Celebrating Ada Lovelace

I lose some lady geek cred points here for not being up on this, hence coming to the Ada Lovelace Day party a day late. Sigh. Next year, I promise, although choosing just one tech-savvy woman to write about is going to be a major, major challenge!

(Who was Ada? Well, go forth and find out! Awesome lady, awesome skills, and way ahead of her time.)

I'm a Shover and Maker!

Thank you, thank you, to the Library Society of the World and the First Annual Shovers and Makers Awards. I'm honored and humbled. (Well, ok, one out of two ain't bad.) I would like to recommend you visit the main award site and read about my co-awardees - we're an amazing bunch of people!

Oh, good grief.

Found via the ever-fabulous Lipstick Librarian: "Check out a demo of an iPhone application that tells people around you to shut up when you deem them too noisy. Want to guess the name of the app?"

Heaven Forbid We Pay Them Their Worth

Ok, be warned, this one brings out the snark in me. On March 7th over on "The Daily Beast", Barbara Goldsmith has written a pointed article titled "Jennifer Aniston's $50K Hairstyle vs. Librarian Pensions." Go read it now (I'll wait), and if you're not annoyed afterward, well, you should be. These folks worked hard for decades in high-level positions in one of the most expensive cities in the nation, and now they're being harassed for their retirement? For shame! (Be sure to read through the comments, too - an interesting discussion went on there, too.)

"All this leads to the greater question of why teachers, librarians, scholars, and such—the very people who hold our present and future education and self-worth in their hands—are so undervalued?" Yes! Why is it the folks who hold the keys to the kingdom IMHO - the teachers and the librarians - are the ones who get kicked, cut, slammed, and shoved aside? ARRGH!

(Yes, this is a sore spot for me. It always has been.)

Internet Librarian Call for Speakers

I know I'm late out of the gate, but you still have ten days to submit a proposal to Internet Librarian for the 2009 conference, "Net Initiatives For Tough Times: Digital Publishing, Preservation & Practices." You know you want to!

What do you wish everyone knew about librarians?

Check out the winning essay and runners-up of the "What I Wish Everyone Knew About Librarians" contest from Smart Poodle Publishing. There's some interesting and thought-provoking things in here; I'm glad they made them available to read.

"We call it Book."

Penny Arcade for the win once more!

Nancy Pearl scores again!

Over on Cleveland.com, book editor Karen Long has a short interview with the one and only Nancy Pearl, who was in Cleveland moderating a panel of "Young Literary Lions". Of course, the Librarian Action Figure comes up!

Librarians + Rock Band = Trouble

Coolest librarians EVER in trouble for playing Rock Band
"Imagine, if you will, that you have entered a library. Imagine further that a librarian approaches and, upon meeting you, asks, "Would you like to play Rock Band?" Would you think that this librarian was A) the greatest librarian in the history of librarians or B) wasting taxpayer money?" Sadly, some Nebraska folks chose B...

Find out what happened - and watch the incriminating video - over at Joystiq.

And It Continues... this time in Pakistan

Ali Usman reports in the Pakistan Daily Times about the demoting of librarians at a staff level, and the outrage that followed. "The teachers and students of Allama Iqbal Medical College (AIMC) have condemned the AIMC and Jinnah Hospital administrations for advertising the post of librarian in BS-8, calling it a humiliation to the coveted post." Read the full article, "AIMC slammed for ‘demoting’ librarians," for the details.

Kudos to the staff and students who spoke up; I'll have my fingers crossed that the situation is resolved properly (i.e., librarians are back at BS-17).

It's an International Thing

Lest you think it's only us Americans who obsess about image and perception, meet Chooman, who emailed me earlier this week: "I'm a librarian at Thammasat University, Thailand. I'm one of us who always get the 'you don't look like a librarian' remark. In fact, my boss is quite annoyed that I don't look like government officer either. I like being a librarian. I got standing ovation telling stories to children at summer camp. I enjoy reference work. I am thrilled doing periodical index. Too bad index is being done by software now."

Thanks for the email, Chooman, and for permission to share your words on the blog!

Astronomy Science Fiction

"Astronomy professor and SF author, Mike Brotherton, had a brilliant idea. A lot of people get their ideas about science from fiction, but the problem is that much of the science in fiction is really bad -- like that whole exploding in vacuum thing. So he decided to put together an online anthology of science fiction specifically to use in conjunction with teaching astronomy. The National Science Foundation thought it was a good idea and funded the anthology."

This is just too cool. Check out Diamonds in the Sky, "an original anthology of astronomy science fiction."

A Compendium of Sexy Librarianness

Ha ha! Over on Library Journal is a great summary of "trope of the lascivious professional in American popular culture" by Heather McCormack and Lauren Gilbert. A great, fun (and occasionally NSFW) collection of web sites, movies, music and books featuring sexy librarians in one way or another! (Be sure to read "Never Mind the Bollocks, Librarians Invented Sex, Stupid!")

Hats off to the authors for a great pre-Valentine's Day treat!

And Now: The Interview!

And finally, I can brag that the Shanachies interviewed me at Internet Librarian! (It has been soooooo hard not being able to mention this until now.)


Internet Librarian 2008: interviews from Jaap van de Geer on Vimeo.

A Momentous Announcement: The Book!

I am simultaneously pleased, nervous, excited, and terrified to announce the forthcoming publication of "You Don’t Look Like a Librarian Shattering Stereotypes and Creating Positive New Images in the Internet Age." With a foreword by the fabulous Elizabeth Burns (of Pop Goes the Library), it'll be available March 30, 2009 from Information Today, Inc. The companion web site to the book will go public on the official publication date of March 30th.

Writing this book has been quite a journey; what started out just being a frequently-heard comment has morphed over the intervening decade (yes, decade!) into a Thing. This Thing has led me to talks and articles, a regular column, this blog, and now The Book. I can't say thank you enough to everyone who's stuck with me, answered my surveys, and sent me articles and cartoons and music videos and so on. Thank you.

Don't expect the comments to stop, though, just with the publication of The Book! There's always more to come!

SysGrunt, or DILOLibrarian

Occasionally, I post what I call SysGrunts, in a tip-o-the-hat to the original RefGrunt blog. I'm also now involved in the Library Day in the Life project. This is my Day in the Life sysgrunt for Monday, January 26th. Whee!

Boot up, make coffee.
Read emails.
Put on hat for primary job.
Scan final form for year-end financial report, send to SLA.
Search and restore a problematic CAD drawing from backups for a designer.
Email.
Having been tagged by two more people in the "25 things" meme, actually wrote it.
Further editing on specification document.
Email.
Lunch.
Process newly-released document.
Continue implementation of traceback analysis database.
Bang on desk in frustration; go for brief walk to cool down.
Email.
Change hats to secondary job.
Continue work on configuration process in DocuShare. Make some progress, then bork.
Change back to primary job.
More search-and-restore of problematic CAD files....but first,
Upgrade SolidWorks to 2009SP2.
Read some biblioblogs while the update runs.
Confirm lack of notification of configuration process step. Stew some more about it.
Wait some more on the upgrade...63% now!
Email.
And now it's 5pm. Upgrade only at 66%, will leave running overnight.

Random Mondays

And now, a random list of things you should know about!

* 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy. (You'll probably hear more from me later about this.)

* 2009 is also (bonus!) the Year of Science.

* In the spirit of both these things, check out the Milky Way Transit Map. (via Folderol)

* I am, it seems, a Lawful Good Human Sorcerer in the D&D world. What D&D character would you be?

25 Random Things

Hey, random musings on random things! Heh. Have been poked multiple times on Facebook for this, so posted it there, then thought, hey, I love sharing random things! (See the next post, too.) So, here goes: 25 random things, facts, habits or goals about me.

1. I'm a military brat, which explains why...
2. I lived in 11 different places before I...
3. Left home for a college on the other side of the world from my family when I was 17.
4. I went to school on a military scholarship, to study aerospace engineering.
5. I blew out my knee in basic training, lost my scholarship, and changed majors to astronomy.
6. Astronomy changed my life!
7. I'm a voracious reader, and always have been.
8. I love to dance, particularly bellydancing. I would dance every day if my knees allowed.
9. I'm addicted to coffee (quite literally).
10. If money were no object, I'd be a forensic archaeologist.
11. I dislike raw tomatoes intensely. Also eggplant.
12. I learned to scuba dive when I lived in Hawaii. I miss it.
13. I never thought I'd be a wife, let alone a mother. (Both states are pretty cool!)
14. I never thought I'd be published as a writer.
15. A goal this year is to dance more often.
16. I fight the lure of World of Warcraft almost every day.
17. My husband and I were married at the Grand Canyon.
18. I have six tattoos, and often wonder what my next one will be.
19. Sometimes I dream in HTML.
20. I'm totally and completely surprised by how much I enjoy working out regularly.
21. Airports I have run through include Reykjavik, Santiago, Tenerife, and Gatwick.
22. Bugs - especially large ones that are unexpectedly nearby - make me scream.
23. I run my high school alumni web site.
24. I can't predict the weather for beans (seriously, I've lost the summer monsoon pool for three years in a row now).
25. Just seeing my son makes me smile.

I tagged folks in FB; if you have a burning desire to share, consider yourself tagged too!

Mercedes' Naughty Librarian Car

Well, it's been a while since we've had a comparison between librarians and cars. Thankfully, John Matras of the Phoenix Examiner has ended the hiatus, albeit in a sideways manner; I suspect most of us wouldn't mind being compared to a Mercedes-Benz!

In his "Road Test: 2009 Mercedes-Benz CL550 4Matic car review; Mercedes' naughty librarian" he brings up the "dowdy librarian type", and then says Mercedes has kind of been like that lately... "Good, solid, well-built and dependable, but with the sex appeal of a German banker in a dark-blue double-breasted pin-striped suit. With a watch fob." The rest of the article goes on to laud the changes in design and engineering that appear in the car.

I'd rather be a Mercedes than a Honda, you know.

'Typical' Library School Students

And lo, it continues:

At a new-to-me blog, Closed Stacks, Miss Information (one of five bloggers) posted A ‘typical’ library school student in December. A currently-enrolled MLS student, she writes "It is strange but invigorating to find oneself pursuing a career that has such powerful stereotypes behind it."

Nope, this topic ain't dead.