LISNews: Librarian News

I guess it is my own fault for wanting to run on the bleedin' edge. So I go back to the install floppies and successfully reinstall debian, only this time the dang thing decides not prompt me if I'd rather run a static IP address or one from DHCP. You'd think that debian installers would consider that this might be a server machine, but nooooooo. Running the install in Expert mode proved futile (where the installer actually prompts for this), but for whatever reason expert mode would not install any kernel the installer chose. So how did I get around this blasted anomoly? Yank out the network wire during the dhcp detection phase. Woohoo, I get the prompts for a static IP Address.

So, because I'm running unstable, instead of running head-long into piling on the packages after install, I meticulously pick and install each package one-by-one until I finally get down to request tracker. Slowly I add apache. Then Perl. Then apache-perl. then libapache-mod-perl. At least "apt-get" includes all the little bonus packages that are needed to run these apps. Can't get away from running OpenBSD's SSH protocol, gottah run putty off my XP desktop. Last but not least, Request Tracker. gunzip the doc install file for debian, setup the mysql user for the tables and run the debian install init script.

Strange, Request tracker doesn't want to run from apache-perl. Directory not found keeps poppin up in the browser. libhtml-mason-perl wanted the normal apache anyhoo, so lets try that. Bingo! Request Tracker login. Images ain't loading, but all I need is a symlink and it'll be fixed.

Now only if this headache between XP's built-in active-directory dns-client would quit complaining about my ISC Bind9 + Dynamic updat'ng DHCPD v3, my stupid computer would find more hosts. Could the bug exist in my auto-proxy configuration script? Why not just disable the dang service in Windows XP you ask? I would if I wasn't upgrading the local lan here to Windows Server 2003 and Active Directory...

In last week's Newsweek, Anna Quindlen wrote what I thought was a good, tho not perfect column on the American right's efforts to claim sole ownership of Christianity. While I don't have a link to Newsweek, her syndicated column can be read at GoErie.com.

Quindlen distinguishes faith from religiosity, which leads people to close e-mails with "he was not only going to mention God, he was going to capitalize the G because he knew it made liberals like me crazy."

Along the way, she dispenses with the so-called "worship gap" poll from the Pew Research Center For The People & The Press that made the rounds in the press last fall. I couldn't find the exact poll on the Internet, but there is an article from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that mirrors Quindlen's assertions.

I think both columns are worth a read. It rings with my experience. Some of the most liberal people I know are people of deep Christian faith and some of the most conservative people I know are simple deists, which is only a step from atheism. I've also known conservative Christians and liberal atheists.

By the way, although I think Quindlen's article is worth reading, I AM NOT intending to attack anyone's (LISNewster's) faith here or accuse them of simple "religiosity." I do think that most of what passes for "faith in Christ" in our political life IS simple religiosity. I think that's dangerous and poisonious to true Christian faith. As Mel Gibson once said, "The number one cause of athesism today is Christians."

The more I think about it, the more I am acutely aware we're one computer in the hole now that mine is on the blink... Honestly, I don't hold out much hope of it coming back, unless it obviously tripped a switch somewhere. I think something may have sizzled. And the assistant director was right, giving someone something means never taking it away. I gave our spare computer to the workroom, and there's no getting it back. So my computer gets swapped with special collections, and special collections goes without. Budget cuts suck. Suck suck suck.

So I'm looking at computers, although I don't hold out much hope either way, and I think we'll be limping along until at least June. Here's hoping that nothing poops out in the meantime.

I am just so glad my iPaq wasn't hooked up at the time. Jeez oh man.

So today I get the unfinished business of yesterday, mainly emailing the lady telling her I couldn't find the obit of the person in question (I went over and above looking, too) but I'll see what I could do for her on the directories. I honestly don't see how the directories are going to help her, but hey. I also get to give one patron mixed news about her lost book. This should be interesting. I do expect a fight.

I wonder if the gentleman who threatened to call the mayor on me will be in today. I'd be interested to meet him.

I zorched the hard drive on the previously unfiltered terminal, and intend on putting it out on the floor either today or tomorrow. Zorching was the only way I could be sure to get all the crud that was downloaded (spyware, adware, and otherwise) off the hard drive on that baby. In order to simplify things when Timed Access comes, I decided to make that box Windows (boo!). My email terminals will be Linux (yay!). I could try to set up printing on it now, but I'm feeling lazy. I'll get around to it. I know it can be done.

Problem with the Windows box is I can't get the antivirus to activate. I might try uninstalling and reinstalling, while I set up the special collections computer on my desk.

I awoke with a whopper of a headache. It smacks of an oncoming migraine (I get those on occasion). I would call in today to nip it in the bud, but after the day I had yesterday I don't want them to think I'm quitting or avoiding anything. (Can you tell I'm horribly driven by what other people think?) No, I just hate using sick time. I like to see all those hours on my pay stub.

If I can just put it off till Friday... well, a migraine on my day off would be in keeping with the week, I guess.

The Prius will cost about $400 and take three days to fix (boo!) but the other lady's insurance will pay for it (yay!) and they don't think there's been any damage to the foam under the bumper (yay!). If there is, it'll cost more (boo!). On the plus side, it's just a buff and paint and reseal and coat sort of deal, not a whole new bumper sort of deal, which would have stunk.

Today was one of those days I had to repeatedly wash the "bullseye" off my forehead.

I cut myself on the Compaq. Not badly, but enough to discover my hand covered in blood when I was covering info. Then the alarm company decided to test our fire alarms -- all day, I might add. Then some very nice man called, said he didn't feel well, and that because of this he wanted me to waive his late fines. I told him I couldn't if it was just a minor illness. Had he been calling from the hospital, sure. He could have renewed them, if he hadn't had them out the maximum number of times. I talked to him for twenty minutes, consisting, in a nutshell of him saying, "Pleeeeeeeeeeaase? Why not?" and me saying, "No. No, really, no."

Horizon went down. The power went out, which seemingly, um, fried my computer. No hard drive noises. No A drive noises. No POST beeps. The light goes on, but that's about it.

The woman in the balcony was on the phone. She turned it off when I asked. An hour later she was on it again.

I was told we sent out a flyer with misinformation (we never sent it). I was also told (very helpful information alert!) that the obituary isn't always run in the paper the day the person dies. Thanks. They don't teach you stuff like that in common sense-- I mean, library school. Of course, because I am too nice, I went to local history to look up this information, and the information just doesn't exist. At least, not in our collection.

Stolen cards, one legitimately so, one probably not legitimately so. Misplaced books, which turned out to be damaged books, taped together. The serendipity of it was that I was searching for a damaged book that a gentleman had a gripe with, and though I never found his book, I did find a book that another patron thought was missing.

People erasing other people's names on the internet sign up sheets.

On the up side: I helped a young lady and her mom find books on the 1840s. They thanked me and said, "This is the first time I could find something at this library!"

How I needed to hear that today.

Waiting for my ??? install to complete. I don't remember how many times I've done this in the last two days. If I hadn't barfed the apache/perl install to get Request Tracker working here in the Library I wouldn't be wasting this much time. At least the proxy server I set up is caching some of the packages I've been downloading, downloading again, and again....

I see debian unstable has graduated to 2.6.x series kernel. Too bad it refused to install when I chose it. Grrr. OpenBSD is much simpler, too bad Request Tracker doesn't want install withing the chroot env apache. Bah, I'll blame it on this Compaq...

Two things have happened recently that have me looking over my shoulder.

#1 Yesterday morning I received a phone call from a parent who asked "what are the library's rules for using computers." This gets my antennae going so I two-step around it -- there are several pages regarding computer use in the district policy handbook, AUP, etc. -- while narrowing her question down.

Finally, it turns out what she really wants to know is whether the library is open outside of class time! I had to inform her that due to recent budget decisions we no longer have the staff to maintain those hours. I still wonder why she wanted to know that.

#2 This morning, I looked at my weekly search report from FreeFind. (Such a handy tool to find out how people are searching your site). A person searched for the title Into the Woods, then 20 seconds later, searched "selection policy." Am I being paranoid to think that a parent objects to that book in the collection, and wants to find out just how that librarian thinks she can use taxpayers' money for that kind of book?

But then, maybe a patron wouldn't know the term selection policy. Unless it were a determined book banner.

BTW Into the Woods is a really good example of the world ending not with a bang but a whimper, plus, the ending is quintessentially librarian.

How many librarians does it take to take apart a Compaq?

Besides making the Torx (star shaped) screws, so that getting in to the case is a difficult enough task (I have my geek swiss army knife that has a screwdriver with Torx bits, though), Compaq puts together their computers much like they are puzzle boxes. It took me and the former systems guy quite a bit of time to deconstruct the box... all to switch out a floppy drive!

When I finally got the floppy in (the actual switch took all of three minutes), think I could get the damn thing back together? Puzzle box again! It's still got its sides off in tech services this morning. With five minutes till I went on info, I thought it not a good time to start piecing it all back together.

Today's agenda... get the word processor back together, answer some backed up local history requests, and figure out what the bejeebies I should order and weed from the computer books. The truth of the matter is there are just not enough hours in the day.

I'd love to get the demo for the timed access management, but I can't request it till we're sure on funding. Sigh. It's definitely a hurry up and wait type of thing. Most people who have it in place say it's been a blessing. Anything's got to be better than throwing people off every half hour.

Exploit senatorial intelligence.

Why not?

This could even make me rich. I'll start a MorningStar-type report ranking the portfolios of various senators, then I'll create index funds whose holdings are keyed off of the best portfolios. Perhaps once a year we would recalibrate according to changes in the rankings.

Warning: the following is only loosely related to libraries. It is pertinent to those who work in an academic setting and who think about the political culture of that setting. This kind of thing will go into my blog when I get one.

Jim Henley has some thoughts on why there might be a liberal bias in academia.

Like many people around here, I currently have a cold. And I am one of those annoying people who comes into work even if I'm nearly dead. This is primarily because I have no sick leave--if I don't come in, I can kiss that money goodbye. Then again, I know that I'm not going to be a good efficient worker if I'm sick, plus I am spreading germs to my coworkers and the students (who probably got me sick in the first case!).

So, what is the right thing to do? Stay home and miss out on that money, or come in and cause a epidemic? If only my mom were here to tell me to stay home, and make me soup...

Arg! Too much to think about.

I know what timer software I want to go with, just for compatibility issues. The question is the Horizon integration... do I want to go with it. I'm thinking it's probably a good idea. The thing is, I definitely want to play around with the demo, and it's going to be a little hairy between here and there. Here's the thing: the one time use numbers I'd use between now and Horizon integration time would require sign up (still). And I hate to have circ deal with it, but it looks like they might have to.

The alternative is that I download an ASCII version of our library card holder database into the software nightly. I'm not sure as this is really going to make life easier, especially since I think our card sign up will increase when people realize they have to present their card for internet usage. People will get their cards and want to use the internet right away (and rightly so, I guess) not wait till the next morning.

I think the best thing to do is use the one time use numbers, and tell people what their next available computer will be. We won't let them know their number will work in any computer, then people won't be cutting ahead of each other. This will probably work, because in order to use the Macs or the Linux box, you'll need to go to circ anyway, and that'll really only be three computers for circ to keep track of right now.

I was hoping I could skirt by in the long term without Horizon integration, but it looks like not. I want to make this as simple as possible for all parties involved.

The nice software man said we can use it for a few months though, before we decide. By that time the Mac version should be out.

The first ding is always the hardest. When it's some woman smacking into the back of your car with the front of her car a week after you got your new baby, it's harder. When you discover that her license plate is embedded in your bumper, it's very hard. When you consider that these things (Prii) are in such short supply that if you need a new bumper you could be waiting till next year... Well, today just sucks.

On the plus side, I'm doing some industrial strength thinking about the internet situation today. Perhaps dealing it at info would be easiest. Otherwise patrons will be going to all different desks at all different times of day, and that's inconsistent and not terribly logical. Then, perhaps circ should deal with it, since they dole out the word processing terminals and such. Reference is out of the question, even though, by rights, it's probably the most logical first choice. Unfortunate, really.

Like everything, there's no "ideal" situation.

Damned Route 1, Autobahn of Eastern Massachusetts. Curse you, onramp!

Today's journal entry is brought to you by a "letter to the editor" from a woman upset by librarians fighting a modification to a state's library privacy law. She stated that as "government employees", librarians did not have the right to fight governmental legislation.

Without a doubt, virtually all librarians are employees of some governmental subdivision. Most of us also have extremely strong feelings about freedom to information and patron privacy. We see ourselves, with some reason, as guardians of the right to know and the freedom to read. How do we balance these two sets of responsibilities?

I'd like to share my own personal view, which I don't claim to be the best. Then I'd like to hear from anybody who feels safe enough to chime in.

My own practice is to never speak out about the level of government that I am working for unless some deep moral value is at stake (relocating whole groups of people to camps, etc). When I worked in the federal government, I never wrote my Congressional delegation, though I felt free to speak out on state and local issues. Now that I work for a state government, I do not comment publicly on any bill before the state legislature. I now write often to my Congressional delegation on matters of concern to me, and I supported our city's anti-PATRIOT ACT resolution through written testimony and letters to the editor.

My wife doesn't understand my attitude and you might not either. She says that although I am a government employee, I am still a citizen of the state I reside in and so have as much right to speak out on legislation as anyone else.

How do you feel? Do you speak out on legislation before your political subdivision? Just library-related bills and resolutions? Anything but library related bills and resolutions?

Keep in mind, I am talking about speaking out AS AN INDIVIDUAL, not as a representative of your institution. Most political subdivisions have anti-lobbying statutes against employees advocating or fighting legislation in their official capacity, and I think that's perfectly fair. It's what we do "off the clock" that I'm exploring here.

If you haven't thought about this before, maybe it's time you did. This meme of librarians as gov't workers who should be seen and not heard seems to be spreading. We should try to define ourselves before others define us.

Until next time,

I am trying to not write too much about work right now because we are undergoing budget cuts and I am facing the potential of having to look for another job. Something happened on Friday that I just had to share. It really aggravated me and summed up the attitude in one of the buildings that I split.
I split my time between an elementary and HS. The HS is full of people that should probably retire. They are not open to new ideas, want to stay in their isolated corners, and teach off of typed up sheets that they used in the 1970’s. It is frustrating to try to get anything done. The new state content standards are out and some teachers have flat out said that they are not going to teach them. (Will someone remind them that it is the law?) The good news is that the elementary is the exact opposite. Anyway - - - - I was walking between the middle school and the HS to get some books and noticed that there was a car with its lights left on. I walked over and checked the doors. All locked. About this same time, out walked a teacher. �Hey, Mrs. B____. Is this your car? The lights are on. If not, I’m going to report it to the office so someone isn’t stuck here after school.�
“No.� She replied. “Just let them learn the hard way.� I am pleased to report that I DID report the car and its lights to the office and right before lunch an announcement was made.
I was really upset about this teacher’s comments. Who of us has not left their lights on or locked their keys in the car? Are any of us so perfect that we never succumb to those brain freeze moments? I locked my keys in my car not too long ago when I was in a hurry. Ooops. My point? Students learn so much more from teachers than math and science. They see our actions and attitudes. They see us working and keeping up with the times, or slacking and falling behind. They know the teachers that are innovative and care about student learning – they know who is there for another two years before they can retire. Working with children is more than teaching content! The “Let them learn the hard way� attitude has no place in school. Sure, I am all for the discovery method of learning, but that is not what I am talking about. I hope that our students would care enough for their fellow human beings to report a car with its lights on with out knowing who it belonged to. There is a good chance it might be mine! Do unto others…..
It still holds true and we need to exemplify that behavior.I have left my soap box.

Some nice gentleman on Tech Report wrote a brief script for me showing how to keep Safari from shutting down in OS X. I know little of scripting. I should probably learn, because on more than one occasion in the past few weeks it would have come in right handy.

Another person was very nice on the Opera group and suggested how I can get the damned "Opera was not properly shut down" dialog to go away.

What is it with the public and shutting down browsers anyway? I had three people come to me last week and ask me how you shut Opera off... Their history was gone, their webpages were gone, the browser was ready for the next person with no indication anyone had ever been there... and they wouldn't leave till the browser was shut down. They wanted a desktop. Silly rabbits.

The timed access software is looking more appealing. The OCS stuff can do a lot, and I know it works with our hardware. I think I'd opt for the cheapest iteration, which is a ten seat license, no ODBC interfacing with Horizon (I don't see why at this point. Why spend the money till we're sure how well this is going to work?) and no sign up software. That should bring us to well under $1500, I think. We can upgrade later. My question is really what staff computer I should hook up to the server. Logically I'd want to do reference, since that's where the computers are, but the reference desk isn't always staffed. Then I'd logically want to do circulation, but I fear that would bog down the circ computers with too much software that they don't really need. So I guess that leaves information.

This I'm not thrilled about for a few reasons. The most significant of which is the computer is slow enough. I think I might take the extra stick of memory I get from Crucial and stick in the info machine instead of the registration machine (which rarely gets used, except for logging in new patrons). Then, perhaps, the software will all run a little more smoothly.

The pros: Information will know who's over there. We'll have their card information. We can give them their one time use numbers, and see their faces, and know how long they've been over there. This way, if there are any arguments, well... we know.

OCS is also making the software Mac compatible in the next few months. Yeee haaaa! This means Linux gets delegated to ten minute email (no one, I've found, except a true computer geek, likes to spend much more than ten minutes on the Linux box). Sigh. What am I saying about myself?

The Prius is a week old. We love it. Getting 400 miles to an 11.9 gallon tank of gas. Lovely.

I have to admit I haven't been all that well-informed about the Patriot Act. Since I haven't been working as a librarian for the last 3+ years, I haven't paid as much attention to issues that might bear upon libraries as perhaps I ought to have. The Patriot Act is one of those issues I sort of glossed over.

You should know that I am one of those "be skeptical of government" conservatives, the kind who have some definite libertarian leanings, which means that by default I am inclined to dislike things like the Patriot Act. After all, I think that subversives like Gary Kunsman and Joel Miller have a real point when they claim that the state exceeds its authority and impairs liberty in the "war on drugs". Doubtless I make some fellow conservatives angry when I say that marijuana should be legalized (n.b.: my pot-smoking days are well behind me). I favor the availabilty of strong encryption to normal U.S. citizens (what was the previous administration's ban on cryptography all about, anyway?). So up till now I've I've been grumbling about the state further eroding liberties when the Patriot Act is mentioned.

This evening I finally read the anathematized Section 215 of the Patriot Act to see for myself how bad it is. I confess I'm rather disappointed. Section 215 replaces 3 sections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 with two new sections. As far as I can make out, this is what it says:

• The FBI Director, or another designated high-ranking FBI official may apply for an order to have materials related to an investigation to protect against international terrorism or against espionage;
• if the investigation is of a U.S. citizen, it may not be triggered simply by actions protected under the First Amendment;
• the application must be made either to "a judge of the court established by section 103(a) [of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]" or to a U.S. magistrate designated by the Chief Justice of the Supreme to hear and rule on these applications;
• the application must specify that the investigation for which the materials are needed either complies with subsection (a)(2) [of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978] or is intended to protect against international terrorism or espionage;
• if the judge issues an order to produce the materials sought, the order should not disclose the purposes of the investigation for which it is issued;
• no-one may disclose that the FBI sought or obtained materials under this [amended] section [of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978]
• a person producing materials under this provision shall not be liable for production to others, nor have they waived any privileges in other contexts by producing the materials sought;
• twice a year the Attorney General must "fully inform" the select intelligence committees of the House & Senate about all requests for materials under section 402;
• twice a year the Attorney General must provide a report to the House & Senate Judiciary Committees detailing how many applications for materials under this provision were made, and how many were granted, denied, or modified.

As I read this, it looks to me as if requests under Section 215 must be made by very high-ranking FBI officials (i.e. high-profile, highly-scrutinized, publicly accountable people). The request must be made to a very narrowly defined set of high-ranking judges. The Justice Department must give an accounting of its requests to intelligence and judiciary committees (on both of which sit *gasp* Democrats) of the House and Senate. What's more, Section 224 seems to say that Section 215 (as a non-excluded section of Title II of the act) sunsets on December 31, 2005.

Somebody help me here. Did I misunderstand what I read? Did I read the wrong section? Did not the FBI have power before to subpoena library records? What's all this about accountability to Congress? Please note that these questions aren't merely rhetorical. I'm not trying to set up a straw man. I'm not saying I like this section. However, I feel like I had a right to expect something much more nefarious than this based on the build-up from the civil liberties & library communities. I feel cheated. Surely I'm missing something.

I always have comments enabled in my journal. Somebody enlighten me, please. I want to dislike this act.

Well, I must brag about the report I created. There is a cover sheet with a title and Table of Contents. Then, the one page typed Word document. In the document, I quote state standards for replacing the collection, prices for books, what I currently receive, and what I need (about $3,000 more than what I get now). Next follows a printed PowerPoint slide with three pie charts showing visually what I talked about in the Word document. Finally. three pages from Titlewise (Follett) showing the age of my collection (currently 43% at 20 years or older).

It is a work of art.

Will it work? Who knows. In the meantime, I am submitting an application for a public library reference position. Because ...

I want to work with competent people and with working equipment! I know the budget will be bad (hey, where is it good??). But, I can't bang my head against three walls anymore.

Ouch, my head hurts.

So, I'm surfing LISNews, just making sure I'm up on all the comments, and I find one in the Cataloging Pornography thread. Someone had posted a query as to whether putting a work into the collection creates some kind of validation. I had written the following reply, but I couldn't post it because I had previously moderated that thread.

The only validation for any idea is reality. The scientific community itself has sought to invoke censorship on two occasions, at least, under the misapprehension that holding public forums on the contentious issues -- one of which was Velikovsky's [crackpot] hypothesis of solar system evolution and the other of which was an examination of unidentified flying objects as interplanetary or interstellar spaceships -- would somehow validate those ideas and give them credence in the mainstream. The purpose of the forums, of course, was to examine the evidence to determine whether or not such ideas should be be given credence. Opposition was based on the ideas being too nonsensical. Once the evidence was examined, and thorougly debunked, the ideas were rejected.

Take any idea, examine it critically, see how it holds up in the face of the evidence. Validate it or invalidate it accordingly.

And so it goes.

Well, not much was done in the computer department yesterday, being that the young adult librarian was ill so our half staffed day was chopped to even less than half staffed.

Most people were good. I did a little shushing, woke a lady up (twice) and had a very nice gentleman say we had a beautiful library and he'd be coming back. The good news: he said it right in front of my boss.

Thankless stuff happened too, but we won't dwell on that. Except for one thing, because it struck me as hysterically funny. We shut down the internet terminals at 5:30 because we close at six on Fridays. At 5:29, the man using a box got up and left. So I shut it down. At 5:29:10 a regular (not particularly a problem, but not a favorite of anyone) patron came in, sat at the computer, and proceeded to mumble under breath when I told her it was off, "But it's not 5:30 yet." Sure, enjoy your fifty second stint on the internet, sweetie.

The cutest little girl asked if I liked being a liberrian.

I told her yes.

Finally! Freedom from being around all those lovely nymphomaniac and alcoholic undergraduate students that I see day after day and have to hear the exploits of...