sailing to byzantium

local update, cookies, books

2008-07-23T05:46:44Z

Wondering what to expect from T@F productions with no stage...?

Snarketh I--think, "floor." That's what's underneath the stage, generally.

In case anybody wonders what I've been up to lately, the answer is more of the same--helping out with T@F and getting to know all of the cool people I've met at parties outside of parties, lots and lots and lots and lots of reading of graphic novels and some terrifying non-fiction (my count of books read since the beginning of May is approaching 300--those graphic novels go fast!), and having the refreshing experience of not hating being at work, since I'm generally only there about 15 hours a week in a blissfully responsibility-free position where already I know how to do everything extremely well. In many ways, this is a mental vacation, but the crash course I'm giving myself in non-superhero, non-manga graphic novels is keeping my brain going, and might be useful professionally, someday.

Also, I have been baking a lot of cookies. You know what's a bad idea? To decide, the same week you decide you want to lose ten pounds, to kick off a huge baking spree and master cookies. These goals are really not compatible, even if I foist off most of the cookies on co-workers and actors.

recipe from the Boston Globe

2008-07-08T00:14:23Z

Ciambelle (ring-shaped cookies):

2 pts. flour
1 pt. sugar
1 pt. olive oil
1 pt. red wine

Mix the oil, wine, and sugar well; sift in the flour; knead the dough on a floured board until no longer sticky. Let it sit for 1/2 hr; roll dough into thin snakes, shape the snakes into rings, and drop each ring into more sugar before baking on parchment paper at 350 degrees for 1/2 hr. Easy as hell, super-tasty. The recipe says you can also use white wine or limoncello in place of red wine, which I'd like to try, although having red wine in is always a plus in my book.

1 c flour will make about 20-30 cookies.

hell, with some cheese curds, I'd have poutine

2008-06-28T14:56:31Z

The $64 Dollar Question: Does cypher_0_ really love french fries so much she'll eat them when they're cold, two days old and totally soaked in gravy from the chicken cutlet?

Yes.

cypher_0_ @ 2008-06-19T21:07:00

2008-06-20T01:08:07Z

DAMN. I forgot to move my car. Streetsweeper alerts, you have FAILED ME.

he was supposed to be apprenticed to a piLOT

2008-06-14T03:30:04Z

What with the hanging around the community theater crowd lately, I felt it behooved me to listen Gilbert and Sullivan operettas as a mature adult and not just rely on the memories of a kid who ~~got dragged~~ went to G&S performances with her parents and liked them but didn't follow a word of any of them because they all sing so damned fast.

So I only just realized that Tom Lehrer's "The Elements," which Lehrer remarks is set to a "possibly recognizable tune," is of course set to the tune of "I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major-General." Stop laughing at me! I didn't notice! I haven't heard that song since I was in high school and one of my best friends played the Major-General, I think because no one else in our class could sing that fast. I was self-absorbed when I was in high school. Stop laughing at me, dammit!

Next up: Pinafore. Or Mikado. Whatever shows up at the library first. Those are all the ones I can remember seeing as a kid. Any other recommendations?

oh, the weather outside is tolerable...

2008-06-13T20:48:08Z

I just picked up my first paychecks for the summer job, and while I am still not exactly rolling in dough, I was shocked at how much they added up to--more than twice my casual mental estimate. Even though I was a rehire, not a transfer, and part-timers earn less than full-timers, my hourly rate is very close to what it was previously; more significantly, I'm not going to be around long enough this time to earn benefits, and couldn't opt into the health insurance plan even if I wanted to. I'd grown so used to have health insurance take a huge chunk out of my checks before I even got them that I forgot how much those deductions amounted to. I won't be getting as many hours from here on out anyway, but that was a pretty nice surprise--I'm still in the black as of June, at least.

I'll be strolling over to the MFA as soon as the library boots us out, but I figured as long as I was in town and the weather wasn't as murderous as it's been this past week, I might as well come over to Simmons and print out Oh My God, It's Another Play! materials...sooner or later, I'll be called upon to actually do something at rehearsals, so I thought I should be prepared. While I was waiting for the printer to warm up, I was amusing myself by looking at Yahoo weather reports....Somerville and Boston, Massachusetts: 79 degrees and 29 percent humidity. Austin, Texas: 98 degrees and 37 percent humidity. Yeeouch! Poor aging_parents. Toyama, Japan is a balmy 64 degrees, and I was jealous of kodalai...until I noticed that the humidity is currently at a whopping 74 percent. No wonder all of her food goes moldy in the fridge.

cypher_0_ @ 2008-05-18T11:51:00

2008-05-18T15:51:31Z

Happy birthday, kodalai!

end of semester one

2008-05-14T02:48:27Z

--"Bush calls new attack on US his worst worry."

So subtle! There's nothing blatant about the timing, I mean, in admitting that having invaded someone else's country based on obviously false data has not lessened the U.S.'s danger of being attacked by terrorists, right about the point when the Bush administration has nothing to lose by admitting to having totally fucked up on security issues, but the next Republican candidate can now benefit by playing the exact same "we're in imminent danger and electing a Democrat is like bending over and using your underwear as a white flag of surrender" card no one in particular used in 2004.

Parse that, I dare you.

--May's Camberville kickball was on the 10th. I did not damage myself as badly as last time, but we won anyway. I think winning has something to do with being on Joye's team.

--My last class of the semester was on Monday, Reference class. I seem to have been straddling a B+ most of the semester, but when the prof came by the student lounge after class to give us the recalculated grades after the reference research question presentations, my B+ had been transmuted into an A-. I am very pleased, and suspect I won my full portion of discretionary points by virtue of being a loudmouth in class discussions. It's nice to get credit for talking in class, because I enjoy talking and will do with little to no provocation anyway.

I loved the class. I think it's clear I am not going to be initiating any Reference research initiatives, but boy, is that class ever worth the work, and I am hugely grateful I got to take it with Smith, who is intelligent, wise, a good teacher, and a poster child for keeping abreast of your field even after four decades of teaching.

I don't know about Archives yet; even if I was trying to calculate my grade, I still haven't gotten back my final paper, or heard anything about the internship/internship report and those things constitute a big portion of the grade. I'll find out soon enough, anyway.

I am still ambivalent about Archives. If I'm going to have a track, this will be it; I think it is such an important approach to information science--it concerns the memory and permanence of knowledge; all of tomorrow's questions about yesterday lead inevitably back to the question of archives--but aside from the likelihood of my getting bored as a processor, I have to admit that I lack the right passion to really devote myself to archives alone. The thing is, I know that eventually the sun will go supernova, which will kill whatever life remains on earth after rising tides and nuclear weapons have destroyed humanity as we know it, and it's not going to matter whether or not James Joyce's grandson burned the letters of his mentally ill aunt because he didn't want biographers writing books about her, and, frankly, I'm inclined to agree that she's nobody's damn business, because James Joyce's daughter didn't write any great works of literature and she didn't ask to be Joyce's daughter or mentally ill, and can we please have some respect for people who never wanted for their letters to end up an archive? Of course not, we've archivists, and we don't give a crap about blind donors. It would be too much work.

--I have been convinced to be ayelle's Rehearsal Assistant for the short she's directing for the Theatre@First summer festival...thingie. This is equal parts to help her out/because I have met many of these people at parties and they're funny/just to have something to do during the summer besides working for Barnes and Ignoble and reading every graphic novel in the Cambridge and Somerville public libraries. I do plan to collect on this at some point, ayelle.

huh

2008-05-12T04:37:50Z

I found out what my financial aid reward is for next year--about five thousand dollars a semester less than what I got for this spring. This is not good, since I will be enrolled in (and therefore needing to pay for) three classes instead of two, as well as needing to purchase health insurance through the school, and I think the reward will fall short of covering those things, to say nothing of living expenses.

Ironically, I am now in far less of a position to make up the difference by working part-time, because I'm going to have less free time with three classes than I did with two and a mandatory unpaid internship. I'm trying to figure out some way not to be totally screwed, but I'm coming up with nothing.

Thoughts?

archivists, librarians

2008-05-09T00:50:17Z

Tuesday was my last day at my Archives internship down at the Cambridge Public Library. Surprisingly, long-term exposure to Cambridge City Pride has eroded my distaste for its pretension and left me with dangerously warm feelings towards Cambridge. That can't be good.

My supervisor and the CPL's director took me out for lunch, which was lovely, and the director gave me a CPL mug filled with after-dinner mints. How awesome is that? It's a mark of how far I've fallen that I will treasure it and use it and also that I've already eaten all the mints.

I think I chose well in my internship selection; although I wasn't working at an established archive--or maybe because of it--I got to process a real collection from start to finish, finding aid, arrangement and description, everything. Several of the other students managed to choose internships like that as well, but a few of them were stuck with projects ranging from dull to awful to (in my eyes) a complete waste of the intern's time. I got one-on-one attention from an interesting, intelligent supervisor who although only marginally more experienced in actual hands-on archival work than me (she's a GSLIS graduate from a few years ago), has decades of experience in libraries and academia, which gives her a lot of insight into how archives fit into everything else. She was a good match for me. She also gave me general professional librarian-ish advice, and all the dirt on the profs. =D Yeah, I got a lot out of that. Even if I were to decide to never take another archives class, this still would have been worth every second I spent at it.

I have mixed feelings about archives. Generally, I feel that I could, if necessary, go from this class and this internship to a job processing collections, and that I would not hate it, but I don't have a directed passion towards that (again, why would you want to work in an archive when you could work in a library? I mean, I dunno, neither job is just play, but...libraries are awesome. The things that make libraries libraries and not archives are awesome). I might get bored just being an archivist; I'm not sure I want to be an archivist, even though I'm proud having having learned a little bit to think like one. It's the most interesting of the specific GSLIS tracks, but I don't have to be on a track.

Still, I think that the concerns of archivists are very important to me and very, very important in LIS, and I want to have deep knowledge of archives and archival theory even if I go for an academic library where I might well never need to use archival training...next semester's already picked out, all core classes (which is probably a bad idea), but when the time comes to pick spring classes, I'm going to need to think very hard about what kind of career I want to have as a LIS professional.

the pizza, for the record, did not squeal

2008-05-08T18:53:42Z

The semester's not quite over for me--I have one more class on Monday, and a small project for that--but last night I joined rich_in_will and several other GSLIS students for a late-night outing at a pub in Back Bay Boston, The Squealing Pig. The food was good (I had a prosciutto, fig, and gorgonzola pizza, YUM), the beer was good, and the company was excellent. It was a mix of people from rich_in_will's YA Librarianship class and my Archives class, all invited by rich_in_will because I don't know anybody yet--well, now I know a few, I guess--all of whom were funny and friendly, and we had a lively night; never let anyone tell you librarians are dull! I saw rich_in_will drink for the first time ever--I'd previously assumed he was a teetotaler--and although he claimed otherwise, I'm positive it was his advanced cataloging class that drove him to it.

cypher_0_ @ 2008-05-03T23:34:00

2008-05-04T03:34:11Z

On the theme of hardy New Englanders: when I left my apartment today, I saw one of my housemates sitting on the porch, and we exchanged greetings.

"Isn't it a little cold for sitting outside?" said I. (It was 45 degrees fahrenheit at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.)

"I lived in Minnesota for thirteen years," said he.

"Ah," said I. "Well, no wonder."

THIS ENTRY HAS BEEN EDITED TO MEET THE NITPICKY TERMINOLOGY STANDARDS CONCERNS OF MY PARENTS. LOVE, ME.

cypher_0_ @ 2008-04-30T21:00:00

2008-05-01T01:00:36Z

WELL SHIT. My car won't start. I assumed it was the battery, zipped off to class, thinking I'd call for a jump start when I got back, and drive it around long enough to make sure it gets properly charged. Called on my way home, went to try it again in the mean time, just in case, and...the lights work. The car won't start but the lights work, so it's probably something wrong inside the engine, a loose wire or something messed up in the electronics. That means I'm going to have to pay for a tow, going to have to find a mechanic, going to have to pay for possibly expensive repair work on a car I don't drive and won't even own in a few months...and I'm going to get a fifty dollar ticket tomorrow when they show up to do the streetcleaning and my dead car is still there.

This. This is why I don't want a car. This is why I was happy to plan to give the car away, even though it means more inconvenience for things like groceries. It's a big fucking albatross, a perpetual potential disaster waiting to bankrupt me, over and over again, and I am so SICK of this.

~edit edit~

Twas the battery after all, and the car was successfully jump started and driven a good thirty miles and forty minutes on to 2 and back, to try to be on the safe side. It's parked on a street that doesn't get cleaned until next Friday, and if the battery is dead again tomorrow, I'll call the mechanic who jump started it tonight, and he'll come replace it. If it's not dead tomorrow, I can probably squeeze a few more months of life out of it. One way or another, it's going to be a lot cheaper than tickets plus towing plus paying lots of money to Honda mechanics, so I'm pretty happy with this outcome.

And despite ayelle's vote of confidence, I did not figure out the battery thing myself, but I talked to the mechanic on the phone before he came, and he told me. Thanks, tho.

the lesser of shoe evils?

2008-04-24T21:34:00Z

In case anyone was interested, an article from New York Magazine on how the shoe is ruining the human foot. Interesting idea. I don't know if I'm convinced entirely, but this is the first time I've seen this argued by a foot doctor.

In related news, the shoes I was wearing this morning were hurting my already slightly sore feet, so I tried taking them off and walking around barefoot, first in Harvard Square and then from Davis to my apartment. The immediate consequence is large blisters on my toes and heels. I think the evolution of the foot has not taken into account concrete, although enough walking on concrete might build up the level of callous I'd need for comfort and safety.

and did I mention that we won?

2008-04-21T04:29:51Z

I went to a a casual kickball game in the park this afternoon, which was loads of fun--some people I knew already, lots of new faces, and amazingly, someone who went to my high school, probably even in the years when I was there, although she knew ayelle better than me. I won't be joining a pro league anytime soon, but I didn't suck too badly--as in, sure the neighborhood kids who joined in were better than me, but they were better than most of us. They were also a lot more serious about winning the game, and nearly got ejected for trash-talking. Ahhh, the flower of youth.

The next game's in a month, and thank god, because I'm going to need all month to recover. Nothing actually hurts right now, but I badly overworked my quads by running so much, and I can barely lift my legs. It's just pathetic.

We straggled down to Davis Square for hot dogs and burritos and ice cream afterwards, although by the time we got to the ice cream part, the sun was going down and we realized it was actually kinda cold. But New Englanders are a hardy lot, who think nothing of standing around in shorts and t-shirts eating ice cream in a chilly wind, so.

quick notes

2008-04-11T15:45:29Z

To me: awesome salad from Au Bon Pain, so I don't forget the recipe: chickpeas, tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, carrot, dressed lightly with lemon juice, olive oil, and black pepper.

To the paternal half of aging_parents: can you point me in the direction of some of writers/works re: intellectual historians and the connection between literacy and individualism, as you mentioned in yesterday's conversation?

To kodalai: Your birthday approaches. You won't get your present until you return to the country, but what would you like?

To momdotcom: We should have lunch, so I can show off my spiffy new glasses. You said something about there being a place in Cambridge you wanted to try?

OMG, DO WANT

2008-04-04T22:14:56Z

Steampunk + perfume = awesome

There's also a line of lockets, including a beautiful clockwork design, but at $70 a pop, it seems like a poor investment, seeing as I never end up wearing any of the necklaces I own.

shawarma shenanigans

2008-03-30T01:56:05Z

There's a yummy little Lebanese restaurant on Huntingdon Avenue in Boston around Northeastern University--Boston Shawarma, I think is the name?--which is cheap and fast and good, and makes a shawarma sandwich to die for. When I stopped by for dinner (chicken shawarma sandwich, a really dreamy baklava) on my way home from Simmons this evening, I asked about a pile of pastries in the counter not listed anywhere on the menu, and the gentleman at the counter told me it was spicy meat pies.

Me: Ooh.
Him: Next time, maybe.
Me: Yeah, I've got enough this time.
Him: They're good.
Me: I like spicy and I like meat pies. [pause] Have you ever seen Sweeney Todd?
Him: Of course.
[pause, then shared maniacal laughter]

I am so getting the meat pie next time.

AnimeBoston 2008

2008-03-28T01:18:44Z

Sitting in Bloc 11, trying to catch up on work. It turns out I have a major paper draft for Archives due in a week, and I haven't done even half my reading...I got sidetracked by first, a paper for Reference, and then AnimeBoston 2008. I managed to get caught up/1 week ahead on all my minor assignments for the classes immediately after AB, but (knowing the actual due date for the Archives paper was not for a month) I'd been so focused on the Reference paper that I let the draft deadline creep up on me. A perfectly manageable workload of ten chapters of reading, one reading summary, an assignment to create a Dialog research question, evaluate 20 reference sources (half done) and investigate 10 reference questions (as if) has gone from "under control" to "major fail." Reference will probably get shafted--instead of further revising the Ref paper due Monday, I'll just hand in the current draft, which I'm not entirely happy with--and I'll speed through the sources and questions while I play catch-up for Archives.

Bloc 11 is by far my favorite place for work--aside from having to pay for Wifi (which I can just not use)--it's fantastic. The drinks are tasty, the music is great, the staff are lovely, the atmosphere is pleasant, they have power outlets, and it's easier to concentrate here than in the library or my apartment--the cell phone conversations, people talking, and music all blend together into a pleasant white noise, instead of standing out against the quiet and being impossible to ignore. It's a lot closer to me than Diesel, a lot less crowded, and because of the giant windows, less cavernous. The only thing I could ask for (aside from free Wifi) would be for Bloc 11 to serve a version of Diesel's yummy green tea soy milk latte.

AnimeBoston, by the way, was huge fun. I did manage to hit the Dealer's Room, where I bought an enormous amount of discounted manga (it's amazing how cheap you can get it if what you want is older, lesser-known titles, and you're willing to pick up random volume numbers--yay Moyoco Anno manga! Happy Mania: like Nana without the pathos), and Artist's Alley, where I got some nifty art, including a very nice Paradise Kiss print, a good Nana print, a gorgeous Misa from-Death-Note print, a really lovely piece of original art which is some kind of manga-meets-Victorian-London concept (like Godchild? but less horrifying murder and more swindler street apothecary?), and a few other odds and ends, including a small picture of a scary chibi Gaara hugging his gourd (the one he refers to as "mother") and a chibi Toph cell phone strap that jingles when I walk.

I didn't manage to get to any panels or see much of the con besides--the library was pretty constantly busy, and the one panel I was dying to see (1970's shoujo manga--I am very interested in that subject, and literally would have paid the full-price entrance fee to the con just to see that panel, so I'm really sad I couldn't go) coincided with one of our busiest periods (one of the con's busiest periods, too, which meant that, as the whole con was short-staffed, they yanked our volunteers away when we needed them most, and put them in more important places. I'm only a little bit bitter about that; I couldn't have made the panel even if they hadn't pulled our volunteers, and although we really, really needed them, the Manga Library is a teeny little corner of Programming, and bigger events affect a lot more people by probably a factor of thirty or forty or more--line control for Masquerade and Registration and whatnot are, bottom line, more important than us, and I know that).

Between the higher attendance and our much better location (right off the dealer's room, instead of stuck over in the Sheraton), our numbers were a lot higher than last year's, but I doubt it's going to be enough to warrant me a third staff member, so I'm thinking of retooling the borrowing system to something less labor intensive--take badges out of the equation entirely, so that the staff's main job is to reshelve and track circulation, as well as generally monitor the room--which would allow one or the other of the staff members to leave for longer periods of time. The current system is going to become unworkable if we can't count on having regular volunteers. We're supposed to be open for twelve hours a day, one staff member must be in the room at all times, and there are only two staff members--either both work long shifts (and end up effectively denied access to the con and exhausted), or the staff have to face the possibility of handling all the work entirely alone, even during peak busy periods, and not being able to leave to get food or go to the bathroom for six hours. Not ideal.

Except during the busiest hours when we're checking in and out hundreds of books in an hour, the Manga Library work is a lot less intense than other departments--the pre-con work can be done by one person and isn't that time-consuming--but because of minimal staff and long hours, Manga Library staff don't get much con access at all, and can't interact much with the rest of the staff, which makes me sad. I'm not throwing a fit over missing a panel--compared to the pure hell that was the Reg staff's con experience this year, my own was Cloud 9--but I don't want this to stay the status quo for Manga Library staff year in and year out. It's a tiny, low-key "event," and I think it should be possible to make it practically self-running with only two people. Having stuff go wrong from time to time is okay, and you should expect it, but I don't like having the system DESIGNED to totally isolate Manga Library staff from the rest of the con and its staff.

Anyway, I'll see if we can handle a current-or-higher level of busy next year with the same amount of staff and a simpler system. If it doesn't work, or if books start walking out of the room, we'll have to retool again, but I feel relatively confidant that as long as we can keep our eyes on the door, we'll be okay. It's not as if the opportunities for stealing don't already exist--when we're slammed and just trying to make sure we're on top of the badges, someone could easily walk out with a dozen of our books in their bag, and we'd never know; if we can create a system where we CAN'T get slammed, it'll be easier to keep track of what's happening in the room anyway.

So, definitely planning to reapply for the same position again next year. I feel like I understand the con structure as a whole a little better after this year, and if I can return to the same position, I'll be better about meeting deadlines for the pre-con work, and more comfortable attending meetings with people I've now had a chance to meet. The (teeny) amounts of feedback I got from people on the boards and at the library was very heartening--people thought we were friendly (one or two said we were the friendliest at the con, which I ascribe to A) the fact that I have bona-fide strong customer service skills and B) the Manga Library being so much simpler and less stressful to run than a bigger event that we're just less likely to get cranky, or have people get cranky at us. There just aren't many opportunities for people to flip out there, and I find it very easy to keep up a default chipper welcome under those circumstances), were happy with the books and the (relatively) simple set-up, and appreciated the (relative) quiet.

The good feedback made me very happy, and determined to make sure it's just as good next year--I'll probably try a lot harder to promote the library ahead of time, and draw people's attention to us--I would have liked to have done so last year, but I was distracted by applying for/beginning grad school, and between the fact that the Assistant Librarian was chosen by other people and confirmed before anybody got around to letting me know I'd been accepted as Librarian, and generally not having the clearest sense of the hierarchy of the con (it's all received wisdom, I swear), I did not have a strong sense of ownership of my position, and was too shy to attract attention to myself. I'll be bolder next year; if nothing else, it'll be my third year in the same department.

cypher_0_ @ 2008-03-16T15:39:00

2008-03-16T20:00:13Z

I went to a lot of trouble to get to the library today (the red line train twice stopped for ten minutes just between Central Square, where I got on, and Park, where I got off), and the green line train--an E train with a very large crowd of people waiting at Park while about one thousand and sixty-five B trains to Boston College came and went--decided to become an express train to Brigham circle mid-route.

Now that I'm here, I don't feel like doing work.

So instead, random bits of news! I have new glasses. They were horribly, horribly expensive--four hundred dollars after the insurance discount--but worth it, since my prescription was six years out of date and the lenses were badly scratched. They're rectangular-ish, two-tone--very dark violet that looks black on the front and sides; lavender on the inside and the trimmings--and incredibly awesome. Now I'm only about five years out of date, style-wise, and I definitely look like a student. zendzian says they make me and ayelle look even more alike.

I also went to the dentist, who found ten cavities, including one that will need a crown (amazingly, my existing crowns seem to be okay, and most of the cavities are minor--some are just old cavities where the fillings have broken down). I suppose it would have been nice if I went to the dentist for the first time in five years and had perfect teeth, but I didn't expect it; I'm glad that I can take care of them now, while I have the money. The crown will cost me about five hundred dollars.

It IS rather depressing to realize that I couldn't have done either of these things before--the only reason I can afford dental work and new glasses is that I'm living on a loan. When I was working full-time, I was still living paycheck to paycheck; doing just one of these things would have put me in debt. Cheery.

the Kindle & academic publishing

2008-03-13T03:32:18Z

This was originally a comment on ayelle's journal, but since that's friendslocked, I wanted to reproduce it here. The context of this comment: ayelle was expressing an interest in the academic potential of the Kindle (think full-text searching), and I mentioned that I wished I had a means of accessing the weekly readings I have to do for class when I'm on the T, and wondered what the Kindle could do for academia.

"Obviously, [publishers would] need to work out a new model for producing and licensing textbooks, and the sources of academic readings (well, in the humanities at least) are often drawn from college presses, not textbook publishers per se, and a new format by itself doesn't erase the problems inherent in producing content for a niche demographic, but I can't help but feel there's got to be some advantage to switching to an electronic format--some kind of renting model, maybe? Seems like DRM protections would lend themselves to that. Yes, I hate them, and yes, they can be cracked, but most people don't know how, and while they are obscene in a legally purchased product, they would be appropriate for a rented one.

"And as for the issue of a tech elite cracking the DRM on a rented textbook and distributing the product solely for the sake of disrupting the model...yes, it'd happen, but I do think that if most of the niche population (students) viewed the system as A) fair, B) affordable, C) necessary to their education, and if they D) went to a school that had an honor code and took academic cheating and other forms of dishonesty seriously, it would not be so rampant as to undermine the system.

"Or maybe not. I've heard students in my program say they'd jump the T fare every time if they could, and T fares are mostly fair, affordable (kinda), and necessary to keep the public transportation system that benefits the entire city and everyone in it running, so maybe people are just total selfish shitheads.

"This might be a total pipe dream, but maybe publishers and schools could eventually work out a content/licensing/renting model for textbooks the same way they have them for journals casserole databases and software systems. I admit that the thought of content vanishing makes me itch, but the whole issue with textbooks is that for most of their users, they simply don't have enduring value. Like you, I was one of those people who kept most of my college textbooks...until years later, I had to admit I didn't use them, hadn't even read some of them. I think aside from some English lit reprints, I might have one textbook from my undergrad years left, and that was written by one of my favorite professors.

"Re: my original point: a licensing/rental model for excerpts from academic books to be used as class readings. Seems much more doable, especially since Simmons seems to be doing something like it already--scanning the needed chapters and putting them up as electronic reserves that can be accessed with any student account on any computer, including off-campus. I have no idea how this is being handled from a copyright perspective (I do know that photocopying for the use of a class or for putting on reserve is something profs, librarians, and publishers have clashed over before); I'm assuming legitimately, but I admit I haven't hunted down anyone to ask yet.

"As publishing rearranges itself around electronic readers, I imagine this stuff will come up as a matter of course. Even if the readers stay expensive (and they won't, if there's a real market for them), I can imagine them becoming a staple of academic work even at the undergrad level. It wouldn't even have to be cripplingly expensive for poorer students--if you could buy one reader and cheaply rent or freely access textbooks through a school's license with a publisher, or better yet, if you could borrow one from the library (the same way you can borrow laptops from the Simmons library, although only for a couple of hours, and with steep fines if you return them late), e-books could end up making education a little bit cheaper. Or maybe the textbook costs people pay now would just end up getting shifted into the non-negotiable tuition costs...I don't know."

cypher_0_ @ 2008-03-01T15:53:00

2008-03-01T21:00:36Z

I was cooped up at home yesterday with a nasty cold, and not very productive, so today I'm cooped up in the library, trying to play catch-up. My new roomie's moving in, and I didn't think I'd be able to concentrate very well during all the loud, hammery, furniture assembly, so I braved the rain and slush and came out here.

I might have been better off staying at home. My neighbor on the computers is a young gentleman of unknown provenance--I'm pretty sure Simmons isn't co-ed for undergrads, and he's awfully young for a grad student--playing a computer game--yes, with the sound on--and periodically loudly whispering at his character. Because the computer, you know, it can hear him. Did I mention that this is an academic library? The sole purpose of which is to provide the students with a place to study without distraction?

Where, in the spectrum of obnoxiousness, does this fellow fit in next to the Library Science Grad students from the Reference class who keep reshelving the reference books wrong, or anybody at all who has a loud cell-phone conversation in a study area? You decide!

in one way, it's a relief. in another, it sucks.

2008-02-22T02:45:23Z

Okay, so I realized I can't do my Archives paper on the ramifications of declining literacy and the re-emergence of oral culture on future archival practices, because first of all, that would not actually fulfill the set assignment of "reviewing the archival literature on an aspect of archival function" and also the paper's only supposed to be ten pages.

Yeah.

I can still hunt down as much Clanchy literature on literary culture in Medieval Europe if I want to, for fun, but let's face it, I won't, because I don't have time. And someday, when I do have time, I won't have access to these resources anymore.

There's an advocacy topic for you: opening up scholarly resources to researchers who are neither wealthy nor professionally linked with academic or corporate institutions. Even where there are still nominally public-access, hardcopy back issues of professional periodicals, not just limited-access commercial full-text databases, there's not always a fiscally realistic option for an independent researcher--it's not so great if Worldcat tells you you can get an issue of something in a library in Florida and you live in Washington state and don't own a car. There is always ILL, of course, and maybe it's easier to do a full-scale research project entirely on charity and ILL than I'm thinking it would be, but have my doubts.

Just trying to nail down a topic in the general field of "oral culture and archival memory" was making me dizzy--way, way too facets to the question, too many related questions to examine first, and too much material to wade through to get to a sub-topic I could handle--but I'm disappointed, too, because when you get right down to it, I'm a lot more interested in communication theory and whatnot than I am in digitization of records. I don't have the stamina or the patience to be a professional academic, but I do prefer theory and generally making broad examinations of a subject to the gritty practicalities of doing almost anything. Of course, the whole point of going to library school is to get some vocational training, so I can't get too side-tracked by intellectual fucking around--after all, I'll be perfectly at liberty to do that the rest of my life, assuming I still have access to EBSCO. Information wants to be free, yo.

tenacious literacy

2008-02-21T05:44:07Z

Searching for "pre-literate culture" turns up a fair amount of stuff in LISA, but only one result for "post-literate culture," and it's the wrong kind of post-literate. Suppose the literature just hasn't caught up yet? "Pre-literate" and "illiterate" only seem to bring back articles on how to combat the scourge, which is awfully optimistic of them, and definitely off my point of interest.

Maybe I won't be able to do my Archives research paper on the re-emergence of oral culture in the modern era after all. Poo.

cypher_0_ @ 2008-02-19T19:31:00

2008-02-20T00:33:02Z

I am in the library, trying to write my damned precis for Archives, and there is a girl sitting ten feet away from me hic!-hic!-hic!-hiccuping. Loudly. Constantly. She's been doing it for ten minutes. I WANT TO KILL HER.