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A Failed Experiment? 2.0

Overnight, one other person voted for deletion of the Spirit of Librarianship article I put on Wikipedia as well.  So now it's four votes to delete, none to keep and so if you're going to look at the original article, you should do it soon since I'm not sure if it'll exist “behind-the-scenes” once it's deleted. 

Let's summarize…
REASONS FOR DELETION
– “Internal award within a University faculty”
– Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information
– possible Vanity page
– not (encyclopedically) notable (three votes including one comment that it belongs on the University server”

(MY) REASONS WHY IT SHOULDN'T BE DELETED
– there's basically unlimited space on the site

– there are small villages in rural England that probably have less people than have been nominated for this award over the years yet they have stub entries of a single line at least (my SoL page had three sections, historical background, a description of the process and a photo)

– there are entries for things like reality TV shows and celebrities that are also inconsequential to most people.  But because they're widely known via their media exposure, articles about these things aren't challenged and instead are considered “notable”.  As an experiment, I created a page for a contestant on a current reality show and as of this typing, it hasn't been challenged in any way.

– although it would seem that a page for the Spirit of Librarianship Award would have a very limited audience, there is potential that someone, somewhere, someday might find the information useful (ie. students at another library school wanting to set-up a similar award.)  As a librarian, I always think of the anecdote from a Nicolas Basbanes book about a researcher at Harvard who finds the perfect book for the project he's working on.  He opens it up and sees that it was purchased in 1893 and based on the paper “date due slip” sleeve inside the cover, sees that it has apparently not been checked out once since then.  He comments to the librarian on this and says “I wonder who the librarian purchased this book for, nearly 100 years ago?” The librarian serving him that day replies, “Why, for you, of course.”  Doesn't that sum up librarianship right there? 

– they have pages for library-orientated awards (though this one has a connection to ALA and Harvard so I guess that makes it more notable.  But again, how do you decide that?  At least SoL doesn't have big gaps of 2-3 years where it wasn't awarded unlike the one I link to.  That says something as well, I think.) 

– …and the most important reason why I think it should be kept.  Wikipedia has a stated goal, expressed many times by its founder Jimmy Wales, of capturing the “sum of all human knowledge“.  You can't do this if you delete articles.  Wikipedia's guidelines say they don't want entries about “your neighbour's dog” but I think they're erring on the side of too much caution when they delete legitimate entries like this one.  They say too many non-notable entries will clog or confuse the site but I don't think that's really the case at all. 

Some library students (the ones who like cataloguing ) might fall on the side of deleting it to help maintain “bibliographic control” or something.  But I'm a library student who's a big fan of the principle: “maximize access to information” (tm – Elisabeth Davies) so I really think articles like this one should be kept, even if they don't meet the strictest interpretation of Wikipedia's guidelines.  Rules are rules but there should always be room to bend them, especially when it makes you err on the side of inclusiveness. 

Posted 23 July 2006 § Internet § Main Page ‡ Comments (5) °

A Failed Experiment?

Other than a couple minor edits, I've never done anything major on Wikipedia, even though I think it's an amazing resource (“a streamlined Google” is how I like to think of it) and use it all the time.

So tonight, I decided to try and do something a bit more substantial.  I don't know if I've ever come across a topic that didn't have an entry (Shea found one nursing theory that wasn't listed but I couldn't remember what it was and she's back in Saskatchewan for a week so I couldn't call on her to help me.)

I decided to put up an entry for the Spirit of Librarianship Award because I knew that was something they likely didn't have, it's something that I happen to know a bit about and also because I have access to information that isn't available anywhere else on the web right now (I can access the list of past winners that's on the Student Council intranet)  Oh, and let's be honest – partly for ego reasons too.  How else am I going to get my name in Wikipedia, short of starring in the first library-based reality TV show – because, that's legitimate you know!

I created a page at 9:53pm and did a couple edits in the following 5-10 minutes.  By 10:18pm, someone had marked it for deletion.  I'm not particularly familiar with Wikipedia's guidelines (probably a no-no to begin with) but I figured that if the page was going to be challenged, it would be because I was writing about something I had a personal connection with.  Instead, the reason given was because you apparently can't create a page for an “internal award at a University faculty”. 

I scanned Wikipedia's list of reasons for deletion and couldn't see anything about this particular transgression.  I've posted on the article's history page to see if the person who marked it for deletion – or someone else – can point me to exactly where I can find out more about articles that can't be posted to Wikipedia. 

Part of me says
“what's the harm in leaving it up?  It's not like Wikipedia's going to run out of space on
the Internet and it is useful information to some people.”  But part of me realises this probably makes sense as,
even with unlimited space, they don't want the site clogged with entries for
every minor award and event in existence.  Spirit of Librarianship
isn't exactly the Nobel Prize (or even a No Prize.) 

What I wonder about though is that they have stub entries for (for example) numerous villages
that probably have less people in them than have been nominated for
this award over the years.  So which is more useful and which is less? 
Especially when the page I created had three sections, lots of
information that say, a different library school could use as
a guideline if they wanted to create a similar award) while the entry
for Combe Thorpe, England says in its entireity (and I quote)

“Combe Throop is a hamlet in the English county of Somerset.”


Update: Someone else posted the reason is really “Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information” and voted for deletion as well.  They also mentioned that the post could be a vanity post which, as I admitted above, it sort of is. So anyhow, catch the page while you can because I don't think it'll be around long.

Update two: A total of three other users have marked my article for deletion on top of the first one.  One states
“plenty of room on University servers for that kind of information”   I know there's room but getting approval is sometimes a different
story in the world of University bureaucracy (or when the University gives space but its on their Intranet and inaccessible to the rest of the world.)

Just to further the experiment, I went and created a page for Lukas Rossi who is a contestant on the TV show, Rock Star: Supernova.  (A pause while I explain why I even knew who this guy is and why I also knew he didn't have a page on Wikipedia.  I get regular Google Alerts when there's any mention of Hawksley Workman in the media since he's one of my favourite singers.  A recent one was a story from the Ottawa Sun stating that there was a rumour going around that Lukas Rossi from Rock Star: Supernova was the same person as Hawksley Workman.  They had similar vocal styles, mannerisms and styles of dress.  Both are from Toronto.  Hawklsey was living in California around the time of the auditions for this show and cancelled a series of concerts due to “medical reasons.”  Hawklsey is well-known for his unique publicity stunts, starting with that stage name which is an amalgam of his father and mother's surnames. So when I read this story, as I so often do, I ended up going to Wikipedia first to see if they had any information about this Rossi guy which is when I realised they didn't – even though other contestants on that show did.) 

So anyhow, I've put up a page for Rossi with very skeletal information – he's a contestant on Rock Star: Supernova, he's from Toronto, he looks like Hawksley Workman and a couple links to news stories.  It'll be interesting to see what the “Recent Changes Patrol” does (if anything) with this entry.    (They'll probably delete it too and ban me from the site to boot ruining the whole thesis I've got about how inequal application of principles I've going here.  Hmm, maybe there is a paper in here somewhere…)

Oh crap, and I just realised that by linking to this blog from my name on the Spirit of Librarianship page I created, I've basically given them a perfect trail to prove that it's a vanity page if they didn't already know that.  I mean, it's not like I went and created a page for “Jason Hammond” and I know that they don't necesssarily rule out people writing about things they're knowledgeable about or connected with.  So it depends on how you interpret a vanity page. 

No matter what happens, I'm not touching the record of my classmate Mark, who, as part of the research for a paper on Wikipedia last semester, went in and purposely vandalized a page.  His changes were reversed and he was banned within two minutes!

And thank god they don't show who accessed the page and when and how often.  Because now I'm sitting here, obsessively clicking “reload” on both the Spirit of Librarianship deletion page and the Lukas Rossi page.  Maybe it's time to go to bed.

Posted 23 July 2006 § Internet § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

Midnight Pastimes

Instant Messaging
I am back on instant messaging.  After using IM quite a bit in the heyday of ICQ, I got away from it for a variety of reasons (no friends mainly ) but after being asked for my MSN info by a colleague today (and also attempting to do a virtual reference exercise last week with not much success), I've decided to give it another shot.  So if you want to add me, I'm “jason@hammond.net” on MSN or 17840983 on ICQ (I'm using Trillian so either should work.)

Pinball
Just saw that Pinball Clemons was named the new GM of the  Riders. I caught it on the TV out of the corner of my eye and can't find confirmation so don't quote me but if true, how good is that?  He's a perfect guy for Saskatchewan and I think he'll be much-loved by the faithful.

(Edit: Oops!  The Argos were playing in Regina this weekend so there was an interview with Pinball Clemons on the TV.  He was identified as “General Manager” and sitting in front of a Riders backdrop so I thought he'd been hired away from Toronto by the Riders.  Wishful thinking I guess.)

Pitching Ideas For Articles
I haven't done any freelance writing since I got here but when I saw a note in the latest Writers Guild of Alberta  e-newsletter that a magazine I wrote for in Calgary was looking for stories, I decided to send off a couple ideas  (since I have so much time on my hands these days. )
One pitch was for a humourous take on the library world, one was for a more serious look at the issue of library fees in Alberta (based on my 501 paper) and one was a feature on the new central library that Calgary is building.  Here's hoping I don't get a response to any of them!

London Music Archive
The London Music Archive is a project of UWO's radio station to compile recordings of various local bands and put them online in MP3 format for free.  I found it trying to track down a song that someone suggested for my “SW Ontario” playlist.  There's a couple funny things about this – first, the suggested band is called Uisce Beatha and was one of my favourites in undergrad and I didn't even know they were from London, let alone had a song about growing up here.  The other funny thing was that I'd actually stumbled on this site last year and downloaded their “Mystic of the Baja” album but totally missed that the much better “Voice of the Voyager” album featuring one of the best drinking songs of all-time, Boy's Night Out was available as well.

Librarians As Matchmakers (Attn: Cabot Yu)
For those who don't read the comments on this blog, I'll let this wonderful story speak for itself…(okay, except for a brief note that some libraries are apparently arranging “speed dating” events for their single patrons as another way to entice people into the library.)  I could probably add “how cool is that?” to my list of overused phrases but really, how cool is that?

What I'm Reading (Non-FIMS Edition)
I'm really bad for having multiple books on the go at once and moreso in this program for some reason.  Here's what's on the bedside shelf, one for the bathtub and one in my backpack…


Posted 22 July 2006 § LibrarySchool § List § Main Page § PopCulture § Randomness ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

If there are 23 people in a room, what are the odds of two sharing a birthday?

This is a bit retroactive but yesterday, I e-mailed Marco D'Andrea, a first term student to thank him for an invite to his party on July 18 and apologise for not being able to make it (afternoon nap = evening spent doing pressing homework instead of evening = partying with first-term cohort.) 

Turns out that, although he didn't advertise it as such (which would've guaranteed my attendance, homework be damned!), it was his birthday too.  (This revelation also means I now have a better answer to Shea's question of “why would someone have a party on a Tuesday night?” than my original response: “We're college students – we'll party anytime!”.  Man, I'm thick sometimes.)  

So yeah, anyhow, I'm sure we've all heard that if you put 23 people in a room, there's a better than 50% chance that two will share a birthday.  But I think this is the first time I remember knowing someone (other than celebrities and historical figures and so on) who shared my birthday (Marco said he'd never personally known anyone who shared his birthday either.) 

I'm glad to know it's one of the coolest guys in first term too – the first week when a few of us organized a Q&A session followed by a mixer at the Grad Club with the “new kids”, I remember talking to Marco and thinking how awesome he seemed – I mean, how many people do you know who ran a pirate radio station in their undergrad days?  I believe my exact words to Sabina were: “Let's draft him!”

So yeah, Marco gets a very special (and very appropriate) Classmate of the Day nod retroactive to July 18. 

PS – Happy 2nd Birthday, Sawyer.  Too bad you were born on July 21 instead of July 18!

Posted 22 July 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page § Randomness ‡ Comments (4) ° Tagged:

My Librarian Trading Card

Flickr has a group dedicated to Librarian Trading Cards.  You can create your own (and do lots of other cool things) with FD's Flickr tools.

Here's mine:


Posted 21 July 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page § Meme § Photo ‡ Comments (0) °

Friday Fun Link – July 21, 2006 (NFB Shorts)

The National Film Board of Canada has put a bunch of their classic animated shorts online for free viewing. The Big Snit is required viewing for all Canadians.

Posted 21 July 2006 § FridayFunLink § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

Stat of the Day

Of the 147 million Americans on the Internet, 12 million have blogs. (via PopBitch)
Posted 21 July 2006 § Blog § Main Page § Randomness ‡ Comments (0) °

The Last Saskatchewan Pirate

I heard about Calvin Ayre tonight on CBC's The National.  Much like myself, he is from a farming family in rural Saskatchewan and attended UWO to do his Masters.  Unlike me, he did an MBA instead of an MLIS.  Oh, and he became a billionaire via his online gaming company while my stock portfolio consists of RRSP's, some income trust stocks that my grandpa told me to buy and a few shares in a gold company that are currently worth (just a sec…) $62.50.   Yep, Ayre and I are peas in a pod, I say! 

I was going to write that Ayre is the only billionaire from Saskatchewan but apparently that's not true – Murray Edwards who's the richest of all the rich oil & gas guys in Calgary (and a part owner of the Flames) is from Sask-a-bush (I didn't know that or else I would've given him a call when I lived there.  I did say “hey” to Ken King who's the President of the Flames and also from Saskatchewan during their playoff run in 2004 when he was outside for the Fanfest activities.  If I had my old-school print photo albums here, I could scan and post the pic I snapped of him giving me a thumbs up.) 

The other Saskatchewan billionaire is Jimmy Pattison who made his fortune via a variety of businesses (for example, he's responsible for all those Pattison billboards on every road and street corner in every city in Canada).  Pattison lives in Vancouver. 

I thought two brothers, Byron and Doc Seaman, who are from Saskatchewan and also part owners of the Flames and would be up there but apparently they're only multi-milllionaires.  Oh…

Classmate of the Day goes to Florence Hwang since this is a Saskatchewan-themed post and she reminded me today that she's from Regina.  (How did I forget that?)

Renee Stollery also gets a CotD for giving me a good laugh during Collection Development.  Our instructor told us the list price for a subscription to an electronic journal ($8000) and asked what we thought a certain library was able to negotiate as their price.  As various people were called on, they guessed different numbers – $1000, $2000, $4000 – and then our instructor calls on Renee and she goes “$1” in a moment right out of the Price is Right.  I don't know – maybe you had to be there but I found it pretty funny. 

Posted 21 July 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

There Will Be A Lot Less Criticizing of Student Council On This Blog From Now On

After discussion with a member of the current student council, I let my name stand for election (er, appointment?  I have no idea how they do things) and as of Wednesday afternoon, am the new, incoming Academic Rep for the MLIS Student Council. 

As with everything in my life (Spirit of Librarianship, whether or not to do co-op, toast or cereal in the morning), I have mixed feelings about this.  I want to keep doing my own projects – mainly Lunch Bucket but also a couple others that I think would be awesome for the Fall.  Plus if I get doing a job search next semester, that could take up some time as well.  (I doubt it would be as bad as applying for co-op but a lot of people described that process as being “like taking another class.”)  But there are some exciting initiatives under way already and the potential to maybe implement a few of my better ideas directly rather than nagging people on student council constantly.  So we'll see how it goes. 

Then on top of that, I went for breakfast today with Cabot Yu, a FIMS alumnus who now works for the Government of Canada and was back at FIMS presenting some information on getting a government job to students, giving career advice and just generally being an all-around helpful guy.  Had a good conversation with a bunch of fellow students at breakfast about CLA, their conference, Feliciter and various other issues in the library world.  And I think I ended up suggesting that I might be willing to join a CLA committee if there is a vacancy.   I am the Establishment Man (or maybe just a guy who can't say no! )

Oh, and Cabot picked up the bill for all of us.  So, he gets Classmate Colleague of the Day for that generosity – both at breakfast (he joked “hopefully, this helps make up for that $18 first-timers breakfast at CLA.”) and also just in general.  To me, Cabot's one of those guys who defines what a librarian should be – selfless, smart and eager to help in any way possible (and I don't say that just because I know he reads this blog!) 

Posted 20 July 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged:

Suggestion For A New Statutory Holiday

Canada currently recognizes nine federal statutory holidays (PDF) and one civic holiday.  Various jurisdictions have slight differences, either in the name of existing holidays (Canada Day is apparently called Memorial Day in Newfoundland, Victoria Day is Dollard Day in Quebec) or by having unique holidays of their own (Family Day in Alberta in February, St. Jean Baptiste Day in Quebec in June.)

The ten (eleven if you get both Good Friday and Easter Monday as many places do) official holidays in Canada are:
January – New Year's Day
March/April – Good Friday (and/or Easter Monday)
May – Victoria Day
July – Canada Day
August – (Civic Holiday only in most of Canada)
September – Labour Day
October – Thanksgiving
November – Remembrance Day
December – Christmas Day
December – Boxing Day

I know there are a ton of economic issues involved so this is unlikely to ever happen but I always thought that we needed at least one or two more statutory holidays to make it an even dozen and to match the number of months (even if every month doesn't necessarily get a stat.)

The biggest gap is that long stretch between the hangover of January 1 to the redemption of Good Friday/Easter Monday in March or April.  There's a reason why February has the highest suicide rate of any month and it's not just Christmas credit card debt.  I think that having a statutory holiday in February would go a long way to improving the situation.  Alberta's on the right track with their “Family Day” which is nondenominational, noncontroversial (oh, I'm sure some would protest) and something most people have, whether it be parents, siblings, cousins, siblings or whatever.  So why not simply expand this to the rest of the country?

My other idea for a new statutory holiday is a bit stranger.  Part of the reason it's so hard to implement a new holiday is the fear the business community and government have of another day where the vast majority of citizens are at home and therefore, not working and driving the economy.  I agree – we all have enough holidays together.  So why not have a rotating statutory holiday that depends on something else that's fairly important to everyone, no matter your religion or ethnic background or location in the country?  Why not make it official that your birthday is a statutory holiday?  The benefits are enormous – instead of being obligated to eat turkey or go to church, you get a day just for yourself to do whatever you want or need to do, with no obligations to family or friends, god or government. 

What if your birthday falls on a day that you're not scheduled to work?  As with other stats, you would get a day off near it in lieu.  What if you are born on a stat?  Bonus round – you get to pick any day of the year that you want to be your own personal stat holiday for the rest of your life (no changing though – the federal government might even have to start a registry!)  The name of this magic new holiday?  YouDay.  Unlike Saddam's eldest son, this YouDay would be a time for peaceful reflection, joyous celebration or any other activity you wish to engage in. 

When I am elected Prime Minister of Canada (and then declare myself “Grand Ruler for Life”) this will be my first decree change.  Helping Peter Goldring realise his dream will be my second.

On a completely unrelated topic, isn't 33 a wonderful number?  

Posted 19 July 2006 § Main Page ‡ Comments (6) °