Archive for July, 2012

Books! Wexford ain’t no Wallander #cbr4

Published July 31, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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It is so hard to write a review of a book I didn’t quite like. I’m still going strong for Cannonball Read though and should probably persevere. I picked up The Vault by Ruth Rendell randomly one day thinking it looked good from the cover and the jacket description. I know nothing about Ruth Rendell other than she writes popular mystery novels and is very British. From the sound of the descriptions her other novels might suit my tastes more (i.e., “dark and twisty”).

A rich, bratty couple renovating their fancy cottage in London discovers three bodies hidden in a small vault under their house. The “vault” is an unfinished basement that at some point was walled-over. Inspector Wexford is a retired detective who is asked to assist in figuring out this mystery. I was never entirely clear why he was involved as a civilian. Maybe because novelists seem to enjoy resurrecting their retired detectives for a final go. He helps by interviewing random people with minimal connections to the case and through his hard thinking and jaunts across London suddenly all becomes clear.

Wexford at one point describes his irritatingly immature daughter this way: “She made exasperation noises, sighs, and the kind of sound that accompanies the casting up of eyes.”  This could have easily described me as a reader unfortunately. Wexford uses strange leaps of logic to connect pieces of evidence that serve the goal of the book well (solve the mystery), but don’t ring true to this reader. For example, when they find a piece of paper with a French word and the name Francine they start looking for all the French-speaking women in London named Francine of a possible age range! Really?!? The London police have enough time on their hands to go after this random goose-chase, especially for people who have been dead for two or more years? At one point even Detective Superintendent Thomas Ede, the officer who reached out to Wexford, seems to tire of these random attempts to piece together a puzzle. In the end Wexford wins, but like his daughter, I just truly couldn’t care.

The only bright point for me was the description of London. Rendell goes to great lengths to describe the neighborhoods in which Wexford travels. A fan might find it fun to travel Wexford’s path.

Not my mystery novel. Might be yours. Check out Wallander first.

Books! Wanted a duck and got a swan #cbr4

Published July 26, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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The first Peter Carey novel I ever read ended up thrown against the wall in anger. That was Oscar and Lucinda. Actually it is the only book I’ve ever thrown against the wall. Not because it was bad, but because I cared so much for the characters. Funny then that the main character of his new novel, a woman name Catherine Gehrig, does the same with a nineteenth century manuscript. Unfortunately Catherine is not nearly as endearing as Oscar or Lucinda, but I was willing to overlook her faults considering the circumstances.

The Chemistry of Tears opens with the death of Catherine’s married lover, Matthew, and we watch as she mourns, cries, and generally self-destructs, which leads to the incident with the manuscript. She works as a conservator at the Swinburne museum and to assist with her healing, her boss gives her a new project, the re-creation of an automaton (we later find out a swan). Starting the project she unpacks the notebooks of Henry Brandling, the patron who commissioned a robot duck from some shady characters in the German Black Forest. In reading these notebooks, even after stealing them from the museum, Catherine begins the process of healing and recovery … for the most part.

I’ve read several of Carey’s books and this was definitely the most difficult to finish. Catherine’s actions in her grief and self-pity are sometimes distasteful. In addition Henry’s story is a bit convoluted and confusing. I had to re-read several passages to make sure I understood the plot. Overall Carey’s themes of the constitutive elements of life and death and the lingering impact of the Industrial Revolution give the novel its heart. The quote below is one of the most beautiful paragraphs in the book as it describes this imitation of life:

“Every eerie moment was smooth as a living thing, a snake, an eel, a swan of course. We stood in awe and, no matter how many hundred hours we had worked on it, this swan was never, not for a moment, familiar, but uncanny, sinuous, lithe, supple, winding, graceful. As it twisted to look into one’s eyes, its own stayed darkest ebony until, at that point when the sun caught the black wood, they blazed. It had no sense of touch. It had no brain. It was as glorious as God.”

We imagine this imitation of life while in the background is the indescribable horror of the Gulf oil spill that Catherine’s assistant watches unceasingly on a webcam. If the book has a failing it is that Carey is trying to do too much, prove too much, so that some of the story becomes muddled and confused. But then again, is that an imitation of life?

If you are using Nancy Pearl’s Rule of Four to find a new book (which I just read today), Carey’s doorway is most certainly language with plot, characters, and setting mixed somewhere in there.  It is a beautiful book, but it may take some dedication and perseverance. Good qualities in a conservator.

Why fall 2012 will be the best semsester ever!

Published July 25, 2012 the profession Leave a Comment
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I know we have three weeks before the start of the semester, but I’ve been getting class request emails like crazy and I saw several teaching faculty on campus yesterday. So, for the most part, the fall semester prep has begun. So, why will this be the best semester ever? Read on, my little friend.

  1. I’m taking a real vacation the week before the madness starts. At the beach. Crazy, I know.
  2. Teaching International Political Theory for the third time and the third time’s a charm.
  3. Fabulous new interns to train and mold.
  4. Tony Horwitz is coming to UNCG. Seriously folks, you should try to come to this reading. Tony Horwitz is one of the best nonfiction writers ever. Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before is the best in its mix of travel writing and history. It is also incredibly funny. I don’t even really like reading American history, but I love reading his books.
  5. The Promotion/Tenure Event this year will honor my gal Amy Harris. We will rock it!
  6. Tenure package is in and all I have to do is wait. And wait. And wait. Maybe this isn’t the best thing, but at least I’m done.
  7. Falls are always the best semesters. I’ve always loved the fall semester for some reason. Maybe because it includes Halloween, and my Fall Break, and Christmas, and Thanksgiving. What does Spring have? Easter.
  8. I’ll be working with an Introduction to Russian Studies class in an embedded capacity. This is a class for new Russian Studies majors. Can’t wait to meet them.
  9. Anniversary Beach Trip!!
  10. Did I mention Tony Horwitz is rocking UNCG? Oh yes. Yes, he is.

Books! The Lower River

Published July 20, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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Paul Theroux’s new novel, The Lower River, explores the difficult relationship between international aid, altruism, and the developing world. The main character, Ellis Hock, had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi in his younger years. After his marriage falls apart, he decides to return to the small Malawian village that made him so happy. Nothing could have possibly changed there since the 1960s, right? The Malawians will be thrilled to see him and he can restart the small school he had created in his youth. Of course, as you can imagine, the village has changed drastically. Most of the novel chronicles his journey to the village and his desperate attempt to leave after he has been drained of money, resources, spirit, and, oh yeah, potentially sold into slavery.

I was very excited about this novel when I read a review and I love Theroux’s understanding of the challenges of international aid and altruism, which are embodied in these sentences:

“That seemed to be a feature of life in the country: to welcome strangers, let them live out their fantasy of philanthropy — a school, an orphanage, a clinic, a welfare center, a malaria eradication program, or a church; and then determine if in any of this effort and expense there was a side benefit — a kickback, a bribe, an easy job, a free vehicle. If the scheme didn’t work — and few of them did work — whose fault was that? Whose idea was it in the first place?”

It isn’t the easiest book to like though. Hock is a difficult character. He is emotionally distant in his relationships, obsessed with an idyllic Africa that never really existed, and unable to comprehend why the villagers might treat him with disrespect. The other characters aren’t well-fleshed out (it is Hock’s story). Zizi is most developed, but she serves mostly as an object to aid Hock’s return to civilization. I believe Theroux was intentional in creating these characters (i.e., we aren’t supposed to like Hock), but as a reader it can be at best daunting to stick with a character you don’t  like, or even abhor. At worst Hock becomes a stand-in for a sermon on the ills of international altruism. Another issue is the repetitiveness of the story, especially near the end. I feel like it would have been a great novella, but is too long as a novel. A few times I was rooting for Hock to die already.

Overall The Lower River is a good book, but it requires a committed reader. It is well-written and has thoughtful observations on the meaning of altruism in the developing world.

Wrap it up and stick a bow on it: ALA 2012, Part 2

Published July 18, 2012 conferences Leave a Comment
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June was a blur. An absolute blur. It started with IASSIST 2012 in DC, a week of data, beer and cows (long story), and ended with ALA 2012. Basically ALA Annual conference morphs for me every time I go. My first year was awful because I didn’t know many people and I couldn’t find a niche. The second time things started to change because I was in the Emerging Leaders program. I knew more people and was starting to find a place. Last year I worked for Against the Grain as a reporter and went to sessions I would have never attended on my own and learning tons. This year I was still writing for ATG, but I didn’t have time to attend a lot of programs. Why? Because I’ve started working more closely with a few groups, especially the ACRL Law and Political Science Section.

This is why I call it the grown-up ALA. I barely had time to visit the exhibit hall and the one time I was able to look for ARCs I was actually supposed to be at the ACRL conference table (I was lost, but eventually found it), so the whole ARC controversy is lost on me. I also could barely attend a program that wasn’t related to my section or round table. I attended some great  receptions, but often that was the only time I could catch up with old friends or meet anyone new. Don’t get me wrong; I much prefer this ALA to my first, but it is a fundamentally different beast now. That being said, it is really difficult to condense my activities into a pithy post, but here are the highlights of my ALA Annual 2012.

My official kick-off for ALA was the ACRL Leadership Council on Friday where I was able to meet some of the ACRL leadership and learn about plans for the next year. I am the incoming convener for the Data Interest Group and the incoming Vice-President for LPSS so this event will become a new “must attend”. My unofficial kick-off is always the Emerging Leader Poster session and I love seeing the projects. Here were my a few faves:

Along with most of the government information world I attended a launch workshop on the new interface for ProQuest Congressional. If you want my notes, just email me. They are switching the interface in August, but no final date yet. Oh exciting!

I tried to attend a few of the data sessions like the LITA Presidents’ Program, The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Research, Digital Scholarship and Implications for Libraries. It is nice to see more data-related sessions at ALA, but I wish the groups could collaborate more. For instance, DIG would love to collaborate with anyone interested in data issues. With the upcoming conference changes (fewer program slots), we are required to collaborate. So get with us.

This year’s DIG meeting was great and covered some of the major topics in the data world. It was nice to talk about data issues beyond just research data management though. There are many other issues that data librarians need to think about (licensing issues and proprietary software being just two). We decided at this meeting to pool together some of our resources, such as data collection policies, and make those available to others wanting to support secondary data.  I’d basically like to have something to update the Numeric Data Products and Services: A SPEC kit, which is starting to get out of date.

My last big event was the ProQuest breakfast for GODORT. This was the first year I could attend the breakfast and it was fab! The speaker was Julian Bond, a former President of the NAACP and a civil rights movement figure. He was invited to celebrate the History Vault’s The NAACP’s Major Campaigns. His presentation reflected on his life as a leader of SNCC and included a large number of photographs of him with other leaders. Such a great speaker!

The conference closed out with my first ever ALA Battledecks! I plan to stay until Tuesday now just to see this. Quite a good time. My favorite didn’t win the judges’ prize, but got the audience favorite. I have to give a BIG shout out to my fave boybrarian John Jackson who threw his name into the ring, was chosen, and did extremely well! So proud! Someday I want to get up the courage to compete. Hmm, maybe Las Vegas!

So, that was my ALA. Again, a fab conference with many great sessions, meetings, and conversations with new friends and old. Looking forward to an equally wonderful 2013. How was your ALA? Anything particularly exciting?

Wrap it up and stick a bow on it: IASSIST & ALA 2012, Part 1

Published July 12, 2012 conferences , Uncategorized 1 Comment
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I’ve been slow about writing conference wrap-ups! I guess it is because my summer conferences are pretty much back-to-back with IASSIST at the beginning of June and ALA at the end. The other issue may be that my conference experiences are changing. I’ve been spending less time in programs and more time in meetings. I called ALA the “grown-up version” this year because I spent so much time in meetings and much less seeing celebrities and partying. Ahem, I mean networking.

IASSIST 2012

IASSIST is the data professionals conference and it kicked off with two mega-meetings of the Administrative Council on Sunday and Monday. I’m on the Administrative Council by virtue of being a co-chair of the Professional Development Committee. My work on Prof Dev focuses mostly around creating workshops for the annual conference while the other chair is really into the big picture ideas like, “Where is IASSIST going? Who is IASSIST anyway?” We play to our strengths as I sometimes get frustrated with big picture discussions and tend to gravitate more to project development.

However, IASSIST needs to consider big picture ideas now because so many people are interested in data. We need to capitalize on the momentum to make a place for ourselves in the data world.  Take this for example: while we were holding our meeting, the LITA Forum 2012 announcement came out, and the program is entitled “A New World of Data”. Some of the sessions look like they would overlap with IASSIST with a library focus. I don’t think the issue is necessarily competition, but rather how the organization communicates that we are a broad umbrella for all types of data professionals from librarians doing data discovery to DDI specialists to data archivists. How do we communicate more effectively with LITA and others who are working with or interested in data? It’s a quandary.

As always there were many excellent sessions and lots of good conversations. Here are the highlights from just a few.

Julia Lane, Senior Managing Economist, American Institutes for Research (AIR) kicked off the conference describing a project to build a data system to bolster a science policy data infrastructure to support better reporting on nature and activities of R&D efforts. The project is based on three principles: activity should be based on need; need to leverage existing data; and use 21st century methods. You can see the outcome of project at http://readidata.nitrd.gov/star/
Jen Green, Nicole Scholtz, and Samantha Guss talked about collaborative models for robust data support by comparing the University of Michigan’s new Clark Library, New York University’s Data Services Studio, and Yale’s Center for Science and Social Science Information. All three use the information commons model to try to support more complex needs of data users. In addition they are able to bring together data librarians, statistical support, and IT computing assistance into one area. I would love to see something similar at UNCG, but we don’t quite have the user volume to support such intensive use of a data-related area. Great models for other libraries though!
Carol Perry and Michelle Edwards at the University of Guelph talked about having a Researcher Day in which researchers on campus can gather to have workshops on data management and talk about their data needs. This helped to launch a working group that focuses on research data management.
On the final day, Stuart Macdonald from EDINA at the University of Edinburgh presented on the AddressingHistory project. The project brings together historical Scottish Post Office Directories and historical maps. Beyond being one of my favorite presenters ever (Scottish accent and funny guy), I’ve been seeing this project slowly developing since IASSIST 2010 at Cornell. It is great to see an end-product. I was also really excited to see that they are starting to support augmented reality, which would appeal to a wider audience. I hate to see efforts like this whither because of lack of use simply because they are too esoteric or academic. With an augmented reality app the site could appeal to people more generally interested in the history of Edinburgh.
IASSIST is a great organization and conference because it is small and a close-knit group of data heads. It is quite unlike ALA where you can get lost in the shuffle at times. It is also awesome because the conference planners really like banquets on boats. This year’s was cruising the Potomac. Sweet.
Next post will cover the wild and wonderful world of ALA. Stay tuned for Part 2.

Books! Running with Murakami #cbr4

Published July 5, 2012 reading 4 Comments
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I have a hard time playing the favorites game. My absolute favorite book might depend on the genre or the time in my life I read it or my mood. However, I can say that Murakami is probably one author whose works I have enjoyed most consistently. I haven’t read everything, but Kafka on the Shore was my starting point and I’ve tried to slowly read through his works since then. I say slowly because I don’t want to binge read Murakami and suddenly have nothing left. Lately though I’ve started building up quite a pile of his books and have needed to work through them. What I Talk about When I Talk about Running is one I’ve had laying around for a while and I finally decided to tackle it.

I say tackle because I’m neither particularly interested in running nor keen on reading books abut running. I like running, but I’ve been stuck in the middle of a Couch to 2K for about 2 years (didn’t even know this state had a name until a month ago). I bought it because it is Murakami and he is a pretty interesting guy. Not many people just decide in their 20′s to open a jazz club and then when they turn 33 just as quickly decide to become a writer. Around his Jesus year he also decided to become a runner. And there you have it. Now he is a marathoner and triathelete who writes amazing books that deftly combine the mundane and the surreal.

What I Talk whose title is based on a Raymond Carver short story collection called What We Talk about When We Talk about Love chronicles Murakami’s path to becoming a runner and his preparation for the 2005 New York City marathon. He reflects somewhat on his writing, but for the most part he talks about running. This may disappoint some Murakami fans, but as he describes his obsession with running we see the familiar themes of alienation and independence, especially when he runs the mythological marathon route from Marathon to Athens and later during an ultramarathon in Hokkaido, Japan. I can’t even imagine the drive someone would need to push through so many solitary miles and so much blank time.

Expect a well-written memoir/travelogue about running from one of our contemporary treasures. Not my favorite Murakami ever but it would be difficult to choose just one anyway.

Katy Perry’s Case for Information Literacy

Published July 1, 2012 teaching 2 Comments
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To write this post I have to admit three things: 1) These are musings that may seem a bit random, but stay with me; 2) I sometimes read the Parade magazine that comes with my newspaper; 3) I read the article on Katy Perry in Parade this morning. Hey, it makes good cereal-eating reading.

As I was skimming through trying to figure out if I knew any of Perry’s songs, I read this:

Skilled as she is at working a crowd, she did her homework as well. “I Wikipediaed ‘Fleet Week’ because I wanted to know the history. I don’t want to look like a complete idiot.”

Perry played at Fleet Week, which is a week-long shore leave for active-duty ships around major US cities (yeah, I Wikipediaed it) and she wanted to know more.

Wikipedia entry for Fleet Week

So, my initial response was sarcastic scoffing at Perry’s decision to use Wikipedia for her “research”. Then I actually tried to Google Fleet Week. My options were a couple of magazines, About.com, and the Fleet Week Facebook page (at least in the first screen because, really, who ever goes beyond the first screen). ;)

I give Perry kudos for basic info lit savvy. According to the article, she is self-taught and motivated to learn from curiosity rather than assignments (oh, we so wish this for all of our students). In the moment of need she determined the extent of the information required and accessed it efficiently. If you want to learn the basics about Fleet Week in a quick and timely manner, Wikipedia is a decent option.

Now there is nothing new in that last statement. In our first year instruction we use Google and Wikipedia as starting points. Acknowledging their uses and limitations is a first step to becoming information literate. But because of Perry’s comment I started to think about a much larger dilemma for our information literacy programs — to what sources can our students turn when they have left the university and how do they discover them? If they are not in an information rich environment like a city with libraries/universities, how do they overcome the information deficit?

Considering the information literacy standards, we are great at teaching students how to come up with research questions, evaluate and cite information, but I wonder about our track records on finding information (Standard II). The public library would be an obvious choice for me and for you, but why would our graduates make that connection without guidance? Are we spending any time making sure our students know that what we do in the classroom can also be done in the real world (to a certain extent)? Are we so focused on university resources that we are creating graduates dependent upon us? From my experience, the answer to that question is yes because I receive emails and chats from several graduates each semester. Great for job security! Not so great for our graduates.

I started thinking about this when I had to teach SimplyMap to graduating seniors. It is a pretty complex resource and although I made the class interactive and scheduled it perfectly, I could feel some of them checking out. I realized that they if they couldn’t access the database they didn’t see how this would be helpful for their post-university lives (a few had internships and jobs lined up). I mentioned that they would still have access to the database through our state online library service called NC Live, and several of them perked up, asked questions about access and seemed more engaged for the rest of the class. We see some students coming from high school with knowledge of NC Live resources, but while they are at university we encourage them to use OUR resources and NC Live gets lost in the mix.

The literature  on the importance of information literacy in the workplace is a great starting point even though it focuses more on the evaluative aspects of IL. Our goal for teaching is to impart transferable skills such as evaluation, but when it comes to knowing how to find information beyond Google and Wikipedia, what are we doing? What could we do better? How do we balance our commitment to point of need instruction (teach to the student’s need for this class and this assignment) with their preparation for a future without access to our resources? I’ve heard of some places doing workshops for soon to be graduates. Are these effective and do they have good attendance? Have you incorporated these discussions into the regular library instruction classroom and have they worked well?  Have you seen other practices?

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