Selecting titles for off-site storage in a large library is sometimes a trip through the history of fads and passions. Years ago, I sent off a number of titles on atheism from the 1960s, thinking that subject probably wouldn’t be a craze again. Less than a decade later came Dawkins et al., so I’m definitely no seer.

However, I do have a proposal for the shortest-lived genre in book history: A Guide to [Whatever Subject] on the Internet. Ten or fifteen years ago this was a hot genre, and now the notion of using a book as a guide to websites just seems archaic.

Sometime soon I’m hoping to review the book Reinventing Knowledge, which I read recently and think academic librarians might find engaging, plus I want to offer a critique of this blog post from a new blog at Inside Higher Education written my my friend and colleague Mary George. But in a few days I start teaching my writing seminar on justice, and I can’t shake the concern with political rhetoric and, for that matter, justice itself.

I guess my post on the Counter-Enlightenment had no effect, since the reactionary Yahoos left their town meetings and stormed Washington, holding up signs comparing President Obama to Hitler and other fun things. I read in one news account that someone had a sign offering Obama a "free ticket back to Kenya." One of Lincoln’s desires before the Civil War was to free the slaves and send them to Africa, and it’s interesting to see that things remain the same with some members of the party of Lincoln. From what I could tell of the news accounts, that crowd in DC was very white and male.

The white male reactionaries out there interest me, but for my purposes here I’m disregarding all the loonies and the birthers (including those in Congress) and other conspiracy theorists, since those types make up an extreme portion of any movement. From the left we have David Icke claiming that President Bush (along with Queen Elizabeth and others) is actually a shape-shifting alien reptile who is working secretly to lead us to a New World Order dominated by the reptile aliens. Some very similar theories are now being spun by the right. I guess the only difference is that David Icke propagates his theories in books and videos almost no one pays attention to, whereas Glenn Beck gets a national television show and seems to have his finger firmly on the pulse of irrational populism. But rhetorically, conceptually, and intellectually, they’re quite similar.

From a rhetorical perspective, the events of the past few months have been fascinating. The Yelling Yahoos (and admittedly some of the right who are not Yelling Yahoos) claim that their recent protests are motivated by a concern with the cost of government, the size and scope of government, freedom, and lying Presidents, at least if I’m understanding the claims correctly. These are serious issues that deserve consideration by any concerned citizen. What’s odd is how the same folks showed no such concern when a previous President lied to the American people about Iraq, led the country into an unjustified multi-trillion dollar war, increased the national debt by combining outrageous war expenses with tax cuts for the rich, and increased the scope of government though such things as nationalizing the TSA and the Patriot Act.

My counter-Enlightenment post drew an earnest (and probably non-librarian) reader who tried to persuade me that yelling mobs weren’t really yelling mobs, or that they were yelling mobs but that they were yelling for good reasons, such as their concern with the scope of government and their freedom. But it should be extremely clear to anyone with eyes to see that people who claim to be motivated by principle but who only protest when that principle is compromised by someone of an opposing political party, then they’re not really motivated by principle so much as by partisan politics. Be motivated by partisan politics if you wish, choose your beliefs based on party rather than reason or justice if you must, but please don’t try to persuade others that you’re somehow principled. For some people, freedom’s just another word for not giving a damn about anyone else.

What I find bizarre isn’t that Republicans and reactionaries and others are coming out in force in opposition to President Obama. Democrats and progressives and such came out in some force against President Bush, and sometimes in just as inane and bizarre a fashion as the birthers are attacking Obama. Leftist frothing and hyperventilation at the mention of President Bush was never a pretty sight. I don’t even find it bizarre that they try to appeal to such principles as freedom or honesty or limited government. What I find bizarre is that considering the stances of many of these same people about the War in Iraq or the Patriot Act and other shenanigans of the Bush administration that they expect anyone to take their principled stand seriously, as my earnest commenter expected me to do to his position.

One cannot support the War in Iraq and plausibly claim to be against increasing the size and cost of government or offended by lying politicians. One cannot support the Patriot Act and plausibly claim to be concerned with the scope of government. One can’t cut taxes for the rich and plausibly claim to be concerned with national debt. It doesn’t seem to me that anyone is really opposed to the bogeyman of Big Government, but only what that Big Government might do. Fight a dubious war and disregard the Constitution and human rights in the name of security? Sure, that sounds like fun!. Help poor sick people get health care? Fascist dictatorship! How seriously can we possibly take some of these people?

Democratic politics provide for a turbulent and sometimes violent atmosphere. Such has always been the case. As citizens we should argue and fight, sometimes even protest and shout, for our political beliefs. And I at least can certainly see much to criticize about President Obama’s handling of health care reform (though my criticisms would be different from the reactionaries). But it should be obvious that whatever is motivating the criticisms of the protesters, it is almost certainly not the principles that some of them claim. Appealing to principles only when they support your side doesn’t make one principled, but merely an opportunist, or perhaps what the great conservative Edmund Burke called sophisters and calculators.

There’s no hope for reasoned discussion until the true principles of the disagreement are laid bare, and until the public dialog is no longer driven by Yahoos. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.

According to IHE, Elsevier was offering people $25 gift cards for Amazon or Barnes and Noble if they would leave positive reviews of one of their textbooks on those sites. After the fake medical journal scandal, one doesn’t even have to ask. Clearly they have no shame. They only fake it when they’re found out. I wanted to write more on this, but it’s just so obviously disreputable there’s not much to say.  Of course they disavow responsibility. It’s always an overzealous employee. But overzealous employees are created by the corporate culture. I could probably retire on what the top two or three research libraries pay Elsevier each year, and I’m not that old.

I’ll tell you now I have nothing to say, but last weekend someone asked me if this blog was dead, and I realized it’s been a while since I’ve written. I took three weeks off for Christmas, then I was behind at work, then preparing for ALA, then being at ALA, then catching up afterward. Also, I’ve been asked to present and write more than I usually do, and free time is taken up with these extracurricular projects. Then suddenly people are asking if I’ve given up blogging. I don’t think I have. I don’t consider this blog dead, nor even dormant. It’s just resting.

Oddly enough, I even have some stuff to write about, but haven’t had the time. Over Christmas break I was reading Jonathan Israel’s Radical Enlightenment and enjoyed the chapter on libraries and the Enlightenment. Through that I got to Gabriel Naude’s 17th century book on establishing a library. I thought it might be interesting to compare the nascent days of research libraries to today, but that would require that I actually read the book, which I haven’t had time to do yet despite its brevity. The great thing about a blog is that it issues no demands or deadlines. At least I’ve proved I’m not addicted to blogging, which no one probably ever suspected about me.

To fill the space, I considered posting the "25 Random Things" thing, which I’ve been tagged on in Facebook a couple of times. So far I can’t think of 25 random things that I’d want the world to know about me, but for the especially curious among you I’ll give you half a dozen from my list. For the not especially curious, just ignore these.

1. I’m big for my age.
2. I play guitar. In high school I wanted to be Eric Clapton. After that I wanted to be Bob Dylan.
3. I grew up in the south, but have no trace of a southern accent. When people say, "you don’t sound like you’re from Louisiana," I tell them everyone in Louisiana sounds like me.
4. I’m built for comfort, not for speed.
5. Dogs and children tend to love me.
6. I’ve studied both karate and aikido. Not a lot, but enough to hurt you if you attack me. So don’t attack me.

 Oh, and according to the Typealyzer, this blog is INTP.

"INTP – The Thinkers

The logical and analytical type. They are especially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about."

Personally, I prefer the description of INTP I got when I took the Facebook quiz ( though this one isn’t too bad, either):

"Logical, original, creative thinkers. Can become very excited about theories and ideas. Exceptionally capable and driven to turn theories into clear understandings. Highly value knowledge, competence and logic. Quiet and reserved, hard to get to know well. Individualistic, having no interest in leading or following others."

I’m pretty sure I’ll never be famous, and by famous, I mean “famous” in that librarian kind of way: well known throughout the profession, popular speaker, etc.

This isn’t something that bothers me much, but I was thinking about it last week. Last Friday I gave a talk at a small regional conference. I don’t speak often and almost never seek the opportunity out, but when I can manage to get myself up in front of an audience things seem to go well. One person even said she found my talk inspiring, but I have a feeling she was being overly kind. Nevertheless, when I compare my speaking abilities to other librarians, including some of them who seem to be everywhere at once, I think I could hold my own when it came to style. Though I always feel sick before speaking, once I start everything seems fine, and I get a performance high by the end. Teaching affects me in much the same way if a discussion has gone particularly well. I craft my talks, engage my audience, get some laughs, just like the big boys and girls do. So style doesn’t explain why I’ll probably never be famous.

It’s most likely not substance, either. Most of the presentations I see librarians doing are based upon things they do in their job or as a hobby. Most of these topics aren’t things that require years of intensive study before presenting on them. Some of the hot topics of years past—like Library 2.0 or virtual reference or some others—I already know quite a bit about, both theoretically and practically, and sometimes when I’m watching a presentation or reading something on a library topic, I do think to myself that I could probably do just as good a job with it. As with my talk last Friday (on building librarian-faculty relations), I could probably come up with a hour of material on just about anything related to my work and at least keep the audience from being bored.

Besides my general lack of ambition to be famous, I think the problem might be one of the hedgehog and the fox. Isaiah Berlin notes in his essay of that title that, “There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’” (The Proper Study of Mankind, 436). In his essay Turgenev is the fox, Tolstoy the hedgehog. It seems to me that the most famous librarians, especially the most sought after speakers, are hedgehogs, whereas for better or worse, I’m more like a fox.

This may sound critical or even dismissive, but that’s far from my intention. The famous librarians often have a shtick or a brand they push: that’s the One Big Thing they know. It’s not that they don’t know other things, it’s just that for the sake of public consumption everyone associates them with the one big thing. When people want them to speak, it’s because they know the person can speak well about that One Big Thing, whatever it is. “You’re planning a panel on X? I heard so-and-so speak on X and she was fabulous!” I don’t think I even have to name names. Everyone can probably associate a few One Big Things with particular people. I’m almost positive some readers of this blog are themselves associated in the librarian hive-mind with one big thing.

I wouldn’t necessarily mind being associated with One Big Thing, but I have no idea what that thing would be. This presents a problem if I wanted to be famous. I know about a lot of topics, but I’m not sure there’s any library topic I know more about than any number of other librarians. Plus, I’m not very focused; just consider this blog. That has always my problem as an academic as well, which is partly why I’m now a librarian. I had too many intellectual interests to spend five years focusing on one of them long enough to get through exams and a dissertation, and I couldn’t find any way to reconcile them. Thus, I’m an intellectual dilettante who prefers the more neutral term of generalist.

About the only thing I do that other librarians don’t is think about certain library issues in unusual, irrelevant (and some might even say inappropriate) philosophical ways: for example, classical teleology and library missions, Rawlsian political philosophy and collection development, Aristotelian virtue ethics and reference work, Hayekian social theory and the Wikipedia (as well as, coming to you from a webcast at ACRL next spring, organizational development). While I may be able to cobble together a book one day, this is hardly the sort of approach that becomes a Big Thing.  “Oh, you’re planning a conference on esoteric and impractical ruminations about librarianship? I saw Wayne speak on that at ACRL and he was fabulous!”

I’m definitely not envious, but I do admire the technique. I’m not envious because first, I don’t think being a famous librarian means that someone is any smarter or more capable or a better librarian or even any happier than me, and second, I would definitely rather stay home with the fam than do as much traveling as I know some librarians do. I have a good friend who has done library-related jaunts in China and Nigeria and other places, and while I admire her drive I don’t think I would like that life at all. Even with domestic travel, if it requires me to jam my long legs into an airplane seat, I’d usually  rather stay home. However, there is something admirable about the ability to seize the day that some librarians have, to exploit the coincidence of the moment and their One Big Thing. Regardless of whatever abilities I might have, it’s clear I don’t have that particular ability. Whatever it is—the drive, the desire, the knack, the energy, the focus—I obviously don’t have, but definitely notice it in others and wonder if they feed on it and grow stronger, or if it all just seems old after a while. I suppose I’ll never know.

In a couple of weeks I’ll start helping freshmen in the writing seminars with the library portion of their research essays. Inevitably, I see some students who are looking for the improbable source. There are all sorts of improbable sources.

I hear from my colleagues in the social sciences about students who want statistics on things no one keeps statistics on, or they want a data set that has already been compiled on the obscure topic they themselves want data for.

The improbable source I’m asked for most often comes from students in writing seminars working on relatively esoteric topics, topics that might only be a focus of interest for the recent PhD teaching the class. Typically, the students are armed with some theoretical readings about a topic, then are told to go out and find cultural objects or trends to apply those theories to. Somewhere, the lesson breaks down, though. My favorite is from a student a couple of years ago. She was taking a seminar on civic friendship, which is a relatively unstudied topic. She wanted to write a research essay about email. Thus, the inevitable request, "Can you help me find scholarly books and articles on how email is a form of civic friendship?"

I’m torn in my response to questions like this. Naturally, I want to help. But of course, I want to say! There’s a vast literature on the topic! Another part of me wants to chuckle at the naivete of these kids today. Oh my, how could they be so silly as to think something like that might exist! What are they teaching in the schools these days!

Of course I do neither, and instead explain the problem, which is that they want sources that already do their work for them. In some ways, the question makes a great teaching moment, because while it seems such a simple request, it opens a dialogue about what research is and is not possible, the place of a researcher in a scholarly conversation, the way trends in scholarship affect what other scholars write on, the duty of the researcher to create something new, etc. All of these are good lessons, even if they never need them again.

These questions also give me something enjoyable to look forward to, which is always a boon as the research paper deluge descends upon me.

Everyone has probably seen the story about McCain’s campaign complaining to Youtube about campaign videos being removed and reviewed because of possible violations of copyright. Google News has a roundup of them. My favorite response so far is from CNET. McCain’s campaign wants special treatment. Tgdaily put it this way:

The McCain camp’s biggest complaint was that the copyright act does not favor the user of the material, but usually the copyright owner. If the video creator feels that their video has been pulled inappropriately, the act doesn’t give them any wiggle room in trying to get the video put back up before a period of ten to fourteen days.

Is there any response a librarian can have other than: Wow! Where has McCain’s lawyer been living the last ten years that this should come as a surprise? As many have noted, McCain (or at least his campaign’s lawyer) is asking for a special exemption from the same DMCA that he himself voted for. The person who would want you to be fined for making a copy of your own DVD for your own use wants to use CBS news clips willy-nilly in his campaign videos.

There are so many issues here it’s hard to know where to begin, but the biggest one is political, not legal. Youtube has undoubtedly taken the right stand in reminding McCain and his lawyer that they aren’t above the law. McCain is being subjected to the same law as everyone else, because if any citizen stands above the law, then the law is an arbitrary force lacking authority and legitimacy. I’m sure that if he understood the issue, even McCain – perhaps even the new creature McCain has morphed into over the past few months – would agree.

McCain or his lawyer is right to feel irritated by this, though, because it’s obvious to almost everyone that the DMCA is an unjust law that is too restrictive of copyright. If there weren’t such a feeling, then millions upon millions of people wouldn’t violate that law every day with no qualms whatsoever. Is there anyone who feels even remotely bad about, for example, copying their own DVD to load onto their iPod? Is there anyone except the big studios who cares if anyone else does this for their own videos? Does anyone feel like such a person has committed a crime? Of course they don’t. No victim, no crime.

The same goes for Youtube. Is anyone really bothered if someone puts up a few minutes of a TV show or a mashup of different copyrighted materials on Youtube? Of course they don’t. The copyright holders protest, presumably with the argument that using their material is losing them money, but I think that would be hard to prove. If someone directs me to a video clip from a copyrighted TV show I might watch it, but if it weren’t there I wouldn’t seek it out in it’s copyrighted source. i just wouldn’t watch it.

Since I’m often a glass-is-half-empty sort of person, I have trouble believing any change to copyright will come out of this incident, but I have to admit to just a tiny bit of schadenfreude at the moment.

Walt Crawford’s latest Cites & Insights is out. I hate to admit it, but the first thing I do when I open it is to see if I’ve been cited. Am I the only one?

It’s sort of like getting a birthday card from a relative and shaking it first to see if a check falls out.

Suddenly I’ve been crazy busy. During the long summer when time seemed to stretch forever and I had plenty of time to do what I needed to do, I would think, boy, I can’t wait for fall to come. The students come back. The weather cools. I start teaching again. Now I’m thinking, boy, this place sure was less hectic without all these classes going on. I’ve been meaning to write here for the past week, but never seemed to find the time. Eventually, I want to write about the Ithaka report on the future of research libraries and a few other things I’ve been reading, but it will have to wait.

I even missed lighter things. For example, I wanted to write about the Ivygateblog’s “Hottest Librarian in the Ivy League” contest. Not that I thought anyone would enter me into the contest, despite my height and good hair. I might stand a chance in an “Ivy League Librarian who doesn’t look too bad in dark clothes and a dim light” contest, but even then I’m not so sure. The contest seems to have been inspired by someone who compared Sarah Palin’s supposed makeover to the “hot librarian effect.” Considering what I’ve been reading about Palin and libraries, it probably wouldn’t please a lot of librarians–hot or otherwise–to be compared to her. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t win the contest. However, though she’s undeniably very attractive, I’m not sure the winner is really a librarian. The whole contest has a whiff of scandal about it, if you ask me.

The Ivies, or at least one Ivy, came up in another post last week I wanted to write about. Over at ACRLog, Steven Bell was exhibiting what looked to me like resentment against Harvard. Resentment is never pretty. He begins, “Does the name Robert Darnton ring a bell? No?” Actually, the name Robert Darnton did mean something to me. He’s a prominent historian of, among other things, publishing and the book, and a Princeton professor emeritus who’s now the director of the Harvard libraries. Bell takes issue with something Darnton wrote about Harvard:

Lesser libraries may rely on Google, JSTOR, and whatever they can harvest from the Internet, but Harvard has a responsibility to keep up with the production of scholarship by increasing its acquisitions of books-old-fashioned books, print on paper…No other university library has contracted such a heavy obligation, because none can compare with Harvard in the depth and breadth of its collections.

It really shouldn’t come as a surprise to any academic librarian that when we talk about library collections, there’s big and then there’s Harvard big. I’ve argued before that the largest and richest libraries have an obligation to collect the human and scholarly record as completely as possible because if they don’t do it, no one will. They have an obligation that transcends their individual institutions and extends to the entire scholarly world. When I wrote that, I was thinking primarily about Harvard, though I’d include a handful of the other largest libraries. The purpose of a research library is to collect as much as possible and make it accessible. Librarians can provide all the great public service they want, but if the collections aren’t there to support research then the library has failed in an important mission. Bell’s response: “Well I’ll certainly sleep more soundly at night knowing that the future of civilization is safe as long as Harvard continues to amass its huge collections.” Frankly, the response astounds me. I’m not sure it affects my sleep at all, but as a librarian and a human being with an interest in preserving human culture, I am reassured knowing that some library somewhere is amassing this sort of collection so that it will be available for future generations. The time frame of a research library, and especially of one like Harvard, is large. Research libraries aren’t just about helping current undergraduates make it through college. They also have to collect and preserve as much as they can for scholars decades hence. To dismiss a serious scholar like Darnton who has a deep understanding and abiding concern for the mission of a great research library with a snide, resentful remark seems inappropriate to me.

Last week, I heard about a discussion among some academics and some academic librarians over who should teach citation skills to students. An “academic” (as it was put to me) thought the teachers should teach the citation skills, because they were the scholars who cited things. Others thought the librarians should continue to teach such skills because they always had. Is this a controversy anywhere? When I started teaching, it never occurred to me to ask a librarian to teach about citation. Guides to MLA, APA, and Chicago styles are in just about every writing handbook around, and since I was usually teaching academic research and writing, it made sense to teach citation format as well. As a librarian, nobody has ever asked me to teach citation styles in the classroom, though I’ve gotten some reference questions over the years. However, our library does provide workshops on Endnote and Refworks, and we’re all expected to be familiar with these tools and with citation styles in general. I just thought it seemed odd that anyone would care enough to argue that either professors or librarians would be the “best” group to teach citation, as if both aren’t equally familiar with them. Even the argument that the academics are the ones publishing is weak, since obviously lots of academic librarians do publish. The library literature isn’t especially great, but it’s not because the citations are incorrect.

Okay, my house is clean now.

Lately I’ve been wanting to get to know myself better, to really explore who I am, and there’s no better way to do that than by taking quizzes at Blogthings or some other such site. I took a lot of them so that I would know more about myself, and I thought I would share them with you, so you can get to know me, too. If you don’t want to know more about me, don’t read on.

I don’t think I’m the main demographic for these quizzes, because most of them seemed aimed at unmarried young women. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find out if I was a vain girl, or a fit girl, or an “it” girl. I’ll never find out if my boyfriend is cheating on me, or if I have him hooked, or if he loves me only for my body (probably not).

Still, I can find out the really important things about myself. For example, I’m a sexually powerful brainiac with a very high independence level who is incredibly logical and bold when it counts. How many librarians can say that, I ask you.

Those all sound pretty good to me, but sometimes one finds out unpleasant things about oneself. For example, I’m a little anal retentive and 32% gross. Oh, and I’m only an okay listener.

And then there are the things one never really thinks about. For example, I’m not prissy. In fact, I’m “the furthest thing from a princess.” It’s something I’ve never really thought about before, but it’s good to know. Also, it seems I make a good first impression. That’s nice to know as well.

Then there are the things I already suspected. My movie buff quotient is 84%. I’m “a movie buff of the most obsessive variety. If a movie exists, chances are that [I’ve] seen it.” Doesn’t surprise me at all.

There are also the little random things one can find out about oneself, such as from the shortest personality quiz, where choosing which picture you like most tells you a lot about your personality. That sounds pretty scientific to me. According to that quiz, I am “elegant, withdrawn, and brilliant. [My] mind is a weapon, able to solve any puzzle. [I am] also great at poking holes in arguments and common beliefs.” Hmm. That could be.

And there are the things people can find out about me from, for example, my musical taste. My “musical tastes are reflective and complex. [I am] intellectual to the point of being cerebral. [I am] very open to new experiences, and even more open to new ideas and theories. Wisdom and personal accomplishment are important to [me]. [I am] naturally sophisticated. [I am} drawn to art, especially art by independent artists. [I am] likely to be financially well off… and not because [I was] born that way.” I was sure this was correct until that last sentence. So much for science.

Fortunately, I haven’t been ruined by American culture, whatever that is. The quizmasters think I may not be American at all. I feel pretty American, though, so I just don’t know what to believe. Maybe it’s because I “take a more global philosophy with [my] politics, taste, and life.” The problem is, when I start to unpack that sentence, I’m not exactly sure what it would mean to take a philosophy with my taste. Sometimes going through these quizzes I think it’s just possible not only that the makers don’t know what they’re talking about, but that they don’t express themselves very well.

To wrap things up, I’ll just let you know a couple of random things. I’m disturbingly profound rather than profoundly disturbing and my seduction style is the charmer. I just thought you should know.