Conflict and Thought

My mother called two days ago. She chatted for a while and then asked me if I had heard that Glen Martinez had been killed in Iraq.

Beginning with this news, I have been thinking, or pondering really. I received the newspaper clippings and then went online to find the following story.

http://www.alamosanews.com/V2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=&story_id=7412

I can't claim that what I feel is sorrow. I do, feel sad, for a life taken so young, for a wife who had so little time with him, for a family who loved him very much. Mostly though I feel confusion. Glen is the first person I know that has been killed in Iraq. He's not the only person I know in the military, but none of my family had gone into service and I have never been much aquainted with that part of our culture, except through a few friends who are, as they would affectionately term themselves, 'military brats'.

I attended school with Glen from 5th grade through our sophomore year in high school. He was a jock, but I can say for him, he was the less obnoxious of them and not that I ever remember was he mean. As you may figure, we did not hang out. I was smart, not gorgeous, and certainly not athletic. I did take classes with Glen though and remember especially Algebra I in 8th grade. A new class, a few advanced students from our class were chosen to take it. There were about 15 of us. Glen may not have been entirely the model student the paper mentioned, I remember him asking for my homework a time or two. I also remember that our freshman year he re-took the class. He claimed he hadn't quite gotten the grasp of it and wanted to have a better understanding before moving on.

So, I was surprised twice. Glen went on to major in Mathematics. I guess that second year of algebra did set up a solid foundation for him. And that he did it at Ottawa University in Kansas. I moved to Kansas my Junior year and attended the University of Kansas after. To think that he was 1/2 an hour away the entire time. It just seems so odd that someone else from the Valley made it all the way to Eastern Kansas too.

So I guess I am sad. I may not have known Glen very well, but I did attend school with him for years. He was a good guy, a nice guy. And as everyone has pointed out he enjoyed himself. He did have lots of fun and I know that personally he got out of lots of trouble in Spanish class by flashing that grin of his. That grin kept him out of a lot of trouble I'm sure.

I want to send out my condolences to his wife Melissa. I'm sorry you had such a short time with him. The story of how you met and he then found you later is terribly romantic. I think I hurt more for you than anything else, because the mere imagining of losing my husband after so short of a time leaves me at a complete loss.

Rant Part II - Tech Support

Tech support. Bah! I am generally not a ranting type, but this is my second blog ranting. Which means that all of you who do not know me will have to take for granted that I'm telling you the truth. I am not what I would say calm, but I'm not known for my ranting like some of my husband's co-workers.(CJ I'm looking your infamous way)

My rant today is directed towards the technical support at Thomson Scientific. In discharging my duties as statistical collector of database usage at Greenblatt Library I have been attempting to obtain said usage statistics. Thomson Web of Knowledge database underwent an interface change in February of 2008. The webpage containing their statistics also changed at this time. I have been trying to obtain access to this new site or at least the site itself with no success. The WOK help page here takes you to a Thomson help page which directs you to email Thomson tech support.

Now, having friends in the biz, I know tech support is no joy most days. You get a lot of upset people, some serious inquires, and a lot of, excuse me but, dumb asses. These are the people whom have to direct users to turn on their monitor or plug in their computer or that no, their laptop is not water-proof. However, I felt my question on obtaining access to the new usage reports was simple enough. I was sent an email with instructions to sign up on two different accounts, that my access my takes weeks to get and starting with this line:

"Acess to UsageReports was changed in February 208. Instructions were sent for the registration process in October 2008."

I thought it was a bit condescending as well as badly written. However, I can give some room for having a bad day. I followed the directions which has me sign up for two accounts. One user account in WOK, and one for access to the actual reports. (why I need both I have no idea) This was on March 25th. I know because I have the email. I have yet to receive a reply from anyone.

I felt I have been patient enough. I usually am content to put in my request and wait. People are busy, sometimes they can't get around to something right away and bugging them every five minutes just slows them down right? Well no, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Be annoying and complain loudly and often and then your work will get done first. That's what I'm learning from these experiences. I'll wait if I have to, but I'm tired of being ignored entirely because I'm not currently the person making your life difficult at the time. Isn't that exactly why you should smile and deal with my request in a timely manner?

Mashups and Privacy plus annoyance

Mashups and Privacy

Ahh, I have just finished reading a post by the annoyed librarian. I have read this blog occasionally and found it to be an interesting read. Frequently, it speaks directly about ALA issues that I am no longer involved in, so I skip over. However, this week in class we were asked to look at Gabe's Rollyo list of librarians blogs. The Annoyed Librarian is one featured in the list. A search for privacy showed two items when were written by this individual and had privacy in the title.

The first I still am not sure why, but the second discusses the reason this blog is anonymous. While I could care less about someone wanting to remain unseen while complaining about ALA issues, I was annoyed when comparisons to Alexander Hamilton and whistle blowers started to pop up. Since when does avoiding personal responsibility for your comments equate to avoiding a possible mob and death from the redcoats?

Maybe I expect too much from my profession. I was raised in the newspaper world of small-town journalism. A place where you put your name to what you write, and you still write what you believe in, because it is the socially responsible thing to do. Newspaper editors get yelled at and I've heard more than a few empty threats, but I've also seen a lot of dialog.

If you want to be anonymous and air all that you feel is wrong with the world on your blog, I do feel that is your right to do so. It is free speech and you should feel safe speaking your mind. However, unpopular ideas about how the ALA runs it's business does not make you the next writer of the Federalist papers.

Poscasting and Vodcasting

Write a blog entry discussing how you felt about the experience of using YouTube and what you think about this service. Do you see any potential uses for Podcasting in the library? If so what and why?



I didn't want to be too serious with my choice of YouTube video, so a classic.

I have had some great excitement for podcasting and vodcasting and could see many uses for these technologies in the library. Sadly, I had to throw cold water on my colleague who is also completing this class. Podcasting seemed to be the most wonderful thing to get started to him. Think of all the applications of all we could do! We must go to the Web Committee now and propose they give us whatever we need for surely they will see the wonderful applications!

Yes, I said, surely, except, I've already investigated the possibilities. One of my duties at the library is to look into Web 2.0 technology and that is one of the main reasons I am taking this class. It works well that this is an area that also interests me greatly:-)

I have viewed many good podcasts on library websites, and some bad ones too, but not many places have them. What I discovered was this: libraries with events had traffic on their podcasts. So annual lectures, or lecture series of any sort were very popular. Some libraries even had class lectures. Some sort of continuity seemed important though.

Here at out small medical library we have nothing of this sort, no lecture series on campus I could even find. Which put us in the not continuous spot. Until I remembered we have a concert series. Nothing fancy, just students, staff and faculty sharing their musical talents with the rest of us. (Which brings up the whole you're a doctor and you can play Bach, that's totally not fair you got more than your share of the good genes) The concerts are monthly during the regular school year.

This would be a great place to start. Then we began expanding. Well, we also have weekly Grand Rounds. Humm, must check on HIPPA for this one. What about the roughly monthly talks sponsored by our Academic Council? What if we could get a professor who teaches first or second year medical students to put up his lectures? Maybe a week later to make sure the students are still coming to class ;-)

The ideas began presenting themselves the more we thought about it, but now we still have to go to the Web Committee for space, equipment, and support.

Humm, wonder if I could just get Tom to create a link to a YouTube Channel for me and I can just upload my tutorials there? Certainly saves us both time in the end and server space.

Online Photo Sharing

Photo Sharing is fun! I got involved in photo sharing about 6 months ago. I was getting married and needed somewhere to post the pictures, so everyone could see them. I also wanted to post pictures from our honeymoon in Europe. So my friend, Amanda showed me the online program she used: Picassa. It's a program through Google which works like Flickr, except I can have my online documents, photo sharing site, blog, and reader all under one easy site. Months later I find myself constantly posting new photos for friends to view and taking more pictures than ever. First it was the stuffed hamsters my husband and I bought in Rome. They travel with us on trips and take photos doing all the things hamsters do. Then our new house. Then our friend Yasser's wedding. Then our new puppy, Zoey, pictured above. It has been easy for me to let everyone who wants to know what we're doing up to date.

When I began thinking about how I could apply this to the library, I admit I was at a bit of a loss. I have seen some good uses of photo pages. Primarily, for libraries, I have seen a few examples where photo sites were used during construction. Visitors to the site could see what the library was going to look like in architect's drawings, they could see how the progress was going, and they could see what the library looks like when finished, compared to where it started. Students can not only view what's going on, but see that their favorite study room is currently home to the painter's tools, or the coffee shop they normally get their caffeine from has moved to the other side of the building.(Important things to know in the early morning hours)

This also seemed like a good way to store archival information. No one may care today that we took out our reference collection shelves, painted stripes on our back wall, and put in a study/core collection area, but in a few years when it's all different, it'll be interesting to look back at the changes made.

However, I still have trouble seeing the value of photo sharing in a library on a day to day basis. As a small library we have few events. We do take pictures a few times a year, which may be interesting to post, but we don't have many annual events of interest and nothing weekly or monthly to speak of. This is why I am going to make an effort to read as many of the blog entries of my fellow students as I can. I hope to collect some good ideas to supplement mine.