Arriving Somewhere

I meant to discuss digital library stuff today but something else has crossed my radar.

In The Loneliness of a Conservative Librarian David Durant writes about the political bias faced by moderate and conservative librarians in our professional lives.

The problem is not that most librarians have liberal or leftist views. It is that the overwhelming prevalence of such views has created a politicized atmosphere of groupthink and even intolerance, in which left-wing politics permeate the library profession and are almost impossible to avoid.

and

Librarians are supposed to stand for intellectual freedom, diversity of opinion, and providing access to materials that represent all points of view. How can we do that when many of us are intolerant of dissenting views?

How any librarian can disagree with his observations is beyond me. With the list of guest speakers (e.g., Nader, Clarke, Goodman, RFK Jr.) and the recent resolution about the war in Iraq it is blatantly obvious how politically active the ALA (American Library Association) has become.

I consider myself moderate, I welcome opinion that are contrary to mine and it is certainly my colleagues’ right to exercise free speech but they need to keep it to the proper forum. Join a political action group or hold your diatribes in the break room, but keep it out of my office and our “professional” organisations. It is not the place of a professional organisation to get politically involved in matters that are not relevant to said profession.

I love my job, but I am scared by Mr. Durant’s following statement because it seems all too true:

I am so tired of having left-of-center politics thrust on me that I have retreated into my work, cutting myself off from much of the broader profession. When I do go to a professional meeting, I sit silently. When the conservative-bashing starts, as it so often does, I know better than to complain.

I have been lucky not to experience this at any professional meetings, but outspoken colleagues have been present on the job for as long as I’ve been involved in libraries. When they start ranting, I just shut up.

Conservator has a response to K.G. Schneider’s response to Mr. Durant’s article.

technorati tag: library, librarians

beware, techno-babble ahead

I spent two days this past week in a workshop at the University of Maryland learning about XML and TEI. To explain XML in a nutshell and do it justice… well, I’m not sure if I can. It is similar to HTML as a markup language and a subset of SGML. However it is more powerful and flexible and has been created to encode data in a way that can be shared across many systems. The successor to HTML is XHTML, which uses the stricter syntax of XML. You may be using XML and not even realise it. Your blog creates an XML page to be used as an RSS feed. But I won’t bore you with technical details. There is a good basic summary for newcomers and the curious over at the W3C, XML in 10 Points.

TEI refers to the Text Encoding Initiative. It is a DTD (soon to be Schema) in XML for encoding text documents. Right now it is mostly being used in the humanities, social sciences and linguistics as a way to provide detailed information encoded directly into digital documents about their contents. This could be as simple as headers similar to metadata that provide specific information (keywords, subjects, place names, etc.) or tagging specific words throughout the text (name authority, stanza, dates, etc.). The obvious advantage of this is in searching. With a group of documents encoded in TEI a researcher could conduct very specific searches as opposed to the author/title/subject search of library catalogs or the simple keyword searching of Google. With the DTD as a separate file the text only needs to be tagged, and you don’t have to worry about the DTD becoming obsolete as it can be modified when necessary. This is only the beginning of what is possible with TEI.

Dr. Susan Schreibman taught the workshop, and she provided us with a fantastic reading list before hand that assumes no familiarity with XML or TEI. You can get that here:
Advance Reading for Introduction to XML, TEI and XSLT

In the class we used a fantastic open-source text editor called jEdit with plugins for TEI. I use Dreamweaver MX at work and TSW Webcoder at home and jEdit was very impressive. I’ll have to give it a closer look.

Over the next couple days I’m going to try and post some of my thoughts of the Digital Libraries Symposium I attended today, following the workshop. Some very cool things came up.

Now this is a cool self-portrait. One wonders why she isn’t in graphic design?

technorati tag: self portrait

Monday night’s show at the 9:30 Club was fantastic. But really, I expect nothing less from Porcupine Tree!

Robert Fripp of King Crimson fame opened. I have to admit I was taken a bit by suprise by his set. I knew he would be playing solo, and since his latest album is titled Soundscapes I should have had a clue. I believe he played one song for around 45 minutes. His guitar was plugged into a huge stack and he would record himself playing, loop it, change the speed, volume, bend the pitch and in other ways manipulate it while layering more and more guitar. It was all very atmospheric. I think he was using an e-bow much of the time. An ebow is used in place of a pick, and it produces a magnetic field that when held over a guitar string causes it vibrate. Interesting music, but I’m not sure how well it went over with the audience. One guy in front of me said he felt like he was at a planetarium!

Porcupine Tree came out rockin’. Since they had already done a tour in support of Deadwing last spring so they mixed in some older songs this time around. The set was mostly a mix of songs from both Deadwing and In Absentia (2002), their previous album, with a few oldies thrown in. I imagine this is in preperation for the two Chicago shows that they will be recording for their first ever live DVD. No technical problems this time around and the sound was pretty good. My favorite moment was the final encore when they played “Radioactive Toy”, a song from their first album On The Sunday of Life… (1991) that they probably haven’t played live in six or seven years. It was awesome.

Tonight I will see Porcupine Tree play at the 9:30 Club! I am so stoked, these guys are definitely one of my favorite bands. Its a shame they don’t enjoy more exposure, but I suppose my rock-snob sensibilities appreciate that… no, just kidding. I wish nothing but success for them!

If you haven’t checked PT out, you certainly should. The songwriting is fantastic and the live shows never disappoint. These guys are great musicians. Their latest album Deadwing is a far cry from their early days as a psychedelic band due to its much heavier, ok, metal nature. But songwriting is still amazing… these guys are great whether crafting lush atmospheric melodies or straight out rockin. I hate to compare… but for something mainstream they are at times Tool-ish and other times Radiohead-esque. With Beach Boys inspired vocals.

My friend and bandmate Robbie will be meeting me at the concert tonight… he’ll be reporting to the Marine Corps soon so it will be good to hang with him.

This will make my fourth PT show! I’ve also seen them at:
13 May 2005 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC – concert review
21 Jul 2003 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC – with Opeth!!!
25 Nov 2002 – The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA – I met several of the band at this show.

Oh yeah, and Robert Fripp will be opening. I can’t wait to hear what he’s doing now. His band King Crimson is also one of my top 10.

The Federal Election Commission is reviewing its regulations concerning political speech on the internet as a federal court has ordered them to draw up new rules to govern campaign financing spent on the web. While I’m all for campaign finance reform, the FEC had better tread lightly when it comes to free speech on the internet.

Google News: http://tinyurl.com/8437x
QandO: The Speech Police

Bloglines founder Mark Fletcher wrote a statement to be delivered to the Committee on House Administration, which is met yesterday to consider the subject.

The following is the entire statement.

Chairman Ney and Members of the Committee:

On behalf of Bloglines and our users, I am pleased to provide the following statement concerning regulation of political speech on the Internet. Bloglines, founded in 2003, is a free online service for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content. The company is a property of Ask Jeeves, Inc., a wholly-owned business of IAC/InterActiveCorp, and is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We believe it’s critical for us to speak out on behalf of individual bloggers who, while empowered by the Internet, have a limited capacity to carry messages to Congress. We commend you and the Committee for convening this hearing and focusing needed attention on this issue.

We urge Congress and the FEC to ensure that the Internet, particularly blog activity, remains free from campaign finance regulation. While regulation of campaign financing plays an important role in maintaining public confidence in our political system, we believe the significant public policy interests in encouraging the Internet as a forum for free or low-cost speech and open information exchange should stand paramount.

Linking to campaign websites, quoting from or republishing campaign materials and even providing a link for donations to a candidate, if done without compensation, should not result in a blog being deemed to have made a contribution to a campaign or trigger reporting requirements.

Blogs permit the expression of and access to a diversity of political opinions and other information on a scale never before seen. This speech must remain free and not be discouraged by burdensome regulation. As such, it should be explicit that the activities of bloggers are covered by the press exemption of Sections 100.73 and 100.132.

Should the FEC fail to provide this critical protection to Internet activity, or if courts determine the Commission lacks statutory authority, we urge Congress to promptly move legislation to achieve the goal. Thank you for this opportunity to share our comments on this important issue.

I hope we don’t have to resort to using this: Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents

technorati tag: free speech, censorship, campaign finance reform, FEC

Yesterday an item appeared in Slashdot about someone who took a BB gun and made it into a sentry gun – of the type you might see in video games like Half-Life. The finished product uses a digital camera to identify and track targets, and is mounted on a tripod with servos that allow it to swivel and tilt. This little “summer project” is quite impressive.

Oh, and the website has a video clip of the gun in action… shooting at the builder’s brother!

How cool is this? My alma mater is offering a position for a librarian that has been displaced by hurricane Katrina.

Temporary Librarian Position For Librarian Displaced by Hurricane Katrina

In order to offer support to those in our profession who have been affected by Hurricane Katrina, the Henry Madden Library of the California State University, Fresno would like to hire one librarian with an ALA accredited M.L.S. or equivalent who was displaced and/or unemployed because of the hurricane.

technorati tag: hurricane katrina, flood aid, Fresno State

Alfred Reed, American composer and conductor, passed away yesterday, September 17. His name is well known to any wind musician. He wrote over 250 works for band, orchestra, choir and chamber ensemble. Among his most well known pieces are Russian Christmas Music, Armenian Dances, and El Camino Real. His genius will be missed, but his music will always be with us.

Wikipedia
Grove Dictionary of Music [subscription required]

The following is an email I received:

Alfred Reed passed away yesterday afternoon, 17 September. His gift to the world is a body of music that will continue to thrill, charm and delight audiences in virtually every country of the world, as it has done for the last fifty years. His gift to those of us blessed to have known him was a kind and generous spirit that is all too rare.

I cannot begin to reach everyone who has known and loved Dr. Reed and his music. May I therefore ask those of you receiving this email to forward it to those known to you who would want to be made aware of this most sad event.

Memorial arrangements are pending. Please understand and respect the family’s need for quiet time and privacy by withholding all telephone communications with them until at least Monday, 19 September.
Thank you

James Curnow

technorati tag: band, wind band, dci, marching band, drum corps, classical music

Last week Nintendo revealed the big secret about what will make the Revolution so revolutionary. It will use a one-handed controller that looks suspiciously like a generic t.v. remote control. What is so exciting is the gyroscope packed inside which will allow you to control games by moving the controller around in the air! Imagine fighting duels in Zelda by waving the controller around! Or fly fishing by performing the casting motion! Or swinging a baseball bat, aiming like a gun, flying a plane and banking by tilting the controller. Nintendo says that they will have special plugin in devices to enhance the capabilities of the controller.

This going to be wild. Despite all of the naysayers, I think this innovation is great for video games. I still think that the PC is the best gaming platform, but I am excited about the possibilities this new technology will bring. It is refreshing to say the least.

Go have a look at the pictures.