While I was on the road, the Twitterverse got into an uproar over some strange delisting of GLBT titles on Amazon, with much finger-pointing and flinging of scarves and whatnot. This was called AmazonFAIL, for the hashtag that was appended to a million angry tweets.

The disadvantage of microblogging is the tendency toward microthinking coupled with hairtrigger reactions. I posted twice about Amazonfail; in one tweet I mused, “@RonHogan perhaps pubs are slow to respond to #amazonfail becuz they are gathering info? I like the rogue insider theory.”

But why gather facts? Far more fun for the nattering chorus of the Twitterverse — a quilting bee that can work itself into a buzz in no time — to scream, “Crucify Amazon!”  Did Amazon make mistakes? Undoubtedly. The biggest mistake was not to have a presence on Twitter — an officer for tweeting to monitor and react to the gathering storms. In this, Amazon was tragically unprepared (in a way that Dell, Comcast, Zappos, and other companies are not unprepared).

Note that often it is the unofficial presences — the real people and voices — that are most effective on the social networks — though that itself gets complex, as we see below.

But a week later and the easily-distractable Twitterverse has trotted off in new directions.  To really understand what happened would take more than a few cool-kid tweets. It would take the kind of measured, thoughtful investigation that is increasingly undervalued, even by “information specialists” such as librarians.

Meanwhile, I’m off to Amazon to order vacuum cleaner bags. (Oops! Did I accidentally slip a book in my order?)

You Cannot Crowdsource Individuality

Whenever people romanticize the “hive mind” and social networking, I am reminded of a couple of things.

The first is that there have been any number of times when the majority has been wrong (pace the reelection of George Bush — we’ll give 2000 a pass, since he didn’t win that one, in my opinion).

I also tweeted this week that we do not live in the aggregate, we live in the particular. This was in response to a comment from Clay Shirky about how Wikipedia “works.” Wikipedia “works” the way high school “worked.” In other words, power and popularity will nearly always trump quality and individuality.  Do I use Wikipedia quite a bit? I do. But I also attended high school every day. Some things are unavoidable.

My comment also applies more broadly to what I see as the disturbing crowd-mentality trends of new social networks.

Oh, the social networks. Overall, I hated high school, except for a handful of sui generis outliers who I am now catching up with online and who have had the best revenge — interesting, satisfying lives. Now I seem to be back in high school, only worse. The social networks too often have short memories, trigger reactions, and even more horribly, crowd mores. We’re on our way to the Precious Moments Interweb I have always dreaded… a bland, fast-food “community.”

Beer and Censorship

Then I noticed a couple of posts had come in on my post about the sexism — and more crucially, censorship — of homebrewtalk.com. Q.v.:

“I’m sorry you got a bad impression of HBT (homebrewtalk.com) on your visit. It IS a very male-heavy hobby, but I’ve never been treated with anything but welcome and generosity by the members of the board. I guess it helps if you have a ribald sense of humor and can handle a combination of 1)male flattery and 2) tongue-in-cheek sexism.”

This is what we call the big lie. I hung around this board for several weeks before exploring the “premium” membership and posting my critique. I didn’t have a problem with homebrewtalk.com; the forum moderators — call it a “board” if you like it, but it’s a company run for a profit — are the fainting lilies that censored MY posts.

In other words, homebrewtalk.com can dish it out — charging $100 for a private forum with special access to wimmin with big bezooms, yucking it up on the boards — but like most sexists, they can’t take what was really fairly mild criticism (because then it’s just not fun for them any more). And I should give them my money because..?

(Having saved $100, I spent $43 on a membership in the American Homebrewing Association, which among other things advocates for legalizing homebrewing. Libertarians take notice!)

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Literary essays accepted for publication: 3

Literary submissions rejected: 7 [Note: should be much higher; this means I didn't submit enough.]

Literary essays included in “Best Of” anthologies or nominated for the Pushcart Prize: 2

New essays started: 4

New essays completed: 1

Essays in SubmissionLand as of 12/28/30 12/28/08: 2

Trade articles published: 6

Posts to this blog: 143

Writing classes taken: 1

Writing workshops taught: 2

Writing critique groups led: 12

Backlog of books not finished reading: 21

Unread books received as gifts: 10

Unread books purchased in airports during “reading emergencies”: 3

Unread books purchased during Cormac McCarthy fixation: 3

Writing conferences attended: 1

Neologisms coined: 0

ALA committees/task forces served on: 3

Library conferences attended: 23 (approx)

Presentations/panels given: 17 (approx)

Number of times luggage lost by Delta: 3

Countries outside U.S. visited: 2 (Canada and Australia)

States visited in Australia: 5

Time zones crossed in Australia: 4

Jobs resigned: 1

Jobs quit on the spot: 0

New jobs started: 1

Hair color changes: 3

Hair style changes: 3

Hair stylist changes: 4

Number of times cell phone plans changed: 3

Orders placed with Amazon: 25

Amazon orders that included books: 16

Pairs of shoes purchased online: 6

Pairs of shoes purchased in stores: 0

Clothing purchases at White House, Black Market: 1

Catalogs for White House, Black Market received since that purchase:  6

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Want to share the gift of my writing? Of course you do! This year I had essays appearing in The Best Creative Nonfiction Volume 2 and Powder: Writing for Women in the Ranks. You  can find these books through online booksellers and have them shipped directly.

Or why not gift someone with a righteous year-end donation in their name? I’ve had several pleas for assistance from the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco, which helped me when I was researching an essay (not that they know me from bupkas) but more significantly was a big help to Gus van Sant and crew in the filming of Milk. What a tremendous crew they are.

But you could hardly go wrong with a charitable contribution this year — there’s so much need and so many good causes.

This holiday season, one that is quieter than many (a mostly good thing), one of the gifts I’m going to try to give — as much to myself as to others — is to follow up on people I care about… some who have recently touched base with me, some who have not. You just don’t get enough time with the people who matter to you.

Funny, my gifts these year are all about the gift of time, one way or the other. But I can’t share what they are or Santa will ask for them back!

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I get asked how I like being a Community Librarian for Equinox. Actually, the first question I get asked is, “So what is a Community Librarian?” … as if it were listed in the Occupational Outlook Handbook, and not some title I invented because I was avoiding the squinchy-feeling “open source evangelist” title, which would be just a little less uncomfortable than calling myself a Maverick or something like that.

This is a job in the process of invention, and it changes as need be. I do some inward-focused work related to Evergreen timelines, and I’m honchoing a documentation project, but most of my work is outward-faced. The first several months the focus was on catch-up in a few areas related to communications, getting some projecty stuff launched, and outreach to the original PINES libraries — to the point where someone asked me recently if I were “allowed” to visit libraries outside Georgia (since I was in Australia when this question was asked, the answer was a safe “yes”).

Now PINES has a project manager on board, and I can start to reinterpret my job in light of the broader Evergreen community. Yes, I speak, but I think my real outward-facing work (and the truest connection to open source “evangelism” or whatever you call it) is in the one-on-ones (face-to-face, virtual, whatever) and group visits, and even my writing on two blogs as well as the lists, where I’m teasing out community interests and hopes and concerns.

It’s much different than the traditional vendor relationship. This is the moment where some folk out there (not in the Evergreen community, to my knowledge) begin criticizing librarians for being unable to communicate with open source developers, but in my book, it’s a two-way street (if not a complex daisy-chain overpass). Everyone is in the process of learning how to do this, and it’s not simple but it’s very important.

Do I like it? Yes, indeed, and this isn’t just official flak. It’s a fun, dynamic job and I’m always feeling like there is far more to do than I can accomplish, which is how I like things. The Equinox folk are good people, and it’s a fascinating time to be part of all this.

If there is anything awkward, it isn’t related to my job, but my life. It’s that we’re in limbo here, so I am teleworking part of the time and sitting in a motel in Georgia at least one week per month, when I’m not on the road.

There’s nothing wrong with that, except that since I know we’re not here forever, I have this vaguely disconnected sense. I see something in a store, and I think, “But we’d have to move it.” (Note: this is not a bad reaction to acquiring Stuff.)

Places… I’m between them. Perhaps I’m post-geography. I don’t know Atlanta very well, and my only local connection in Tallahassee is with my writing friends. I don’t physically work in the Atlanta office enough hours to even hang a picture over my desk, and yet my home office feels a bit discordant too, since I’m in and out of it quite a bit. My personal writing has gotten off track, though I have the temporary excuse that I’m judging essays for a writing contest, which in addition to our monthly workshop review is more than enough to deal with. The only habit I have kept up is exercising, which I do 5-7 days per week.

Oddly enough, several days in Melbourne only sharpened my dysphoria. Melbourne is a lovely city about as old as San Francisco, with similar Gold Rush origins. It’s the first city I’ve been in for a long time that felt truly sui generis.

Some old cities feel like a set piece, some have had their souls rebuilt into chilly commercial canyons, but Melbourne has kept a lot of character (not without proactive help from its citizens). From the Vic Market (click on photo for a set of my food tour) to the funky little cafes in alleys (see this larger set), Melbourne resists being bottled. Sydney is beautiful and tidier, but Melbourne has broader shoulders and a way of tossing its hair that says, “I’ve been through a lot.”

Then again, life is transient. That may be part of it. Sandy and I have spent a fair amount of time of late reminiscing about life in other places — the churches she’s worked, the jobs I’ve had, the people we’ve shared times with, the places we’ve lived. Last night we couldn’t remember the details of our first Thanksgiving together.  (We spent our first Easter at Fudrucker’s, which is another story.)  Obviously nothing traumatic or amazing happened, or we’d have those details down pat.

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1. Start a professional conversation among concerned colleagues.

2. Publish articles in formal and informal forums.

3. Publish an entire issue of a peer-reviewed journal — the Journal of Access Services — where the sole contributor is the Annoyed Librarian.

The third answer is the correct one, however bizarre it sounds. But it gets better than that, because even though this stunt had plenty of coverage, it turns out that the journal’s editors weren’t in on the joke.

I am not going to dwell ad infinitum on the Annoyed Librarian. As others have observed, he or she (I’m not convinced AL is female) is obviously a well-placed librarian with a lot of pull — enough to bedazzle magazine owners, especially in financially desperate times. She or he has the gift of the gab, and good connections. Plus AL dwells in the dark side, a place that tempts with the glitter of obsidian.

The best we can all do in life is shed the things that give us grief and focus on our own excellence and the excellence of those around us. I have a lot of things on my mind: how to get everything done at work, the full set of memories I haven’t processed from Australia,  the economy, my writing workshop,  Obama’s administration picks, my Thanksgiving menu (which is trending toward oyster stew and pumpkin creme brulee, accompanied by a lovely bottle of wine Doug from CCLA gave me as a going-away gift). I will keep on track, even if the Library Bill of Rights itself gets replaced with the giggling screeds of AL.

I have even pushed away the knowledge that there is a library professor (should I tell you who it is? w)ho has told crowds of people that I am AL. The AL truly is a devil with an MLS.

The one thing that haunts me about Annoyed Librarian is my worry that when we find out who it is, the knowledge will cut like a knife.

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Emily at My Place Of Work took this great picture of me, and I thought since some of you haven’t met me in person (or know me from several hair colors ago) you might want to see what I look like, particularly in the hands of a good photographer.

This week, in between conferences, I also updated a lot of Me stuff scattered on the Web, including the pages on this blog that describe me and my writing.

I was very proud to add a link to The Best Creative Nonfiction Volume 2, due out in July 2008, in which you will find my essay, “Range of Desire.” But I was equally pleased — even relieved — to add a post-MFA essay, “Still Life on the Half-Shell,” to my list of publications. I’ve been worried I would become one of those MFAs Who Don’t Write.

I also propagated this picture as my standard photo for social software, bios, and so forth. I have several other backgrounds from this photo shoot that also work well — greenery and flowers — but as a Facebook friend noted, this picture captures a certain mischievousness that is very “me.”

Then I rummaged around for my c.v. and said, “If someone at MPOW needed this at the last minute for a grant application — or for that matter, a promotion — would I be happy with it?” The answer was “no,” so I updated that too.

I am not preoccupied with what one journalist I know once referred to as “the Karen Schneider brand.” If anything, I’m a bit too relaxed. But just as I sat back and admired myself two weeks ago after thoroughly updating my financial recordkeeping — that scrubbed-clean sensation of accounting for every nickel I spent or earned last year — I feel good for giving “Me, Inc.” a little spring cleaning.

One other thought spooling out of this activity is the need to mentor myself. I’m fortunate to have some great mentors out there — people who advise and guide and encourage me in my journey. But in the end, I’m responsible for maintaining and growing “the Karen Schneider brand.”

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Some of us presenting at CiL have expressed dismay, if not disbelief, that CiL would sink money into some funky enterprise-2.0-platform we didn’t need, or even have time for — particularly considering the source. But let me make this very clear: that’s a peripheral issue relative to the larger worth of this conference.

Many ITI conferences manage to pull together interesting people and topics in a tight, action-packed venue. I have seen many great programs at ITI conferences — most recently, I’m remembering Darlene Fichter talking about mashups, and Liz Lawley, for her keynote, dressed as her World of Warcraft avatar.

But I also remember the many breakfasts, lunches, dinners, coffees, cocktails, and even hallway hugs I’ve had with people I care about. My first CiL? I don’t recall the programs, though I know they were good. I remember running into Steve Kerchoff outside the hotel and grabbing lunch with him, and if the meals in my life were a pile of chits to trade away for a little more time, that one would be a keeper I’d squeeze tight in my writing hand.

You really don’t get enough time with the people in your life. It is really all so fleeting. And if the other stuff around those moments is good, all the better. When I asked a colleague at MPOW what he liked about Internet Librarian (traditionally held in Monterey), he brought up not just the programs, but the barking of sea lions on the night air. I remember having a damn fine time in Monterey last fall (except for the morning when I went to move my rental car in between sessions, and slammed it into a pole — hardly ITI’s fault!), and it was difficult to say goodbye to the Left Coast.

I wish ITI had made a couple of decisions differently. For that matter, I can trace my fingers across my life’s inventory and come to the same conclusion — and some of my decisions have hurt others, sometimes significantly, whereas none of us have had so much as a fast pulse due to limited wifi or the essential brokenness of some company’s “platform.”

ITI hasn’t kept us in Iraq for five years, or subsidized inhumane factory farming, or closed down libraries. They’ve just kept on with these conferences — right now, in an economy that is bucking and heaving — and, like so many of us, tried to adapt to the times.

Hope to see you in D.C. — if not this year, perhaps another.

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If you “mean to” get around to ensuring you’re a donor, please do it. Someone’s decision gave Gail a new lease on life.

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March 26 – 28, Chapel Hill: NISO Discovery Tools Forum. All the talks look fascinating, but I’m intrigued by Ralph Levan’s Search Web Service talk, in part because we, the information professionals, have spent fifteen years not at all resolving the “search standard” issue (must everything we touch turn to mounds of whale blubber?), and the Big O may be on to something with its “non-prescriptive standard” approach. I’ll have a car. Where shall we dine Thursday night?

March 31 – April 3, Minneapolis: NCIP Working Group meeting (tentative). I hear there’s good Southeast Asian food in that area.

April 7 – 9, D.C.: Computers in Libraries. I haven’t pinned down my final-final flight plan, but I’ll be there on Tuesday for sure, honchoing a two-part session on OPACs, featuring the illustrious likes of such folks as Roy Tennant, Cindi Trainor, John Blyberg, and Kate Sheehan. The best part: all I have to do is say “Heeeere’s Johnny!” times 4!

April 11 – 14, Miami: IA Summit. With another lady from MPOW I’m going to get my bad self down with the information architecture peeps. The programs sound quite good, though the blurbs sometimes fall into unfortunate dotcommese (“Applying these considerations enables information architects to deliver content experiences that take full advantage of emerging opportunities online and the existing assets within their Web sites”). I have noticed that presenters at these uber-geek soirees rarely talk like this.

April 16 – 17, Dallas: Texas Library Association. (Ignore the conference program. I haven’t been a redhead since the late 1990s, and I haven’t worked in that job since 2001.) I’m in a “Great Debate” with Stephen Abram, Roy Tennant, and Joe Janes, introduced by James Stewart, who I know from a notorious vendor-funded bibliobacchanal (complete with private jet and swank resort) held in Minnesota at the finny point of the fin de siecle. I forget what the debate topic is — it was hard to find something we didn’t agree about, at least on paper — but I promise a Really Good Shew.

April 23 – 25, St Pete Beach, Florida: Florida Library Association. I am quite excited about this for three reasons: first, I’ve wanted to network with my Floridian bibliopeers; second, I get to meet my Florida Leadership Network mentee face-to-face (she’s building an amazing library-focused poetry blog — more about that when I do a link roundup); and finally, I get to do a 20″ dog-and-pony show at MPOW’s user update session. (I also get to visit a new place, and I mapped out a nifty coastal tour I hope to take.)

May 7 – 9, Atlanta: SOLINET Annual Member Meeting. I’m a bookend with my buddy, Michael Stephens!

May 22, Tampa Bay Library Consortium: Writing for the Web

June 26 – July 1, Anaheim: American Library Association conference.

August 7, SEFLIN: Writing for the Web.

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This is my first vacation by myself in over fifteen years — since I met Sandy –and it seemed like a good idea at the time, but I now feel a little stressed. I’ve done plenty of business travel on my own, and even a bit of obligatory family travel, just not personal time that was all about me.

Plus what if I show up and all the Writing People laugh at me?

On Thursday I have a workshop to keep me busy, and on Friday the events start at 3 p.m. It’s not as if I don’t have things to do to fill in those spare moments. At some point this week it burbled into my brain that I’m teaching a Writing for the Web workshop next week at NEFLIN, and I began pulling together the bare details — I can work on the wiki. I’m also taking a (ab-fab!) class on food writing through Stanford Continuing Ed, and I’m sure I’ll have homework.

Though lying in a bed reading til noon also sounds grand…

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