From my temporary digs, I am able to walk 4to my office and use its PC whenever I want to, and I do have this iPhone, which I am laboriously writing on right now, using the WordPress app. So I am only underconnected by choice. Plus I do have a spiffy new clock radio where I can dock my iPhone and listen to NPR live or via a thousand streams.

Still, my Pioneer Days have some interesting ramifications.

On the one hand, I am appreciating the quiet evenings where I read through contracts, standards, and historical paperwork. There’s a lot of ground to cover, and poring over fine print is easier without the lure of the web or TV.

My pleasure reading feels more attuned. I’m not tempted to put down a book or magazine to watch Cold Case or ramble around the social networks. What I start reading, I finish.

On the other hand, I miss writing. I had planned to take a writing moratorium, but now that I am in that place, all I want to do is write. That may not be a bad thing, to have turned writing into a tempoarily unattainable object of affection.

I also am a bit out of touch on the social nets. Stephen Abram wrote what about open source? Michael Porter and David Lee King did a Library 101 video? People want me to upload my slides from my talk in Iowa? All in good time, friends.

Meanwhile, the Twitter and Facebook updates tick past, somewhere out there on the web, while I sit at a kitchen table, turning the pages of old contracts while the radio murmurs.

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Right before I arrived in the Bay Area I had a chance to swing through Monterey and attend a reception for SCELC, the key consortium MPOW belongs to. (MPOW, for those new to this blog, means My Place Of Work, which in this case is the Cushman Library at Holy Names University.)  This was a chance to meet our peers in the private-academic-California sector of LibraryLand and to soak up some of the SCELC zeitgeist.

While I was listening to people talk about libraries and librarianship, more than once I overheard someone describe SCELC members as “the libraries that aren’t CSU or UC.”  I can see why they would say that, since UC and CSU do tend to dominate the discussion in California academia.

Yet collectively, the SCELC libraries are quite the force; and a consortium such as SCELC helps them become more than the sum of their parts.  To date SCELC has been extremely useful for these libraries. And tomorrow, and the tomorrows beyond? As we as a profession move toward massive-scale resource-sharing and centralized print and digital collections, the neural networks built by consortial bridges will make the smallest libraries powerful indeed.

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Note to current GSLIS students: because the library-science library is now housed in the GSLIS building, you may not be aware that there is a relief of Katharine Sharp in the graduate library, near the former location of the LIS library. Rub her nose and she’ll bring you good luck — with jobs, tests, whatever. (Though perhaps not so much with driving.)

In Des Moines, Sandy went back to Florida for a denominational meeting, I gave my talks (hello, Ellen, Jessamyn, Karen, Louise, and others!), and then I plowed through Nebraska, Wyoming, a chunk of Utah, and Nevada. Within that cohort group, Wyoming won the “I feel pretty” contest hands-down (it reminds me of New Mexico, except flatter), though the wind was so stiff I thought I would fly away when I stopped to refuel.

I was all prepared for a heartwarming moment when I crossed the California state line, but I-80 had some horrible curvy concrete chute going on for several miles that had me sweating through the winter coat I dug out of the trunk, so the defining emotion as I crossed into my home state was relief. Perhaps that is apropos!

Now I am at my sister’s place in Truckee, catching up on computer-based tasks and laundry. My iPhone has been a great help on this computerless trip–from email-reading to finding motels–and I already have about 30 apps on it, including one for finding farmers’ markets in California. I am also faster on the keyboard than I was two weeks ago. But the keyboard is still this machine’s weakness. I’m happy with the iPhone, and with AT&T service, but the keyboard is inefficient. Doug’s analogy was clever, but I think off a bit: it’s not like making music without a bow, it’s like picking a guitar with mittens on.  Eventually you get better at it, but only relative to mittened musicmaking.

So with the mittens off, I’m catching up on the big stuff! I drift westward tomorrow, and start my new job this Friday.  Eventually Sandy, Dot, Emma, and our stuff will drift this way as well. West!

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* Got an iPhone. Zero regrets. The Barbie Doll I never had. Going from a Blackberry to an iPhone has raised my expectations of mobile platforms and software in general. Already filling it with free apps. Keyboard is kinda lame, but I’m figuring out how to type on it.

* Holding off on the netbook until Windows 7 debuts. This is painful, because it means I absolutely have to finish my presentation before I leave next weekend, but I think it’s good advice. Couldn’t find an Acer with a coupon for a Win 7 upgrade or would have gone that route.

* GPS: between the Garmin with the Olde Mappes and the iPhone with its Kewl Apps, I’m fine for now.

* iPod:  will keep using the one I have until it’s time to get another, and then get something small, just a step above the Shuffle, for exercising. Don’t want to get all sweaty on my iPhone.  May store some podcasts on the iPhone — just enough for long trips, the only time I really listen to an iPod in my car.

Thanks again for all the advice!

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But Michael Golrick honed in on the challenge of my presentation: not to point out problems, but to point out responses to those problems (avoiding the pat term, “solutions”).  His suggestion of a social-networking policy can be broadened to these responses: enable, guide, and empower library workers to strategically participate in social networks.

My challenge in the next week, before I box up my desktop computer and am PC-less until I get to California, is to come up with more responses.  If you have thoughts, I’m all ears.

If I may segue, one of the things I have dwindling tolerance for is the librarian-bashing presentation. You know the talk, where someone gets up and points out all the ways we librarians are limited. We are timid, slow, convoluted, hesitant, short-sighted, without imagination or rigor.

The audience laughs along with these presenters — perhaps a wee uneasily — and then the bashing ends and the sparkly speaker vanishes off the stage, leaving us with nothing except a vague sense of shame and inadequacy.

About the only talk I’ve liked in that vein is Joe Lucia’s “sheeple” talk at Evergreen 2009, perhaps because he was fingering a narrow group that may bear responsibility for some of the problems that challenge us.  But Joe also did us the favor of talking about what we need to do, and where we need to go.

Color-coded Dewey Shelving, Brisbane

I have said the user is not broken, and in many ways, I think librarians aren’t broken either.  We have been on to some pretty good ideas for a couple thousand years.  Sometimes we are indeed timid, slow, convoluted, hesitant, short-sighted, without imagination, and lack scientific rigor.  Sometimes we have dumb rules, policies, and procedures that undermine the services that deep down we really want to offer.  Sometimes — perhaps much of the time — we do what we want to do, rather than what the evidence suggests we do.

But we also have created amazing institutions that are completely at odds with so many other messages society bombards us with. We celebrate independent, even iconoclastic reading and thinking, we celebrate free information shared freely, we celebrate independent, lifelong learning.

We’re often strikingly creative; in the last year and a half I’ve given countless talks pointing out how we have a long, proud tradition of tool-creation.  The color-coded shelving, above, is just one example of the many whimsical and lovely ways we reinvent what we do.

In writing workshops, it’s easy to focus on a writer’s limitations. That’s a natural tendency. But it’s equally important, though sometimes overlooked, to focus on what a writer does well.  We all have limitations, but we all have strengths to build on.

I admire how my friend Jenny Levine focuses on the positive and the constructive. She’s really my role model in the library-presentation department — she’s smart, funny, encouraging, mentoring, creative, and new. There are many more like Jenny, and I really want to be like all of them.

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I thought rather than simply labeling something a trend, I’d talk about what’s waxing and what’s waning. There’s a nifty angle to this where I provide “their potential impact on libraries and library services.”

I’m trying to stay big picture… so that when I talk about “potential impact,” I can discuss broader themes.

Here’s what I have so far:

Waxing:

Centralized mass storage (paper and digital)

Ubiquitous computing

Cloud-based applications

User experience (focus on, thereof)

Large-scale cloud catalogs

Open software/standards/access

Social engagement

Service integration (such as discovery layers that tie together different formats; FRBR; federated search)

Waning:

Paper production (literally)

The locally-installed standalone catalog

Waxing and waning:

Print circulation (depending on the type library)

….

I think I know where I’m headed with my suggestions… the “experience library,” flexible and user-focused, with loads of examples of what this library looks like/feels like, what we need to be/do to provide these services. Still mulling over the big issues. I have 90 minutes.

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So I’ll depart circa 10/17, stop in Des Moines, stop in Truckee to see my baby sister Maia (unless it’s snowing… in which case I’ll do a train trip a little later), then arrive in NorCal in time to get to the DMV and do a smog check before my job starts.  I’ll be in sundry temp housing for the next couple of months, first one place and then another, and Sandy will join me circa early January.

Meanwhile, the Adventures in Packing continue! Here are some highlights:

* Finding $52 Canadian in a shoebox

* Finally getting rid of those size 2 dresses with the huge shoulder pads… 1989 will never be here again (and neither will size 2)

* Discovering a nice dress jacket that looks cute over just about any brown skirt had a missing button… and then finding its spare button (I have long stuffed all my dress buttons in a jar; the only problem is I don’t get rid of them when I get rid of their outfits… but at least I have them!)

* Weeding over 60 books from my collection, and still feeling I have Too Many

* At the nudging from my accountant, shredding tax documents older than three years (ok, I stopped at five years… but I had kept every file back to 1990)

It’s nice to have two weeks dedicated to packing. I’ve done packing-as-a-night-hobby before, and I end up deluding myself about how much work is entailed.  This way I have but one job, and must do it well and on time!

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A couple months back, my Garmin GPS began alerting me that my maps had expired and that I needed to renew them.  The renewal price? $69 for one-time, or $119 for a “lifetime” subscription.

What is “lifetime,” according to Garmin? They mean the lifetime of the device. “Your nüMaps Lifetime subscription may not be transferred to another person or another Garmin product.” So my choices are to stay with the old maps, upgrade once, upgrade for “life,” or buy another GPS.

I will say, the GPS has been the most significant technology purchase for me in the last five years.  It has altered my behavior significantly, mostly in good ways, such as reorienting me to watch the road instead of fumbling with maps.  I’d use a GPS built into another device, but only if it made sense. I really like having a heads-up display I can glance at without squinting.

Plus, I am shopping for a netbook, or at least think I am. I am now laptopless, and want something that I can tote to conferences and take on the road.

Finally, I’m also on the market for a personal cell phone and plan. I need a smartphone. (Because, well, I’m a junky. I admit it.) I can join Sandy’s Sprint plan as a family member, or go on any plan on my own. (The family plan didn’t look all that competitive with single plans, though maybe we missed something.)  I’m pondering the Sprint Pre… I’m a Palm person from way back. The iPhone is tempting, but AT&T is pricey, and I’m trying to control costs in a period that will surely have a number of UNcontrolled costs.  (To add another factor, my iPod is several years old — I am happy with it, but I know that it could croak at any time.)

GPS, netbook, cell phone, possibly MP3 player… thoughts?

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Ok, to put this news in context…

A few months back Sandy and I had a series of family discussions, and we realized that we were in agreement on a change of strategy to move to a place where Sandy could find employment and to be closer to the large urban areas we’ve always preferred.  Northern California has always been first on that list for me, and Sandy grew to love it too.

Also, I have greatly enjoyed my work  at Equinox, and consider myself a part of the open source community forever, but I really wanted to return to the kind of job that has most suited me — leading a small, nimble library organization into the future. I want to settle in and do amazing things.  Just what remains to be seen (or, more literally, interpreted from needs assessments and strategic planning), but I see this new position as an opportunity to pull  together everything I have ever learned about anything and apply it at one of the most crucial moments in history for libraries.

We then backburnered all these ideas while I plunged into a particularly demanding (and fun) period in my work at Equinox, and it was not until late August that I roused myself enough to begin checking library job postings (though a couple of times people floated opportunities past my radar screen, and I felt like Goldilocks: no, not that chair… no, not THAT chair, either…).

I remember a friend saying that we “couldn’t” leave Tallahassee because we “couldn’t”  sell our house. My thoughts at that moment (not expressed out loud) were that the only things we really had to do in life were pay taxes and (eventually) die.  We have a lovely house in a bucolic park district, and if we can’t sell it, some lucky tenants are going to really enjoy it.

Anyway, a number of things came together very suddenly.  And I deeply appreciate our good fortune in being able to return to California. In fact, I am humbled by it.

These have not been wasted years for us. They’ve been hard years, but those are usually the learning years.  I have acquired skills and experience these past three years that I wouldn’t have learned any other way, and met people I consider friends for life.

I’m going to miss Meyers Park, and the beer tastings at New Leaf Market, and the cardinals at the birdfeeder, and the Shell Oyster Bar, and my dear, dear writing friends; but I will tuck all of this in my shoebox of memories and carry it with me as we head west, retracing our steps back home.

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The decision to stay with Centennial all the way through appears correct, despite the recipes that sneak in a little this or that.  I was quite radical and did not “secondary” the ale (transfer it–known as “racking”–to another container for clearing), simply dry-hopping in primary, though I will the next time so that it is clear enough to enter in the Queen of Beer competition or similar events.

Here’s a link to the XML for this recipe, as well.

Big-Hearted Gal (Half-Batch)

Brew Type: Partial Mash Date: 8/15/2009
Style: American IPA Brewer: K.G. Schneider
Batch Size: 2.50 gal Assistant Brewer: Emma and Dot
Boil Volume: 2.75 gal Boil Time: 60 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 % Equipment: PM Half-batch Equipment
Actual Efficiency: 65.83 %

Taste Rating (50 possible points): 45.0
Note: Partial-mash clone of Bell’s wonderful Two-Hearted Ale. Can substitute WLP051.

Ingredients Amount Item Type % or IBU

2.25 lb Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 40.91 % [note: late extract addition, at 15 min.]
1.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 27.27 %
1.25 lb Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 22.73 %
0.25 lb Caramel Pils Malt (3.0 SRM) Grain 4.55 %
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt – 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 4.55 %
0.66 oz Centennial [8.00 %] (60 min) Hops 30.1 IBU
0.33 oz Centennial [8.00 %] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops -
0.33 oz Centennial [8.00 %] (15 min) Hops 7.5 IBU
0.33 oz Centennial [8.00 %] (5 min) Hops 3.0 IBU
0.33 oz Centennial [8.00 %] (1 min) Hops 0.6 IBU
1 Pkgs California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) [Starter 35 ml] Yeast-Ale

Beer Profile Estimated Original Gravity: 1.065 SG (1.056-1.075 SG) Measured Original Gravity: 1.063 SG
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.015 SG (1.010-1.018 SG) Measured Final Gravity: 1.011 SG
Estimated Color: 8.4 SRM (6.0-15.0 SRM) Color [Color]
Bitterness: 41.3 IBU (40.0-70.0 IBU) Alpha Acid Units: 7.9 AAU [believe the IBUs are higher, due to late extract addition not noted by Beersmith]
Estimated Alcohol by Volume: 6.58 % (5.50-7.50 %) Actual Alcohol by Volume: 6.79 %
Actual Calories: 281 cal/pint

Mash Profile Name: Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Full Body Mash Tun Weight: 4.50 lb
Mash Grain Weight: 3.25 lb Mash PH: 5.4 PH
Grain Temperature: 72.0 F Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F
Sparge Water: 0.67 gal Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE

Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Saccharification Add 4.88 qt of water at 159.5 F 150.0 F 40 min
Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min 168.0 F 10 min [didn't actually do this]

Notes
Due to accident (tipped LME all over floor) went slightly beyond 60 min and am a little unsure how much LME is in there. However, I had boiled off enough that I was well over target, so I brought it up to about 2 gallons. 9/7/09: bottled. Delicious flat, warm, and green! 9/21/09: hazy, but delicious. Fresh hops flavor, no off-flavors, great mouthfeel–not quite a dead ringer, but very close, with lovely color. Had to force myself not to go back for “seconds”!

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