Vast Active Library and Information Science blog. From a recent library science graduate in Wellington, New Zealand. A focus on reference and current awareness tools and issues, especially free, web-based resources.

 
Yippee! I finally managed to get out of the house (turned out half my friends had thier phones off, and I was dialing the wrong number for the other half). Anyway, Drake dragged me to a warehouse party where his friend's band were playing their debut gig. And they're a Smiths tribute band. And I adore the Smiths. They had a decent sized PA set up in what was basically someone's front room, and they had the trademark costumes and mannerisms of Morrissey, Marr etc down pat. Adrian (Morrissey) was waving bunches of flowers around, then throwing them into the audience. He managed to fling out a whole load of condoms as well - I ended up carrying one around all night as a souvenier and showing it to random people as I told them how good the gig was. And it was excellent - great sound, great songs and a hardcore fan base of about 10 mostly female young goths who whirled around at the front of the stage, feet away from the band.

From there it was a rush to get to Bodega for Big Bada Boom, the Asian Underground night. Now, I was pleased to see my friends had turned up, but it wasn't quite what they'd expected. Seems that misheard me explaining that Bhangra was Indian music, and decided that I'd said Indie. I explained what I really meant 'some traditional Indian music, mixed with Bollywood film music, and with contemporary beats' 'sounds great, when are they on?' 'um, they've been playing for the last half hour'. Things had started off a little too slow and mellow for our tastes, but as the night continued the beats got harder and faster, and my friends started to enjoy it.

By this point I was pretty much going to be dancing to anything, as I was proving the efficiency of the herbal highs sold at Cosmic Corner. One day, all drug transactions will be like this - stroll down to the shop, knock on the door, the DJ comes over to a hole in the wall to serve you with a huge smile, and then he offers you chocolate to go with your purchase. Frenzy comes highly recommended, that's all I need say.

Anyways, the night was split between dancing and chatting to various friends. As well as Vana and Anthony who I went with, I ran into no fewer than 4 of my classmates, who'd arrived in two seperate groups. I think I was probably too far under the influence to have had a coherent conversation with Jo and Amy, but I managed a good chat with Vanita later on. Which I'm glad of.

I may have to edit this one - it doesn't make for terribly exciting reading...oh well.....

Google #1: New Zealand library blog
Google #21 naked librarian

own3d!

| posted by Simon at 9:15 pm

 
Greg reviews the HotBot Quick-Search Deskbar. This is a seriously good search tool. Not only will it search across the major search engines, you can set it to search a specific reference site, using a short term at the start of your search (e.g. amaz to search amazon.com, ul to search Snopes Urban Legends, md to search WebMD - plus literally hundreds more. And functions like a temperature converter, and a countdown timer. All from a search box that fits into your desktop taskbar. AND it takes only seconds to download, and is a cinch to install. Doesn't carry ads - I'm not sure if there's any spyware (I'm not smart enough to stop it). But we do have a firewall, and it didn't trigger that...recommended, anyway. I think I'm going to send an all-users email about this one - even the less computer literate should get this one.

| posted by Simon at 11:10 pm

 
I've been depressed for months. I haven't been interested in going out, or doing anything. People have had to drag me out, and I've been tired all the time anyway. Today I feel hyped up, ready for anything, and energised. And I can't get hold of ANYBODY who wants to do anything. Not by phone, text or email. The few people I can get hold of are tired themselves, and don't want to do anything. So I spend Friday night blogging and browsing. Thank God for Big Bada Boom, the Asian Underground dance night, tomorrow at Bodega.

| posted by Simon at 10:41 pm

 
Yesterday the NZ government voted, by the slimmest of margins, to decriminalise prostitution. The Bill passed by one vote, 60-59. There's a strong argument that this will increase the number of back street brothels, which is apparently what happened in Australia when they decriminalised. The Bill had support from the obvious quarters, and was opposed by the religious right, who insist that efforts should go into "rescuing" women from working as prostitutes (quite when and how they've made these efforts themselves isn't mentioned), and much of middle New Zealand.

And me? I'm pretty much in the school of thought that says, it's a fact of life and will happen anyway. The thing legislation can do is make it safer for the prostitutes, and hopefully get them better working conditions. Given that the Prostitutes Collective supported the Bill, and it was introduced by a former male prostitute (Georgina Beyer, the world's only transsexual member of parliament), I think its clear that those who understand the trade best are in favour of decriminalisation.

| posted by Simon at 1:19 pm

 
First up - greetings to the new visitors that I've seen turning up in my referrer logs. I'd especially like to welcome the two people who were looking for the Male Librarian (and obviously got VALISblog because I link to him). A huge extra special welcome goes to the Google searcher who clicked onto my blog having searched on 'naked librarian'. I have a feeling they may have been disappointed. Sorry. (Course, there is that essay on library porn online somewhere, which includes links to the actual porn - if I could be bothered I'd go find the link but hey, I don't want to look at the porn, so if you do, maybe you should use this as a chance to practice your search skills).

More seriously, I'm glad to see at least a few of my classmates have been checking this site out. Hope you find it at least vaguely interesting - would be better if the comments facility was working, but I can't seem to get it to work right.

Our entire staff have spent the last two days on a marae, both as a team-building exercise and as a chance to learn more about Maori culture, protocol, language and worldview, all of which is especially important to us as a government agency. (Non New Zealanders who don't have any idea what I'm talking about could check out Maori.org.nz for a good introduction. The Maori are a Pacific Island people indigenous to New Zealand, and as partners in the Treaty of Waitangi, it's incumbent on government agencies to consult with and understand Maori).

Was a worthwhile experience, on the whole. I've never slept on a marae, and having 30-40 of us in one big room was kinda interesting. Definitely helped strengthen the bonds between us. And it was certainly the most interesting Marae I've ever seen - it seems to have been built haphazardly up a hill, with new sections added on and on (apparently it's on 8 levels). It looks like something out of Gormenghast, rather than my idea of a traditional marae. In terms of the content, we did tend to cover the same ground that we went over at the start of this year with the MLIS class. So it was a little redundant, but it did make some points stick more clearly in my mind. And I definitely picked up a good amount of the language.

An appropriate proverb: He tapu te matauranga - knowledge is sacred.

| posted by Simon at 5:53 pm

 
One that you'd have to live in Wellington to fully appreciate, I think. The council of the neighbouring city of Upper Hutt (think New Jersey, think the bad parts of Essex) launched its draft annual plan, seeking comments from residents. Some of whom responded by suggesting that the locals needed to (a) learn to dress better and (b) lose some weight. Other comments included complaints that "there weren't enough roads that you could drive faster than 100km on" (100km being the speed limit). More here.

| posted by Simon at 9:45 pm

 
David emailed me this story from Yahoo Business. Quote: business software is "too complicated. It's too expensive. That's why it's change-or-die time". There's a suggestion that quality experts may get a hearing in India's burgeoning IT industry, while they are ignored in the US, and speculation that the Indians could do to America's IT industry what the Japanese did to its cars. Far-fetched perhaps, but there's a lot of signs that the Indian IT sector is really taking off, and with the huge difference in labour costs, and the international nature of the industry, it seems fairly likely that they'll at least dent Silicon Valley's profits.


| posted by Simon at 9:41 pm

 
Or the comments tools I've been using are incredibly hard to make work...mine keep crashing, and I'm not the only Blogger-hosted 'blogger to have that problem (not that I'm blaming Blogger as the comments tools are all third party). If anyone reading this can recommend a good, stable comments service, pls let me know.

| posted by Simon at 9:35 pm

 
...as long as it's giant corporations hacking into our PCs. US Senator Orin Hatch appears to endorse "remotely destroying the computers" of people illegally downloading and sharing files (more of this nonsense here.

| posted by Simon at 9:30 pm

 
In a black day for my American colleagues, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Children's Internet Protection Act is constitutional. This would force public libraries to install filtering software if they want to be eligible for federal funding. This is in spite of the fact that:

(a) filtering software doesn't work;
(b) librarians aren't your children's guardians, anyway; and
(c) filtering software doesn't work.

To give an example of the problem, here's a link to a site which I was blocked from accessing by the porn filter at my work (follow the link - it's completely, absurdly worksafe). How this was considered porn, I don't know - I read the page over and over and couldn't find anything untoward on it.

Jenny has a great round up of links and commentary - there's a good thread on Slashdot which she links to.

Not recent, but Unshelved ran a great series of strips last year on the subject.

Weird thing is, people seem to think its a good idea. Even people I would assume would be free-thinking, anti-censorship. No-one's yet given me a good reason why the internet should be filtered, but they've come up with a few points as to why my arguments against it are no good...but still, no justification for doing it in the first place.

| posted by Simon at 9:28 pm

 
The MLIS has finished its first term (OK, it finished last week, I'm slow, I was stressed with end of term work). Which means I'm exactly one sixth of the way through (taking me two years, due to being part-time). My initial feeling is of relief, and my second 'what was that all about?'. Sadly, I can't see myself really applying much of what I've learnt in the 'real world'. The two courses I've taken so far have either been very high-level and theoretical, or too detailed (with a focus on computers that goes far beyond what I'd need to know as a librarian, but not nearly as far as I'd need if I wanted to be a systems librarian.

Not that some of it hasn't been interesting, but it's a little dissapointing that a course which I must take in order to work in my field has so far not much relevance to that field. OK, that's a bit unfair - some of the IT stuff was useful, it's just I knew most of that already. And so was some of the information policy stuff, once we got past the really theoretical stuff. And future courses should be more practical.

Anyway, I'm over the first hurdle...and I finally got to get good and drunk with some of the classmates, which I really needed at the time, so it's all good :-)



| posted by Simon at 9:12 pm

 
Steven writes that he won't be reading Harry Potter, and also mentions that he can't read sci-fi/fantasy books in general. I'm somewhat relieved to hear that I'm not the only librarian/book-lover on the planet who hasn't read even a word of J.K. Rowling's writing. On the other hand, I think he's missing something in not reading sf (though maybe not fantasy). Some of the best novels I've read recently have been Iain M. Bank's Culture series, and Stephen Baxter's work - especially the Manifold series.

Which is a somewhat convoluted way to introduce my current reading, Australian sf writer Sean McMullen's Souls in the Great Machine, set in a post-fall (war? technological collapse? not quite sure yet), 40th century Australia. I'm just a chapter into it, but already there are a number of delights. Thrill as the librarian protagonist, already one of the most powerful people in the region:

• breaks into an observatory to spy on the moon


• defeats one of the world's best players of their chess equivalent, secretly using a computer with human components


• Arranges the kidnapping of any numerate individuals she can lay her hands on, to use as forced components in the computer (OK, it's hardly moral - but it does seriously kick ass)


• fights duels with her opponents inside the library establishment, in order to force through her modernisation programme - and haven't we all wished we at least had the option?

I wonder if "Zarvora was a librarian" could replace Batgirl or Casanova?

| posted by Simon at 5:38 pm

 
The National Library of New Zealand is spearheading a scoping exercise, looking at the feasability of negotiating a national licence for access to various electronic resources. The idea is to form a consortium among as many libraries as possible across the country, in order to negotiate cheaper rates. So far, the plan is to identify two resources which would be useful to libraries of all types and sizes - with New Zealand newspapers/magazines suggested as an appropriate starting point. If the first stage is successful, it's hoped that similar deals can be negotiated for more specialised resources, such as health material.

Libraries here, as everywhere, are faced with increasing costs and diminishing budgets, so any such move has to be welcome. A major problem, however, may be getting vendors interested, as the the entire library sector in New Zealand isn't as large as, say, an academic library network in California.

Article describing the project.
Press release announcing the appointment of a project manager.
(Both from the National Library of New Zealand website).

| posted by Simon at 1:08 pm

 
It's not been a good weekend. I don't want this blog turning into 'how depressed I am and why everyone should feel sorry for me', but that's how it's been. Didn't manage to get out of bed until 2.30 yesterday (and I was in bed by about 11.30 on Saturday night). It felt like there was a weight pushing down on me, and it would have taken energy I didn't possess just to sit up. When I considered that I couldn't see any valid purpose in getting out of bed anyway, it just seemed easier to lie there in the warmth with my copy of Hemingway's Fiesta (not up to the standard of For Whom the Bell Tolls). Saturday had been OK, but there was still the struggle to motivate myself to do basically anything.

At least this has a name (thanks to Prozac Nation): atypical depression, the sort of low-grade depression that never seems to go away, that leads to an emotional flatness, a lack of interest and motivation. Sounds exactly like me. Funny that even though I've taken 4 years of psych I didn't know (or at least remember) that term until I read it in an autobiography.

Today feels slightly better. I managed to get out of bed (an hour or so later than I wanted to) and actually managed to shower and shave and get to work on time. So it could be worse. But I'm really thinking I need to talk to my doctor again.

| posted by Simon at 12:58 pm

 
Well, OK this is technically old news, but I'm possibly (?) the only New Zealand librarian blogger, so probably no-one else mentioned it. The key points are the extension of legal deposit to cover electronic publications (including websites) and a confirmation of the Crown's responsibilities to preserve the nation's heritage. And given that this is 2003, and the previous legislation dates from 1965, the Act specifies a stronger Maori dimension for the work of the library. Read the press release here and the National Library of New Zealand Act itself here. You'll have to search for it as the site uses frames.

No word yet on exactly how the National Library plans to take legal deposit of websites, with regard to which sites, how often, and how thoroughly they are archived. There's also still some issues to work out with publishers regarding access to electronic documents. For some reason publishers aren't too keen on the National Library placing copies of their documents online. ;-)

| posted by Simon at 4:01 pm

 
Not feeling like a 100% happy camper this past week...took a day off midweek 'sick', but basically because I couldn't face going into work. Given that I do have depression, I suppose that's legitimate. But I still feel guilty for some reason. I guess reading Prozac Nation probably wasn't the greatest idea at the moment. Wurtzel's a great writer though, really captures the feeling of depression. My hero (David Foster Wallace) manages the same thing in Infinite Jest although at about 1100 pages that's not light reading. Though it reminds me, I really need to buy a new copy, I gave mine away when I came back to New Zealand from London. And now the good news, putting in that Amazon link alerted me that Wallace has a new book coming out, and to the study guide to Infinite Jest, which is probably worth a moment of my time.

Back to depression: my problem (and Mary feels the same) is the constant feeling that I don't belong somewhere, that people don't really want me around, coupled with the feeling that they couldn't possibly really like me. Now on a cognitive level I'm aware that that's just a simple effect of depression. But on an affective level I can't convince myself of it. So I've been cutting and running whenever someone shows an interest in my company. Ho hum. At least the prozac is keeping me somewhat straight. And I signed up for therapy via student counselling (one more benefit of being a student, since how could I afford it otherwise?)



| posted by Simon at 3:47 pm

 
I just finished my RSS report...closed it down, went to open it five minutes later and the file's corrupt - I've luckily only lost the beginning of the report so I'm posting the rest of it here as a backup. Curse Bill Gates and all his little minions!

[edit] And now I learnt that you can't post incredibly long posts to Blogger powered weblogs. Serves me right for not bothering to RTFM. However, I do have my report backed up in a couple of places, and all is good.

And in related news I got something like 95% for the ridiculously easy spreadsheet we had to do for the same course, so I've actually already passed with at least a B - even if I hand in a piece of paper with nothing but my name on it for the last assignment. Which I don't plan to do. I'm happy, but I've never felt so much like I didn't deserve a grade.

| posted by Simon at 7:47 pm

 
I've recently signed up to The Informed Librarian Online a nifty (and free) current awareness tool. It's a monthly e-newsletter which provides links to the contents pages of various library and info science journals. It also links to the full-text or abstracts if they are available online. I've already found some useful articles I would have otherwise missed, like this one by Paul Miller from Ariadne, #35 providing some suggestions for incorporating RSS feeds into portals. Even without access to the full articles, I'm finding it a useful means of keeping up with what topics are being talked about in the literature. There's a good range of titles, too, from American Libraries and the International Journal of Library Management, to Ex Libris and the Resourceshelf, plus about 100 more.

| posted by Simon at 2:12 pm

 
I'd gone to bed around 11.30 and I guess I'd fallen asleep, because I'm in half a dream state and I hear knocking on the front door. I wait awhile but it doesn't go away, so I get up to answer it in a daze, still half asleep.

Some girl is standing there with a pizza. She asks if Fabi (my flatmate) is home and I sort of point vaguely up the stairs, mumbling that she should just go ahead up to her room. Then I notice she's looking at me funny. Then I notice that, while I'm wearing a t-shirt, I'm not wearing anything else. But I'm still half asleep, so I'm still trying to tell her to come in. She's looking unsure for some reason (like, there's an overweight hairy guy with no pants mumbling incoherently at her).

Eventually I get it figured out and disappear into my room, coming back with a towel round my waist, which seems to reassure her, as she heads upstairs. Now I think about it, I should have scared the hell out of her and taken her pizza, but hindsight's always 20/20.

| posted by Simon at 10:41 am

 
Steven has some useful advice for me on writing about RSS. I think I'm on top of it now - I'm working on the theory of trying to be relatively non-technical, and using a glossary for the techie terms. Trying to focus on applications and benefits, rather than specifications (although I've got a bit of a discussion of the difference between RSS 0.91 and 1.0 (at least as I understand it) that probably needs to be chopped out).

| posted by Simon at 4:32 pm

 
updated - somewhat better

1. (what, why, how can it be understood or rectified?) This has been a tough topic to crack. I have got opinions on issues of privacy in general, and how they relate to libraries, but finding something worthwhile to say about the issue is another matter. I'm finding my thought processes tend to overlap too much with what I wrote about access to official information.

Having said that, I think a key issue is the threats posed to privacy by the online environment, especially in terms of the public library. Such risks could be posed by cookies, caching, browsers that store search histories, etc.

From my own experience of using public terminals, I think there's a strong risk of patrons leaving themselves logged in to websites, giving the next patron to come along the ability to access that site in their name. A related risk is users accessing other users� email accounts, when using web-based email such as Hotmail (because of caching, a user could potentially access the inbox of a previous user). This could even allow real-world privacy to be threatened, if the first user�s email address incorporates their name.

More subtly, and more seriously, there�s there's the issue of making patrons aware of cookies and the potential for government or the private sector to monitor their browsing habits, as well as potential for information theft, e.g. credit card details being stolen.

Why is this important? The Internet is a new technology, and one that is not well understood by many (see for example Sturges, 2002). Patrons may not have a clear idea of how their privacy can be threatened online, or the appropriate steps to protect privacy. The global nature of the net may make it difficult to take legal action against organisations that violate this privacy, making it important to prevent this issue becoming a problem.

How can it be rectified/understood? By finding out the level of patron and librarian knowledge of privacy issues, and examining the configuration of library computers to see how they measure up in terms of good privacy practice. By then changing the configurations accordingly.


2. What questions can be asked?

Do public libraries with Internet terminals provide instruction to patrons on how to protect their privacy online?

Do public libraries have technological measures in place to prevent the threat to privacy (automatic page refresh to prevent caching of private information, automatic alerting to cookies, patrons reminded to clear browser histories, etc)?

How well do patrons understand issues surrounding their privacy? Do they have the knowledge to protect their privacy?


3. One sentence to describe study

My study is about the level of understanding of Internet privacy issues in New Zealand public libraries.

4. Find two other sources

Privacy.org: http://www.privacy.org/. Provides news stories, resources, research, and tools and tips to protect privacy online.

Gutwirth , S Privacy and the information age translated by Raf Casert. (Lanham, Md. ; Oxford : Rowman & Littlefield, 2002). Examines the challenges to privacy posed by different information technologies, and argues that true privacy is the freedom to choose whether or not to share personal information.



| posted by Simon at 2:37 pm