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On cars and change

Sunday, July 13, 2008

The last week of (very desultory) car-shopping I’ve experienced both a Starbucks Moment, an epiphany, and a moment of adult anxiety, which is a lot to handle in less than a week.

The Starbucks Moment came when I rode in and even drove a friend’s brand-new MINI. I was expecting a deep envy-producing experience, one that might make me try to buy one. Instead I drove an average car with a very small trunk, unremarkable mileage, and an instrument panel shimmering with wink-nudge retro irony –  lots of round nobby things, lots of faux analog.

I felt the way I feel in Starbucks, which is that I’m trying to buy a cup of coffee while Starbucks is trying to manipulate me into a heavy-handed “lifestyle experience” (one that has become shopworn with time, as even Starbucks acknowledges).

In the course of talking about cars, also unearthed the Malthusian anti-Prius argument, which goes thus. A Prius! Why, you won’t Save Money if you buy a Prius! Have you used the calculators? Have you figured it out?

The part about this argument that makes me really itchy is that if we were buying cars strictly on economic rationales, we’d all buy used Corollas: a great balance of initial cost and long-term fuel efficiency. (I have nothing against Corollas, by the way; we’ve owned several in our family, and they have all comported themselves quite well.) Or, for that matter, we’d wait until the SUV/truck market completely collapsed. I bet I could get a Hummer for a song, and then even if gas were $8 a gallon, I’d probably be ahead.

Can you see me driving to Norcross in my green Hummer? (No, me either; I’d be mortified.)

However, I didn’t think driving a Prius was about “saving money.” I thought it was about reducing consumption of fossil fuels and participating in the commitment to alternative energy (while driving a car I find both physically comfortable and delectably geeky in a very friendly way — I’ve rented them three times, and each time has been bliss).

I’m willing to pay more for fruit and vegetables from local farmers; I don’t buy into our national obsession with the absolute bottom line.  Participating in solutions to our gobbledy-gobble addiction to oil takes some commitment to change, which includes paying more for local lettuce (yes, mass-produced lettuce is part of the oil game; if you haven’t yet, read The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and for alternative transportation. (I’d really prefer light rail to Atlanta, but this is the South, where public transportation is a grudgingly-provided last-ditch service for the poorest of the poor.)

Surely I’m not alone in thinking that the very phrase “fossil fuel” tells us why we need to retrain our focus on clean, renewable energy. Um, fossils? They take a heck of a long time to turn into oil, you know? That, and the little problem of climate change…

If I could buy an electric car, I would. In my dream last night we were two years out from a solution; memory dims, but I think it was an electric car. The only problem was that this created car-resale issues for people who at the time of the Big Innovation were driving vehicles with fuel-based reciprocating engines. There’s always something.

However, I still can’t really get a Prius for much under $30,000 out the door (including the extra $2k the gummint lifts off so it can continue to spend our money on the wrong things) — even used. This is where my adult anxiety comes in, because I know many average income-earners do spend that much on cars and go deep into hock, while I’ve been carefully (or carfully?) working out cost models where as the lone salary-maker, I put some money down on a gently-used car with excellent mileage and match my “down” with a small personal loan. For me, even a two-year-old car will be a massive (and mildly anxiety-producing) expense.

People will discuss their sex lives before they talk about their financial situations, so I don’t ask my friends what their budgets are like or what it means in their lives to commit to major debt for a vehicle. Sandy and I have always tried to live a little “below our means,” which I think has made us resilient and flexible. (At least, I hope it has.) I remember a moment at one Former Place Of Work where someone mentioned that because of the way the pay period hit I might find it hard to pay my bills that month, and I thought, we may drive used cars and have dining room chairs that don’t even come close to matching, but it’s been a decade since I actively worried we wouldn’t be able to meet that month’s bills.

But then I get those adult-anxiety moments, like we’re doing it wrong or something.

I have two whirlwind weeks (Norcross/Boise/Madison) and then I think a gently-used Honda will land in my lap: a Civic in a nice color with dark upholstery, a moonroof, and an automatic transmission. I feel it in my bones. Either that, or I need to stretch more.

Filed in Car shopping, Family Values | | Comments (15)

My ALA Round-up and the Top Tech Trends Fail Whale

Friday, July 11, 2008

I will never get this written if not now, so here ’tis.

A lot went right at ALA. I saw many friends, sat on many committees where Things Were Accomplished (including a meeting for LITA Forum 2009 that my awesome friend Zoe wrapped up in an hour!), did some fun booth demos (including one where someone who shall not be named paraded back and forth in the aisle in front of me in a bright blue boa, causing me to snicker uncontrollably at strange moments). worked an exhibit booth for the what, four hours I was not in meetings or in programs, and had many hugs/cab rides/refreshing beverages/meals, including with Steve, Millie, another Steve, the Nameless Gang who know who they are, Amazing Kate Sheehan, the well-spoken and thoughtful Tim “I really don’t CARE what librarians think of me” Spalding, one of my favorite former NYLA peeps, and other folk.

Two of my programs went quite well; the Ultimate Debate was well-attended (even though the Hyatt was not in Anaheim but Santa Cruz, based on the walk) and we were in top form (that’s one of the few audios of myself I can listen to), and my talk on Monday to the LITA Next-Gen Catalog IG about open source went fine, plus I got to sit next to Amy Kautzman who is just a hoot.

On the minus side, first, what were we doing in Anaheim, again? It was all ersatz California, mediocre food, and a “family hotel” experience, immortalized on Twitter, that began with an encounter with Cruella Daville at the front desk and remained at best overpriced mediocrity.

The library press noted that conference attendance, at 22,000, was better than New Orleans in 2006. Um, yeah, attendance was better than when (during the height of hurricane season) some of us gamely trooped to a city that had recently been devastated by a natural disaster, but not as good as the 28,000 who went to D.C. in 2007, which is a city oriented around business travel and perfect for conferences.

A telling moment was a cabby who asked, “How come you people didn’t bring family members?” Because it’s a business meeting, that’s why.

But then there was Top Tech Trends, deservedly panned in the press and the Biblioblogosphere as a minor techno-disaster.

This is the point where (with a little shame) I will emphasize something people do not understand. The Trendsters who sit on the panel do not make decisions. They just show up. We Trendsters, in a way, like your hapless library users, or even the majority of library workers, who don’t select the technology, but have to live with it.

My take on technology is that with sufficient shortchanging of planning and implementation, any technology, no matter how simple, can be made to spectacularly fail. It is o.k. to experiment with technology and to get some things wrong. But really, it is a far, far better thing to give technology the effort it’s due, because far too many people will blame the technology and not the implementation.

If you want to try a blended presentation, bringing in people online, here are my suggestions:

* Start with basic deliverables and minimum configurations. For example, a reasonable goal is that the technology can only happen if you can maintain reasonable lighting levels. If you think it was odd not being able to see the panelists (we were likened to the Witness Protection Program), think what it was like to be up there and to stare out into a well of darkness.

* Test everything well in advance and think about the environment you’ll be in. Someone commented that you don’t know the environment in a conference room until you get there. But you can always control for a few things, and heavens, we’ve all been to conferences before.

The Midwinter TTT featured a chat panel with fonts that couldn’t be resized — something that would have quickly shown up in testing. The Annual TTT, which wasn’t much worse that Midwinter but was simply on a grander scale, featured enormous screens floating with disembodied, blurry heads at strange angles. I really don’t know if Sarah realizes that we spent an hour and a half looking up her nostrils, or that Karen Coombs had a distracting bright light behind her suggesting the Rapture was imminent (“I can SEE open source in the distance! Come to me baby!”)

Any complex technology plan pulled together at the last minute is a big ol’ recipe for FAIL, which is too bad. TT suffered from the failure of many small details (the bright light behind one speaker, the muzzy audio, the lighting) and yet added together… Crash. Burn.

* Focus on one or two technologies and do them well. Bringing in not one but two people online, flipping screens between Skype chat and Twitter, etc. — there was a muchness to it like a stew overloaded by too many ingredients, particularly without testing.

* Don’t let non-technical issues kill technical implementations. One reason TTT wasn’t as fun as the Debate was that there were 11 of us at TTT — far too many. We can’t do the fun stuff, arguing and back-and-forthing, if we have just enough time to give a spiel. For example, Cliff said some of our trends weren’t “new” trends and I really wanted to dispute that — on both counts — because a trend can be a long time emerging, and besides, some of them were quite new. But honestly, we had no time. That was simple math: 90 minutes divided by 11 people. Manage the wetware.

Some of the complaints are more LibraryLand. I have been to tech conferences where IRC backchannels are really common. I sometimes think we’re like those tribes that haven’t been exposed to technology. “Oooooh, there’s a chat channel and people talking at the same time!” Um, yeah. We also use tools made from metal; get over it. But if that’s just too hard for library types, take the chat off the screens and keep it on the laptops for the people who have seen mirrors and so forth and won’t faint when confronted with More Than One Thing To Do.

Maybe ALL the Trendsters need to be fired and the committee needs to be canned and we need to start over. Just a thought. I actually offered that up to Andrew. I am loathe to quit myself on my own because I feel we just started to get good female representation on Trends, after my being up there on my own for years. But I’d agree to retire if it meant we could redo the Trends — not just the heads on the stage, but the works behind the process.

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Cars, pie, life

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

I just finished a long post about pie and software, which trashes my assertion that I’d keep my Equinox posts short-short-short, yessiree! I think reading stuff I didn’t agree with, in a post that invoked me of all things as a source, got me spinning like a top.

Meanwhile, some have asked me about my car hunt. The answer is that though I would adore a new green Prius tricked out with goodies, or possibly a MINI, the sensible purchase I can live with is a late-model used Honda Civic with some time left on the warranty and Honda certification if possible. So we’ll get by on one car for a little while and I’ll use various methods (Carmax, Edmund’s, the local dealer) to find a car that will make me happy. I’d have a new-to-me car right now except the Honda Civic that almost met my criteria was the wrong color, and you know what, that’s a lot of money for something that’s the wrong color. There are many right colors for me, but I am just not of the tan/taupe/flat-silver meme.

Some friends appear confused by our living/working arrangements. Here’s the skinny. We still live in Florida. I telework to Georgia and then go there once a month for a few days (though I am also on the road a lot). Sandy is looking for work as an interim or settled pastor — she had a number of good jobs before she came here and there’s no reason she won’t have one again (just as my unhappy stint at a big institution didn’t preclude a good job followed by an even better job). Depending on where her job is, I’ll be able to smoothly transition just like magic. (Fingers crossed for magic! Luv my new job, luv luv LUV it!)

Sandy really doesn’t have job options in this area. We knew that coming here; it was part of the risk of this move. She’s a UCC pastor and there aren’t other slots for hundreds of miles around. We took a chance and invested our efforts in this area — uprooting, buying a house here, etc. It didn’t work out and you know what, that’s life. But we count our blessings, and they are legion.

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Comment Feeds Still Broken

Monday, July 7, 2008

To quote the first season of Saturday Night Live (and I watched it, too!), “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead” — that is, my comment feeds are still broken.

I haven’t had the time to investigate what went wrong (either a bad WordPress upgrade or a bad theme upgrade, or both) or how to fix it (hours and hours spent tinkering, that’s what).

So if you want to follow the comments on these posts, check back often…the blog itself does show the most frequent comments on the right-hand pane.

I need a snow day when I can do nothing but focus on this project — and in Tallahassee, in July, I just don’t think that’s imminent!

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The Links of Love are in Your Eyes

Sunday, July 6, 2008

I still haven’t written my post-ALA-post. I slid from ALA into the holiday weekend after being on the road for nearly a month, and I’m still catching up — plus I plunged into car purchasing mode (I believe my green Prius is turning into a gently-used Honda — a more sensible choice, financially, though I do want another sunroof). But ALA was a fabu conference and it was so much fun to work in a booth (to the extent I was there, between meetings and whatnot). Haven’t done that since California!

(I think I am now measuring ALA by all the people I didn’t get to chat with — Jackie G. and Chrystie H. and Lisa J. and Bob D. come to mind, as do others. ALA is both too long and too short…)

So as I finish an article, pay bills, and get ready for a week of work, here are some links that struck me.

I wrote my first posts to the blogs for esilibrary.com and open-ils.org. Go me!

People are always asking me how to get people to read their blogs. Here’s a tip: be a major DVD-sharing company and announce you are eliminating a feature “only” used by a small percentage of passionate users. Wow, 1287 comments! Good job, Netflix. Now grow a brain. (They eventually reversed course on this incredibly dumb decision, but I loved the email they initially sent Sandy and other primary-account holders, claiming they were doing this for OUR benefit.)

Twitter made the front page of the New York Times, though not in a nice way. Hello, scalability? I’m on Friendfeed as well (http://friendfeed.com/kgs) which picks up my posts to sundry social networking sites. I don’t love Friendfeed the way I love Twitter, but as Rochelle wrote earlier, sometimes love is not enough.

Close to 4,000 developers have worked on Linux since 2005. Wowza. (Thanks, Z!)

One of my LITA Top Tech Trends (ignored in all but one write-up, as far as I can tell) had to do with the threat to small literary journals of rapidly-rising postage and other costs. I repeated my point that we librarians often do not curate what we do not own. We could be helping them move online, but again, literature? Not our problem. (Oh, and don’t get me started about the logistics for TTT…biting tongue)

Editorial Ass shares a jaw-dropping story about a writer who ruined his own book deal. (Thanks, E!)

I learned I can create itineraries in Google Maps and put them on my Garmin GPS.

Speaking of which, for the Tour de France, Garmin offers amusing icons and a tour guide. I have been using a pirate ship for my navigational icon (arrrrr) but I shall now show my support for Team Garmin. (Yes, I am spending a lot of time tinkering with my GPS, thanks for asking…)

Filed in Linkalicious | | Comments (2)

Joe Nocera Speaking Truth to Google

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Roy Tennant observed that Google hadn’t bothered exhibiting at ALA Annual 2008. I think Roy has a “game over” feeling about that — like we’re finally irrelevant enough for Google to ignore.

I have another take on this, bolstered by Joe Nocera’s article in the New York Times about Google’s deteriorating daycare options. Google has proven itself to be just another aging company where common sense and sincere dedication to human need have yielded to impatience with employees who want, of all things, day care for their children, a need the company has likened to free M&Ms.

Obviously, one point is that the United States still doesn’t have its act together about daycare. Not long ago I worked with a smart, dedicated woman who had grown up and been educated in China, and she observed that our large state university completely fell down on childcare options. In China, her kids would have had childcare. Period. Here, childcare was dangled as an option, but her kids would have been in middle school by the time they moved off the waiting list.

But I’d like to repeat a point I keep making while big universities fall over themselves to participate in Google’s digitization projects. Google is a relatively young company (though aging rapidly, if Nocero’s story has credence). Everyone assumes Google will rule the world forever. But we have thought that about a lot of companies.

In the end, if we really care about our software and our data and our materials, we have to fight to keep them open, to keep them available for use, and to preserve them — on our own, not through the secret back-door doings of a company too young to drive.  We keep re-learning this lesson. We learned it when we privatized library software, and we learned it when we privatized library data, and sooner than later, we’ll learn it with Google.

And yes, I’m holding off on comparing Google to a library software company recently in the news for its draconian personnel policies — because others wrote that story for me. (It’s funny how LJ’s correction only dug the hole deeper: “Oh, only TWO years! I feel SO much better!”)

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Buying a new car (and there’s even an ALA 2008 tie-in)

Thursday, July 3, 2008

So Sandy’s car is kaput (of course, since she’s temporarily between jobs — isn’t that how it works?) and I am going to bequeath her my trusty Honda Civic and get a new-to-me set of wheels. Probably not brand-new. I’m thinking a gently-used Prius or Mini-Cooper — exactly what I was thinking these last few months when I told myself that it wasn’t a good time to buy a new(er) car. But now it is, because this isn’t a walking/bus town, so we can’t share a car.

The last time I bought a car was 1998. It was my Civic, then almost five years old, and I vaguely remember using newspaper classifieds. It’s 2008 (in case you hadn’t noticed), and I have no idea how to buy a car. I suspect it has something to do with The Internets, which through a series of tubes process new and used cars which then extrude into sundry communities across the U.S.

At least that’s my first guess. If you have suggestions, I’m all ears. I’ve heard it might be the season for rental agencies to sell their cars. I’d like to cut to the chase and ask Avis to sell me the green Prius I keep renting here in Tallahassee, because I love that car.

I admit to being a teensy bit excited about the idea of a new (to me) car. My Civic is a superb little vehicle that has treated me well all these years. I love driving it, it’s been easy to maintain, and it has Been Places. (New Jersey, New York, California, and now Florida — plus it traveled Route 66 in 2001, when we moved to NorCal.)

But even though it’s not the financially easiest time for us to get new(er) wheels, I do keep thinking about the features in the cars I drive when I rent. Even the incredibly stripped-down budget car I rented in Boston two weeks ago (hello, manual windows and locks!) had two accessory outlets and cupholders. Yes, shallow, but my cup-holders have never worked (they were an early model…), and on a five-hour drive I like a place to park my diet root beer. I am even a little tiddly over the idea of a car in which I could unlock the driver’s side without opening my door and pressing a button. Little things, things that I have chosen to live without, but now that Moderne Automotiveness beckons to me… well, I am tempted.

Naturally, this thread segues into the work of the ALA Task Force on Electronic Meeting Participation.

We on the Task Force completed a survey last month, and though I haven’t gone over the data yet, a quick peekaroo indicates that a lot of us love ALA dearly, but we do think we’re ready for an upgrade. We don’t want to leave ALA; I’ve said earlier, if we tried to form a library organization, it would end up looking a lot like ALA. But we do want to see our dear old association get a makeover.

We want to be able to fully participate in the work of the association without expanding our carbon footprint to the size of Bigfoot’s.

We want our work to be seamless.

We want ALA to stop distinguishing between “virtual” members and other members (and to stop punishing librarians who choose to participate electronically), because in this day and age, we’re ALL virtual members.

We want ALA to support our virtual efforts and to stop pretending that a meeting is more “open” if it’s face-to-face, even if it costs thousands of personal dollars to travel to.

We want ALA to be accessible to all.

We want to be part of ALA, unencumbered.

Filed in American Liberry Ass'n, Family Values, Uncategorized | | Comments (19)

Open source software in school libraries

Saturday, June 28, 2008

On top of everything else, teetering in the breeze, I have a July 7 deadline for a short article in School Library Journal on open source software in school libraries. I haven’t done a lick of work on this article and will be extracting it from various orifices beginning July 3, when I return from ALA. (Yes, that sounds insane. Welcome to my world.)

At ALA I am supposed to meet with Chris Harris (author of the recent “Drupal in Libraries” among other illustrious credits to his name) for a Vulcan mind-meld, and if that doesn’t happen I’ll simply follow him to upstate New York after ALA and stare at him until the thoughts flow my direction.

BUT… if you have anything to share about this topic (school media centers using open source, OSS particularly well-suited to that library environment, websites, people, sources, anecdotes, potato chips — well, not potato chips, though I do love them), I would be your best friend for LIFE. Unless you think I’m a little creepy, in which case I would promise to forever leave you alone.

Filed in Hot Tech, Writing | | Comments (6)

It’s ALA, so I’m hemming pants

Friday, June 27, 2008

I seem to bring something to hem to every ALA conference. This time, ALA Annual 2008, it’s a lovely lightweight pair of khaki slacks (Ann Taylor Loft Petites). I am presenting 7 times at this conference — four demos in the Equinox booth (that’s Booth 1888!) — and then at three ALA programs. Open source! Evergreen! Equinox! Hoo-ah!

You will get to know these slacks well, because I brought one carry-on suitcase with one pair of slacks, two skirts, and several blouses. If I repeat an outfit on Tuesday be so kind as to overlook that, would you please?

And remember: if you spill anything on me at ALA, you need to take me shopping immediately. AND hem my new pants.

The other thing that happens at ALA is I overbook myself. I will propose times with one friend, and then another will approach me with an event, and then as wires cross and messages fly, I find myself with complicated double-bookings. A part of me really believes I can make it all happen, and time doesn’t work that way.

Then there is the really, really bad thing I do: I fail to write down what I’m doing, and then I forget the details. I merrily agreed to dine with a colleague (at least one colleague) on Monday night. I remember making the arrangements. I remember thinking, I am so happy I can catch up with so-and-so. I remember planning to add it to the calendar. I remember one friend saying “you need to update your calendar — REMEMBER?” And I curled my lip and laughed. Because who would forget their dinner date?

Me, that’s who. Are you my Monday dinner date? (Update: I checked my email, and dear friend J had wisely prodded me last week. “We’re still on, right?” So I take it I’m transparent to my friends.)

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Ready, Steady, ALA

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

I hope to see you at ALA, either at Booth 1888 or Somewhere.

I zoomed back from ATL with a new $10 toy in my car — an auto accessory-outlet 3-way splitter I bought at Fry’s. (Fry’s! Oh joy! Fry’s!) So now when I go to and from MPOW — and scoot around Georgia, saying hi to Evergreen sites — I can plug in my GPS and listen to nerdy podcasts on my iPod and (when I bring it) plug in my thermoelectric cooler, stuffed with amazing Atlanta goodies!

Not only that, but by stupidly plugging in a charger backwards I bent two pins in my iPod’s butt-hole (as Sandy so elegantly phrases it) then managed to straighten them out with a dressmaker’s pin I had in my suitcase. I suspect the pins are now weak… the iPod is only 18 months old. Equipment These Days. But it felt good to know that I knew how to straighten a pin, by gum.

Fry’s! Trader Joe’s! Civilization! Yes, there’s far more than that to my new gig — like feeling instantly useful and valued, and even very busy and already behind (presentation? Um, right! I will have one!). Which as some of you know,  is just how I like it.

One more hour of packing, then it’s an hour in front of the idiot box and a few restless hours of sleep. See you in Anaheim — and if not there, friends, our paths will cross!

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