Side Note: Get OpenOffice2. Now.

Don't delay, just go download it, and enjoy. Even if you only do it for the integrated print to PDF function.

Channelling My Inner Patron

I'm getting in touch with my inner patron today. Patrons don't experience things the way we do: classification is a joke (especially LC or NLM--at least Dewey makes some kind of visual sense); databases and the citations they contain are obscure; IT restrictions keep them from doing the things they need or want to do. Libraries are full of barriers and hoops, and librarians aren't always the gentle guides they need to be.

I want to print a 48"x36" document across multiple 8.5"x11" sheets (tiled printing). I've done it a million times before, as it is a cheap way to print large documents which you then trim and glue together. The results are of decent quality, especially for a 30-minute non-competitive poster presentation for which you are essentially filler because no one else signed up. Plus, I get to cut and paste for a while, which is remarkably fun and soothing.

An aside: this is both the volunteer gene and my procrastination tendency (mentioned previously) getting to me at once. The issue here is that I got myself into this, so there's no one to address to alleviate the anxiety and get over the procrastination. I guess I'll have to have a stern chat with myself. I'll do it later.

I have tried every workaround I can think of to get this to come out. The issue appears to be a setting on the color printer that when the memory buffer gets full, it just stops printing. Yes, I could call the IT staff, just like a patron could ask a librarian, but it just seems like it should work. No offense to our IT staff, but they are hard to find, always "busy," and always question what it is I want or what I am doing. Just like we do when a patron asks a question, right? And just like a patron, I am definitely trending towards taking the easy way out (I'll print out handouts and take a projector and shine my poster up on a wall) instead of asking for help.

I sincerely hope the next time a patron comes up to me with one of "those" questions, I can draw on this experience and look at them with soft eyes.

WDT

The Kind of Geek I Am

Just a quick note I thought this audience would appreciate: I have lost the entire day playing with my tablet and GoBinder. It's work-related, so it's a legitimate use of time, but I just have to smile--give me a toy and give me a new way to organize information and I can disappear for hours.

I feel very fortunate that the things I get to do are also the things I like to do; I get paid to get into the "flow" state where task and focus become one. Lucky me.

Ongoing Quest for True Personal Information Management

One potential HUGE perk of the tablet: it came with access to GoBinder, which seems on the surface to do a lot of the things I want my personal information management product to do. It's a matter of finding the time to really get it working, but it appears I actually could have tasks, notes, project plans, documents, etc., etc., all in one place and all searchable. Hmm. My counterpart here is more interested in OneNote because it has better audio and video integration, but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. I need more darned time!

Guilt item: what do I do with my recent $70 purchase of Franklin swag if I really get into GoBinder? Put 11 months of planner out on EBay?

Also, I have no idea where I stumbled across the reference, but for time management/personal planning/"life hacks," I am completely onboard with the 43 Folders folk. In my original perusal of their content, I really liked Patching Your Personal Suck.

The best part: "You can’t just turn it on and instantly be the thing you wish you were. It takes reflection, thought, iteration, and a personal commitment to facing the stuff at which you suck. And we all suck at something. You totally suck at something, and it secretly drives you nuts every goddamned day."

There's a lot of stuff I suck at, but one of the worst is that I put off doing things that I somehow feel pressured into doing; not stuff that I don't want to do, because there's a lot of that, and I generally just deal and get it done. But, if there's a project or a task that I feel I've been somehow coerced or cornered into, I will delay and delay and delay.

Somewhere else on 43 Folders they talked about dealing with the anxieties that keep you from getting stuff done, and I guess the anxiety here would be "dealing directly with the person who annoyed me by dumping crap on me instead of being a passive-aggressive procrastinator."

Now, THAT'S a task worthy of the GoBinder task list.

WDT

A Quick Tablet Update

Good things:
1. Very high coolness factor
2. Note taking is easier than I thought it would be
3. Darn speedy machine, with darn speedy wireless
4. If left on chair, makes an excellent seat warmer in cool weather

Not-so-good things:
1. Too heavy with additional battery (regular battery life seems to be about 5 hours)
2. Lopsided with additional battery
3. Tablet-specific features are not intuitive and I just don't have the time right now to explore things in depth

To make it my main machine, I need a port replicator which is not forthcoming from any budget stream I can see. This makes it difficult to really be at one with my tablet.

I like the concept of the tablet, but what I want is all of the same functionality in a package the size of a paperback. That would be TRUE portability; get a port replicator and even something tiny could be a main machine.

I can say that a tablet with ubiquitous wireless access eliminates any need for a PDA. I'm willing to lug the extra weight to get full PC functionality.

WDT

Revisiting My Past Life

Many of you know that I play string bass; from the time I picked it up in 5th grade until I was about 19, my one and only desire was to be a musician. As I was pretty darn good, this was an excellent possibility, but life intervened and here I am beating out my librarian blog instead. We never know what path we'll take.

However, music has been on my mind recently, and I finally took a deep breath and took my bass out of its case after almost two years of not playing. The news was not so good; the fingerboard and saddle have loosened, I have two seams open, and the neck warped a little bit. Mercifully, a local shop is going to be able to fix her up for me for a lot less than I thought.

The question then becomes, if I'm going to pay (to have it fixed), am I going to play? I've got to find a new group, make it a priority, yadda, yadda, yadda, and I just don't know if this time I'll be able to get over the ghosts of the past and just enjoy the experience of making music, at whatever level that might be.

I'm just not sure I can do that. We'll see.

WDT

My Kingdom for an AccessMedicine Class Script

So, I'm in the middle of AccessMedicine Promotion Month, and I realize that if I'm supposedly teaching an "AccessMedicine Power Hour" on Friday, by golly, I probably ought to do more than stand up there and say, "Um, this is, like, um, AccessMedicine, or something."

This is where I begin to pine for a single source of librarian education resources. I know someone else out there has already done this; I'm sure their class script would be just fine for my needs. Why do each and every one of us have to continually reinvent the wheel? Gaah!

I guess I'll send a message out to MEDLIB-L and see if anyone is willing to pony up what they've got. And education librarians, I'm looking in your direction with narrowed eyes. Surely there's got to be a better way.

Lessons Learned from _The Nightmare Before Christmas_

My husband and I love the movie The Nightmare before Christmas, and we watch it every year around this time. The plot is a little thin, but the details in the film are just fantastic. There are gags nesting within other gags, like Russian dolls, and they are smart, funny little jokes, too. Overall, it's just a jewel of a film.

Usually I like the movie because Jack (The Pumpkin King) realizes that happiness can't be found in work, and instead is available in the arms of a good woman. A fine message about priorities, in my opinion.

However, this year I took away something else: stray from your core service, or your core message, at your own peril.

You see, Jack and the denizens of Halloween Town decide to take over Christmas, with monstrous results (kids get severed heads instead of presents, the toys attack the recipients, etc.). Jack nearly dies and realizes that he should stick with what he and his fellow flok in Halloween Town are best at: scaring the daylights out of people.

I think the message is important for libraries: there's a lot we can be doing in this day and age, and there's a very real push away from core library services as we struggle to "redefine" ourselves. I'm as pro-progess as the next person (maybe too much so for some), but I think Jack teaches a valuable lesson. A Pumpkin King is a Pumpkin King, not Santa Claus. A library is a library, with exceptional skills in acquiring, organizing, and disseminating information. We're not (usually) instructional design experts or (again, usually) hard-core IT people, or a million other things.

This isn't coming out the way I wanted it to; I guess I need to think on it some more. If libraries are equivilent to the Pumpkin King, then what is the Santa Claus we're trying to become? I can't quite put my finger on that part of the analogy. Still, doing what you are good at and building a team of experts to cover the areas where you're not so hot is always a good idea.

Tablet. Woah.

I've been given a tablet PC as part of my work for the Office of Medical Education. Bob and I have been harping about how the machines are too big for practical, long-term, one-arm use, but now that I have one in my hands... I can see a lot of potential. The main issue is that they ARE too heavy with the addon battery and regular battery life alone is only abou tthree hours.

I'm going to try to use it as my main machine for a while and see what I can see with it.

Oh, ya, it's a HP Compaq tc4200.

WDT

30sec Forever?

There's some sort of karma thing going on here--the name of my blog has come up three times in three different conversations over the last few days. I always intended to change it each year on my birthday, which would then make it the :31 Second Librarian this year, the :32 Second Librarian in 2006, etc., etc. The URL wouldn't change, as I used my screen name (whitneydt) instead of the name of the blog in the location as I was anticipating this little artifice.

So far, the votes are three for three against changing the name annually. Although I realize that the :31 Second Librarian just doesn't have quite the same ring as 30sec, I think it both recognizes the passage of time in a small way and encompasses my desire that someday I really will have an extra second, or an extra 30 seconds when I'm sixty, or an extra sixty seconds when I'm 90. There's some kind of hope tied up in the name change, and I'm unwilling to give that up.

Also, I promised when I got started that I would write about why my age is such an important descriptor for me right now--I'll make that my birthday post.

WDT

Bloggin' Bennies

So, if a blog gets written in the forest, and no one reads it, was it really ever written at all?

When I talk about blogs and blogging, someone invariably asks, why write it if only a handful of people are going to read it? The past week has brought out a couple of excellent reasons:

1. Writing helps clarify content in your own mind. Why are you posting that link? Do you really think that most medical librarians deserve to lose their jobs? Once it's posted, it's out there for everyone to see, and that's a powerful incentive to be sure what you are writing really makes sense.

This benefit of blogging came up while Teri Hartman and I were writing an article on blogging for the Plains to Peaks Post.

2. Someone you don't know might come up to you at a conference and say, "YOU'RE WHITNEY [insert your name here]! My friend and I LOVE your blog." This actually happened to me, and I was just pleased as punch.

3. You might find out that people you do know and like read your blog. Turnabout is fair play, and here are links to Tim Rogers and Erica Reynolds. You may even find readers you don't know very well but like anyway are reading what you write.

Carve a little community out of your corner of cyberspace, and start a blog. Send me the link, and I promise I'll read.

WDT

PS--I'm not into Moby Dick like Erica is, but my favorite tale of all time, of any length, is Bartleby the Scrivener. It doesn't matter how much noise we make; is it a "difference that makes a difference, or a silence like that of the tomb?"

"Volunteer Gene" Causes Trouble

A while back, as yet another "opportunity to contribute" presented itself, I asked Erica Reynolds over at the Johnson County Library "Why do we volunteer for this stuff?"

Her reply was classic--something along the lines of: "It's the volunteer gene--once it served some necessary purpose but now it just causes problems."

I know a lot of people who have problems with rampant volunteer genes. These aren't the good people who volunteer their time for good causes--although they may also have some variant of the gene. No, I'm concerned about those who just can't seem to say no to requests for speakers, participants, authors, committee members, etc., etc.

That rampant volunteer gene can be the source of great personal and professional satisfaction and pride, or it can choke the life out of its happy host.

Fortunately, there's a simple cure: learn to say no. Easier said than done, I know. Good luck with that.

Meanwhile, I've got a "task force" report to finish, a poster to create, an article to write, and a research project to get moving on. Do as I say, not as I do. :P

WDT

WAY Funnier than a Pew Internet Life Press Release

This very funny (if a little racy) story from the BBC really highlights the fact that a majority of people do not know or care about blogs or blogging. The same thing seems to be true in the US, as a Pew Report from May indicated that 9% of Americans have a blog and 25% read blogs.

So, if you're reading this, CONGRATS! You are in the top quartile of techno-forward folks in the US, and ahead of 9 out of 10 Brits.

Feel the Love

I've been at the MCMLA Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, and it was a really excellent time. The meeting had everything: beautiful location, wonderful people, and great conversations.

I can extensively trash talk MLA, but the chapter is a wonderful thing, and I understand that without the umbrella organization, the chapters would not be as vital as they are. So, MLA, thanks for this one amazingly wonderful thing.

What makes MCMLA a special event is not the location and not the speakers, but the participants themselves. This group includes major academic medical library directors, hospital librarians in blazers and sensible shoes, movin' and shakin' outreach librarians, library science students, and every other stripe and type of librarian you might hope to find.

The tie that binds them together is a committment to library services and a forward-facing optimism that medical librarians are and will continue to be important as long as we work hard and stay relevant. I'm often a hard, hard cynic, and it is refreshing to drink of this optimism for a few days.

WDT

My Taxpayer Dollars at Work

I admit that even though I've been on the guvmint dole for years, I sometimes question the real value of some government services.

Please don't send letter bombs, but even things like DOCLINE sometimes perplex me--why are the taxpayers paying for a separate ILL system for health sciences libraries? Why can't we (medical libraries and the base that supports us)fork out our $$ to OCLC like every other library in existence? Aren't there rules about government competing with private enterprise? And, please don't tell me that if we got rid of DOCLINE, we'd have to get rid of PubMed, too, because there's a viable public interest in maintaining PubMed. DOCLINE seems to be a holdover from a former age.

Ahh, but I digress from my intended topic.

While trying to determine the nutrient value of a baked potato, I wandered across the My Food Pyramid Tracker. Now, this is a nifty little tool! Enter a little personal information, what you've eaten, and your exercise, and get evaluations and recommendations six ways from Sunday. Since I'm under a mandate from my physican to get my cholesterol and blood pressure down (or she'll medicate me--at the age of 30--"Holy cow!" is all I can say to that), this seems like a fantastic little tool. It's an especially neat use of the data that the USDA already collects.

After a few minutes, though, I realized the planning and programming time that must have gone into this. How much is the My Food Pyramid Tracker costing the American public?

My next thought, though, was of the societal costs of diabetes, and I imagine that whatever the costs of the My Food Pyramid Tracker, it's TINY in comparison. If you've got the money and can pay for Weight Watchers or the WebMD online weight loss or other fee-based services, then you can access these kinds of resources. Why shouldn't they be available to everyone? Isn't there a vaible public interest in that, too?

Of course, we could get into all kinds of questions about the digital divide and the actual usefulness of online government information for the audiences intended to benefit from it. Those are important questions to ask, and it is a place where libraries, especially public libraries, can really make a tangible difference through computer access.

I also envision some kind of collaborative program between a hospital library and their diabetes care department. What an intriguing way to put this resource--and our tax dollars--to work, right where it matters.

BTW--for today, the food intake's pretty good. But it's only lunchtime, so who knows?

Copyright or Copywrong?

So, I've got my new toy and I am REALLY happy with it. As the Best Buy boys said, it is easy to use. And, as I thought, it's too small, but that's OK for now. I COULD load up a bigger player with hundreds of hours of material, but I'd never get through it all. It's better that I keep my playlist small.

The device's "killer app" for me is playing audiobooks, but I'm a poor librarian and just can't afford Audible's prices. I tried downloading one of the machine-read audiobooks from Gutenberg but couldn't get into the flow of the text with the synthesized voice.

So, what did I do? I turned to my local public library and checked out a book on CD. I took it home, popped it into the PC, and a few minutes later had a complete book in MP3 form. Fantastico! I went for a walk and was having such a good time I didn't want to stop.

However, this fun and easy excercise in new-millenium media enjoyment has run me right up against the limits of copyright law. Technically, making a copy of the audiobook is illegal. Of course, I intend to delete it when I'm done, only listen to it once, etc., etc., and so I don't think the MP3 police are going to come get me, but engaging in the activity has brought to life some of the same kinds of issues that surround music downloads (requires Quicktime to view).

Should I be paying for this? Why should I pay for something I can get in another format from the library? I'm using the material as it was intended: I am a single user listening for my own enjoyment. Only the device is different. Should I have to drop $20 a title at Audible just because my library doesn't have a way to circ MP3s?

There's a big difference between my single use of an audiobook and the theft that is open-file sharing, but I've developed some empathy for downloaders. Instead of locking down the content, can't the content developers develop some other revenue models? Publishers of all sorts are crying that the sky is falling instead of seeing this vast sea of digipeople as a market. There's got to be a way to make it work that doesn't turn book nerds like me and hip kiddos into criminals.

Impulse = 1, Self-control = 0

So, I didn't buy a Nano, but I did go out and buy myself a digital music player last night. Bill took Trixie with him to flag rehearsal (which she LOVED, by the way--that girl is crazy about her daddy's band), and I had a little time to myself. "Self," I said, "just stop by Best Buy and take a look around. You won't buy anything!"

Yeah, right. Less than 20 minutes later, I left with a Sandisk 256MB Digital Audio Player.

Mike, if you're reading this, stop laughing at me. Really, stop.

I know that 256MB is small (only between four and eight hours of audio). I know I paid too much by purchasing from Best Buy. I know, 'cuz the two adorable little teenagers at Best Buy told me so, that "this is a great player if you need something that's easy to use," which literally translates into, "it's the least cool thing we sell, but you probably can't handle anything really cool." I know that I should have done my research before I went out.

But I also know that I wanted to record audio, which eliminates the iPod from contention (in true Apple style, it requires a $42 add-on to record into your iPod). As I mentioned in my Nano post, I'm not really that choosy about my music, so a built-in FM receiver, which this player has, was appealing. And truly, four to eight hours of audio will be enough for me. I can load it up once or twice a week, and that will carry me through any mobile audio moments I might have.

One thing I can say: this little baby IS easy to use. I had a music clip on the player in about 30 seconds, and a Gutenberg audiobook on a few moments later. There aren't a lot of buttons, and their purpose is clear.

Overall, I'm really pleased with my little purchase. I've wanted a digital audio player for a long time, and sometimes you just have to give yourself a gift (and not give yourself too much grief about it).

WDT

Mine, mine, mine!

I've been trying to resist the urge to buy an iPod or another MP3 player, even though they just keep getting smaller and cooler.

But now, there's the iPod Nano, and I want it. Want, like Pigeon wants his hot dog.

I'm sure I'll talk myself out of it, though; I am a completely non-choosy music listener and am generally happy with the radio or whatever Yahoo! is streaming at my desk, so I can't justify it in terms of musical snobbery. I'm trying to tell myself that I'll download podcasts and audiobooks which will provide motivation to get out and walk, but I am a terrible liar, even to myself.

Frankly, what I ought to do is save about 50% and buy a used iPod off of someone who forks out for a Nano. But where's the fun in that?

WDT

Let's Not Argue About Compassion

I've been out of the blogging loop for a couple of days, and I just don't have it in me to continue my MLA-related rant right now. I promise, I'll come back to it, and I might even be able to be calm and rational for having let it sit.

The question I want to pose today is one highlighted on LITA-L and elsewhere, I assume, because it's a pretty obvious question (I apologize for not being able to link to the post itself, but the archives of LITA-L are closed).

If you are donating time, money, or supplies to the hurricane relief effort, is it OK to support just one aspect of that effort (i.e., libraries)? Should your money go to the Red Cross or Salvation Army to help save and rebuild lives right this minute, or is it ethical to target your assistance to a narrow and possibly tangential cause?

I think in the best of all worlds, you do both. Chip in to the immediate relief fund(s), and then do what you can in your area of interest. If you can't do both, I hope you don't spend too much time worrying about what's right, and I hope no one criticizes the decision you make (like the person who commented on LITA-L that we should be focusing on survivors and not thinking about libraries right now).

Millions will respond to the calls from the Red Cross; far fewer will respond to the calls for donations to rebuild and restock libraries, particularly in a few months when the crisis has passed and "donor fatigue" has set in. Do what feels right to you, but do something, and let's not argue about compassion.

This Post Didn't Start Out as an Anti-MLA Rant

Click here, and read T. Scott P.'s "issue of strategic focus for MLA", for in the first paragraph, he has captured the essence of what medical librarians face in our very near future.

The best line, in my opinion:
"Libraries are important; but librarians make the essential difference, and the library walls should no longer hold us back."

I was even enthused with the first sentence of the next paragraph:
"MLA has a key role to play in helping us imagine the multitude of new ways in which we can become indispensable to our organizations."

But then:
"By defining the community in which we engage with each other, by providing the continuing education avenues in which we learn new skills and develop our talents, and by presenting the dynamic image of 21st century librarians to the public, MLA is an invaluable asset in helping each one of us become more effective every day."

I say, in the dulcet tones of a tantruming toddler, "No, no, NO, NO, NO!.

No, MLA does a terrible and exclusionary job of definging the community in which we engage with each other. It's too expensive, too small, and too focused on MLS librarians.

No, MLA's continuing education is often between two and five years behind what even ALA is putting out, which is two to five years behind what librarians really need.

And double-no, continuing education and credentialling are not going to save us!

Arrgh! I've got to go to a meeting, and I may not get back to this today. I wanted to do a quick post about the sentence I liked, to emphasize and agree with, "It's not the library, it's the librarians." However, I can't agree with the same-old, same-old coming out of MLA. The association has not been able to effectively manage the problems of the professions with these methods in the past--how can they be effective means of managing it for the future?

WDT