Caveat Lector

At MPOW, to buck for promotion in rank one must organize one’s professional accomplishments since one’s last promotion into The Binder, which one submits to one’s committee to be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, and numbered. (Ooh, I probably shouldn’t have phrased it in those terms… but I can hope my committee’s never heard of Patrick McGoohan.)

Since I have not been previously promoted, I am allowed to use materials from before my tenure at MPOW to make the case that I am a good librarian really truly and deserve promotion because of it. I have to make this case extra-special hard for myself, because I do not have the three years of professional librarian experience normally required for the rank I’m trying for. (It isn’t an absolute requirement. I read the Librarian’s Handbook. Very, very carefully. It ISN’T.)

I tell you what, it’s a good thing I’m a digital pack-rat. (Boy, am I ever in the right job, I tell you what. Digital packrattism isn’t just a job for me: it’s a way of life!) I wanted my “Page and Screen” talk that I haven’t given for five years for The Binder. Drill down in a few folders, and there it was, no problem, and in three versions no less… and beside it I found a presentation for NIST’s eBook 2001 that I’d completely forgotten I ever gave.

Boy, I did amazingly ugly PowerPoints in those days. Whew. I’m talkin’ plug-ugly. Tufte would die of apoplexy on the spot.

I wasn’t stupid, though, I’ll give myself that. Bit callow, no doubt. Very unaware of the social context of computing. I was very, very right about what was wrong with publishing workflows, and why markup wasn’t fitting in. I was very, very silly to think that better-designed technology was the answer.

Eh, well. It’d be scary and upsetting if I hadn’t changed and grown in five years. That, at least, I needn’t worry about.

Which is good, because I’ve enough on my plate just worrying about The (expletives deleted) Binder.