Free Range Librarian

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First bud of spring, originally uploaded by freerangelibrarian.

This was such a rainy spring that it’s as if we were back east again: it’s late April, and I have just spied my first bud. This is on Dazzler, one [...]

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It’s sunny today, Palo Alto sunny, warm and beautiful. I’ve been at work since O’dark-thirty, doing the weekly publishing thang, and I’m taking a ginger ale and blogging break for a minute.
Here at My Place Of Work I’ve been dealing with the budget issues–more on that when I have news, assuming it’s the sort [...]

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Keith Fiels just reported that Conference Services denied having a policy of not posting room numbers–but another councilor had already corroborated the practice, so I’m not buying that response. But the big take-away is that it looks as if CS won’t put its own policy into practice this time. Good deal! Now if only the [...]

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“We were asked, for the first time this conference to keep meeting locations confidential, at the request of ALA Conference Services…”
According to a Councilor posting to the Council list, the American Library Association is employing a new tool in the War on Terrorism: for the ALA conference in New Orleans–you know, the sub-sea-level city with [...]

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I cannibalize the current quarterly report from the last quarterly report because, well, because I’m a lazy cuss and besides, it makes it easier to keep my story straight. But once in a while I read something I wrote in the pitched fever of report deadlines that uncurves my spine for a moment.
In January, writing [...]

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Here’s the source of all ills with Wikipedia: it’s those pesky “librarian types,” mucking up what was a perfectly good encyclopedia.
Or so says a commenter on a blog entry by danah boyd recounting the perplexing history of the Wikipedia entry supposedly about her: “I stopped contributing regularly [to Wikipedia] a while ago because keeping [...]

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Draft of the Major Project, originally uploaded by freerangelibrarian.

This is the first draft of my major project. It looks thick now–231 pages, not counting errata–but not all of these essays will make it through the first review. I [...]

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Vintage Didion (Vintage Original)
by Joan Didion

This isn’t the collection I would begin with if I were starting with Didion; I’d start with The White Album or Slouching Toward Bethlehem. But it has great cover art (a photo of Didion) and two essays by her I return to repeatedly: “Girl of the Golden West,” a near-perfect [...]

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As Michael Stephens, Jenny Levine, and Michael Golrick have already noted, Mary Ghikas has started blogging! She’s the second-in-command at ALA, after Keith Fiels. The title of her blog includes my favorite color, green, and my favorite TV character–Captain Kangaroo. (Though I was also partial to Mr. Greenjeans.)
I’d like to expound on the significance [...]

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Sarah Houghton had a highly readable, far less stream-of-consciousness summary of Michael Porter’s class, which she attended the day after I did. I note her comments re Open Worldcat:
“Michael showed us Open WorldCat, including the ‘Reviews’ tab for each item where people can add their own reviews. This feature isn’t being used much yet, [...]

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