Ballad in Plain E

Christina, Kathy, and I hit up the Legal Division Open House, where we met a bunch of cool people: librarians from Alaska, Washington, DC, Texas, and China, and a hilarious vendor who, when we mocked him about his company’s orange lanyards, helped us coin the company slogan “Not quite as awful as the other guys”. It’s great when people can make fun of themselves. I tried to get the American librarians to explain the different levels of court and they (I think!) succeeded in clarifying for me the levels of federal court (districts, circuits, Supreme Court) — state courts are a whole other ballgame (maybe I’ll figure those out next year?). No wonder West’s graphical case representation is so useful for US caselaw!

For fun, I asked if “all y’all” is the plural of “y’all” and the Washington librarian said yes, that she’d learned that from her college roommate who was from Louisiana. The others thought “y’all” works for singular or plural. That’s the other awesome thing about going to a conference with people from all other the place: the accents and the dialect variations are just fascinating!

Going through the posts tagged for SLA2008, I came across this one about delegate April Younglove’s personal goals for the conference: to accept a scholarship award and get through the entire thing without paying for any food.

“The secret genius of my original goals, I later discovered at the convention, is that they actually caused me to do far more networking and professional development than I might have otherwise. Getting an award became a natural conversation starter, and by forcing myself to find out where the food was, I had to sit at tables with strangers and meet them. I had to attend events sponsored by divisions like the agricultural division and the military division that I never would even have dreamed of attending otherwise, had it not been for my personal scavenger hunt.”

What a clever challenge to set for yourself. April goes on to list some interesting things she learned about transferable skills as well as some creative career development tips.  This would make a fascinating full-length article (in Information Outlook, perhaps?)!

The opening general session was a combined awards ceremony and keynote speaker event. The awards shone a spotlight on some of the association’s most inspiring members. I was especially glad to see Sabrina Pacifici recognized for her excellent LLRX and Be Spacific sites, with the Innovation and Technology award. After the awards, we were treated to an engaging discussion between Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist, Dr. Vinton Cerf, and the American television journalist Charlie Rose. Dr. Cerf is one of the “founding fathers” of the internet and he gave us a brief overview of its early development. He also shared “the truth about Al Gore” (Gore sponsored legislation that was critical in the advancement of the internet and deserves a lot of credit).

In his interview, Cerf asserted that the internet should be like infrastructure; like a roads system. There when you need it, and in some ways, invisible. But, he thinks, we still have a long way to go. He views the digital divide as a major problem and thinks lowering the costs of internet access and improving accessibility should be some of our major priorities.

He described how mobile technology is really the next big thing, and believes it will be the catalyst for the growth that brings the internet to parts of the world where it would otherwise be unavailable. He predicts that within ten years, everyone on the planet will have access to the internet in one way or another.

Cerf believes that the power of the ‘net is its openness and freedom, and that access to it must be preserved and improved. The internet provides a forum for every person’s knowledge inasmuch as they are willing to share. One powerful axiom is “You could learn something from everyone.”

Digital objects, such as Excel spreadsheets, are complex and intricate and are interacted with and manipulated in ways completely different from analog (print) resources. As such, we must be conscious now that as an increasing amount of our world’s information is produced digitally and accordingly, a decreasing amount physically printed, it is essential that we preserve the software that allows us to read and interpret this digital information. Cerf sees the internet as a place to make available outdated or superseded software versions that we will likely require in the future to access today’s information.

Cerf thinks that within the next 15 years we will begin to see an improvement in search with the growth of the semantic web; that is, searching not just for text but for meaning. This, he predicts, will be hard. Natural language translation is improving rapidly but he thinks that true artificial intelligence may not ever be realised.

When asked what he feels optimistic about, Cerf replied that if the internet stays open and unrestricted, its abilities know no boundaries. When asked what he is fearful of, he said it was that the internet won’t be open; that it will be constrained by business or political forces.

Rose and Cerf took the saying “Knowledge is power” and tweaked it: “Knowledge SHARING is power”.

Here I am in Seattle, attending the 2008 SLA Annual Conference. Seattle is an awesome city and I’m really excited to be here. This morning I went on the Bill Speidel Underground Seattle Tour (so cool) and am set to attend the Opening General Session at 5. In the meantime, my mission is to find a pair of sunglasses (At last! Summer sunshine!) and do some planning for which sessions to attend. I’m extra-lucky this year (aside from the hotel hell I’ve already endured)because I’ve got two friends/colleagues (techs from other firms) attending as well. Going to a conference by yourself can be lonely. It’ll be nice to have people to meet up, compare notes and ideas, and discover the city with.

 Over and out for now!

The May issue of InsuranceWest magazine has a cover story on the portrayal of insurance industry folks on the big screen and in fiction. We’ve all heard stereotypes about librarians, obviously. We law library people have heard many a lawyer joke and cliche, too (who could forget last year’s “Lawyers Are Rats”-Gate?). But I’d never given much thought to the image of insurance adjusters. The authors of the InsuranceWest article analyse the way that agents, claims managers, adjusters, company reps, and brokers are portrayed in several movies and books. And it turns out, we’re not the only ones with bad stereotypes. Apparently, people in the insurance industry are “right up there with used-car salesmen, shady lawyers, and corrupt cops.”

It reminded me of an item I’d recently seen on Library Link of the Day called “Old Maids, Policeman, and Social Rejects: Mass Media Representations and Public Perceptions of Librarians” in the Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship. This short paper surveys the literature and identifies five broad categories of stereotypes. Guess what? Only one of them (The Hero/ine Librarian) offers a remotely positive image of our profession. (Incidentally, one they seem to have overlooked is the sexy/dominatrix librarian–not to say that that’s any better than the ones they do identify. It’s just a lot more entertaining and on the surface, anyway, appealing.)

Just as I sat down to write this post, my witty and observant friend and colleague Christina Tribe e-mailed a few of us to ask if we’d seen the insurance article (great minds think alike?). She thinks insurance types still get a better deal: “At least their characters are main characters, and more interesting. Their stereotypes seem grander, and not paltry or trifling!” She’s got a point. As the InsuranceWest article concludes, “It also helps that in most movies, even Bad Guys are played by good-looking people. And they always dress well.”
I think, in the end, most professions have a stereotype, and stereotypes, for the most part, comprise unflattering, generalised views. But I think knowing just one person who doesn’t fit a preconceived notion of a given line of work can do wonders for all members of that field. Just as getting to know a lot of lawyers personally has shown me that the “lawyers are evil” notion simply isn’t true, I think library techs and librarians have a great opportunity to be that one person who’s an information superhero, and not just embody a cookie-cutter, generic idea of a profession. So what if we’re sometimes nerdy? Being nerdy [read: detail-oriented, persistent, attentive] is a huge part of what makes us good at what we do.

I get asked, all the time, things like, “Gee, you’re a librarian…you must have a secret wild side. Do you drive a Corvette or something?” Um, no. But I do play the mandolin!

Go ahead - be the exception to what others think is the rule.

There’s an incredible story on page 2 of the latest issue of TechNique (the Australian Library and Information Association’s library tech newsletter) about how lib techs in Australia and NZ raised more than $4000 for Oxfam’s “Mobile Donkey Library” program — in just over a month. Amazing and inspiring.

Will you be in town for the CLA conference?

LTAIG is excited to be co-hosting, next Thursday, May 22nd, a networking & social supper at Relish Restaurant, with CLA’s Library Technicians’ Interest Group (LTIG). All the details are here.

We* hope to see lots of our fellow technicians there!

*the LTAIG Committee, not the royal we ;)

The BCCLS has just rolled out another couple of screencasts; this time, on researching the history, judicial treatment, and intent of legislation. What makes them extra-cool is the example they use to illustrate these tasks: the illegality of “crime comics” in Canada. Kudos!

University College of the Fraser Valley’s Library & Information Technology program has just put some videos on its website. Four short videos feature grads (and students?) talking about the program - check them out!

Rex Turgano, one of the good folks at Andornot, has developed a neat site called LibraryDevCamp.ca, dubbed “a web playground for the library community”. It’s a place where people can try out open source software that might be of use to them in their jobs. Lately they’ve been adding links to libraries and other websites that are using particular software so that you can see it in action. Some recent posts have been on PBWiki, Scriblio, and Blogger.

A great idea, Rex. Keep up the good work!