Caveat Lector

Can I be forgiven for not liking it that I’m trying to do my cataloguing-by-analogy journal and the local library’s OPAC is down such that I can’t get at MARC records?

Because, tell you what, I’m not liking it.

Argh, form letters:

Thank you for responding to our ad for a Digital Librarian. We will give your background careful consideration. Due to the volume of responses we anticipate, we will only contact those candidates we feel most closely match our requirements. We appreciate your interest in the position, and thank you again for responding.

I hope they’re fibbing about that response volume—not because I think it’s a bad position, but because my hopes are primarily pinned on there not being that much interest in a one-year contract.

In these times, I suppose I shouldn’t be overly surprised to be wrong about that. Sigh. Because it really is quite a lovely job.

Things you only hear from people in library school…

Me, looking around in annoyance: “Damn it, I’ve catalogued everything on my desk!”

(No worries, library fans. There’s a whole bookcase of catalogue-able goodness in my office. Except for the gaming books; I have to turn in real MARC records for everything I catalogue, and not even WorldCat has gaming books.)

This one isn’t librarians’ fault, though.

Sessions. I hate sessions. Specifically, I hate it when I am told that my session on the OPAC has timed out, such that I have to click two or three more links to get back to my search screen. I hate that.

I think it was Alan Cooper who first articulated that computers should not bug users with their own petty little problems. Session timeouts definitely belong in the “don’t bug me with your petty little problems, machine” category. If you must log me off a session for whatever reason, log me back on without comment when I ask for it, please.

I mean, it’s not as though MadCat asks for my authentication information again once it logs me off a session. And it’s not as though the Library of Congress’s authority search even requires authentication information. Both, however, feel the desperate need to inform me when I’ve been attending to my own affairs too long. Bad me. I must pay attention to the holy OPAC at all times.

Bah. Grab a programmer by the scruff of the neck and fix this stupid sessions business.

This rant brought to you by my cataloguing-by-analogy journal, which I am finally seriously working on.

I’ve finished the résumé revisions for the job I want. Took me almost a week partly because I wanted to give myself time to think of things, partly because sending it in HTML/CSS means coming up with screen and print stylesheets (because I think color improves an onscreen but not a printed résumé), and partly because, well, I’m nervous.

Cover letter tonight, and then bombs away—I can’t spend any more time on this just yet because I’m a wee bit behind on where I want to be in cataloguing class (fixing which situation will be the principal focus of tomorrow’s homework-y efforts).

That rather opens the season, though, so why not make it official? I’m looking for work. I’ll earn my MLS this coming May. I’m a very useful person to have around almost any text-digitization, metadata, or standards project. My strengths lie in SGML/XML markup, technical communication and presentation, and workflow engineering. I live in Madison, WI, but I’m open to relocating. Old résumé here, to give you some idea what you’re getting; I’ll be updating that one in a day or three.

Hire me, treat me kindly, and I’ll see you don’t regret it.

I seriously overdid the wrist-curls yesterday evening. Not ready for thirty reps yet, nope nope. I didn’t know it was even possible to pull wrist muscles, but I’ve gone and done it. Wearing brace for a day or two, until the worst is over.

But, hey, the nerves are behaving very well, by and large. Elbow is quiet today. Sometimes having a different problem is as encouraging as having no problem at all. At least it’s a change.

My insurance and investments largely funnel through USAA thanks to family rather than personal involvement in the armed forces. They’ve been threatening a redesign for quite some time, and when I popped by to check my homeowner’s premium, voilà redesign.

They had a little “tell us how we’re doing” survey, so I did a view-source preparatory to filling it out.

Whaddaya know. Divs, classes, CSS layout, tables used for tabular data. Somebody somewhere bought a clue.

It’s not perfect; they haven’t linked form controls with labels, and they’ve got some UPPERCASE MARKUP issues. But it’s pretty gosh-darned good. Go them. And I told them so.

The approach of cold weather means that all small beasts (or at least a significant percentage thereof) are trying to take shelter in my house. Dream and Didi have ameliorated the problem, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Except that Dream has decided that small beasts are not sufficient offerings unto the Great Housemonkey Goddess, so he’s taken to bringing me sponges and potholders. I actually saw him last week: he found the potholder, picked it up, and did the proud-cat trot to me in my chair with it, head held high so the thing wouldn’t trip him.

For this and other reasons, I think he was a gourmet chef in a past life.

Let’s wipe another class of OPAC user out of the way, shall we?

My second type of patron needs to know, say, the population of Angola in 1953. Or the blue-book value of the car she wants to sell. Or the requirements for a marriage license locally.

This patron shouldn’t be anywhere near the OPAC. This patron should be at the reference desk. The OPAC will not help this patron. The OPAC will only confuse and frighten this patron.

Yet some librarians (I’ve seen it!) reflexively tell patrons that the OPAC is their first stop on an information search. This is, to put it mildly, ludicrous.

What I think might be useful, from a library-website-design perspective, is splitting off these patrons from OPAC users as quickly as possible (meaning, on the OPAC page or preferably sooner). They should be directed to virtual-reference services, a ready-reference pathfinder, lii.org, and/or the actual, physical reference desk. Don’t so much as let them near the OPAC; it’s an outright obstacle between them and their information.

My, that one was easy.

Bad news: SLIS isn’t going to offer Government Information Systems after all. Drat and double-drat. Wanted to take that.

Good news: I get to slide into Greg Downey’s Digital Divides class instead. I’ve been having a blast in Information and Labor, so more of the Downey will be most welcome.