nirak.net - Musings of an LIS Student

In a way, every library since the first one I remember has been a let down. The Huntington Beach Public Library had everything- fountains, computers, plants, it was in a beautiful park, had conference rooms and a theater, and a snack area. Even though it was huge, there were plenty of little nooks and crannies you could hide away and read. Back when I went there as a kid, you could rent an hour of computer time for (I think) a quarter. I used to play Oregon trail for hours on end.

I loved the building, I loved that it was all glass on the outside so I could look out at the park. I loved the stacks in the middle- that you could see all three stories of books. I loved the children’s area, which had it’s own, separate, storytime theater. There was an art exhibit area as well, and the reference area was massive- I used to go through old magazines (I mostly liked looking at the ads) on microfilm for fun. My first job was at the library, working in the children’s section. I loved being around books all day, and I got rather buff from lifting them. My hands were always filthy, though. I took home fairy tale books all the time, and I still love the illustrations in children’s books.

I don’t know how they pulled off such a fantastic library, but I wish every city could have one like that. Don’t get me wrong, I like the libraries here, but there isn’t really any magic there.

I’m such a dork that I want to go visit the HB library when I go on vacation in Southern California this year.

karin :: Aug.31.2006 :: Work :: 3 Comments »

Enrique Martinez Celaya last came to the Sheldon in 2003, and I got to see him speak then. He’s a great speaker, and I highly recommend going to see him and Dan Siedell talk tomorrow at the Sheldon.

I have a lot to say about his lecture, I took many pages of notes, but I just can’t write about it tonight. A lot of what he said really struck home, and reminded me of my entry a few days ago. He was critical of today’s art world (especially Damian Hirst) and art schools.

I really wanted to buy his book in the gift shop, but it was $60- which I may be able to afford come Thursday, but it’s going to be yet another tight month for me. What else is new?

karin :: Aug.29.2006 :: Art :: No Comments »

My first library class is an administration class. To be honest, I enrolled in that one because it was the only one left open, but I think I will like it a lot. What I find interesting is that libraries have a tremendous opportunity to establish a role in the community. The tricky part here is that you have to match the need to the community- so if there are not a large number of people interested in, say, genealogy, it would be unwise to try and focus on that.

Obviously, libraries in large locations and academic libraries have an advantage. I would like to work in an academic setting, but a secret (ok, not so secret) fantasy of mine is to bring the intellectual curiosity that makes an academic library so fun into the mainstream. I look to New York Public Library as an example- by virtue of being so large, they can offer classes and research opportunities to the general public that would be hard to come by at many colleges even. Take a look at a list of classes. Some I find interesting (and wouldn’t mind teaching): Researching an Artist, New Tools in Map Research, Ehagaki: Styles and Messages of the Japanese Postcard, and Introduction to Patents.

It would be hard to have a variety like this outside a major city, of course, but I would hope that a smaller location such as Lincoln could support classes beyond basic computer tutorials.

So back to the topic, creating work. In my fantasy land of a brain, I imagine creating something similar to where I work (that is, a digital research lab), but for and by the community. I would love to have something that involved both scholars and community members, because interactions between them are far too few. I envision a place where citizens could learn:

• How to get correct information about any topic, from genealogy to pet care, and learn how to translate that information into something useful. There would be an emphasis on how to find good, meaningful, correct information and documentation methods.
• How to publish that information in a meaningful way. That might mean contributing to an already established source (eg. wikipedia or other) or creating your own source.
• As a part of the “publishing” aspect, in the beginning this may be simply mean serving as an information source for free web services to make this possible, and good ways to use them and make them useful. While independent free web hosting only services are few and far between anymore, sites offering free space and software for a blog are plentiful, and many blogs can be configured to show what you need and offer automatic RSS feeds, categories, and other capabilities.
• Other workshops could offer advice on getting one’s own web service and software required to make web pages. A large library might even be able to make a deal with a local web host to host community projects.
• Projects involving more than one person - a library could maintain a board for people interested in beginning a larger, focused, research topic. People could then find a topic of interest, and a librarian would be assigned to help guide the group. Obviously, it would be difficult to create anything technologically innovative, but even then you might be able to find a programmer or two interested in lending a hand. Always, proper documentation and knowledge of copyright would be key, so the project could go beyond “just a project.”
• Workshops on other publishing methods- self publishing, zines, etc.
• Use of software to accomplish goals. While it would be nice to have a computer or two with Flash, perhaps it would be better to focus on open source software that community members could download for themselves. Gimp could be installed on computers instead of Photoshop, and other open source equivalents as well. Not only would this be cheaper, but it would allow people to continue work outside the library environment.

I guess what I would love to see is a more information literate community, and also one that encourages more people to share their knowledge and thoughts online. I personally would love to see more blogs by, say, WW II vets, retired schoolteachers, grandparents. There’s a huge number of people out there with interesting stories to tell, whose stories I would love to read, but who have no clue where to start. I would like to help with that.

That’s it for the pipe dreaming for today.

karin :: Aug.29.2006 :: Work :: No Comments »

I’m realizing lately how much my education and worldview has suffered from my compulsive need to categorize things. It’s somewhat ironic that my foray into Library Science - a profession ostensibly about categorization itself - has started to change that. I’m not sure where it started, but the idea that something is “this *or* that” was firmly in place by the time I was in high school. In terms of college majors, you are either Art or History or English, not all three. The reality of college is quite different, especially in History and English majors. I don’t have statistics on this (though I will start looking), but in my (admittedly narrow) observances, an English major is more likely to have a second (or third, or fourth) major than, say, a Fine Art major. In fact, Fine Art majors seemed to be atypically myopic.

It’s not that no Fine Art majors get a second major, but it’s less prevalent, and it seems almost discouraged. When I was trying to get my Art History minor, I could not find any ready information about how to go about getting it. I had to ask a professor, who said it wasn’t encouraged (though she was glad to help me add it). I find this very odd since Fine Art is one of those majors that has to be about something. That’s why English majors are so likely to have another major- you can’t just write about writing, and even if you write fiction, or poetry, drawing from some other field generally makes the work more interesting. The same is true of art, but one often finds among Fine Art majors and professors those boring people who are only interested in art and nothing else. Someone told me a story of an art professor invited to a book club she went to- the professor dominated the conversation, and tried to steer every topic of conversation towards Art. How boring.

In art school, however, you are in a kind of insulated world, you submerge yourself in a world that is all art, all the time. You are encouraged or even required to hang out in the studio as much as humanly possible. It’s tough to even keep up with the comings and goings of the art world, much less trying to inform yourself of art historical matters. But making art when all you are thinking about is art is like trying to nourish yourself by eating your leg (pardon the gruesome analogy)- it might work for a while, but eventually you end up stunted and unable to create anything.

No one ever told me this. If I ever do become an art teacher, I will tell young artists first to get some interests outside of art. A lot of interesting art is that made by artists who are also scientists, architects, mathematicians, computer programmers, or some other profession. You have to have something interesting to say first- the visualization stuff comes second. Of course, this isn’t always true, as some art has only to do with the visual- but it’s amazing to read about, say, a color field painter and see how much they were influenced by history - and not just art history.

The more artists draw into a little cocoon of the art world, the less they are relevant to the world at large, and that’s dangerous, not only to the art world, but to everyone. People crave relevant art. Notice I say “relevant art” - pretty pictures, or even interesting pictures, simply don’t cut it anymore. At least they don’t for me.

I am optimistic that more people that don’t think of themselves as artists will begin to make art, and to make inroads into the cultural phenomenon and presentation of that which we call “fine art.” Visual Literacy is succeeding- I see it on the Internet all the time, myspace notwithstanding. People are learning to present their ideas visually because the Internet requires it- and it’s getting more and more effective. Many people today have the capability of doing what only a small percentage could a few years ago, whether it’s creating a website, or a flash animation, or a photoshopped image. This could easily be expanded to painting. More artists are interested in more than just art, too. I almost hope that Fine Art majors are required to have another major in the future- are encouraged to have another interest that they can then make art about.

In a way, I’m so thankful I got outside of the art world. I was getting entrenched; I had metaphorically begun to eat my left arm.

karin :: Aug.28.2006 :: Art :: 1 Comment »

So publishers are slapping lawsuits on Google in hopes of shutting down their book scanning project. And what will they accomplish? An enormous case dragging through court systems for years and costing a lot of money, and, if they win, probably declining money for themselves. This quote struck me as particularly funny:

All this nit picking and fighting, and for what? The RIAA slaps law suits on anything that breaths, yet sales continue to go up. Much like mix tapes, music sharing has facilitated the discovery and purchase of new music. (I’m sure they didn’t like mix tapes, either) Publishers should realize that the more people that can find their books, the more will buy their books. At the very least, patrons may request that their local libraries buy certain hard to find titles.

This article on The Institute for the Future of the Book brings up a good point, though:

I think the reasons no one has raised a ruckus is because we’re excited, we want to see where this goes, so we close our eyes blindly and hope for the best. Sometimes, it’s the best you can do. Bog down these early experiments in digitization with what-if’s and but’s, and you risk breaking the momentum. The idea of Google owning too much information, of having a monopoly on it, is a valid one, though.

At some point, and I’m not sure exactly when it was, people started turning on Google. I’ve seen quite a few articles criticizing Google and their practices as of late. That’s healthy, we should question, and, in truth, it’s about damn time we did so.

As always, I’m not sure where I stand on this. On one hand, I would like to see cooperative agreements formed, to know that knowledge won’t be used as a power bargaining chip in the future. On the other, I hate it when people get TOO nitpicky and slow down what I see as a really exciting development. Probably I’m just too impatient. But knowing that I can get something through interlibrary loan helps ease my worry, as does knowing that I have had good luck getting local libraries to buy useful books.

I also have this vague notion that libraries help other libraries. I have no actual information to back this up, and will investigate, but publicly accessible libraries, even if not publicly funded, usually get public money of some sort in the form of grants, so they’re all interconnected in a way. I’m sure my upcoming Library classes will help me with this knowledge.

One other quote:

This is pretty funny to me. My recent decision to go to get an MLS has been driven by my view that Librarians are going to be ever more useful, not less. Even if every single book were available online through Google for free, librarians would STILL be useful, because even if people can find information, they’ll always need help filtering it, and that’s something I don’t see computers being able to do just yet. It’s amazing to me to watch a good librarian access information - they may, in fact, find it on Google, but the way they can access it, evaluate it, and compile it puts computers to shame. More and more librarians are involved with the digital world and less with the actual books. I don’t think this is a bad thing, and librarians in general are concerned with getting ever more information to more people.

The next few years, perhaps decades will be very interesting to watch. Libraries are struggling to find their new roles in the new digital universe, but I have faith they won’t become obsolete. I hope that they become ever more vital- a place you go not necessarily to find information, but to share it, make sense of it, compile it, disseminate it. I hope that libraries can become a center for a new scholarship, one that’s not barred by degrees, but open to anyone with an interest.

I guess that’s enough babbling for now.

karin :: Aug.24.2006 :: Work :: 1 Comment »

I don’t know how to talk about these things without stepping on toes. And I’m sure that many of my observations are flat out wrong. Please take anything I say with a very large grain of salt.

There are a lot of thoughts swirling around in my head today. It’s making me a little dizzy.

I’ll pick one to write about, one that’s been on my mind a lot. I have not written about it yet because I don’t know quite how to express it without sounding like an ass, but here goes anyway.

Here at University, there is a definite caste system (see, that is the wrong thing to say already) of employees- you have the Chancellors and presidents and all those people first, then you have faculty (of which the above mentioned are part of, but higher than). As it turns out, faculty can be pretty vague as a term. In the library journals I’ve been reading, there’s a lot of discussion about whether librarians are faculty at various schools, and whether that’s a good or bad thing. Sometimes, librarians will have most of the rights and responsibilities of faculty, but not the actual title. Sometimes, they will hold the title, but with different responsibilities. Oddly enough, one study found that the lower tier the school, the more likely librarians will be classified as faculty. (Bolger)

I’m getting away from the point.

The point is, that in this caste system, I am the lowest of the low- an assistant, and I have “only” a bachelor’s degree. I noticed that there is a big difference in how I am treated, though, once I begin saying things like “I’m taking classes for my Master’s.” I’m no longer just someone who has their bachelors, but someone working on attaining a Masters, but that still does not put me as high as, say, someone working on a PhD. I can tell that for some faculty, this raises my value in their eyes. This bothers me for a lot of reasons.

First, school does not equal intelligence. I know a lot of people that are very intelligent and have a bachelors or no degree at all. There’s a lot of reasons one might choose not to go to college or pursue a degree past a bachelors- some jobs simply don’t require it, and I suspect that many of the people I know found school to be boring, repetitive, and unnecessary (my Bachelors was pretty much that way until my senior year). Plus, college is charging more and more every day, with no guarantee that you will get what you paid for with your degree. I also know a few people with higher degrees that are not that intelligent- they know a lot when it comes to a specific subject, but beyond that, they are quite hopeless.

Second, even if a degree confers some measurement of intelligence, at least on average, intelligence does not necessarily mean that a person will do a job better. A less “intelligent” person (I put intelligent in quotation marks because it depends on how one measures intelligence) might do a particular job as well or better than a more intelligent person. Of course, what a degree signifies more than intelligence, I think, is an ability to commit yourself to something, so it may indeed be a good indicator of being able to follow a project through.

Considering these things, I don’t understand why there is such a division between “faculty” and “everyone else” - there’s plenty of faculty only meetings, committees, etc. Not that I want to be part of these meetings, because I have quite enough as it is, but I wonder what the point is. I imagine they all go to a special secret room and don hoods and eat fancy foods or something. (kidding!)

Obviously I need to give this topic more thought. but my gut reaction is:

I am not my education.

Of course, I would probably look at this differently if I held a PhD. I hope that, whatever education I acquire, I won’t forget that there are plenty of people out there smarter than me, and most of them don’t hold a college degree. I also hope that, even should I fail to get a Master’s because I find some other path that I don’t beat myself up over it, because, again, I am not my education.

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Bib
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Bolger, D. F., & Smith, E. T. (2006). Faculty status and rank at liberal arts colleges: An investigation into the correlation among faculty status, professional rights and responsibilities, and overall institutional quality. College & Research Libraries, 67(3), 217-229.

karin :: Aug.23.2006 :: Work :: 1 Comment »

Initiator:

an identity of bits and pieces

I’ve been thinking about this very topic quite a lot recently. The fact that I am merging more and more of my online existence into my web page, and linking my web page from my disparate online hangouts makes it so that people can find out potentially embarrassing things about me, if they really dug. Or, if not potentially embarrassing, at least things I wouldn’t want them to know.

It’s really amazing to me the things that people will put on websites under their own name. I can find out who ex coworkers are dating, or just sleeping with. I can find out who people hang out with. I can find out who is posting during work hours. All this, with a few clicks.

I think part of the reason that myspace has such an appeal is that it is a place where few adults (that is, adults my parents age, not my age) penetrate beyond perhaps looking up their son or daughter to make sure there’s not predatory activity going on. But the surface doesn’t show much, the real activity goes on in comments, and groups, and all kinds of other places that myspace doesn’t make it all that easy to discover. I’m not sure if myspace has been deliberate in this way, or if it has just grown out of an expansion beyond means, but it serves it’s purpose: it hides information.

I digress. my point is, anyone can search anything about me. I stopped using aliases years ago, and my main alias, nirak, is the name of this site and also my name backwards, so it’s not that hard to figure out. In the past, I treated the Internet as intensely private and now, I view it as a public extension of myself. I try not to put anything on it I wouldn’t want others to see, unless it’s in a password protected domain. Instead of trying to separate online persona’s, I’m trying to merge them- so the real me is a combination of the stupid, inane posts I make on a bulletin board, and research papers, and flickr photos, and artwork. That’s really what everyone is- even the most intelligent people like and say stupid stuff once in a while, and smart people can be gullible.

It’s not that I don’t have different sides I show to different people - everyone does. It’s just I want to keep those sides at least mostly for actual human interaction.

Oh, and by the way, I may change my mind about all this tomorrow, unlink everything, and say “oops, my bad, I don’t want you to know this.” This is kind of an experiment in openness, one that may turn out to be a bad one.

karin :: Aug.22.2006 :: Sites and Stories :: No Comments »

I am working on a new page to go with my Nebraska State Capitol page, and I wanted to use Thickbox 2.0 but I can’t figure out how to make it work with an image map. Hmpf.

At least I got Thickbox working - it was ridiculously easy.

Here’s the Page

karin :: Aug.20.2006 :: Site Updates :: No Comments »

I was watching a show on my computer the other night. A character used an abacus to do calculations, which got me wondering- what exactly is an Abacus, and how does one use one?

In the old days, I might make a note to myself and look it up later, perhaps in an encyclopedia. No more, though! All I had to do is pause the show, toggle over to Firefox, type in “wp abacus” and “poof!” there’s Wikipedia’s entry for “Abacus.”

This is what I truly love about the internet.

OK, I can’t say that I’m all that clear on exactly how one uses an Abacus. I realized that what I think of as an Abucus is actually the Chinese Abacus, or “suanpan.” There is a tutorial for learning to use the Abacus. I’ll have to save that for another day.

karin :: Aug.16.2006 :: Sites and Stories :: No Comments »

Interview with Steven Markley

I was just talking about this with friends last night. Gaming is so maligned, it seems. I don’t get it. All the gamers I know are creative and funny, and are also those “nice guys” that you hear so much about.

karin :: Aug.13.2006 :: Sites and Stories :: No Comments »