in school.

Several things struck me immediately. First, there are pre-constructed lesson plans available (there's not log in to the site, which is nice. Yay free information!). Now this may just be me, but I'd be irked if I knew my teacher was pulling something straight off the internet. However, using some of these for ideas and as support could be good. An example:

I'm interested in WWII, so I browse down the lesson plan list (by theme) to there, and find... mostly sources from the great depression. Hm. Actually there's nothing from the war in there, so I try "What is an American." This gets me a reference to de Crevecoeur (surprise), and some "life history" stories collected by the WPA. There's also an extensive, drawn out lesson plan, which (dear god) takes up classes from September to June! eesh. In any case, a teacher who knows what they want to present to the class could use the lesson plan themes to track down the sources. Kind of neat, but like most things on the internet, a lot of links to click through to find what you want.

A simple search using the search box on the front page brings up a few more hits for "World War Two", but it's still all within lesson plans and feels like it's being handed to me: This is what you should know! *ribbon on top* The point of the Teacher pages is primary sources, and if you dig a little you can get to a good chunk of information, but it can't possibly be everything the Library has. However, I do definitely support using primary sources for research, as they allow students to put more effort into reading and analyzing, unlike standard textbooks. Students will also get first hand perspectives and different voices from a primary source, which makes the experience of learning less monotonous, and hopefully more engaging.

Without the structure of a lesson plan, I think it's wildly entertaining to just browse the collections. And just in case everything the Library has isn't enough, they provide a nicely selected set of links from the outside.

Brevity and selection may be hard for me...

Alright, here's a post at last! I've been meaning to write an actual post for a while now, and have a list of subjects to discuss, but what actually spurred me to get all this down was a massive reading list on google reader this morning and a potential library job in my future. So, here's a run down of a few things I found interesting:

INTERNETS
Among all the sites on the web that "foster the qualities of 'innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration'" (according to AASL through SLJ) are a few of those that I've recently been prodding. Certainly most of the sites listed are more traditionally educational that Facebook, Google Reader and Twitter, but I appreciate the recognition of alternative learning resources. GReader and Twitter in particular are great for finding and following interesting feeds (and twits, as I like to call them. "tweeting" is just so... cute?). Clicking through links and finding more and more information can be very addictive, as demonstrated by the massive number of tabs I have open continuously.
Also on the subject of internets and social sites, apparently tagging is becoming important as a reader advisory (RA) practice. Being kind of new to this, I don't know much about RA in general, but I'd bet it's a lot about knowing your collection (and beyond) and being able to help patrons (or whoever) find things that are good for them. Apart from *actually* knowing every book you've got, there are always jacket blurbs and being familiar with an author, if not the book specifically, to help with advising on a reading choice. That said, if tagging were to be used on books, it would be.. why, it would be like the subject index in the card catalog. No? Nevertheless, imagine having a tag cloud for your library, like mine, here and having everyone find books they might like through it.

And also in the world of reference and internet and research, credo reference is gathering reference engines and working with IP adresses to make getting access easier. Haven't had a chance to look into it yet, but definitely something to keep in mind.

BOOKS
In my absence from the public library scene, it appears that a new genre has developed. Mostly blamed on the massive trend towards porphyria in fiction, urban fantasy also covers other elements of fantasy in a gritty, reality-based settting. Presumably, this brings the traditional fantasy world closer to home, elevating the believability factor and perhaps making it easy to approach for readers today.

Here's a list of books about, well, books, from Library Journal. I can't say a lot about it because I haven't read them yet, but several will certainly make it to my (epically long) "read right after I've read all these other books" list. Someday, someday.