Digital Citadel
Those of you who enjoyed my Drown Ban, Not Chav deicide, or The Mongo code may also like to read Digital Citadel by Ward Bonn (sent to me my sil). The opening line should give you an idea:
The shadow creeped across the cryptographer's face as the sun rose. As the shadow reached his nose, he clicked twice on his e-mail program, which had been written by a shadowy group in another country in order to serve as a plot device.
To be fair I haven't read Digital Fortress although it seems similar enough to The Da Dan Vinci Code that I don't feel the need to.
A.D. VI KAL. MAI. MMVII
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Strange smoked cheese ingredient
Below are the ingredients of some Austrian* smoked cheese I bought earlier today. See if you can figure out which one freaked me out. Hint: it is not the E number.
CHEESE, WATER, BUTTER, MILK PROTEIN, EMULSIFYING SALT (E 452), STARCH, SALT, LIQUID SMOKE.
*As opposed to Bavarian smoked cheese which is, of course, completely different.
A.D. VII KAL. MAI. MMVII
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Realunching
I clicked on a link in the BBC website's gardening section and got the following 404 message:
The BBC gardening Techniques section has been realunched and some of the content may have moved or been removed. Use the links below to explore the new content. We apologise for any inconvenience.
I'm quote concerned as to what realunched might mean. I wish this kind of error were an isolated example at the BBC. More curious is the website of the International Paralympic Committee which you would have thought would have slightly more concern over accessibility but has a homepage with no title and which requires me to scroll horizontally to read all the text.
Anyway, I'm off to alunch. If I am peckish later in the afternoon, I may realunch. Although perhaps if I eat too much I might realunch over my desk, which I will have to clear up. Who knows?
A.D. XV KAL. MAI. MMVII
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Water and information shortage
There was a water cut in Sandy yesterday. I thought the shower had just conked out. We had some water in the tanks for the bath and so forth so I didn't think much of it and went to work. It was then interesting to see how far I could follow developments at work. I first found out about the cut, and could tell my wife about it, as the RSS feed I have set up for Biggleswade Today had the information in my feed reader when I came into work. Hurrah.
To follow developments, I looked up the Anglian Water site. A search for Sandy gave me an incident page which, although grammatically awful and low on detail, at least had the main points and was time-stamped. I had a meeting from about 2 till 4. When I got out, Biggleswade Today had triumphantly added another news item saying that the water came back at 3 (again, I could tell my wife at home and she could start actually using the water); the Anglian Water page just disappeared: there was nothing to say there ever was a problem and had that been my only source of information, I wouldn't have known what that meant. A bit rubbish. As for the BBC, they had eventually put an article via RSS saying that there was a water cut. It still says so now and they haven't issued any updates yet.
Conclusion: hurrah for Biggleswade Today; almost good but boo for Anglian Water; ho hum for the BBC.
A.D. III NON. APR. MMVII
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Professional and non-professional librarians
Tim Coates has written a post suggesting that the distinction between professional and non-professional librarians should be abandoned, something I am whole-heartedly in favour of. He argues this from a public-library standpoint and with two main observations:
- That the librarians the public see are often not the professional ones although they are the ones the public, superficially at least, judge the profession on.
- In a situation where budgets are to be cut, to be a professional makes one more likely to be targetted by councillors, who also don't understand the distinction between professional and non-professional, aiming to get rid of staff.
I'm not too au fait with the public library situation. However, the following paragraphs I think are valid anyway to librarianship as a whole:
I think it would remove an obstacle that prevents modernising the library service if the "profession" would stop making this distinction in every possible sense. Library services should stop referring to jobs which ones which only a "librarian" can do. There should be no more demarcation.
This doesn't mean a lack of respect for the qualification or experience that trained librarians have; on the contrary. It means that experience can be as usefully obtained in doing the work and can be as valuable to the public when it is. It means that jobs and tasks should be given to the person most able to carry them out, and not on the basis of a paper qualfication.
(My emphasis). I made a similar point, though from a different angle, in a comment on the CILIP president-elect's weblog:
A library qualification is a sine qua non for many jobs whereas chartership is not (at least in the academic sector where I work). As someone who has sat on interview panels, I would also value a candidate's proven skills rather than whether they are chartered or not. For similar reasons I only value qualifications as far as they confer the relevant skills on an individual. For instance, neither qualification nor chartership can say whether a librarian can catalogue or not; we have to test candidates at interview for this.
I've seen a number of librarians arbitrarily and needlessly halted or delayed in their careers by the need to acquire the necessary bit of paper. On the other hand, I've seen enough to know that the bit of paper is by no means a guarantee of any skills or aptitude. The distinction between professional and non-professional (as opposed to qualified and non-qualified) also goes some way to create a degree of elitism within those who work in libraries: "proper" and "non-proper" librarians. They are all librarians in my opinion.
A.D. IV NON. APR. MMVII
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Tom