Heading to the Student Council's “Talent Show” Coffee House soon. I'm signed up to read some poetry which is guaranteed to be more “show” than “talent”.
Here's a sample of one poem (2.3 MB mp3) I'll be reading. The recording is from the 2003 Calgary Stroll of Poets – sorry about the poor sound quality.
Linda asked me if I was going to read or write something specifically about library school but unfortunately, no inspiration was forthcoming so it's all old stuff tonight. Maybe next time…
[2007-05-06 – Wanted to add an update to mention that the paper I link to in the second paragraph of this post (not counting this added part in italics of course) won first runner-up in the 2007 CLA Student Writing contest. The posted version of the paper is the one I handed in for class and isn't significantly different from the one that placed in the contest except for some tightening up and very minor re-working. Also, a very public
thanks to John M, Bruce F and Michael T
as well as a few anonymous male classmates who gave me the great
feedback which helped make my paper into something much better than I
could've written without their help!]
Sabina's been brave enough to put some of her essays and other assignments on her web page which I think is pretty cool. I've put a few of my assignments up on this blog in the past and would like to put more – maybe even everything I've written here eventually (if I can swallow my embarrassment about how crappy some of them are.)
Here's another one for the collection – a recent Children's Lit paper on the experiences of lone male patrons in children's libraries. My professor really liked this one and even suggested I might try to get it published which is cool. (Ahh, we've just had a “blog = ego” moment. Carrying right along…)
Whether they're good, bad or indifferent, I think it's just good for other students to be able to see other people's work, compare what they're doing and how, maybe get ideas for articles to read from the bibliography page and who knows, possibly even learn something new.
For anyone who doesn't know, the “Cantilever” referred to in the title of this post was an idea that David Jackson (who's now graduated from the LIS program), Sabina, Linda Bussiere and I were toying with last semester. We wanted to start an open-source repository of student writings for the reasons I listed above and more. It never really happened but who knows, maybe someone on the Student Council can champion the idea next semester?
…is that a record?
(Er, I guess you can make that six.)
(Warning: I don't normally do warnings but if you're particularly sensitive you might not want to read this entry. Or read the first paragraph and see if that's enough to give you the willies. It even bugs me a bit and I'm the guy writing it.)
MetaFilter has a massive debate going after someone linked to a YouTube video of a recently released audio tape of a guy in one of the World Trade Centers talking to the 911 dispatcher in his final moments. The audio has been synced against a video of the tower burning and then falling at that exact moment where the audio cuts out.
I haven't watched the clip and I'm not planning to…at least not right now. Maybe someday I will. Not now though. For me, playing the audio against the video clip, though maybe that's “art” or maybe that's a “statement” is a bit too much.
(Actually, I should probably have a warning that even some of the descriptions of the audio by people on that page might be disturbing to some people.)
But at the same time that I'm not going to watch/listen, I'm on the side of the people arguing that this clip should be available to be heard by those who choose to hear it as long as the victim's family has okayed its release (which they apparently have.)
There are all sorts of issues being discussed that are very interesting, even if you don't watch the clip…
– is this a snuff film? Voyeurism of the worst kind? No different than the 6pm news some nights?
– how does it compare against the 10x more deaths of Iraqi civilians? Can it? Should it?
– does being closer to the tragedy by knowing someone or living in New York give you more “right” to it?
– do we even need things like this to remind us of 9/11?
– can this death be linked directly to American imperialism?
(Uhm, except all of these arguments are being made by people who are a lot more coherent, intelligent and/or emotionally involved than I am so just go read the thread. Or watch the clip. Or do either. Or neither.)
See below for some photos from my adventures on Tuesday night.
I also added one from Wednesday's karaoke session to the “Librarian Idol” entry. The photo I added is sort of bittersweet – Shea has our digital camera in Saskatchewan so I dug out my old film camera to take with me to karaoke. It had a half a roll used already but I had no idea what the photos would be. Then, when I got the roll developed today, I realised this might be the last roll of film I ever develop in my life from a camera that's literally travelled around the world with me. I don't know – my dad gets emotional when he sells a vehicle and I've inherited a lot of his sentimentality, I guess.
Oh, and the unknown photos on the first half of the roll turned out to be even more embarrassing (if it's possible) photos of Mike's haircut and other shots from the end of that debauched night. (Yep, we carried on for oh, nine pictures or so worth of craziness after cutting Mike's hair.)
As to the other photos…
I can't just post even a little blurb I find without having a mini-rant attached (but what else are blogs for?) so here goes…
Wouldn't it be nice if we had a place to disseminate information like this to the entire program? Yes, we have a mailing list that goes to all students and faculty but I always feel guilty if I use it for something that's not connected fairly directly to the program. To me, that means I'll send an announcement about the Lunch Bucket series but this blurb doesn't pass the test. Of course, everybody's definition of what's appropriate is different.
Although I hate opt-out trickery in general, this might be one place where it could be appropriate. The Department could create a duplicate list to the other master one with all students and faculty that's for off-topic messages. Then allow people to opt-out if they don't want to get extra e-mails of this type. (You could make the second list opt-in but I have a strong suspicion that about six people would join it which would defeat the purpose of having it.)
I also have an idea for something Student Council could try but now that I'm on Council, I'll save those ideas for the meetings (told you there'd be a lot less criticism of student council on the blog! 
)
And now that my mini-rant is longer than the blurb I wanted to post, here you go…
Vanishing Media Call for Submissions
Do
you know of
a TV show, film or audio recording that is lost forever? Then the
Audio-Visual Preservation Trust would like to hear about it. The
AV Trust has made a call for submissions for its upcoming book,
“Vanished Media.”
“Vanished Media” will examine 100 pieces of Canadian media that are no longer available. The aim of
the book is to stress the importance of preservation of Canadian cultural works. Submissions are to be less than 1,000 words and
can be sent via e-mail to info@avtrust.ca.
For more information about the AV Trust, visit www.avtrust.ca.
(via Access Copyright e-newsletter)
This is about as “fun” as the Friday Fun Links get…
Carl
Monday, an investigative reporter at a TV station in Cleveland recently
did an extremely sensationalistic sweeps-week sting operation (link to video clip)
where he used a hidden camera to catch a twenty-something man
masturbating at the local public library on a public access terminal.
The
reporter confronts the masturbator (without even pixellating his face)
then follows him home and confronts his family. The clip includes
quotes from a local librarian who’s put in a tough spot trying to
defend the right of people to be able to access whatever materials they
want on library computers without defending the young man’s behaviour.
The
online library community has been abuzz about this incident and many
people (on both sides of the issue) have been debating the topic on the
reporter’s official blog. (You might say they’re “Master Debabtors” (groan))
MetaFilter also picked up the story and has some some discussion as well.
Here’s one comment I particularly liked discussing who’s the bigger disgrace:
“[The
reporter] is conducting video lynchings for the entertainment and
outrage of the complacent, self-righteous viewer at home … the
masturbator is a slight detriment to our society … the reporter, acting
as a public judge, jury and executioner wielding the axe of humiliation
is corroding society with a form of shame porn, embarrassing one person
for the amusement of people who want to feel superior to someone, while
reinforcing their paranoia about “those people”.”
Does anyone
else think it’s funny that the reporter keeps referring to the
masturbator as “having sex” in the library? I know he’s just doing it
to make it sound more evil and degenerate but that’s a very
Clinton-esque understanding of what “sex” is.
Another sensationalistic element pointed out by someone in the Metafilter discussion:
The
reporter says they caught the masturbator “just across the room from
the children’s section” So in other words, he couldn’t have been any
farther from the children’s section and still be in the building.
I also want to make a joke about what it would’ve meant
to the high school me’s self-esteem if masturbation really was the
equivalent of having sex. But I know my mom reads my blog so I won’t. 
(Update: There’s a follow-up story where the reporter goes to the kid’s trial. Unreal.)
Went to the Librarians Without Borders karaoke fundraiser tonight and other than a broken air conditioning system at the venue, it was a very fun (and very sweaty) night. LWB invited the students in journalism school and so a bunch of them came out which provided my first real chance to meet many of them other than a “hello” in passing in the halls.
For whatever reason, there's a bit of a tension between the two programs and, mixed with the fact that we have different schedules and don't bump into each other very often, there aren't a lot of opportunities to mingle. (And to be honest, tonight was a bit like a high school dance with the journalists mainly sticking to their side of the room and the librarians mainly staying on ours.)
As for any “rivalry”, they definitely did more singing than the librarians did but then again, they're all born with microphones in their hands. We, on the other hand, kicked ass in winning door prizes so I guess that balances things out a bit. 
Plus we showed them how librarians do things by getting up as an entire group to sing “Brown Eyed Girl”.
Met one J-School student who is from Saskatchewan so that was cool as well. Capped the evening by dueting on “Saskatchewan Dreaming” (to the tune of “California Dreaming”) with her since she didn't know “Running Back to Saskatoon” and they didn't have “Last Saskatchewan Pirate”.
YouTube recently updated their terms of service
to say that by uploading content to them, this gave them a “worldwide,
non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to
use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and
perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website.”
The link above clarifies exactly what this means (including a response
from YouTube’s marketing manager.)
That’s all well and good but the important thing is that this has led to a response from people on YouTube including a shirtless cowboy who defends YouTube’s new policy and many many others who take on this guy’s points very eloquently (see below)
(cross-posted at LibrarianActivist.org but without the fancy embedded YouTube clips because I couldn't get the page there to save with them enabled for some reason.)
Five Things Google Could Learn From Wikipedia
1. More Isn't Always Better.
Wikipedia is like a streamlined Google and more and more frequently, provides the quick factual answer to any question you might have in a way that Google no longer does. Do I need to know that my search for “GW Bush” returned 250 million results when a single Wikipedia page has probably all the basic information about him that I need?
2. Users Are Power
Google should harness the (volunteer) power of its users. Why can't Google visitors rank and/or tag search results (or even comment on them) to make them even more accurate and useful than they already are?
3. Categorization is a good thing.
Why aren't Google web results grouped or searchable by at least the most basic level – “personal web page/blog”, “commercial site”, “organizational site”, “educational site”. We know this is possible – they screen out adult-themed sites via their Safe Search feature. This categorization could also be accomplished by user voting and/or via an algorithm that checks for certain keywords on a page to determine which category the site most likely fits into.
4. Immediacy Is Vital On The Web
Due to its need to spider for content, Google often takes some time to add new content, even on its “Google News” page. This could be minutes, hours or days depending on the site or topic. On the other hand, because users come to it, Wikipedia tends to have nearly instantaneous updates on any current news story or other topic of interest.
5. When You're Big and Powerful, People Don't Trust You
Google's mantra may be “Don't Be Evil” but when you reach a certain size and level of power, people will eventually begin to distrust you, especially if you start doing things (like censoring search results in China) that reek of putting financial bottom-line ambitions above your stated principles. You can debate the quality and accuracy of its content all day but a site like Wikipedia, structured as a non-profit organization and open to editing by anyone, is much less likely to raise these concerns with people which is why it appears that we're seeing a sea change from Google to Wikipedia as the main starting point for information searches online.
Five Things Wikipedia Could Learn From Google
1. More Is Often Better.
Although Wikipedia's guidelines specify a variety of reasons why articles may be deleted (including “Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information“),
they should error on the side of inclusiveness and open up their site
to be more inclusive of pages, even if they don't fit their criteria
exactly. How else will they become, in the words of founder Jimmy
Wales, a repository for “the sum of all human knowledge.”
2. The Best Is Better Than The Latest
Very
loosely, because its algorithm works that every link to a site counts
as a “vote” for the credibility of that site, the best sites tend to
rise to the top of Google rankings. Wikipedia does something similar
where every edit is (supposedly) refining an entry towards a more
credible state. But because the change isn't always for the better, it would be better
if Wikipedia users could somehow “vote” for the best version of an
entry over its entire history so not only is the latest version of an
entry available but the “best” version would also be available and
easily recognizable.
[Edit: one idea I saw was to have each entry's text colour-coded so that the darker the shade of the text, the longer it has gone without being edited which would ideally reflect the most accurate information the best.]
3. If You Grow Exponentially, Your Costs Will Too
Although
an IPO like Google's isn't necessarily the answer since Wikipedia is
structured as a non-profit organization, the enormous growth of the
site may require a different business model than “largess of wealthy
founder” mixed with “annual appeal for donations.”
4. People May Need Help Finding What They're Looking For
It
may seem like a small detail but Wikipedia desperately needs a “Did you
mean…” option for search results like Google has to help with
mis-spelled words or typos. Right now, Wikipedia gives you very limited options
if you mistytpe even one word.
5. It's Okay To Have A Sense of Humour
Wikipedia
is a great site but it takes itself very seriously in terms of what its
mission is and how that will be accomplished. They don't need to have
logos that change for special days or April Fool's Day announcements of
new features. But a
lighter touch would come across really well and also be another way to
differentiate it from the dry, serious tone that's associated with
old-fashioned encyclopedias like Britannica.
One Thing They Could Learn From Each Other
I don't know if any two technology companies have been better suited for each other. There's already been rumours of a strategic partnership and, like the recent YouTube purchase, I think a formal partnership of this type would be an ideal situation. Combine the technological expertise and deep pockets of Google with the open-access policies and “third wave of the Net” cultural impact of Wikipedia and many good things are guaranteed to happen.
One Other Thing They Could Learn From Each Other
If you spread yourself too thin, it can hurt you. Google has released numerous tools and services. Some are popular (Gmail, Google Maps) but many others haven't taken off (Google Talk, Froogle). Wikipedia may be doing something similar with Wikinews, WikiBooks, Wikiquote, Wiktionary and so on. It remains to be seen if the community that's grown so supportive of Wikipedia will put the same effort into these other Wikimedia projects.
(If any Google people are reading this, I've got lots of ideas on how to make your company even better and am available for consulting duties! Call me… )
