So time Machine/Time Capsule or whatever it’s called worked for about a month before it went kerplunk. I’ve exchanged it TWICE already (soon to be a third – they want me to mail it in ‘for review’).

Dear Apple Computer, Inc. – I’m still a fan of yours but I really don’t have another computing choice. I’ve invested practically any computing time I’ve had control over with you. It’s been about 18 years now. What happened? Was it the iPhone? The Intel chip? Things haven’t been as good as they used to be. I remember when you worked without a hitch.

Now I’ve had to turn my backup over to Mozy. Which is equally lame. I think it backs up my stuff but I never get any confirmation that its been completed. I contacted customer service and it took them  over a week to get back to me only to tell me to ‘upgrade and/or reinstall’. Whatever. Now I get this. I’m ready to go back to painting on cave walls.

Jas. H. Hyde (Library of Congress) Bain News Service, publisher. No known date.

“Toward a Worldwide Digital Library” by Edward A. Fox and Gary Marchionini was a flat out disaster of an article. The authors easily used the term ‘worldwide’ yet throughout the article I saw no mention of:

• Any South American nation
• Any Central American nation
• Any African nation

I’m amazed that they mentioned Korea (as Japan is often the only Asian nation mentioned) and amazed that out of the BRIC nations only Brazil was mentioned.  I don’t know through what lens I should be viewing a 12-year-old article on anything digital unless I was doing research into how well an author did at forecasting the future of digitization.

I had a much different experience with “FRBR and the History of Cataloging” by William Denton. Though still largely European centric, Denton painted a colorful history of cataloging including important people, trends and challenges.

What I found most compelling about this article was the study of the ebb and flow of interest and effort in trying to achieve a functional, user-centric system for organizing printed materials.  From a mess, to a system, to many systems, to a 54-nation effort, the importance of cataloging increased significantly over time.

Sir Anthony Panizzi, despite external challenges, forged ahead in development of his “Ninety-One Cataloguing Rules” (1841) which laid the groundwork for Charles Cutter’s development of the Cutter Expansive Classification system (1876) and his Rules for a Dictionary Catalog (1890). Then, in the early 20^th century seemingly everyone got into the game of classification – Dewey, American Library Association, Library of Congress, and Seymour Lubetzky.

Now we have the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (1996 ). Does this mark the final say for cataloging? We’ll have to wait and see.

jukkaraketti - by Mikko Levänen - Radical

When I first came to Syracuse University many months ago it was for an interview with the new Program Director of the MLIS program, Dr. R. David Lankes. At one point in the interview he looked, somewhat manically, straight into my eyes and said, “We are creating radical change agents of librarianship here at SU.” I wasn’t sure what he meant or the process used to develop said agents.

Now I have an idea about the process.

Barefoot and with much passion, Prof. Lankes delivered the first class of 511 and gave me an inkling of what to expect in the months ahead. He turned things upside down and forced us (or, at least, me) to rethink librarianship. This is why I’m so glad I enrolled at SU’s iSchool.

The lecture topics were far from a musty, recycled history of libraries, Dewey decimal, and circulation desks. This was about service, innovation and the human and participatory factors that will drive the next level of librarianship. What I found most refreshing and interesting was the repeated theme of service to the greater library community. Service (customer or otherwise) is almost non-existent these days and it’s arguably the most important part of any organization’s operations. Whether internal or external ‘customers’, you aren’t going to achieve much you cant connect with people. To build a successful and highly functioning library community, you need to listen to, and take care of, the issues and challenges your community presents.

So before this falls into the ‘I should have written that’ category, I wanted to get some pen on the iSchool introductory class -IST601 – Information and Information Environments.

In short – awesome. Really awesome.

The content delivered and the delivery methods were as world class as I expected but the energy. WOW. Totally infectious and not just from one or two lecturers, but each and every one of them and ALL of the staff there to support them and us (SU’s incoming iSchool Master’s students).  Total faculty and staff that presented over the weekend numbered, by my count, 15, but there could have been more. A high level of passion exuded from each and every one of them and it left an amazing mark. They’ve set the bar very high in terms of our academic, creative and innovative pursuits, but also in service and ethics.

That really stuck. Time and again we were reminded to bring anything – questions, concerns, problems, etc.  It’s a level of service and support that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before in an  organization. The iSchool at SU is really committed to turning out radical, game-changing information professionals and they’ll do whatever they can to foster the creativity and innovation required to bring about real change.

Not that I needed it, but the class confirmed that I’m doing the right thing and am in the right (best!) place.

This is the first time I’ve seen ‘Irradiated beef’ advertised.

Michael Pollan has an easy to digest definition of irradiated beef in this excerpt of an article he wrote for The New York Times Magazine (March 31, 2002):

Rather than try to alter that diet or keep the animals from living in their waste or slow the line speed—all changes regarded as impractical—the industry focuses on disinfecting the manure that will inevitably find its way into the meat. This is the purpose of irradiation (which the industry prefers to call “cold pasteurization”). It is also the reason that carcasses pass through a hot steam cabinet and get sprayed with an antimicrobial solution before being hung in the cooler at the National Beef plant.

Delicious!

I’m pretty late to the game on this but I’ve had a lot of fun reading up on Hadoop and Cloudera. As I understand it, Apache Hadoop is a freeware/open-source software package that allows a lot of data-intensive computing systems to play nicely together and analyze large amounts of data. This is a top-level project from Apache who as you probably know supports a ton of software and web-related projects. Cloudera are the commercial Hadoop experts.

What strikes me as most interesting here is that the Hadoop system can bring together so many disparate functions – even during a system failure. Yes, it is self-healing. Interesting. It even does this working side-by-side of existing/legacy systems. Seems very pertinent to the ever growing mountains of data generated daily.

I am ESTATIC that I’ll soon be a member of School of Information Studies at Syracuse University (iSchool). However, it’s been a rather very hard past couple months. I’ve been on a yo-yo between Syracuse University’s Office of Financial Aid and Scholarship Programs and Direct Loans, studentloans.gov, the U.S. Department of Education, Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) School Relations Center, etc. trying to finalize a loan so I could go pursue my MLIS at the The School of Information Studies at Syracuse University (iSchool).

It has been quite an arduous and, at times, upsetting experience. Long story short, there were many emails, letters, phone calls and faxes and an ongoing finger pointing exercise between Financial Aid and the various government organizations listed above.

Drove me BONKERS and was hanging over my head for MONTHS.

I kept pretty detailed notes on emails, phone calls, faxes and letters as well as promised timelines and the names of involved parties. During this frustrating period my vengeful side kept saying, ‘When everything gets worked out, unleash this beast of negative exposure and get people in trouble.’ I opted against that and literally got rid of all non-essential documents and records related to the loan. It felt good to purge those feelings and memories.

I’ve had to keep a lot of this under wraps at work for obvious reasons but FINALLY this Monday I got that giving notice thing at work taken care of. Next? Update Facebook. Done. Update LinkedIn. Done…Work…….YES…finally done. I was originally hoping to give work notice at least 2 weeks earlier but due to the delays with the aforementioned Financial Aid, I couldn’t do it until this week. I was really hoping to be in Syracuse at the beginning of August, then go out to LA for Emily and Nick’s wedding, then return to Syracuse, but I just couldn’t leave my employer high and dry. I’ve worked there too long and have to much respect for the organization to do otherwise. Gotta finish strong and transition appropriately.

So essentially it’s all over now. On to the next chapter in life. Gave my notice at work on Monday. In other news, I just watched The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Man som hatar kvinnor). Great movie. Haven’t read the book.

They’re baack…Those  mad scientists at EepyBird who shocked the world with those majestic Coca-Cola and Mentos fountains are at it again. They’ve moved on to much more functional projects, namely a Coke Zero & Mentos Rocket Car. Check the video after the jump.

Remember those guys who a couple years ago paired Mentos with various versions of Coca-Cola to create some beautiful geysers? They’re at it again. Check out the trailer video below.