Archives for the month of: January, 2011
Newer Entries »

On the Merits of Accurate Bibliographic Description

January 8, 2011 //

burning templars burn burn

My love of edu-TV melodrama meant I had to watch Museums Secrets the other night.

The show was on the Vatican Museum (cool in its own right and on my top list museums and libraries I need to see). I knew a lot of the stuff they talked about, except for their closing vignette about a recently rediscovered document apparently acquitting the Knights Templar from heresy charges.

From Reuters:

The parchment, also known as the Chinon Chart, was “misplaced” in the Vatican archives until 2001, when Frale stumbled across it.

“The parchment was catalogued incorrectly at some point in history. At first I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was incredulous,” she said.

A CBC report places the shady entry in 1628, 320 years after the original trial.

Conspiracy? Maybe…

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags , , , , ,
Categories Amazing News!, Book News, Cataloguing, Library Bric-a-brac

Amazing News! Dinosaur Embryos!

January 7, 2011 //

Way way before I was a librarian-type, I was a wanna-be paleontologist-type reading endlessly about dinosaurs in the public library.

Check this:

Paleontologists have just identified the world’s oldest known dinosaur embryos, according to a paper in the current Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

The embryos, found in their still well-preserved eggs, date to the early Jurassic Period 190 million years ago. The researchers say they are the oldest known embryos for any land-dwelling vertebrate. [more here]

Tags ,
Categories Amazing News!

A Word’s Worth

January 6, 2011 //

Just a Huck Finn Moment

I’m always surprised when the debate over the  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn returns.  I’m not sure why that is. I shouldn’t be. According to the ALA it is among the top five most challenged books in the United States. The controversy, as we all should know, stems largely from the representations of Jim and the vocabulary attached to him.  But don’t worry, someone has come up with a way to solve  the problem.

From the New York Times:

Throughout the book — 219 times in all — the word “nigger” is replaced by “slave,” a substitution that was made by NewSouth Books, a publisher based in Alabama, which plans to release the edition in February.

Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University at Montgomery, approached the publisher with the idea in July. Mr. Gribben said Tuesday that he had been teaching Mark Twainfor decades and always hesitated before reading aloud the common racial epithet, which is used liberally in the book, a reflection of social attitudes in the mid-19th century…

“I’m by no means sanitizing Mark Twain,” Mr. Gribben said. “The sharp social critiques are in there. The humor is intact. I just had the idea to get us away from obsessing about this one word, and just let the stories stand alone.” (The book also substitutes “Indian” for “injun.”) [full article here]

Except that of course he is sanitizing it. Gibben’s scheme to end the book’s contentiousness is an end run around the book itself, a way to make it easier to swallow Twain’s social criticisms. A nice spoonful of sugar.

But, carbo-loading your literature isn’t the best idea. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags , ,
Categories Book News, Censorship

E-gads! eBooks!

January 5, 2011 //


Digital Library Blog has reported that:

Despite some issues caused by a surge in activity, traffic, checkouts, and new user registration records were smashed over the Christmas holiday–all thanks to eBooks.

For the first time ever, eBooks out-circulated audiobooks at libraries’ ‘Virtual Branch’ websites. Audiobooks are still very popular and increasing in circulation, but this momentum for eBook downloads shows that the format has gone mainstream at libraries.[full article here]

The holiday spike in library checkouts of eBooks is cool, but not unsurprising considering that high-tech gadgetry like eReaders are popular gifts. For sure, people will always want to play with their new toys/tools right away. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags , , , ,
Categories Book News, Technology

Library Minimalism

January 4, 2011 //

Part of my heart is librarian, but another big part is a driven by design. And, I love to find ways to confine the two.

Inspired by Jamie Bolton‘s Minimalist Movie Posters, I started my own “Library Minimalism Project.” The idea is to take issues and facets of library and information science and reduce it down to it’s brass tacks. And then, express it visually as simply as possible.

These are the first two:

There is something to be said for considering parts of our field at a very distilled level. So far, it has been illuminating to boil down what are essentially complex and sometimes abstract ideas.

Check these out. I’ll be posting more as I finish them!

Tags , , , ,
Categories Library Minimalism

Rose Coloured Glasses

January 2, 2011 //

Part of what inspired me to make this website was to get into what it’s like to be a newish librarian. It’s January 2nd, and this marks the anniversary of my search for sustained, and god willing, permanent library-type work.

I live in Ottawa and for a few tangible, personal reasons I’ve been looking for in that city (and a few other cities, too). Living in the nation’s capital means trying to get a public sector job. Frankly, like everywhere this particular job market is not  bullish.

A recent Ottawa Citizen article brought this into focus:

A growing list of jobless public servants, coupled with spending cuts and a shrinking pool of jobs, signals a staffing squeeze in the federal government not seen since the massive downsizing of the 1990s.

Maria Barrados, president of the Public Service Commission, says the number of workers on the government’s priority list for jobs is climbing and she’s braced for that list to grow as spending restraints kick in and more workers are laid off or declared surplus.

The latest twist is the commission isn’t placing as many of these workers in new jobs now that the growth in the size of the public service for much of the decade has all but stopped in its tracks.” (full article here.)

News like this doesn’t exactly fill me with optimism, but  the situation clear: a shrinking number of jobs and more people looking. Hardly a novel situation these days. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags , , , ,
Categories About
Newer Entries »