Books read in Chincoteague (1 of 7): Catch-22

s I finally wrapped up the last chapters of Catch-22 and went to enter this triumph in my book log, I discovered that I had begun this one not just months ago, but last November. Horrors, that I had left a book neglected for so very long, thinking that I wasn't in the mood for it, not giving it a chance. Well, to be fair, I probably wasn't in the mood for it, nor would I ever have been, but finally, on the porch swing overlooking the marsh, I at least felt comfortable enough to forge my way through the latter third of Catch-22 without going crazy myself.

Having been told by two reliable sources that this was a hilarious read, full of wit and whimsy, albeit dark whimsy, I figured I ought to at least give it a chance, read the whole damn thing and be able to reflect on it. Having done so, I'm glad I did, but the journey was one of the most depressing I've been on, stretching thin my last shreds of faith in a decent world.

Anyway, horrifyingly obtuse and, yes, hilariously conniving as Colonel Cathcart and Milo are, clearly this is a pretty good book because it did _get to me_. And I did understand Yossarian's plight, the desperation and the confusion, the fear that the world really is nuts, that this must be some deep level of punishing inferno, and the emotional grasping at what few friends could be found in the midst of war.



What spun me for the greatest loop was the ending. I guess I shouldn't say here, (oh, heck: SPOILERS!) but it didn't seem in keeping with the rest of the book. In fact, I was so thrown by the ending that I felt certain I missed an important detail and Yossarian was deep into some fever dream, or was heading off for the promised land. The entire last two chapters or so took a sharp left and nearly tossed this passenger out around the curve. I suppose I'm glad it ended the way it did, with a hope for the future, an open ending and striking out for a new world. All is not lost, life goes on, "persevere."

Not sure the photo is relevant, but since I didn't have anything that really is... this underground catacomb is from an exploration of the old McMillan sand filtration site in NE DC I did with DCUrban Explorers in late October.

This review also appears in part on LibraryThing.

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]