dave lacrone : blog

My inbox this morning contained one of those ubiquitous forwarded messages from database sales representatives introducing the library to new or forthcoming products. This one was from Newsbank for a database called "Access Blogs."

In a nutshell, here is the idea

"with millions of blogs available on countless topics, searching the web for those that are relevant and respected can be time-consuming and unrewarding. With Access Blogs, however, more than 1,500 of the world’s most useful and reliable blogs—including those written by newspaper reporters, editors and other journalists—are now easily accessible within a single, fully searchable collection."

Interesting. In one sense Newsbank is addressing the central concern of those who decry the increasing de-professionalization of news production, and the overreliance on opinion-based writing. They will pick out the best and brightest blogs for you--people with solid credentials, a background in journalism or widespread acceptance.

In other sense Newsbank is validating blogs as useful and even authoritative sources of news and information. The product overview even goes so far as to say that blogs "Enhance research by adding valuable perspectives and commentary to traditional news coverage." Granted this is a mixed message. Yes, blogs are useful for research, but only in combination with other traditionally accepted modes of publication.

But I'll bet Access Blogs won't get far. No I haven't seen it, I'm only guessing at the content, the interface and the opportunities for interaction. But here are my concerns:

1. Blogs are free and easily accessible already. It's the web, people--there are search engines, friends, and online communities that can point us in the direction of blogs we want to read. I'm not sure that most people buy the 'information overload' argument Newsbank is trying to make. The fact that they advertise that Access Blogs can be accessed easily from home is hardly a selling point. I deftly avoid a rant about offsite authentication and simply state this is not easier.

2. When is a blog not a blog? When it's rendered behind an authentication mechanism with a dull, corporate interface. From the overview: "NewsBank’s powerful search capabilities and intuitive interface, patrons can track topics over time, pinpoint relevant content and browse specific blogs." Yes, Newsbank's search is good and the interface works reasonably well in its latest incarnation. But part of the appeal of blogs are the trappings: unique templates, blogrolls, widgets, etc. Even corporate blogs pay homage to these blogging conventions. Will photos be included or will it be akin to Newsbank's Access World News which merely presents a sea of black and white HTML text?

3. Comments? Anyone? Can we read comments? In the best scenarios, the good stuff happens in the comments section. If Newsbank is obtaining the content, how are they dealing with comments? Are they presenting posts as a series of static articles? I'd venture a guess...Yes.

4. Who are these mysterious bloggers? I wonder if prospective buyers can see a list of blogs included in the database. These are not journals or magazines we are talking about, but free online entities. Hell, if I had the list of blogs I could probably make my own version of Access Blogs. Not that I would ever do such a thing.

There are lots more observations to be made. Suffice it to say that I think this venture is at best suspicious. But maybe I'm just a curmudgeon.

I'll always have a soft spot for the library system at University of Iowa. Back in 1999, I was a listless 26 year old, desperately trying to make my way in Iowa City, fresh off an unproductive (and occasionally self-destructive) four years in Chicago.

Iowa was a fresh start for me in many ways, but the most important thing it gave me was professional direction. The Circulation staff at Iowa Libraries hired me away from a clerk position at the Hospital cafeteria, where I was succeeding but not happy. My stint in Cirulation, Reserve and Interlibrary Loan was my first foray into Library Land, and the first time I had ever enjoyed work.

Thanks to this experience I received a very firm grounding in academic libraries and circulation procedures which continues to inform my work to this day. Eventually, I realized that I needed a Library degree in order to effect change and think about things on a higher level and eventually I got it.

Well, needless to say the news that Iowa City is experiencing flooding has been pretty troubling to me. Part of the reason, apart from simple human empathy, is that I know the Main Library, and it is vulnerable.

Check out the evacuation timeline which is posted on the library's website

Part of this mini-narrative is inspiring. The fact that so many people helped out, the train of people passing books around corners and up stairs, the spirit of cooperation that people demonstrate in times of crisis.

But I hope the Library learns something as well. When I left Iowa in 2003, the storage area was in the basement, apparently that is still the case. This area contained a lot of back issues of journals from all the branches (mostly engineering), underused books, hard copies of old theses, old dewey books, huge music scores, and duplicate copies of books in the main collection. Many of these items were of dubious value, but many were not. We had a Library Assistant whose entire job was to maintain the storage area, fill requests, and communicate with the originating libraries. Multiple books from storage were requested each day. Storage was probably more heavily used than some active open stacks collections in the system.

Preservation and book repair was also located in the basement. I won't begin to point out the obvious irony of that, except to say that preservation is a program, not a series of individual tasks. Preservation involves the entire way your library is structured physically, as well as the programs in place for dealing with potential disaster. It sounds like the latter was very well thought-out, given the efficiency of the book relocation.

The timeline also describes the process of moving special collections materials to the fifth floor study room. Special Collection materials in the basement. Sigh.

The basement is also home to the CIC film collection and an esoteric, uncataloged and moldy group of training films, shorts and other weirdness.

As tempting as it may be to blame library staff and administration for the situation, it is just too easy. Librarians aren't dumb. Most of us took a lot of the same classes, have heard the same horror stories. The Libraries were trying to get an offsite storage facility five or six years ago. I don't know what ever became of that. The building in general was very tight on space. A really active and creative bookstacks team majorly shifted entire floors while I worked there to compensate.

And most importantly, Librarians didn't decide to put the building on a flood plain. In fairness, much of the campus is in jeopardy from the simple fact that the University is bisected by a river. But libraries are the institutional memory of a campus. Research libraries contain items that are rare, important and irreplaceable.

Let's hope that the basement makes it through OK. To be honest I'm still in the process of figuring out the current status of the library in all of this. I know that it is currently evacuated and most of the valuable materials have been relocated. But I'll wager there is plenty left down there.

In the meantime, check out a video of the book-train at UI Main Library.

Encyclopaedia Britannica announced this week that it is opening up its content to users, wiki-style.

Way to strike while the iron is hot, guys.

Most reactions around the web consist of unbridled pleasure at this apparent submission to Wikipedia's publication model. But I'm not so giddy, because it doesn't seem like Wikipedia's model at all. From the Britannica blog post:

"As part of our longstanding tradition, engaging a prominent community of scholars will continue to be a key requirement. With this new site and initiatives we will be able to recruit new members beyond our current contributor base, through recommendations from existing contributors, applications from expert communities, and by inviting select members of our user community."

Does that sound like Wikipedia to you? How about this:

"Interested users will be able to prepare articles, essays, and multimedia presentations on subjects in which they’re interested. Britannica will help them with research and publishing tools and by allowing them to easily use text and non-text material from Encyclopaedia Britannica in their work."

Isn't that great? They will let us use Britannica as a source while adding to Britannica's knowledge base.

Really go read the post - there is a lot of talk about professional scholarship there. I think they seriously overestimate the academic credentials of the average Wikipedia contributor. Britannica is trying to have it both ways. And while they are having it both ways, they want you to contribute to their for-profit enterprise which they can use to sell 30 volume, leather bound tomes to libraries and wealthy, overzealous parents with gifted children. The beauty of Wikipedia is that users are contributing to a freely available public resource that can be used by anyone for any purpose.

Here's the best part: user-submitted content that has been verified and approved by Britannica editors will be blessed with the label "Britannica Checked."

I think the biggest issue is that Britannica is not free, and Wikipedia is. It seems like they may be fixing that? But is this clear to anyone? If by "Users" they refer to people who ponied up the money for subscriptions, then this is really no announcement at all. It will be a pathetic publishing outlet for late career professors at middling universities who just don't care anymore.

I designate you "Britannica Checked"

Libraries did not stop purchasing Britannica because of Wikipedia, either in print or online forms. When I was a student (not long ago!) and needed an encyclopedia, I used the Library's online subscription to Britannica. It was good information, I didn't have to "worry" about the content of Wikipedia.

But if I wanted to know what years Starsky & Hutch aired on TV, or find out when Whitney Houston said "crack is wack" then Wikipedia is the way to get the job done.

Open content has taught us all a lot about how information can be assembled, crafted and constructed, but Wikipedia is not Britannica (Wikipedia is Funk & Wagnalls--zing!). So this announcement seems a little lame, because it doesn't address to core issues of price, accessibility, and openness. As far as I'm concerned Britannica could go on being Britannica.

When I was about 12 years old I submitted an ad to a feature called "Hello Out There" in a publication called Gifted Children's Monthly. This was basically a newsletter for parents and students classified as "advanced" in some way. I'm not sure the term "gifted" is still in common usage, but my mother was very much into the concept and considered me and all her children to be exceptionally bright and not sufficiently challenged by school. So she was involved in Gifted children's organizations to be sure that the need of smarty pants kids like me were being adequately met in our schools.

I won't address the degree to which my giftedness was or wasn't true because that's another post altogether.

Anyhow, I wrote a nice little bio for "Hello Out There" soliciting pen pals from readers of the newsletter all across the country. I don't remember the exact verbage but it went something like this:

"Hi, I'm Dave and I'm 12 years old. I love playing dungeons and dragons, reading fantasy novels, Star Trek, listening to Led Zeppelin really loud, and writing poetry. I love to write and promise answer every single letter."

They published it about 2 years later.

So needless to say, a dork parade ensued. I got letters every day from kids across the USA who were card-carrying trekkies, 11th level clerics and a smaller assortment of metalheads (which is what we called 'em in those days).

Well, before I knew it I had about 30 or 40 pen pals, most of whom I didn't care one whit about. But you see, I promised to respond the every single letter! So 9th grade for me was spent largely writing letters in my room, experimenting with my literary persona and revealing intimate details of my life to people I'd never meet.

Fortunately I did encounter several very interesting and memorable characters. One girl, let's call her JT, was a committed heavy metal lover. She lived in central Florida, loved Metallica, King Diamond, Exodus, Megadeth etc and was also a talented budding guitar player. She's the first person my age I knew to lose her virginity and I hadn't even met her yet. She learned batik, calligraphy, and all sort of crazy crafty shit I'd never even heard of. We wrote each other letters that were 10, 20, 30 pages long...full of teen angt, rambling poetry, ruminations on the best Jethro Tull song, guitar tablitures, and any number of other ridiculousness.

Her friend, I.S. also became my pen pal and, even though he was a year or two younger, became somewhat of a teenage idol of mine, due to his strength of character, impeccable white trash pedigree, and ability to grow both long hair and a skimpy Kirk-Hammett-esque mustache.

We all corresponded for several years and I finally went up to Volusia County, Fla. to visit them on the Greyhound. I remember little about the experience except hanging out with weirdo metalheads who were way older than us, walking around aimlessly a lot and drinking what would become the first of many tallboys. One girl had converse sneakers witht he Batman logo on them so that puts it about 1989 I suppose.

Other pen pals I had were less important to me, but equally as memorable. There was the girl who I thought was a boy until we had been corresponding for about a year. She had one of those sexually ambiguous names. Of course, as soon as I realized she was female, I developed a pen pal crush on her. Then she became vaguely suicidal in that teenage sort of way and I spent the rest of our writing relationship trying to talk her down off a ledge. She was way too into Rocky Horror anyway and I eventually lost touch.

Others stay with me, too. In fact the impetus for this whole post is an email I recieved the other day from a guy I wrote with for several years back in the 80's. We never became overly close because his politics were extremely right wing. But we still wrote each other for at least a couple years.

The long and short of it is that pen pals have probably become a thing of the past. Blogging is a much more efficient medium, and I definitely see them as related means of expression. Pen palling is way more personal of course. I mean, once I.S. mailed me a letter writen on an entire roll of toilet paper. He wrapped it up, wrote an address and it arrived with about 1.04 postage due.

But blogging is close. Definitely not as special but the same impulse to connect with people drives one to participate. You need a certain amount of anonymity combined with a willingness to be confessional combined with a fearlessness that drives the whole enterprise.

For whatever reason i fell out of touch with all of my pen pals. It makes sense. My closest writing friends JT and IS lost touch when I went to facny college up north and discovered girls, alcohol and punk rock. Others just sort of slipped by the wayside. Teenagers can move on in a way adults cannot.

So, I have lots more stories about pen pals, but I think I've decided to protect their anonymity and my own dignity in keeping it all to myself. These are some of the fondest memories of my adolescence. You see, I've kept every pen pal letter I received from 1987 to about 1993. The pencil on osme letters is fading and soon I will have to decide whether to scan or not to scan.

What does one do with such remnants of youth?

Over lunch the other day, a local blogger, Meesha V. claimed that cowboy boots were invented in Olathe, Kansas. He has good reason to think this, because the city itself advertises the fact in a very public fashion. In an unsurprising development, the city has embraced this historically suspect claim to fame and entrenched it in a public art project. To celebrate the city's sesquicentennial, oversized boot sculptures were installed across Olathe, decorated in various themes related to town, country and history. You know, like those stupid cows that everyone copied from Chicago, circa 1999.

What is undeniable is that Olathe was home to a very important boot maker, Hyer Boot company. The linked article from the Kansas State Historical Society contains a very telling line that reads,

"Tradition credits Charles Hyer as one of the first to invent the cowboy boot."

Tradition huh? Like other claims to fame, this one is shrouded in the obfuscating mists of time and the desire for notoriety. But that doesn't mean it's not true.

So in the spirit of goodwill, I'll present some photos of the Hyer boot company, courtesy of JoCoHistory.net, a local collaboration of Johnson County Historical organizations which happens to be the current object of my employment.

All photos come from the Johnson County Museum collection. Clic photos to use the image viewer on the jocohistory site.

Hyer boot and shoe company employees. Note the young boy in the front row

More employees outside the Hyer factory in 1920

An interesting look inside the factory, circa 1895. Note the news poster on the wall announcing the Sino-Japanese War

Hyer workshop in 1910

Work order for a pair of boots for Will Rogers

A.E. Hyer (perhaps the founder's son?) in 1938 in a photo for a local newspaper.

Some time in the 1970's the Hyer company was bought out and continued operations at another Olathe location for a while. Not sure if an incarnation still exists. The original factory building is still known as the "Hyer Building" and was home to the Olathe Tap Room in the 1970s.

Read even more about Hyer Boot company here!

OK this is a loaded title for a blog post but I have very specific ideas about what constitutes a great song. AC/DC writes great songs, Led Zeppelin wrote a few, hell so did Barry Manilow. But I'm talking about flawless writing, production, vocals, performance and execution, the kinds of songs that are very special to you, particularly after a cocktail or five. The kinds of songs that slay you when you hear them. The kind that can never be repeated by another artist.

I know they are out there for y'all.

And this is cheesy territory because no one is gonna say that "Smoke on the Water" brings tears to their eyes. But some songs just work so well, whether they are famous, old, new, popular, personally meaningful or whatever. For instance I'm sure a lot of cornballs have "Imagine" on their list and that is totally appropriate. It's a little much for me, but could anyone else have done it better? Is there any way Lennon could have improved on the way it sounded and the way he sang?

I doubt it.

Of course the views reflected on this blog are mine alone and represent a highly idiosyncratic albeit refined and distinguished musical sensibility.

I've posted a few of my choices here and I'll continue to do so as long as the PBR affects me.

God this song kills me. I could have a whole list of nothing but beach boys. The lead vocals, while not as showy as "God only knows" and some others, are pure and delicious. The backing vocals are pure beach boys goodness, accentuated by some crazt stereo separation. Dig it.

Penned by legendary drunkard and addict Gram Parson, this song probably stand out as his most haunting and well-formed work. The simplest of chord progressions and a lovely lyric don;t compromise its status as a country-rock gem.

In the realm of Bacharach and David, it is hard for one song to stand out more than any other. But something about the melody here and the way it builds really makes it stand out. I have many versions in my own collection but I think the Dionne is by far the best. Shelby Lynne recently sang one on her album of Dusty Springfied songs that is a nice, stripped down arrangement. She just doesn't have the pipes though.