Aurlog

On stopping reading books

I normally don't like stopping reading books- I even made it all the way through Labyrinth by the implausibly named Kate Mosse- but I knew I'd run into trouble on p. 9 Matthew Reilly's promisingly-titled Seven Ancient Wonders where he describes Crocodylus nilocticus, the notorious Nile crocodile. Apparently it is the most man-eating crocodilian in the world. Too much excellent grammar for me.*

The book would make a passable film with an enormous special-effects budget to make up for the lack of real plot, unconvincing elite teams of ruthless military archaeologists who seem to know all the secrets of the places that haven't been touched for millennia, reliance on drawings to describe the numerous traps they are all bound to overcome, and the excerpts from encyclopedias that don't seem to, oh whatever: the point is don't bother reading it; don't waste the £1 or so I spent on it in the charity shop.

Sadly we no longer have an open fire on which I can dispose of this, so I will have to do the done thing and recycle it.

*Surely, it should be man-eatingest.

PRID. KAL. MAI. MMVIII

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Revamped cow pages on aurochs.org

I have overhauled the cow pages on aurochs.org. They now look nice and cow-like in the same style as the cow games page, which looks a bit like this page too. In particular, there is a new cow jokes page, based largely on the cow Christmas cracker jokes post I did on this weblog just before Christmas, and a revamped cow songs and poems page. The list of cow pages is now as follows:

I am always interested to hear of new entries for any of these pages, but particularly for the latter, which is still quite short, although I am being picky: I would like poems or songs where the mention of cows is not incidental, which are preferably classic or by classic authors, and which are not simply doggerel (cowwerel?) for children. There isn't a lot, as far as I can see.

A.D. IV ID. APR. MMVIII

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The meaning of gullible

From the Urban Dictionary:

gullible

The only word that is not in the dictionary. Go look.

I swear, gullible is not there.

Worth checking.

KAL. APR. MMVIII

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Beast changes number

Apparently, the Number of the Beast has now changed to 616 (via comment by Jennie on Information Overlord). However, I believe the area code is still the same.

A.D. III ID. MART. MMVIII

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Criticism of CILIP

There have been a number of recent posts debating, and in some cases criticising, CILIP and why one would join or become a chartered member:

In CILIP: What is it good for?, Information Overlord asked

if you're a member, why are you a member? Out of habit? because you think it looks good if you are? some other reasons? If you're not a member, what would make you want to become one??

The many commenters were mostly law librarians and mostly unenthusiastic. There was some debate, including some rare input from CILIP people who focussed on the publicity angle. Elspeth Hyams of CILIP made the point in response to CILIP's silence on difficult issues with reference to the Kent "deprofessionalisation" that CILIP cannot intervene publicly in these cases as they represent both sides:

Kent was an interesting case because it illustrated why, unlike the Royal College of Nursing, CILIP cannot act like a union: the disagreement was between managers and their staff, at both levels, members of CILIP.

I think this is an admission that CILIP cannot and will not do public advocacy of the profession and support its members. In reply I wrote:

However, I cannot see why CILIP could not have even made a statement of the kind you just made, explaining the case, even[if] it only appeared on its website. Why when I read about this [issue] in the Guardian were CILIP not mentioned emphasising the importance of professional librarianship- which is surely half the point of the organisation- while the AUT were mentioned as campaigning against job losses? Surely too, there were also AUT members on both sides of that dispute: many university managers are also AUT members.

Matthew Mezey (news editor of Update) and Debby Raven (editor of Gazette) seemed to suggest that part of the answer lay in contributing more to these internal publications, to which I replied:

Update is an internal document. I doubt that many university or council managers outside the library read it, so I don't think this is publicly advocating the profession at all. You talk of publicity, but preaching to the converted is hardly the issue. It is people and organisations outside the profession that need to be convinced. For example, when library closures are in the news, why is Ian Snowley [CILIP president, or not anymore I believe] not on TV?

Information Overlord provides an excellent summary and discussion of the above comments (without the vain self-references as above). In a comment to this second post, Jennie points out another Kent story, this time of a library closure, where the local community are marching and protesting and forming action groups, and still no word from CILIP

Anne Welsh picked up on this post by asking Why CILIP? She is a lot more positive and while noting,

I also noticed that although the post went up on 26 January, the first comment from a Cilip representative / employee was not until 11 February, indicating, perhaps, that RSS flows slowly to Cilip HQ.

she is generally much more positive and gives a number of reasons which she summarises thus:

So, I guess for me Cilip is all about keeping informed and networking. Further, I'd say that, as a member, I think of Cilip as something that I am part of, that I can contribute to, and, if there are enough other members with similar views, change.

Fair enough, although I think there are increasingly more ways to keep informed without handing over cash to Ridgmount Street, and that CILIP has failed to lead the way in information delivery and dissemination. I understand that CILIP will be invaluable for networking, depending on how you view networking and its necessity/benefits, something I don't want to go into here. Anne also wrote a related post called Why charter? which discussed a talk she attended on the subject. There are some reasonable reasons given at one point (my numbering):

These are all things (no. 3 excepted) I feel I can, and should, do myself without having to rely on a crutch such as CILIP or part with money for the privilege. What worries me is the observation near the end that:

She and the other chartered librarians in the room all agreed wholeheartedly that chartering is a personal journey, so that although everyone fulfills the same criteria, the experience they gain along the way is totally unique.

I believe a qualification (counting chartership as a qualification) should not be about the journey but should prove something to a current or future employer. I don't go to work for personal gratification or for a journey: I do so because I need the money but I want to do the best I can while I am there. A commenter, James P. Mullan, says something similar which I wholeheartedly disagree with:

I also think Chartership shows a committment to a career in Librarianship, I'm always concerned about anyone who doesn.t want to become a Chartered Librarian as a result.

The library profession seems obsessed by proving commitment (rather than providing skills): I've heard that used as a reason to pursue the M.A. too. Surely this is something for an employer to worry about: commitment to a job is surely far more important than commitment to a career or a profession. I'm happy to do my job to the best of my ability and don't think I am a worse librarian in any way because I don't attend certain seminars or training courses in order to pursue chartership.

101 Tips for School Librarians has a different take on chartership:

CILIP are often accused of non-representation in the school library community. They take £17 off my pay every month, and I still can.t figure out why, other than the fact that I can continue to call myself .chartered.. My wife pays £30 a year for the same privilege as a teacher. Something doesn't add up. I'm sure CILIP would disagree with my assessment, so their end of the stick can be found here.

However, they do have a couple of useful spots on their website, and they offer decent training events if you can afford to travel to London.

Most of this of course is available without membership, although training events will obviously cost more; the range of training courses, especially in terms of specificity, also needs drastic improvement in my opinion. He also mentions LisJobnet (freely available online, even to non-members), and their special interest groups. Having never been a member, this latter is one area which I really cannot comment on, although Mr 101tips says they "vary between the bland (2 shoddy leaflets a year) to the sublime (real support)".

I would in any case recommend you read the actual posts and comments, especially the Information Overlord ones.

A.D. V ID. MART. MMVIII

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More Cataloger's Desktop comments

The Library of Congress's Cataloging Distribution Service is doing a survey on the development of its Cataloger's Desktop, which they are planning to overhaul. They seem keen to rework it for the web rather than replicating the CD product it is based on. I hope they think profoundly about this to make sure it is properly a web-based resource or, as I would prefer, a loose collection of separately accessible resources. Below are the comments I put in answer to one of the earlier questions on general satisfaction:

The content is second to none, but the presentation of the content is appalling:

  1. It is extremely unwieldy: there is no reason to shoehorn everything into one package and one great list. E.g. AACR2 would be better presented as a separate product as it is complex enough as it is. Rather than having shaky preferences, I would like to see separate sites for which I can produce my own list of links, as I do anyway for other sites.
  2. Despite being presented on the web, the site tries its hardest to discard the advantages of the web by imposing its own interface. This is bad practice as it means another interface to learn and is not intuitive (e.g. I cannot use the Back button to go back, or link to a section of a resource). Standard HTML pages are more than up to the job. I don't think a system like this is very successful if you have to provide training in how to use it: it would be like inventing a different kind of book where you have to train readers in how to turn the pages.
  3. There is no need to have a system which has to find its way round popup-blockers: this just shouldn't be an issue. These factors prevent me from using Cataloger's Desktop nearly as often as I should. I mostly want it for quick look up of AACR2 and other standards. Instead I often find myself referring to an out-of-date paper copy for simple rules and abbreviations. I was hoping to have weaned myself off it by now.

My previous comments on a similar survey in 2005 are here.

A.D. IX KAL. MART. MMVIII

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Library-themed weddings

Speaking as a librarian married to another librarian whose brother is a librarian I still cannot find the stomach to appreciate this library-themed wedding (via post on Autocat mailing list), although I am unusually sensitive to work-home infringements. One commenter also apparently had a library themed wedding with Dewey-numbered tables at the reception. Another commenter also claimed:

We did the same with the birth annoucment [sic] for our youngest. We put a shelf of books on the announcement, each with a name of our older children and ourselves with a Dewey number on each book befitting each of us. We sent these announcements out to library friends...

When our youngest was born, I barely had enough energy to compile a round-robin email and throw a few photos onto the computer. Quite how this person managed something so elaborate with at least two other children to look after I don't know. Good on them though: maybe the other children helped, or something.

PRID. ID. FEB. MMVIII

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Birthday

Today is my birthday. Hooray. Inspired by sil's age-guessing quizzes, I here present some library and information science equivalents. My age is now the same as the following:

The last one is a right giveaway.

NON. FEB. MMVIII

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Stephen Fry on GNU and Linux

The two great pillars of Open Source are the GNU project and Linux. I shan't burden you with too much detail, I'll just make the outrageous claim that your computer will be running some descendant of those two within the next five years and that your life will be better and happier as a result.

I am writing this article on a kind of mini John the Baptist, a system that prepares the way of the software saviour whose coming will deliver the 90% of world computer users who suffer under Windows from the expensive, clumsy, costly, ugly, pricey toils of Microsoft.

(Stephen Fry's weblog). I'm disappointed he didn't mention the burden of viruses too. Anyway, I hope Mr Fry does have the same powers of prescience as the original John T. Baptist.

NON. FEB. MMVIII

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BBC Breakfast extra content on Freeview

If you are watching BBC Breakfast on Freeview, you can get access to more in-depth news coverage by pressing the following secret combination of buttons on the remote control:

Mute, 3, Text, OK

Follow the on-screen instructions. To be honest, you can probably just switch to channel 18 where the sight of Rihanna writhing around on a bed for Ne-Yo's benefit* will deliver a more perceptive insight into the day's current affairs than Bill Turnbull and friends fawning at each other.

*or not?!

KAL. FEB. MMVIII

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Tom