Monthly Archives: August 2007

Kids say the funniest things

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My kids come up with the funniest things to say sometimes.  This morning, for example, Tristan was watching something on TV about the baby beluga whale that was recently born at the Shedd Aquarium.  He rushed upstairs to tell me, with great excitement:  “Dad!  Did you know that zoo we went to recently has a new baby bazooka?!”  That really made me laugh.

Michele just IM’d me to tell me another funny anecdote from this afternoon.  Cohen was sitting by her while Tristan and Brinley were busy arguing loudly about something.  She remarked to him, “They’re crabby!”  His reply:  “They are fighting.  I wish I was in God’s world!”

You just gotta laugh…

Water, water, everywhere

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We live in an area where there are more lakes per square mile than anywhere else in Illinois.  We’re used to seeing a lot of water.  Now, thanks to a ton of rain during the past two weeks, we have even more water.  In fact, we have too much water and hundreds of houses in our area are either flooded already or are threatened by flood waters.  I can’t remember a wetter August.  Thankfully we live on a hill so we aren’t in any danger.  I’ve always wanted to have a house on a lake but it sure doesn’t seem to be a good idea anymore.

Analysis of federated search

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There are many things I’m still getting used to in terms of corporate vs. academic librarianship.  One of the differences is the types of information/current awareness sources that can sometimes be found in the corporate environment.  For example, I regularly read reports from Outsell, Inc. and find almost all of them very useful and instructive.  This is a source I had never heard of before I began work in a corporate library, and I don’t think most academic or public librarians are familiar with them, either.  I have been quite impressed with their analyses and think their analysts have a very good grasp on many of the current and future trends in library and information science.  On the (significant) downside, Outsell, Inc.’s reports are pricey.

The other day I received an electronic copy of their latest report, entitled “Information Management Best Practices: The Future of Federated Search.”  (An abstract is available here.)  The report discusses federated search; who are the players in this field; the differences between enterprise and what they term “open web” search.  Google is in the latter category. The report’s authors argue that due to basic differences in philosophies and approaches, it is unlikely that open web providers such as Google will make significant inroads into corporate search.  Their succinct but  — I think — accurate delineation of basic differences between open web and enterprise search was illuminating.  Another point that I found interesting was their discussion of survey results showing that more time in the past five years has been spent on adding more information into enterprise search, with less time spent on actually analyzing that information.  The report’s authors argue that federated search vendors haven’t much to fear from Google, and they go on to articulate why this is the case.  They see a good future for federated search.

If you can get access to this report, I think it’s worthwhile to read.  One of the things I find frustrating with reports like this is that yes, they articulate important trends for information management and are written in a highly palatable form, but in doing so, they tend to highlight the reality of what truly can be accomplished in, say, a corporate business environment.  Meaning, the reality is often far behind the vision or trends articulated in such reports.

Some things old, some things new

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I’ve been thinking for a while now about writing down some of the things I knew or experienced when I was younger in comparison to what my kids experience or will experience.

Here is what I could think of (there are lots more that could be added):

Kiwi fruit — I can remember when we had never seen or heard of kiwi fruit. Sometime in the 1970s I remember my mother ordered a box of kiwi fruit, probably from California. It was somewhat of an “event” to open the box and have a taste of this new kind of fruit. My kids have never known a time without this delicious and healthy fruit.

Gas costing less than $1 a gallon — Yes, I can remember when we thought it was outrageous when gas prices rose above $1 per gallon. Those were the days. Recently gas prices have hovered around the $3 range, and higher.

Doors left unlocked — Throughout the entire time I was growing up, my parents never locked the doors to our house, at least to my knowledge. This included times when we went somewhere on a trip and were gone for days. We thought nothing of it. The same was true of car doors. Oftentimes, we left the keys in the car AND the doors unlocked. I wouldn’t dream of doing such things nowadays. ‘Course a lot of that had to do with the area where we grew up, which was in a small, rural farming community. Even so, I know that those of my family who still live there definitely do not practice leaving their doors unlocked any more.

TV — Except for a one brief section of time (funny enough, this was during the Watergate hearings–I remember that because I thought, how boring can TV get?!), we were raised without a TV. My children take TV for granted. Our equivalent, as I think I’ve mentioned before, was Super 8 mm movies rented from nearby public libraries.

Small electronics and gadgets — My father was a traveling salesman and he had a lot of office-type stuff in a room in the basement of our house. One of the things he had was a portable calculator with a neat green LED display. I thought that was incredibly cool, that you could use a calculator without it having to be plugged in! The thing was probably at least eight inches long and four or five inches wide, and perhaps an inch and a half thick at least. But it was portable! Hi tech. Then there was an automated answering machine. The unit was huge, I recall. Again, though, we thought we were pretty hi tech. All of this pales in comparison to all of the electronic gadgets we use these days. There was no such thing as cell phones, VCRs, DVDs, or CDs, either.

Music players — My parents had a pretty large collection of records, as well as 8 track tapes. It’s highly unlikely that my kids will ever see one of these things.

Contact lenses — When I was little, noone had ever heard of or seen contact lenses. If your eyesight was poor, you wore glasses or went without and squinted a lot.

Personal computers — Personal computers just didn’t exist until the early to mid 1980s. I can well recall the first time I ever saw one, an Apple Macintosh II. I also remember the excitement of seeing the first personal computer with a GUI and a mouse, which was also an Apple Mac. My, how things have changed in this area!

Cell phones — The only thing approaching a cell phone that we ever had when I was growing up was a CB radio. Like 8 track tapes and records, I doubt my kids will ever know what CB radios are, although I know they are still used in places.

Pet rocks and mood rings — Need I say more?

“Big box” stores — I grew up in the pre-”big box” store era. There was no such thing as Wal-Mart, let alone Super Wal-Mart. Meijers wasn’t even dreamt of, let alone other types of big box retailers popular these days, like Borders, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and the like. All of our groceries were bought at small, local, regular grocery stores. When we needed tools or stuff like that, we went to the local hardware stores (there were two of them in our little town). The dizzying array of choices for things to buy; the one-stop-shopping places that enable you to get everything from groceries to clothes to toys, all under one roof; these things didn’t exist.

Microwave ovens — We managed to live for years without a microwave, believe it or not ;-) The day my father brought home a microwave oven as a gift for my mother was a memorable one. I think he got it for her on Valentine’s Day. If so, that was the only time I ever remember him giving my mother a present on Valentine’s Day.

Sears Tower — I remember a day when the Sears Tower didn’t exist.

Seat belts and child safety seats — As a family, we traveled many thousands of miles by car when I was growing up.  Nine people in a station wagon.  And we didn’t use seat belts, nor did we have anything like the child safety seats that are so prevalent these days.  Angels must have been pretty busy watching over us!  I find it hard to imagine driving around these days, with my own four kids, and not using seat belts and safety seats.

How you scan the news

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I’ve had a subscription to PC Magazine for a while now.  Honestly, it’s a mixed bag.  Sometimes it contains really useful information; other times, it just seems like a forum for tech writers to blow hot air.  (Case in point, the terrible article written a few issues back by the previous editor-in-chief, Jim Louderback, predicting the utter failure of the iPhone.  This is the same guy who admitted in the most recent issue that he was totally wrong to sing the praises of Windows Vista.  Hmm.)

Whenever I receive an issue, I sit down and leaf through it looking for new and interesting things.  A story that caught my attention was one that discussed a report that studied website users’ eye movements when visiting news sites.  Below is a link to the heart of the report which is a schematic of a website labeling distinct areas where users’ eyes tend to focus, and for what kinds of content.  This is quite interesting stuff to me, not just because of thinking about how FML might be improved, but also in relation to my extensive involvement with a bunch of other people on launching a new library portal at my place of work.  We’re only now at the stage where user testing can commence in earnest.  User tests have been done before but now that we have something solid and functional in place, we can begin to see where improvements in the user interface and experience can be improved.

Behind the scenes

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I was excited to read about a Flickr photoset of pictures taken of various areas within technical services at the Hatcher Graduate Library at the University of Michigan.  (Seen via librarian.net.)  This photoset provides a lot of insight into how books and other material are received and processed in technical services in a large library.  Having taught a course in technical services librarianship, I am well aware of the utility of this kind of picture collection.  Most of the students who take my course have never worked in technical services and don’t have much of an idea what technical services is.  The class I’ve taught in the past is an online course and one of the biggest drawbacks to an online venue is the inability at times to give students “hands on” experience.  This is particularly the case when teaching  technical services.  In UIUC GSLIS’s online curriculum (LEEP), each class has only one opportunity to meet together in person, called an “on campus day.”  Usually for a portion of that day, I schedule a tour of UIUC’s Main Library technical services operation.  Feedback from students has shown that this firsthand look at technical services is tremendously helpful.

Surely the next best thing would be to show and discuss this photoset in class or have students look at it on their own.  That would go a long way toward demystifying some of the physical aspects of this area of librarianship.  I’d love to see more such photosets crop up on Flickr or elsewhere.  Folks, let’s shed light on technical services in libraries of all sorts!  Bring “the back room” out into the open!  I think a lot of people, including our library users, would find such exposure fascinating and insightful.

No comment

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One of the things about blogging that I have yet to figure out is the etiquette of commenting, or more specifically, responding to comments.  This goes for comments people make on my blog entries, as well as comments that I make on other people’s blogs.

It is really important, in my mind, to pay attention to, and encourage, comments in the blogosphere.  As I have noted before, the fact that someone comments at all is a big deal because it isn’t necessarily easy or straightforward to do it.  In many cases, for someone to take the time and effort to comment on something on a blog is an indication of a strong interest or opinion.

However, as a blog author, I am often uncertain as to whether to respond to a comment.  For instance, although I want to show regard and thankfulness for every comment, should I always add a comment to someone else’s?  Is it ok or necessary to do this if/when the only thing I might have to say is “Thanks”?

There are many times where a blog author hardly ever acknowledges or responds to comments, even if the comment is posing a direct question to the blog author, or the comment adds a lot to the discussion or provides a thoughtful viewpoint.  If I’m the commenter and I’ve put in a lot of thought and/or effort into a comment on someone else’s blog in an attempt to add something significant to the idea, concept, or subject of the post in question, and I receive no response whatsoever, I am pretty discouraged.  When that happens, especially when it happens over and over again, I’m not going to bother commenting any more.  In some cases that is probably a good thing or doesn’t matter much.  In other cases, I think it’s a shame.  Sometimes it is downright disrespectful.

I realize that there are all kinds of reasons why comments may or may not be answered by the blog author or by someone else.  We all have a hard time keeping up with email let alone acknowledging or responding to comments on blogs (our own or someone else’s).  We may not have any opinion or reaction and therefore choose not to respond for that reason.  We may simply overlook the fact that someone has made a comment.  We may in fact want to discourage comments by a certain person with an axe to grind or who is being disruptive in some way.  (Personally, I’ve never faced this situation, but then, this blog has a pretty small readership, which is fine with me.)

So I am often left to wonder and puzzle over this issue.  Comment?  Or no comment?  And what does that mean?  Or does it mean anything at all?  I wish I had more solid answers.

Wicked!

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After finishing up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows early last week, I decided it’d be fun to re-read the whole series as well as watch all of the movies from the series that we have so far.  Friday night after work, I was home by myself — a rare event — so I decided to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the first movie.  I remember when I first saw it, I was rather critical of this movie.  After watching it again Friday night, I can’t for the life of me remember why.  I really enjoyed it!  Every one of the actors who portrayed the main three kids in the series did a great job, I thought.  And the plot followed the book pretty faithfully.  I couldn’t help but get a laugh out of the Ron Weasley character in particular, when he kept saying “Wicked!” at times when he was really impressed by something or another.  Or by his voice, which began to squeak whenever he was scared.  Or when he muttered funny asides about how scary or “mental” Hermione was.  Other highlights:  the short but highly significant scene between Ollivander, the wand maker, and Harry; the visit to Gringott’s; the verbal exchange between Hagrid and the Dudleys when Hagrid came to rescue Harry; the very first scene when Harry, as a little baby, was left on the Dudley’s doorstep.  I had completely forgotten that Dumbledore’s deluminator, which plays a prominent part in the last book, was used in the opening scene of the first movie as well.  Good stuff.

The Encyclopedia of Me: A is for anxious

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I’ve never participated in a meme before, but I kinda like the one I just found in a very serendipitous way on a blog named Bella Dia.  (This is a blog I have to tell Michele about, if she doesn’t know about it already.  Michele is a blog-reading fiend when it comes to blogs like Bella Dia that feature craft-related content.)

This meme is called “The Encyclopedia of Me” and the idea behind it is to create twenty six posts, one for each letter of the alphabet.  Each letter will represent a topic that explains a bit about who I am, my interests, my life.  Bella Dia suggests that this be done over the course of the month of August; I’m not sure I want to follow that timeframe.  Instead, I think I’ll add new posts at random intervals over the next few months.

I know, I know:  This kind of thing is exactly what blog critics think blogs are all about:  a bunch of people just blabbing about themselves and who cares? If you don’t care, don’t read it.  No skin off my nose.

Most of my life I’ve been anxious about one thing or another.  One of my favorite Bible verses is Philippians 4:6 which says:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Why am I anxious?  I suppose at the core of it, I lack faith in God.  Anxiety is a form of unbelief.  I realize this.  If I truly believed that He has the whole world in His hands, I’d realize that there is nothing to worry about.  If I only tried harder when faced with another crisis or problem, to remember all of those past times when He has brought me through completely and safely, I wouldn’t struggle so much with anxiety.

There are other reasons for this tendency.  There were a lot of anxious times in our family when I was growing up.  Sometimes we had a lot of money, but most of the time we didn’t.  There were many times when we couldn’t be sure that we’d continue to have a place to live due to financial troubles.  Anxiety was generated by my father’s long addiction to alcohol and all of the issues and events surrounding that.  There were many arguments in our household that I still remember quite vividly.  Lots of loud shouting, crying, verbal warfare with words as weapons.  There were physical conflicts as well, but not as much.  I still remember my two oldest brothers fighting on the front lawn of our house, rolling around on the ground, throwing punches and so forth, and being absolutely convinced that they were going to kill each other.  My brother Dan and I shared a room most of our growing up years and we almost always got along, but we did occasionally have fights, too.  One time, for some really silly reason that I can’t remember, we began a fight.  I remember Dan coming after me to punch me in the face.  He swung really hard with his right fist and I ducked just in time, with the result that his fist hit the edge of our dresser, breaking his hand.  Ironically we learned that the break was called a boxer’s break after he was taken to the emergency room and had it looked at.  Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that the reason he was coming after me to punch me was that I had just thrown a D cell battery as hard as I could at him, hitting him in the chest.  He was so angry and full of adrenaline that he didn’t even feel it.

I am anxious also because I’ve failed a lot of times.  Fear of failure can be a strong force keeping you from doing new things, trying to go in new directions.

And part of the anxiety I’ve known all my life is no doubt related to some of the larger events that played out in the church group to which I belonged.  I’ve mentioned before that 1970 was a watershed year in which many events occurred that shaped how and where I was raised, the people and family I knew or didn’t know, etc.  There were other splits among the brethren after that.  Looking back, it seems to me that there was often the need to identify which side we were on, and this caused some memorable conflicts, hard feelings, and yes, anxiety.

Hopefully the next post in this meme, for the letter B, will be much more positive!

Tomatoes and Tommy Makem

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Last night was special because I was able to pick and eat the very first ripe tomatoes of the season from our small garden.  The plant that is furthest along in terms of ripe tomatoes is the ‘Lemon Boy’ variety, which is a yellow tomato.  Keegan and Michele agreed with me that it tasted very delicious, a milder, less acidic flavor than many of the red varieties.

Also yesterday it was announced that Tommy Makem had died.  Many of you may know who he was, but some of you may not.  He was a member of the Irish folk music group known as ‘The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.’  I’m not sure how it started but in my family, we grew up listening to this group and some other, similar groups of Irish musicians.  I have a strong affinity for Irish folk music as a result.  Many of the piano pieces I like to play best are Irish folk music, including pieces they are known to have sung and played.  Tommy and the Clancy Brothers were incredibly talented and their music will always be a favorite of mine.