Caveat Lector

The hardest thing about my schedule right now is keeping up with all the email. What with classes, class projects, TAG stuff, other stuff, and garden-variety stuff stuff, I cringe whenever I double-click on Thunderbird.

On the plus side, the Digital Content Group thing is finally working itself out; my official start will be this Monday. And I got reassurance from a friend that the typical hiring cycle at an academic library is something like three months after résumé deadline, so I not only shouldn’t be worrying, I shouldn’t even be thinking about it.

And though my checking account looks as though I let a ravening Mongol horde pillage it, what with tuition and property taxes, I did chuckle when the credit union flashed up a “however will you pay for college?” ad spiel on its home page. Chuckled and thumbed my nose, ’cuz mine’s all paid for, ha ha ha!

On the not-so-much-with-the-plus thing, I think I may have a low-grade bug of some sort. Occasional sneezing, occasional coughing, constant energy drainage. I ought to go haul some books back to the library and pick up a couple of holds, but I’m not sure I can make myself trudge through the sludge to do it.

I finally chased down a bug in Bloglines that was, well, bugging me. Thought I’d share.

The “Keep New” checkbox interacts badly with the “Updated Items” setting (part of what you get if you click the “Edit Subscription” link on a feed you’re subscribed to). If you’ve got “Updated Items” set to “Ignore” (as I do on most blogs), anything that you check as “Keep New” disappears into limbo, never to appear in your right pane again.

Bloglines happily tells you that you’ve got an unread post in that feed—but neither clicking on the category nor clicking on the feed itself brings the post back. Nothing does. Well, except changing the “Updated Items” setting for that blog to “Display.”

I’ve submitted this to their email system as a bug, but the last time I tweaked them about it, nothing happened. (Admittedly, I hadn’t sussed out exactly what was going on.) If anybody closer to them than I am can insert bees into the appropriate bonnets, I’d appreciate it.

Meredith’s got a masterly summation in two posts of the “what librarian shortage?” position. I’d like to see some of the big library blogs pick this up, please.

And I’d like to see some of the big library people start asking ALA the hard questions, louder than a whisper. Because this new recruitment thing they’re doing? Please.

Incidentally, I haven’t heard back from anyone else lately, other than another couple of form letters. No roundfilings, true—but we all know that employers these days mostly aren’t courteous enough to let you know when you’ve struck out. (I’m tempted to include self-addressed stamped postcards in my paper applications, with the employer’s name and a big checkbox next to “No. Go away.” Just for my own sanity.) So I don’t know what’s going on, and my husband can attest that it’s not doing good things for my temper.

I know, I know, it’s early days yet.

If you’re going to put an email address as contact on a job description, hadn’t you better test it to make sure it works?

(I found the email address for the listed human-resources person and used that instead, adding an apology and explanation. That email seems to have gone through.)

“You don’t want a straight-up reference/instruction gig. I know you could land one. You don’t want one. You didn’t spend years wrangling electronic text and teaching yourself to program so that you could land a straight-up reference/instruction gig. It doesn’t matter that you could land one. You don’t want one… you want to be in digitization, systems, or web stuff, and that’s what you’re going to hold out for, with a side order of reference and instruction if necessary.”

I got nothing against reference and instruction. (Well, actually, I do have intellectual issues with instruction as it is practiced. But I don’t quarrel with the basic necessity.) I don’t mind one bit the idea of doing it as part of whatever job I land. I’ve got the teacher-training. I’ve got the presentation skills. I’d be good at it. And it’d even be fun.

But it’s not what I went to library school to do. Geek-work is. Need to keep reminding myself of that, not let fear of the job market talk me into a sector of the field I don’t want to be in permanently.

It is becoming clear to me from private emails in response to my “WTF are you thinking, SLIS?” mailing-list post that people Just Aren’t Getting It.

It’s almost cute, the babes in the woods thinking that the university’s lip-service to free speech and inquiry actually means something. Touching optimism. Which won’t protect them in the slightest when somebody (be it student or professor) does something stupid and the Wrath of Administration comes down.

Eh, well. I have said my piece. All I can do now is distance myself from the ensuing madness.

Oh, and start a betting pool for how long it’ll take before something blows up. Anybody want in?

The snow is merrily whirling about outside my window, and I really wish it would stop. I just shoveled a ton of it, muttering tiddely-pom and other things under my breath, and while the sidewalks are clear (you may thank me now), I barely even got a start on the driveway.

One of those fluffy snows that packs down hard and crusty on the bottom. I think the term should be “wrist-breaker” if it isn’t already.

And it is still snowing. But the next shovel run is David’s turn, because my wrists hurt.

SLIS’s student mailing list is in the middle of a mild uproar regarding a political joke posted to it. This, by itself, is nothing amazing; people send ill-advised things to mailing lists all the time.

What amazed me was the response. The mailing list isn’t an appropriate place for political speech, so—let’s start an official SLIS weblog and discuss it all there!

People, people, people. Think. Please. Even if it hurts. I just sent a very long email to the mailing list on this theme, an email that boils down to “WTF are you thinking?”

See, I can say that here. I can say “WTF is SLIS thinking?” and SLIS can’t reasonably touch me. This is my space. It’s been my space for longer than I’ve been at SLIS. You guys out there reading CavLec know I don’t speak for SLIS. SLIS knows I don’t speak for SLIS. So SLIS can benignly ignore me, and everybody’s happy.

If this were SLIS’s space and I said something like that, I could reasonably expect to be hauled up in front of the dean. Reasonably? Sure reasonably. Happened to me once. I pride myself on being a grounded paranoiac.

What’s more, why does SLIS want to be responsible in any way for my blathering? As it is, when I write something cogent they can nod wisely and say, “Yes, she’s one of ours; isn’t that wonderful?” and when I make an ass of myself they can conveniently forget I exist. What’s to gain by bringing me under their rooftop? Only tsuris when (not if, when) I make an ass of myself.

You know, I started Caveat Lector in the first place over just such power/deniability issues. (As, indeed, one might guess from its name.) I lost control temporarily over the OEBPS FAQ because I stupidly let my Big Boss at the time talk me into letting it be work-for-hire. And my last employer but one? Hired me because I had a capital-R Reputation in the area, and wanted to capitalize on it. At the time, I was writing an occasional article for a web journal covering the business. The Big Boss asked me to indicate that my articles were part of his company’s business communications.

Well, I wasn’t that stupid. Stupid, but not quite that stupid. “I’m a little leery about that,” I said. “I don’t want—”

“Oh, we’ll never exert any editorial control! We just want our name out there.”

I should have gotten that in writing. I didn’t, because I was still stupid. And the entirely predictable came to pass: I wrote something the Big Boss didn’t like, and the Big Boss breathed a lot of fire down my neck.

And when the smoke died down, I decided I didn’t ever want to be in that position again. So I started CavLec, where I can be as pigheaded as I want without damage to anyone but me. And where no employer can possibly say again “Well, I didn’t think you’d write that!” when three years’ evidence about what I do and don’t write is available for the perusal.

I like to think I am a reasonable being. Anyone thinking of employing me who wants to have a discussion about CavLec—that’s perfectly fine; I’d rather discuss it openly than have anyone worry needlessly, or have another dragon jump out of a closet at me. I don’t especially want to make anybody mad. I never have.

But the speediest route to madness is mixing up individual expression with people in positions of power over the individual. It’s not a mistake I intend to make again.

Which is why I repeat, “SLIS, WTF are you thinking?”

Okay, okay, too funny not to share.

You guys remember the Impossible Job Announcement? (Which, by the way, is being circulated again. They’re really not finding anybody, best I can tell.)

The same library system is now looking for a Human Resources Coordinator.

Old one not workin’ out for you, huh? Yeah, I can well imagine that.

(No, I didn’t apply for the Impossible Job. I’m good at what I do, but nobody’s as good as what they want. Why knowingly court unrealistic standards?)

The bigshots are starting to pick up on the bandwidth-sucking referrer-spam jerkwads. I’m keeping up via Technorati; there’s far more out there than I can reasonably summarize.

Spam activity today: if you’ve got the User-Agent trick running, you’re still good. Plenty of new domain names in the referrers, so many that I think I’m going to recommend that you install the User-Agent trick if you haven’t already.

Li, I don’t know what the heck is up with Spam Karma and your hacker. I’ll investigate tomorrow, promise.