I was teaching a library-science class about a decade ago when a student snaked her hand into the air. “You know how no good deed goes unpunished?” she asked. “No,” I said, and continued lecturing. I knew where she was going with that question, because I knew her from another context, where she was the [...]
Imagine, all this time I’ve been working my behind off in library jobs, and I could have spent it reclining on a chaise-lounge reading fat novels? Or so says LSSI, the library-outsourcing company, in a deliciously slurpy quote for the New York Times: “A lot of libraries are atrocious,” Mr. Pezzanite said. “Their policies are [...]
In the end, I don’t think I “lost” or “won.” USAA was very nice to me, and I even got a nice letter and phone call from MasterCard. Avis pretended to be in the cloakroom the whole time. Probably the best moment (if a year of wandering in the bureaucratic gulag has best moments) was [...]
So I’m a little tired tonight and this will be brief, but the Consumerist gave me some web-time, USAA’s social-software team responded, and I had a nice preliminary talk with someone today. I really only want two things: I want my credit rating cleaned up, and I want this all to stop. Now, full disclosure, [...]
Or as I think of you at the moment, Larry, Moe, and Curly… Yes, I will immediately send $641 to the collection agency to settle my “debt.” But in the meantime I will use my bully pulpit to vent about a year of being jerked around. First of all, I have a great credit rating [...]
Centralized mass storage for legacy print materials (paper-based books and journals) is by far the most under-observed trend in libraries today, so I was delighted to receive a memo from SCELC, the innovative consortium my library belongs to, outlining SCELC’s work with the WEST regional storage project and adding, “please also feel free to share [...]
I think my theme for August is reclaiming space. Moving back to San Francisco reclaimed my city for me; even if we move along later (as may well happen when we eventually sell the house in Florida), I feel I have reattached myself to my hometown in a way that has been restorative and regardless [...]
A brief update before heading to Apple HQ for the first-ever meetup of NorCal SCELC members. I have more to say about OCLC (including that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the OCLC board of trustees–I don’t know how anyone got that idea), but not much time to do [...]
Innovative Interfaces and its joined-at-the-hip cataloging-company SkyRiver have teamed up to sue OCLC for monopolistic practices. I read the complaint end-to-end today and you can read my somewhat tame, won’t-you-be-my-neighbor assessment on the Chronicle of Higher Ed. My more passionate, from-the-heart assessment: OCLC is a galumphing behemoth, often clumsily distant from its own kith and [...]
We did a true staycation, and I’ll work backwards and say that at the end of it I had two very satisfying personal writing days while Sandy has been off at continuing ed. I was going to take one writing day, but it was so relaxing and productive, and I feel so comfortable about MPOW, [...]
