Random Music

Only just this afternoon noticed some interesting stats in my music player; it may reveal heretofore hidden facts about me! Top 5 artists by number of tracks:

• 203: The Cure
• 158: Nine Inch Nails
• 153: Depeche Mode
• 116: Duran Duran
• 113: Dead Can Dance
  

Artists 6-10 are Tangerine Dream, Andreas Vollenweider, Secret Garden, Durutti Column, and Hossam Ramzy. Make of this what you will.

100°, 27%Rh, 23%PoP. Feh.

And now, a moment of squee

So, I was browsing a list of what sites are being run with Drupal. I knew The Onion was a Drupal site, but was very surprised to find out that Warner Bros, Nike, FedEx, and a whole huge heaping pile of others were too. Very cool!

Should we ever have more than a dozen users at a time, at least I know the CMS I chose can handle it :-D

The Librarian Song

Found thanks to Just Browsing browsing through YouTube, I present Joe Uveges' "The Librarian Song." Be sure to listen to the whole thing :-)

"Librarians come in all shapes and sizes,
Full of facts and figures,
and a few surprises..."




A balmy 97° with 60%Rh and a complete who-knows for rain...

Library Day in the Life

Every once in a while I do a SysGrunt here (a nod to RefGrunt), and now there's a "Library Day in the Life" meme going around the library world. So here's another SysGrunt , aka "A Day in the Life of a Systems Librarian", for 17 July 2008:

Arrive at work. Get snagged about slow network access speeds in hallway.
Open office, fire up computer.
Another complaint about slow network speeds.
Make coffee.
Reboot router.
Check email.
Router reboot didn't help. Neither did server or workstation reboots. Now what?
Seems tied to single software package. Send email to tech support.
Many conversations in hallways about slow access and what to do about it.
Download SP4 of EDMS package.
Upgrade CAD package from 2007 SP3 to 2007 SP5. Learn that the rest of the team has upgraded to 2008. Sigh.
Wait for 2008 package to download from web site.
Start catching up on backlog of library journals while files are downloading.
Wait some more.
Check email.
Finish upgrade.
Open macro editor, stare at vendor-supplied VBA module. Panic.
Batch dump a directory listing with 18293 lines to feed into macro for renaming script.
Start directory sort and renaming list.
Listen to complaints about not being able to listen to streaming radio today.
Spend rest of afternoon working through renaming list. Uncross eyes.
Flee.

This meme was started by Bobbi over at Librarian by Day... good idea, Bobbi!

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog

Watch it. Go watch it now. Then tell your friends.

Really.

2% "Other"

Over on TCM's Movie Morlocks Blog, Moira Finnie has posted a fun graph ("The World of Work According to Classic Movies") and then headed into a great summary and review of librarians in classic movies titled "One of the Invisible Professions on Screen". (Librarians fall into the "2% Other" category on the chart.) More recent portrayals of librarians show up in the comments, too. It's worth a read not just for the summaries, but for the enjoyable way they're written. (thanks to Folderol.)

Currently 101° and no rain in sight.

All Hail Biblia!

If you aren't already reading Warrior Librarian Weekly, now's your chance to start! The most excellent Biblia (aka Amanda Credaro) has included a photo and lovely little mini-resume about me on the front page of Issue #256 (yes, my hair's still purple), and links to You don't look like a librarian!

Thanks tons, Biblia!

Take My Survey, Please!

(Insert bad stand-up comedic sounds here...)

No, seriously, folks, I'm looking for librarians to give me input to a survey about perceptions. I'd really appreciate the help. Pretty please with sugar on top?

Thanks.

(Addendum: This is the same survey I sent out about a month ago; I'm hoping for more input. If you've already participated, thank you! If not, please consider it.)

I <3 Rex

So. If you've been reading this site for any amount of time you know I have a thing for Rex Libris, the world's most awesome, bad-ass butt-kicking librarian around. Well, the new web site for Rex has been rolled out (so go check it out!), and to top it off, SLG Comics is offering a FREE COPY (yes, you read that right) of Issue #1, "I, Librarian" - you just pay for shipping.

I can't wait to run down to my local comics shop and pick up my copies of Issue #11 ("R'lyeh Rising") and #12 ("Space Balls... of Evil!") as soon as they're released. I'm keeping my eye on the site... and passing the time by browsing through the new Rexopedia.

As the cool kids say on twitter, I <3 Rex.

Hot from the Doorway

One of my engineers just this minute told me that his cousin's wife went to SLA, too (first-timer). "She's a meek, quiet little thing, the perfect librarian type."

Sigh.

Literary Tattoos and the LSW

OK, not together... well, not yet, at least... but I wanted to mention them both today!

• Literary Tattoos, Books category. A lot of patience went into some of these inscriptions... reminds me of the Skin Project, "a story published on the skin of 2095 volunteers."
• Hey! The Library Society of the World now has a website, in addition to the wiki! (Bonus: it's in Drupal.)
  

Speaking of Drupal... things are going swimmingly. I couldn't be happier! I'll actually be embarking on a new Drupal installation in the coming weeks, this time implementing web-based forms (a whole new module set to investigate!). I'll, no doubt, whine about the whole thing here :-D

It's only 96° so far today, with a 30% chance of rain (and 30% Rh; just enough to feel sticky.)

A big 'ol catchup

You may already know about some of these, you may not; I've been bookmarking them to chat about once the SLA furor was over. And now that time is here!

• OK, one more thing about SLA: The Washington Times nicely summarized the conference in an article amusingly titled "Library Techies: Beyond the Dewey Decimal System."
• A paean to my personal fave Rex Libris, "In Praise of Librarian Warriors" is a nice little review by William Alexander over on Powell's Books Blog. If'n you don't have any Rex yet, get some!
• Over at The Ledger (FL), correspondent Jennifer Fickley-Baker enters the whole "guybrarian" fray with an article titled "'Guybrarians' - An Overdue Phenomenon at Many Libraries, and a Fine Career Choice." Sadly, it seems Jennifer never actually looked at the Librarian Action Figure... but regardless, it's a nice article from the guys' point of view. (I think.)
  
• Two days after the above article was published, Brainella the Librarian pitches in on the whole titles thing (and made me chuckle).
• ALA has just recently concluded, as well, and Denise Hamilton (at the LAObserved blog) points out some excellent short stories about librarians in her post "Sex on my mind as librarians take over the Anaheim Convention Center." I'm going to have to look these up!
• Lastly, a bit of humorous stitching: Sexy Librarians embroidery patterns are now available.
  

The monsoon season has started, but no rain today, I think. Currently 102°.