You’ll find a new set of the 25 articles read (or at least viewed) the most between October 9 and November 8, 2008, including seven articles that weren’t in last month’s list–and 25 other long-term leaders.
New this week (and only on the new LLN): technologies you can’t afford to ignore, how to “manage up” (leading–or managing–successfully from the middle), convenience as key to success and “how to be a great speaker.”
Beginning later today and continuing for some time, you may find that some of your favorite LLN articles require one more click to read. That’s because we’re migrating content to the “Read & Learn” section of the new, Drupal-based, Library Leadership Network.
We’ll have a more complete writeup on editorial changes as part of this migration in the near future, but for now here’s what you need to know:
One of those is integrated library systems, so I have no direct comments to make about a set of conversations currently taking place within various blogs, FriendFeed and probably other venues.
I do have one side comment, though.
One of the parties in these conversations says there are three “big open source applications”–Firefox, Apache and Linux. (The discussion that follows leads me to believe that there’s an implication that these are the big open source applications.) That statement makes me wonder how “big” is defined–setting aside the question of whether Apache or Linux are “applications.”
I’m posting this on my blog, which uses WordPress software, which is open source software. WordPress software runs millions of blogs. Is that big?
My part-time job is as Editorial Director of the Library Leadership Network, which is in the midst of a platform change.
I’m as much an open source independent as I am an open access independent. I’m quite happy with Vista (and will move to Windows 7 soon) and, although I’ve tried OpenOffice, I much prefer Word2007 and Office2007 in general. But I believe a few million people use OpenOffice, which is open source software.
So I guess it depends on your definition of “big.”
(I’m guessing there are some other open source programs used by millions of people, which for me is a pretty good definition of “big”; I only included ones I’m personally familiar with.)
]]>The 16-page PDF consists of a title sheet, a three-page index of articles and blog posts quoted, and an 11-page general index.
This completes Volume 9.
A paperback version of Cites & Insights 9: 2009 will be available some time in the next few weeks. (I need to choose a photograph, prepare a cover and prepare the book for print-on-demand publication, and a few other things have higher priority.) It will cost $50 and be available exclusively through Lulu, as with each of the previous three paperback volumes.
]]>I came to this one positively predisposed. I enjoyed a couple of early Sherlock Holmes flicks in another set, I like the published stories. Unfortunately, the movie let me down—partly because of print sound problems (heavy noise overlay through much of the picture) that made it difficult to enjoy. I’m not sure that was all of it; it felt like very little “legitimate Holmes” and lots of cliché Holmes, with some odd action thrown in. (Two people rolling around on the floor with thumping noises may be how a fight actually happens, but it’s lousy cinema.)
Actually, the movie’s roughly half over before Holmes enters at all. Two top men at a prison make a deal with a one-legged lifer to find a treasure, let him and another escape and split the treasure four ways—and, naturally, one of the two kills the other and completely ignores the deal. Many years later, the prisoners escape and the action starts—part of it involving the peculiar choice to make the less-evil prisoner (who was a couple of months away from release anyway) a Tattooed Man, thus making him instantly identifiable. There’s a little remorse added, by the old man who got all the treasure, has used enough of it to establish a comfortable lifestyle for his family, and now wants to give part of it to the daughter of the partner he betrayed—who, when she gets part of it and senses she’s in danger, goes to Holmes.
That’s enough of the plot…except that, in this case, it appears that Dr. Watson and the daughter become engaged at the end of the flick. We get a little of the brilliant (or absurd) Holmes “deductions” and a lot of the tired sayings. We get over-the-top disguises. We get Scotland Yard treating Holmes as irrelevant but simultaneously giving him all the help he requests. I dunno, maybe I’m being too harsh, but I can’t give this more than $0.75.
The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes, 1935, b&w. Leslie S. Hiscott (dir.), Arthur Wontner, Lyn Harding, Ian Fleming, Leslie Perrins, Jane Carr, Charles Mortimer, Michael Shepley, Ben Weldon. 1:24 [1:19].
Same Holmes, different Watson (same first name!), and to my mind a considerably better movie—partly because, while there’s still sound distortion, it’s now a low warbling that doesn’t entirely disrupt the movie. We don’t get Holmes in disguise; we do get the death (apparently) of Moriarty.
Holmes is retiring and moving to the country…at which point Inspector Lestrade calls him in to help with the murder of a local, who was apparently a member of the Scowlers, an infamous American society of coal miners somehow affiliated with the Freemasons (or Freemen?). We get a long, long backstory, quite well done—and then we return to a present with coded messages, secret passages, mistaken identities (or, rather, deliberate identity fraud), a murder that isn’t and more. All in all, a ripping adventure—but with the sound quality, the best I can do is $1.25.
Murder at the Baskervilles (aka Silver Blaze), 1937, b&w. Thomas Bentley (dir.), Arthur Wontner, Ian Fleming, Lyn Harding, John Turnbull, Lawrence Grossmith. 1:11 [1:05].
The incident of the dog in the night—one of the classic Holmesian bits (used here, if perhaps not uniquely). Holmes and Watson take vacation at Baskerville Manor and immediately get dragged into an investigation by Inspector Lestrade. A prize horse has been kidnapped, the stable boy/guard poisoned—and when Holmes and Watson go out to the moors to investigate, they find the horse’s trainer, dead.
Lots of detecting, some interesting twists, Professor Moriarty in rare (and scenery-chewing) form, Holmes alternating between treating Lestrade as an idiot and as a respected colleague. Wontner comes off well as Holmes, as do Ian Fleming as Watson and Lyn Harding as Moriarty. (This appears to be the tale in which Lestrade—John Turnbull—first accepts that Moriarty is a villain. On the other hand, it appears that Moriarty and the Baskervilles are both elements that weren’t in the original story.) Quite well done, and most of the time the sound is OK. $1.50.
The Woman in Green, 1945, b&w. Roy William Neill (dir.), Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Hillary Brooke, Henry Daniell. 1:08.
Different Sherlock (the much better known Basil Rathbone, who I find no better or worse than Wontner), different Watson (Nigel Bruce, who comes off as somewhat of a useless fathead), different Moriarty (well, he’s already died once…), and no Lestrade—oh, and clearly done on a considerably larger budget than the shoestring Wontner flicks.
Plot? Young women are being murdered in London, with no common theme of location, class, employment or anything else—except that in every case the right forefinger is cleanly removed. Turns out to have a lot to do with blackmail and even more to do with hypnotism—and did I mention that Professor Moriarty is involved?
]]>Really quite good, and both the print and sound quality were fine. In some ways, I like Wontner’s Holmes better—and in almost every way I like Fleming’s Watson better. That said, this is a good film; I’ll give it $1.50.
The 32-page issue (PDF as usual, but HTML separates are available–see the links below, and also the caveat about the second item) includes:
It’s the end of a volume (except for the index, later in November) and the end of an era–YBP’s five-year sponsorship. I’m looking for a new sponsor. Also, But Still They Blog: The Liblog Landscape 2007-2009 should be out some time this year…
Making it Work: Purpose, Values and All That Jazz
Commentaries on library values and purpose, including some upbeat commentaries. What’s not here: any commentaries on Taiga, Darien or 101. Caveat: The HTML version is provided for online reading–but if you print it out, it will almost certainly be longer than the PDF of the entire issue. Save paper: If you want this printed, do the whole issue.
Offtopic Perspective: 50 Movie Comedy Classics, Part 2
From “comedy in the classical sense” (that is, most characters survive throughout the film) to little-known but quite funny British films and two versions of a Ben Hecht play, with different genders playing the same lead.
Reminder: This isn’t quite the end of Volume 9. Some time later, probably in November, I’ll publish the index and title page–but for those who want a bound set of Volume 9, there’s a better route: Some time after that, I’ll publish the whole volume (by far the longest to date, and that was not intentional) on Lulu, for the same $50 as volumes 6, 7 and 8.
]]>It’s been a relatively quiet week on the content side, as much activity goes into preparing the new LLN site. (For open source aficionados, note that the new site, which will be the center for much more than editorial content, uses Drupal, an open source content management system–while the current site uses MediaWiki, an open source wiki platform.)
“Relatively quiet” doesn’t mean no change. You’ll find two substantial changes in existing articles, one of them controversial, and a few new items on Leader’s Digest. It’s also a great week to review material you may have missed, including sections on open source, open access, leadership and social media.
Since we moved here six months ago, we’ve been getting pizza for dinner on some Saturdays–from a takeout/delivery place just three blocks from here. It’s much better than most chain pizza, although technically it is a chain. Turns out the pizza place hasn’t been there that much longer than we have…
When we do this, I usually call in the order around 5:30 p.m., they usually say “20 minutes or so,” I go over around 5:40, and it’s usually ready between 5:45 and 5:50. There’s usually a reasonable flow of traffic, with deliveries going out every few minutes, people coming in to pick up pizzas every couple of minutes.
So yesterday was Saturday, and I ordered a pizza around 5:30, and they said “20 minutes or so.” (This one was free: they have a really good frequent diner program, one free after six orders.)
But yesterday was also Halloween. The owner had no idea…
I can only conjecture that everybody eats pizza on Halloween–or at least that it’s a natural for Saturday Halloween parties. They were well-staffed, but the desk people didn’t quite catch on to what was happening quite soon enough. And you can only make pizzas so fast in a two-oven facility…
Let’s just say that I got my pizza at 6:20 p.m. By 5:50, they were telling people “45 minutes to an hour, longer for delivery.” The manager did his best, including giving refunds to people who just gave up…although in one case, it took just long enough to give the refund that the person got his pizzas instead. The atmosphere in the increasingly-crowded area around the tiny shop went from bemusement to some anger (on some folks’ part, not mine) to a sort of camaraderie.
The pizza was fine, if a whole lot delayed, and of course I got it fresh out of the oven…
(Yes, we had trick-or-treaters, although not many–maybe 25 total.)
]]>On October 14, I said I was pausing for breath–stepping back from the project, after finishing the first draft of the first five chapters, to write some essays for the next Cites & Insights and to take a fresh look at what the statistics say about the state of liblogs, at least for the portion written so far.
I wrote an essay–and since it’s more than 22,000 words long and there’s the second half of 50 Movie Comedy Classics to report on, that’s probably it for the December 2009 issue. (Probably out next week. Possibly a little later.)
I also reviewed the chapters, came up with a small number of additional insights, and edited them to 2nd draft status.
And, since then, I’ve prepared chapters 6-9:
Shortly, I’ll print out chapters 6-8 to review for better ways to describe what I found–much as I did for chapters 1-5.
But then there’s this, from the October 14 post:
Maybe it would make sense to look at a subset of the 521 blogs that might be called the “common blogs”–ones that have a significant number of posts in all three years, ones that have full metrics for all three years, ones that aren’t current awareness services in blog form–and see whether those blogs, possibly 200-300, show more distinct patterns than the overall set.
The more I thought about it, the more I thought his would be a neat idea–and added Chapter 10, Core blogs, to the outline.
And prepared a trimmed copy of the spreadsheet, as follows:
That left me with 265 blogs. So I began Chapter 10, then started preparing quintiles and other analyses to see whether I’d find anything particularly interesting.
See the title of this post?
Oh, there will be a Chapter 10–but it will be one of two primarily narrative chapters about why people blog, how blogging changes and why/how blogs disappear. The Chapter 10 that I was working on doesn’t exist any longer, although one paragraph (much shorter than this post!) does appear, as part of Chapter 1.
Sure, there were changes in the patterns–but they were all changes that were essentially mandated by the way I trimmed blogs. There was nothing “interesting” at all.
Oh well, only a couple afternoons’ work; in the past, I’ve spent much longer periods on projects that I abandoned or found useless… (Up to and including the very first book-length manuscript I ever wrote, the only one I ever wrote on an electric typewriter, the research for which gave me a lasting hatred of microfilm readers…that was probably close to 1,000 hours of work, and I don’t even have the ms. to show for it.)
Come to think of it, this post isn’t very interesting either. Such is life. It’s Friday, and there’s a skeleton on our front porch with some creepy little spiders on it…
]]>So in FriendFeed today, I got involved in a couple of discussions–one involving the worth (or otherwise) of ALA, the other involving what professional groups make sense for a systems librarian.
I’m just going to touch on the second one, where another participant said LITA was not a good choice because it was consistently five to ten years behind the times. I questioned that, and found myself defending LITA–and particularly feeling that, given LITA’s bottom-up nature, something’s terribly wrong if it is “five to ten years behind” (which I don’t believe to be true).
But then, while working on other stuff and taking a walk and doing the weekly recycling/garbage, I thought:
“Why am I defending LITA?”
There are others, who should have been aware of that thread, who are actually active in LITA–and who should be part of LITA not being behind the times. As noted in a number of earlier posts, I’m fairly well burned out on the organization–to the point that I’ll think hard before renewing (since, given my work status, LITA costs me more than ALA does). Oh, I might still renew–as a former president, it’s hard not to–but still.
It was, to some extent, a kneejerk reaction to an attack. I still don’t (necessarily) agree with the attack, but as with some other areas, it’s really not my battle these days.
If LITA is stuck behind the times, then something’s terribly wrong with the IG process–or all the techies have flown the coop. I don’t believe the latter, but I really don’t know.
Anyway, FF friends, just a note that I probably won’t be there to defend LITA next time. It’s up to the active LITA members to do so. Or not, for that matter: I’ve been heard to say that it’s interesting that there’s no Library Electricity Association, and these days IT is just about as omnipresent in libraries as electricity…
]]>After seeing the name for Barnes & Noble’s ebook reader, and pondering the name for Amazon’s device, I conclude that Sony blew it: The Sony Reader should be the Sony Cell, or just the Cell.
Then we’d have the perfect trilogy: Cell, Nook and Kindle.
]]>