The End is Not the End

Well here we are. Some of you are already done with your coursework for this class and others are still working on your portfolios and what not. I'm very happy to say that I finished up my portfolio a few days ago and furthermore, I also submitted my final paper for LIS 2000 this morning, too. Thus, I'm done with the semester. I'm a little bit worried that I still haven't received my grade for Assignments 7 and 8 (and for that matter, the group presentation we did on-campus for LIS 2000), so I don't feel like it's quite over. Even when I'm done with my work, there's still more to do (like write this blog). I don't mind too much, though. I guess that's the nature of being in grad school. Once this semester ends, we can sit back and relax for a month, but I know that in September it'll all start back up again. Frankly, I'm worried about how I'm gonna balance everything, especially with the the Retrieval half of LIS 2005 (which is now LIS 2002, I think) being called "search and seize hell" by at least one other blogger on here. Then again, I think all of us should be proud of ourselves. We all have busy lives and lots of responsibilities and this isn't easy.

As for the final assignment, well there's not too much to say about it (for a change). That's because it's just a portfolio of all the work we've already done. I'll say that the hardest part about it was figuring out how to present the ePrints articles and doing the screen capture, saving and then embedding the code and what not. Overall, though, I'm glad that it didn't take an inordinate amount of time, though. I know my site probably doesn't look that great (thanks to those who disagree), but I'm no programmer/web designer (to say the least). I guess the functionality is the most important part.

Well, unless I feel like posting something else on here this coming week, I'll see you all in the fall! I hope you enjoyed reading this thing as much as I enjoyed making it.

Chrome vs. Firefox

If you didn't know that these are web browsers, don't you think that the title of this post could also be the title of some Xbox game or a sci-fi movie from the '70s or something?

Anyway with that said, I'm not quite sure how I feel about the points in this article. Why? Well, I've been a loyal Firefox user since I got a new computer about 4 years ago. It just blows away IE in every conceivable way. I love that, as the article describes, it's possibly the best example (outside of maybe Linux) of open-source software with a community ethic that really works. This is something we've been reading about a lot in LIS 2000.

However, when I tried out Chrome after downloading it by accident a while ago (apparently you can download it if you download Skype at the same time), I was astounded by how fast it was. Thus, I feel I'll be using Chrome in the future (at least somewhat). I also don't know if Chrome can capture the market share of Firefox or IE.

One odd thing about Wikipedia

Until I saw this article earlier today, I hadn't even stopped to think about this feature of Wikipedia. Of course, it relates directly to our current reading on copyright (digital and otherwise) for LIS 2000.

Fast Track Weekend/On Campus Learning Experience (part 4)

And so we come to the last day of the on-campus learning experience for Cohort 9. The first hour, from 9 AM to 10 AM, was spent discussing Everything is Miscellaneous and Viral Spiral. For this exercise, Dr. Alman divided us up into groups that were different from the groups that we were already in for our presentation.

And then, from 10 AM to noon, we did our presentations. Or at least that's what the schedule said. Luckily, our group didn't go first. That's always a terrifying proposition. If you go at any point afterwards, you get to observe how the other groups put together their presentations and you can take pointers. It's not that there's a competitive element to this at all, though. One of the things that I absolutely love about this program (and I guess, the library profession, from the limited amount of exposure I've had to it at this early juncture) is that everyone supports each other and everyone is (generally speaking) nice to each other. We're all in this together. With all that said, I did want to put together a good presentation and to get a good grade. I must say that I really enjoyed the Censorship & Banned Books presentation. This is perhaps a personal bias. If it wasn't for the copyright/fair use/file-sharing group that I was a part of, this is the group I would've been in. I liked finding out which books were banned somewhere and which ones were challenged.

Then it came time for our presentation. I thought that the other members of my group did a fantastic job. I must especially thank Jen Gould for putting it all together on PowerPoint. The slides looked fantastic! As for my own segment on file-sharing, I thought that my presentation was OK, but I forgot to list some pros and cons. After I got to my points, there just wasn't any more time (not that I was watching the clock) and yeah, I just forgot. Sorry! I did allude to them more than once, though. I hope that all of you who were there enjoyed it (but maybe that's asking too much).

I love how our presentation topics (copyright, fair use and file-sharing) and the current readings we're doing for LIS 2000 are so perfectly tied in together. I absolutely can't wait to get to Lawrence Lessig's books. I'm in the middle of Digital Copyright now and it seems like a logical extension of Viral Spiral, which I loved.

By the time of the last presentation (The Future of Librarianship), we had run out of time. It was 12:15 and one more presenter (Apryl Gillis) had yet to make her points. However, because several faculty members had arrived just for the occasion, the presentation was delayed in favor of said faculty members making points about the archives and other programs. My advisor, Dr. Courier, was there and ideally I would've liked to stick around to ask him some questions. However, I know that he's also available by e-mail and that I may get to see him in October when we come back to Pittsburgh. It's not really an issue now since I know what I'm taking in the fall (I'm finishing up my required courses before going on to the electives). So after the Future of Librarianship group finally got to finish their presentation, we were done! Well not quite yet. Amiya wanted to take a class picture so we went to the stairway on Allen and had our picture taken there. I'll be honest here. I hate getting my picture taken and it was the 3rd time over the past 4 days that it had happened. However, I didn't mind it this time as I enjoyed meeting everyone and I'm a really big fan of the program so far.

After all was said and done, a bunch of us (me, Ian, Jenny P., Becky and Nathaniel) went to lunch at Food for Thought. This time I had the reuben, which was just as great as the corned beef sandwich I'd had there a few days before. After lunch, I said my goodbyes to everyone except Jenny (since we drove back to Philadelphia together) and Nathaniel, who walked back to the hotel with me. After getting my luggage (which the hotel held for me during the morning after I checked out), Jenny picked me a few minutes later and we were on the road. The drive back, I'm happy to report, was about as quick as the drive there. By the time we got to the Philly suburbs (which are very heavy traffic-wise around rush hour on I-76), it was a bit past 7, so we avoided most of the evening rush. Thanks again to Jenny for driving me there and back (5 hours each way).

As for my final thoughts, well I had a blast. It's nice to be in a totally new city for 4-5 days, though it's nice to be home, too. Pittsburgh is a lovely, walkable, interesting town (and boy do they love their burgers/sandwiches) and I can't wait to go back in October. I hope to see the Warhol Museum, Phipps Conservatory, Carnegie Library, the Pirates' stadium (if we don't go during the All-Star break next summer like we did this time around) and other sites that I missed this time around, though I'll have to take what I can get with our workload!

Fast Track Weekend/On-Campus Learning Experience (part 3)

Where we left off on Monday night, I stayed up until 1 AM doing reading, editing my segment of the presentation (and composing an annotated bibliography) and what not (oh and posting my thoughts on both Viral Spiral and Everything is Miscellaneous). Thus, perhaps I wasn't at my freshest on Tuesday. I set my alarm to 7 every day except Sunday (where I set it to 8), which didn't leave too much time to walk down to campus by 8:30-9 (the range of when we started at Allen Hall each day). Skipping the hotel breakfast and forgoing both Crazy Mocha's coffee (which, again, is excellent)and Bruegger's Bagels (OK at best), I decided to try Cafe Brioche, which is conveniently located directly across the street from Allen. Anyway, I can't recommend it enough for a quick breakfast! Their egg and chesse croissants and iced coffee are both excellent. I would end up grabbing another one on Wednesday.

First up was a "combined session" on LIS 2000 and LIS 2600 between 8:30 and 11. After that, we walked over to the SIS building and although we were scheduled to meet with Elizabeth Mahoney, we were in a computer lab with another librarian. We went over the answers to a questionnaire that they had given us yesterday. In the interest of not being unprepared for this (even though it wasn't being graded), I attempted to answer all of the questions on the sheet. All involved using the Pitt libraries site and I managed to figure out 3 of the 5 questions on my own. Of course, this attempted to me not getting that much sleep the night before, but that's the trade-off.

Oh, I should also mention that my group was able to meet after the combined session and before we went to the SIS building again. Originally, we were scheduled to meet right after the SIS presentation, but this left the entire day and evening open.

Given the SIS's building proximity to the bus stop at Forbes and S. Craig, I wandered over to S. Craig to catch the 61C bus to Squirrel Hill. I'd also spent part of the previous evening writing down directions related to my plans for the "exploratorium". Luckily, this proved really handy. Before catching the bus, though, I wandered over to a record store on S. Craig called Desolation Row. It's not really a record store, but just a new CD and vinyl section and a decent used CD section in a corner of a used bookstore called Calihan Book Shop that's visible from the street. I didn't get anything there and though I was a bit hungry, I decided to try a place I'd heard about in Squirrel Hill (Uncle Sam's) and so I held off. After the 61C bus didn't come for 20 minutes, I gave up on got on the 61B bus. It said "Forbes/Squirrel Hill", so I figured I'd get off somewhere there and take it from there. I asked the sullen bus driver if she went to the corner of Forbes and Murray and she didn't even answer me. Oh well.

Despite this unpleasant encounter, here's where Pittsburgh's Port Authority buses have a huge advantage over the SEPTA buses here in Philly or for that matter, the MTA buses in New York City. Near the front, there's a screen that reads off the cross streets at each stop! That's a common sense solution that so many other bus systems should adopt, but don't. So anyway, once the sign said Murray, I got off. Squirrel Hill is nice. Really nice. It's loaded with restaurants and other shops of all sorts and there's a bustling commercial strip along a few blocks of Forbes. My ultimate destination was Jerry's Records (which I'll get to later), but first it was lunch at Uncle Sam's. I'd heard from some food bloggers that the one in Oakland isn't quite as good as the other locations, so I decided to try the one here. Let me tell you, it didn't not disappoint. It got an oddly-named Italian sausage sandwich that really hit the spot. Now onto record shopping!

Murray Street, like much of the rest of Pittsburgh, seems to reside on a large hill, so of course walking down 4-5 blocks to get to Jerry's was fine. If you're a record collector, Jerry's is definitely a great place to visit. Most of the records are $3 and they have almost every kind of music you can imagine on vinyl (including soundtracks, exotica, novelty records by Hollywood stars, etc.) and not a single CD. I know there are lots of record collectors still out there and a younger generation of music listeners who didn't grow up with CDs and eschew downloads for vinyl (or combine both, in some cases), but I wonder how this place survives. It doesn't seem to have too many new releases or rarities that pull in a lot of cash, either. In any case, I'm glad that it's still there, as it looks like it hasn't changed in 30 years or so. I will say that the hostility towards CDs and anything else digital in general is a little off-putting. I love vinyl, but I have room in my life for CDs and mp3s as well. What was also off-putting was the owner's seemingly anti-Philadelphia attitude. I realize that people from Pittsburgh have pride in their city. That's fine. If I lived there, I would, too. It's a GREAT town and I can't wait to go back there in October. But I just don't understand the rivalry between it and Philadelphia. It goes both ways, too, of course. I didn't grow up in PA, so I guess I'll never get it. From my vantage point, Pittsburgh seems to have way more in common with Philly than with most of the rest of Pennsylvania, but whatever. Anyway I got a Will Rigby Lp and an Lp by a band called Senator Flux, both sealed. They were $3 and $5 each, respectively. Awesome!

After walking up the hill to Forbes to catch the 61B and then walking from the Forbes/S. Craig corner (I looked for a 54C but couldn't find one, so I just walked it) back to my hotel, I was drenched in sweat! I had to meet Ian for dinner and was running late. After changing and making myself look halfway decent in record time, we went to Tessaro's in Bloomfield (I think). This place is known as a must for burger fans and it definitely lived up to its reputation. The beer (a locak brew on draft, though I forgot the name) was great, too! After dinner, we headed over to the Southside Flats neighborhood (E. Carson St. reminds me a bit of South St. here in Philadelphia) to see Black Francis of the Pixies play a solo show at Club Cafe. Initially, we got a little lost in Bloomfield and ended up in Lawrenceville. The directions I'd written down were from the hotel, so I realized that we had to go back to North Oakland before going over the Birmingham Bridge. Luckily, there were signs everywhere and it's not too far from Oakland, so were able to find E. Carson St. in the course of a few minutes. The show was sold out, but fortunately I was on the guest list (thanks Adam at Magnum PR), so we didn't have any problems. The show was great. He started at 8, played for over 2 hours and entertained questions from a local radio DJ (a station was broadcasting the first hour of the concert) as well entertaining requests from the audience. And yes, there were lots of Pixies songs! After that, we were both tired, so we went back to the hotel, where I checked my e-mail to make sure everything was OK with our presentation and then went off to bed.

Best Buy

Although I'm generally not a fan of big box stores (don't get me started on how they've undercut independent record stores with their pricing and exclusive deals with artists), I found this article interesting. Now you're probably wondering what this has to do with librarianship. I just found an interesting parallel between their future survival plan and that of libraries. This is something that's been discussed in LIS 2000 since the beginning of the term and it was covered repeatedly during our on-campus session as well. Basically, not only do libraries have to market themselves more effectively, but the new model will definitely involve what Best Buy's doing now (i.e. lots of technological assistance for patrons).

Blogger, It’s Not Nice to Leak Guns N’ Roses Songs

This article relates to the presentation that my group did for LIS 2000 on Wednesday. Specifically, it relates to the file sharing aspect that I did my segment on. This is yet another example of the record industry not realizing that bloggers can actually HELP them sell records. It's free publicity! In the end, Chinese Democracy turned out to be a massive commercial disappointment, and after a 15-year wait. I'm not saying that if this guy hadn't been sued, it would have done better, but it's just ridiculous that they're still so afraid of this now not-so-new technology that they don't think that they can use the help. Sigh.

On a somewhat related note, I saw Tommy Stinson, Guns 'N Roses' bass player, perform with The Figgs about a month ago here in Philly at a small bar called the Tritone. The Figgs backed Tommy on one of his solo tours (after The Replacements broke up, he formed Bash and Pop and Perfect before joining Guns 'n Roses and embarking upon a solo career). Apparently he lives in Media (about 30 minutes outside of here)!

Fast Track Weekend/On Campus Learning Experience (Part 2)

Well Monday morning was the first "real" day of this whole thing. I walked down to campus (a fun and brisk walk since it's all downhill on Bigelow; I can't say the same for the walks back uphill, but at least it's good exercise), got great coffee from Crazy Mocha and an OK breakfast sandwich from Bruegger's Bagels and schlepped up to Allen. After Sunday, me and Jenny had both decided that it would be ludicrous to drive there given how close each of our hotels were to campus. And besides, we both like walking. Anyway, after getting our pictures taken and after the LIS 2600 presentation by Dr. Tomer, we got to have lunch on our own. I am thankful to Dr. Alman for many reasons, but one of them is listing Food for Thought in her "places to eat in Oakland" guide. This place makes a seriously great corned beef sandwich. "Really good" is an understatement. Do not miss this place if you're in Pittsburgh and into that sort of thing. Afterwards, I dragged Ian B. (who also accompanied me for lunch) to Wicked Discs, one of the record stores on S. Craig St.(one of the shopping strips in Oakland), where in the limited amount of time we had to browse there, I got a vinyl copy of Government Issue's You Lp. Overall, the store was small and cool, though a bit pricey.



After hustling back to Allen and getting in a few minutes late (sorry), we got to attend the "Introduction to the Profession" seminar. I must say that I really enjoyed this part of the learning experience and I think I learned quite a lot from the librarians in various fields. I think I've decided that I'd like to at least take the Introduction to Archives class as an elective, though I don't think I can commit to the entire track. I don't wanna place all of my eggs in one basket, especially not before I try out of the classes. I also think that school librarianship is probably not for me, though Joe Prince had what was by far the most memorable presentation due to Hamburgheruesa (I hope I'm spelling that correctly), a toy llama that he uses in his library at North Allegheny Middle School that even has its own e-mail address (I distinctly remember hamburgheruesarules@gmail.com). Although it's not my field of interest, Joe seems tailor-made for it (as a former English teacher) and he knows how to market his library and the profession itself quite effectively. Amy Watson's presentation interested me as well and later, I found out that we have a mutual friend who works for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in lower Manhattan. As she said, the world of libraries is quite small! And I don't think anyone in Cohort 9 will forget Barbara Epstein's presentation. I don't wanna mention it because it's so grizzly, but it's certainly memorable! Of the different tracks, I can see myself in academic, public, special libraries and maybe archiving as well and all for different reasons. It's tough to decide so early on, especially with only a little bit of experience (all volunteer) in my chosen field.

After our walk to SIS, we got to meet Elizabeth Mahoney and another member of the SIS faculty along with several library employees. I wasn't sure where to go for dinner afterwards and eventually settled on Ali Baba's on S. Craig St. It was pretty good, but not great. It was an absolutely gorgeous evening (slightly cool with virtually no humidity and mostly clear), so I found a bench somewhere on 5th Avenue and read Viral Spiral (an excellent book which may be my favorite of everything we've had to read for LIS 2000, but again more on that later). After that, I hoofed it back to the hotel, where I worked on my bullet points for the book discussion for Viral Spiral and Everything is Miscellaneous while somehow managing to watch the season premiere of No Reservations. I also worked on some stuff for our group presentation as well. Fortunately, we managed to finish most of the work for our group presentation before we arrived on campus, but there was still work to be done (annotated bibiliographies, et al.) along with, as ever, more reading before submitting my thoughts on our readings into Course Documents.

My Crazy Life

Well, I just wanted to let you all that I got a new job earlier this week. I know what you all are thinking and no, I'm not asking for sympathy. Everyone in the program is busy, often to an insane degree. I am, however, feeling more than a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Today was my second day and to say the least, this month will be very busy for me. Thankfully, I'm off tomorrow and though we have a busy weekend ahead of us (including a wedding on Saturday; yep, our friends are getting married on the 4th), I think I should have enough time between tomorrow and Sunday to finish up my work for both this class and LIS 2000 as well.

And speaking of LIS 2000, I participated in my first Skype session today. It was a conference call to talk about the group presentation we have to do for that class during our on-campus session in Pittsburgh in a few weeks. I have to get a mic set up to be able to participate fully in the next session, but it was still cool to use it for the first time. When I downloaded Skype (which was a bear to download, BTW; I had to download the full version since the original executable file I downloaded didn't work and then I had to change the extension to .exe to get it to open, but hey it worked), I also unwittingly downloaded Google Chrome, which I'm using for the first time tonight. I really like it a lot so far. I don't know if it'll eventually replace Firefox (I can't stand IE) as my default browser, but so far so good. It seems very intuitive and easy to use.

Also, back to 2600, when do you all think we'll get our grades for the last few assignments?