Carleen and Mike

I want this t-shirt!

http://www.cafepress.com/curmudgeony

Did you know that for the better part of my adolescent years, I posed as a loyal Metallica fan? I had posters, t-shirts, cd’s cassettes, you name it. I decorated my room with black furniture, desk, curtains to celebrate the notorious Black album. All the while, I didn’t even know the name of the freakin lead singer. What’s his name, James somethin’? Although I have pretty much all their albums, even now, fifteen years later, I have never actually listened to anything off of And Justice For All.
So yesterday morning while we were listening to one of their albums while driving home from our delightful Eggberts breakfast, Mike asks me if I was able to remember the name of the chick who sang backup for some song I don’t even know the title of, from one of the older albums that I’ve never actually listened to. He’s been on a Metallica kick lately, which I think started when he noticed I was reading Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and asked me if I noticed anything about the book that was similar to the song written by Metallica. “Hmmm…I don’t know honey, it’s been so long since I’ve heard that song.” Ok, so that was not so true statement number one. Bad bad for marriage. The real truth is that I have never, at least not consciously, ever listened to the song For Whom the Bell Tolls by Metallica, in fact, I didn’t even know it ever existed. At first, I actually thought he was talking about the Pink Floyd song but don’t get any ideas because I don’t really know anything about them either except that they had something to do with the Wizard of OZ.
So, when he asked me about the back-up singer, I figured it was time for me to ‘fess up. “Listen, babe, I kinda have to tell you something. I’m not really as much of a Metallica fan as you think I am. I know that back when we were first dating I said I was nuts about them and it probably appeared that I was nuts about them since I did have all their albums but I only said that because I knew you were a drummer and, I really liked you and I knew that you really like them so…well, the truth is I was always a poser.” So, he starts laughing and I’m like “go ahead, tie me to a post, have the towns people throw tomatoes at me, file for divorce come Monday, I won’t blame you really.” He keeps laughing. Then he says “this originally had something to do with a guy, didn’t it?”
Damn he is so perceptive. Yes, this did originally have something to do with a guy. It was eighth grade, binders covered with NKOTB stickers (I never really listend to their music either), tie dye t-shirts, keds of all different shapes and shades…I had a crush on this guy who was a major Metallica fan. He in turn had a crush on this chick who was also a major Metallica fan and who always wore Metallica t-shirts. And so began my days as Metallica fan poser. I am not proud of it. But at least I got rid of those dorky keds.

I’m slowly but surely updating our links column. Mike hasn’t added any yet so everything over there so far is stuff I’ve come across and found interesting.

I just added Litblog which for the most part seems like a kind of blog review. It was through the current post that I discovered, now brace yourself, yes folks, a blog written by the one, the only omnipotent being himself (no Mike, not you, the other one).

So, I just attended my first “real” conference this past weekend in Oklahoma City. It was titled “Digital Information and Knowledge Management: New Opportunities for Research Libraries.” If I had paid a little more attention to the title, then maybe I would have realized that the attendence was going to consist mostly of research and university librarians and been a little more prepared for the fact that I was the only student, the only public librarian and perhaps a little out of my league. In any event, it was ultimately a great experience. Some of the topics presented weren’t entirely innovative. Many expressed the need to shed traditions, to be willing to take more risks with new ideas and technology, to anticipate change better so as to be more proactive and better prepared for the future and of course, the one we talk constantly about in class, collaboration between librarians and faculty. Some of the audience members were a little frustrated with the last one since many of them have found faculty to be very unresponsive to the idea of working along side their university librarian. Although they seem enthusiastic about the idea at first, when it comes down to it, they don’t have the time nor the energy to put into collaboration and seem to feel that library matters should be taken care of by the librarian. Funds are also a problem, especially when it comes to digitizing collections. There has been a movement in recent years to form official standards for digitized collections and while most librarians would obviously like to abide by these standards, those who are responsible for funding the projects tend to be more interested in the “cheaper version.”
Charles T. Cullen, President of The Newberry Library in Chicago had a very interesting talk titled “Is there a Digital Purgatory”. The analogy he used in his title was actually influenced by a speaker at the IFLA conference last year, who refered to a Kingdom of Virtuality and a Library of Babel . To be honest, I didn’t entirely see what this analogy had to do with his talk, but he had some very interesting points anyway. For example, he really feels that librarians should be cautious about digitizing special collections since they will often turn out to be rather fragmented versions of the print collections. He sited an example, a personal experience he had when he was helping to organize a set of letters written by Justice John Marshall to Thomas Jefferson. In one case there was only portions of a letter, so Cullen was unable to decipher when it was actually written. He did, however, notice that the paper the letter was written on had a watermark of a date. This is a perfect example of how crucial information can be lost through the digitization process. Cullen also mentioned something that I think many librarians have already noticed about digital collections, and that is the search and find capabilities still need a little work.
Dennis Dillon, of the University of Texas, took a very candid look at how Google is affecting libraries and user habits. He was wonderfully blunt when he said “Nobody will prefer a librarian over the internet, just because they are apparently better trained to interpret Google results” and expressed a need for librarians to be realistic about their strengths and weaknesses, not to mention making more of an effort to stay on top of things.
The conference was held at the Embassy Suites Hotel. They aren’t kidding about the suites. You do get a suite in your room, in addition to a microwave, fridge and two t.v.’s. TWO! Dad drove down with me so he could use the historical library to do some of his geneology research. After the conference was finished on the first day, we drove down to Bricktown and watched a movie (Million Dollar Baby- highly recommend). Then we went back to the room, and watched another movie. Can you tell I am t.v. deprived at the moment?