Not only do you not own your data, you don't want to.
It was while wearing my peril-sensitive sunglasses that I understood the current consumer trend toward privacy being SEP (Somebody Else's Problem).
When I put on my sunglasses, or specifically, the Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses, they were already black. I moved to another room, yet still the lenses remained totally darkened. I removed them and saw no tiger nor vampire nor Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.
It took that instance to make me realize that my temporary blindness caused by my glasses was directly related to the constant peril that is all around me. But what was it that was so potentially perilous?
After some experimentation, my current theory is that it's "the cloud."
Cloud Computing isn't that scary in small bits, such as your email account. But the cloud as the standard delivery model for all computer services is what is terrifying. But that is what consumers, what you (and I), have already chosen.
So let me explain the horror since you obviously can't, or you choose not to, see it.
The cloud is like having a bank account. You put something somewhere, in this case money in a bank, and the bank sends that money off as loans to individuals, other banks, etc. The money is gone. It only exists as data that shows how much money you should be able to withdraw if the bank had that cash on hand. But really, the money is both gone and not gone. You never know whether there is any money at all in your bank. But to keep everyone from freaking out, the FDIC guarantees your money is somewhere and you should be able to get it back if something happened to the bank.
But what about other cloud products? What about email? Is it safe? This is probably the first cloud product each of us had. There isn't much you can do without an email account.
But have you ever lost access to an email account? I see someone every week who loses access to his email because he forgot his password or forgot security questions or didn't set up an alternate email. Does anyone insure this access? No. When the cloud fails, there is no backup. I guess you could export everything someplace else, but who does that?
In order for the cloud to function, you need to trust it completely. Give it access to all your other cloud accounts and let it back up your terrestrial data.
And once that happens, is your data still your data? What are the terms of service for all these clouds?
When everything is on your phone and each app on that phone is tied to a different cloud service, what happens to all your data? What do they do with it (them)? And WHO are THEY? Isn't it easier to just let them have your data and do whatever the hell they want?
Do you really want to know? I mean, do you really really really want to know?
Of course not. And the sunglasses go black.
all italicized references copyright Douglas Adams, RIP.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Buying an MLS, Part II
How Broke Would You Be with Library Certification?
People argue every year about the MLS, that it doesn't teach what it should, or that it costs too much, or that it's unfair to people who don't have time to get it or are too lazy to get it or are too stupid to get it or are too drunk to get it, or that it doesn't stand for Major League Soccer.
So as a reference, I took a brief look at what it takes to become a certified Library Media Specialist in the state of New York.
First, there is all this shit:
And after all that, there's this:
And then there's testing, the New York State Teacher Certification Examinations. The one for Media Specialist will certify that you (0001-0005 and others omitted)
I can't imagine all the shit a public librarian would need to know for certification:
People argue every year about the MLS, that it doesn't teach what it should, or that it costs too much, or that it's unfair to people who don't have time to get it or are too lazy to get it or are too stupid to get it or are too drunk to get it, or that it doesn't stand for Major League Soccer.
So as a reference, I took a brief look at what it takes to become a certified Library Media Specialist in the state of New York.
First, there is all this shit:
Requirements for Permanent Certificate, School Media Specialist (Library)Well, I don't remember exactly what it took to get my MLS, but I don't remember any 2 yrs of paid library experience or Library Violence Intervention workshops or even getting fingerprinted. I just showed up at the back door of the library and two weeks later, I picked up a check.
Following are all possible pathways available to receive the certificate specified above. The specific requirements to satisfy each pathway are also listed.
Pathway: Certificate Progression
Requirements:
Hold a Valid Provisional Certificate - School Media Specialist (Library)
Additional Education - Masters Degree
Paid, full-time Classroom Teaching experience - 2 Yrs
Workshop - Child Abuse Identification
Workshop - School Violence Intervention and Prevention
Fingerprint Clearance
Citizenship Status - INS Permanent Residence or U.S. Citizenship
And after all that, there's this:
If you are employed in a New York State public school…175 hours? That's longer than it took for James Franco to drink his own pee and saw off his arm. So that extra 48 hours might have me also sawing off my own foot.
You must complete 175 hours of professional development every five years. This maintains the validity of the Professional certificate and allows you to continue to teach. The first professional development period begins on July 1 following the effective date of the certificate.
And then there's testing, the New York State Teacher Certification Examinations. The one for Media Specialist will certify that you (0001-0005 and others omitted)
0006 Understand types and characteristics of print, nonprint, and electronic resources.Now I'll stop here. Because 0011 would kill me. Because, yes, although I understand how to locate and access resources, I have not a fucking clue on how to teach these skills to library patrons who don't have more than 15 seconds of free time and who don't listen to what I say and who are probably hallucinating that I'm some talking moose there to steal his gold.
0007 Understand types and characteristics of literature for children and young adults.
0008 Understand issues and procedures related to collection development.
0011 Understand how to locate and access resources and how to teach these skills to students.
I can't imagine all the shit a public librarian would need to know for certification:
0001 Understand types and characteristics of library patrons, including loonies, crazies, smellies, normals, babies, seniors and tweens.So when you complain about the expense or relevance of the MLS, think about what it might be like to work in a career with continual professional requirements.
0014 Understand types and characteristics of portable reading devices such as Kindles, iPads, iPhones and Androids and Chinese knockoffs of all of the above.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Why buy an MLS?
I'll save you the trouble of reading the rest of this post: if you want to be a librarian, get the MLS. If you don't get the degree, then don't bitch when you don't get the job.
And if you're an administrator, hire people with an MLS to fill those few librarian jobs. Having the degree won't guarantee you get the best candidates, but if you don't support the degree, you can almost guarantee that many of your future librarian candidates will have no library training at all.
Now, to the post:
I haven't done any professional reading since I got a professional library gig. And by professional reading, I mean reading several articles, distilling the main points form the bullshit, then combining that with my thoughts and experiences to create solutions or methods for, umm, stuff. See, it's been so long, I don't even remember why I would do it.
The point is that I'm working. I solve my local library problems with local remedies. I clean the potato chips out of the keyboards. I kick the copier in the right spot. I do the stuff my library gives me. I don't have the luxury of time to question or survey and then to propose theories that may or may not work. Because I'm at work now. So I use my accumulated knowledge and experience and do what needs to be done.
The only reading I do now is for me to blog some dick and fart jokes.
Library school made me think about the profession, about the history of libraries and about the possible futures. If I didn't go to library school and just started as a shelver or a page or clerk, then I might know that job, but what else would I know?
Let's say I worked my way up from a clerk to a lead worker to a manager. That's great, but I still would be limited to what I learned at my library about those jobs. And if I moved from one library to another, I might know a few more ways to do things that could help to expand my knowledge of the career. If I had an apprenticeship at one or two libraries, I would still only know what their librarians knew enough about to teach me.
And I think my knowledge of library work would be less if I hadn't gone to library school. Having those discussions about how to create a library in a zero-g environment, or how to print books with only coconuts for paper and ink: these questions expand your understanding of the library as method and as a form, as an abstract and as a concrete thing. Library school exercises your imagination about what libraries are or could be. I don't think any work experience creates an equal environment.
I also think there would be no profession without the professional degree. I think it would become like any other job. There would be people who love it just as there are those who love folding sweaters at JCP. But love does not mean that person has the required skills to make the business succeed. And if JCP closes, then that person would go and fold sweaters at Target.
But there is no business equal to a public or academic library (to a special library, maybe, there seem to be endless models) for you to transfer to when your library bites it. What about the privately run public library? Yeah, what about it? Fuck them. They should get cancer.
What about Certification, you ask? What about it? What if librarianship went the way of Computer or Automobile Mechanics? Do you know what those certifications cost? No? Neither do I. But you should have some idea because you work in a library and you buy or don't buy those books. A+ Certification books and ASE Certification materials? I wonder if you added all those things up whether they would be cheaper than a Master's degree. So, is continual certification training and testing cheaper then the MLS, dunno, but it might be. There's got to be a calculator around here...
I also think that getting the degree is like everything else you do or don't do: you can't know. If you practice your viola, will you make it to Carnegie Hall? If you use heroin will you become a junkie? You can't know these things. Some of the best violists were junkies. Okay, I think I made that up.
So I'm not the expert on this. I can't be. Because it's your life. I can just tell you that I think the degree has value. But what do I know? I'm just a working librarian.
And if you're an administrator, hire people with an MLS to fill those few librarian jobs. Having the degree won't guarantee you get the best candidates, but if you don't support the degree, you can almost guarantee that many of your future librarian candidates will have no library training at all.
Now, to the post:
I haven't done any professional reading since I got a professional library gig. And by professional reading, I mean reading several articles, distilling the main points form the bullshit, then combining that with my thoughts and experiences to create solutions or methods for, umm, stuff. See, it's been so long, I don't even remember why I would do it.
The point is that I'm working. I solve my local library problems with local remedies. I clean the potato chips out of the keyboards. I kick the copier in the right spot. I do the stuff my library gives me. I don't have the luxury of time to question or survey and then to propose theories that may or may not work. Because I'm at work now. So I use my accumulated knowledge and experience and do what needs to be done.
Library school was the time for all that reading. There were lots of rhetoricals:
- What if you had $25,000 to spend anyway you wanted, but it had to increase library use by albinos?
- What if all Js disappeared from all the library books?
- What if the library were replaced with a 5,000 pound ham?
The only reading I do now is for me to blog some dick and fart jokes.
Library school made me think about the profession, about the history of libraries and about the possible futures. If I didn't go to library school and just started as a shelver or a page or clerk, then I might know that job, but what else would I know?
Let's say I worked my way up from a clerk to a lead worker to a manager. That's great, but I still would be limited to what I learned at my library about those jobs. And if I moved from one library to another, I might know a few more ways to do things that could help to expand my knowledge of the career. If I had an apprenticeship at one or two libraries, I would still only know what their librarians knew enough about to teach me.
And I think my knowledge of library work would be less if I hadn't gone to library school. Having those discussions about how to create a library in a zero-g environment, or how to print books with only coconuts for paper and ink: these questions expand your understanding of the library as method and as a form, as an abstract and as a concrete thing. Library school exercises your imagination about what libraries are or could be. I don't think any work experience creates an equal environment.
I also think there would be no profession without the professional degree. I think it would become like any other job. There would be people who love it just as there are those who love folding sweaters at JCP. But love does not mean that person has the required skills to make the business succeed. And if JCP closes, then that person would go and fold sweaters at Target.
But there is no business equal to a public or academic library (to a special library, maybe, there seem to be endless models) for you to transfer to when your library bites it. What about the privately run public library? Yeah, what about it? Fuck them. They should get cancer.
What about Certification, you ask? What about it? What if librarianship went the way of Computer or Automobile Mechanics? Do you know what those certifications cost? No? Neither do I. But you should have some idea because you work in a library and you buy or don't buy those books. A+ Certification books and ASE Certification materials? I wonder if you added all those things up whether they would be cheaper than a Master's degree. So, is continual certification training and testing cheaper then the MLS, dunno, but it might be. There's got to be a calculator around here...
I also think that getting the degree is like everything else you do or don't do: you can't know. If you practice your viola, will you make it to Carnegie Hall? If you use heroin will you become a junkie? You can't know these things. Some of the best violists were junkies. Okay, I think I made that up.
So I'm not the expert on this. I can't be. Because it's your life. I can just tell you that I think the degree has value. But what do I know? I'm just a working librarian.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Information may want to be free, but you'll probably go to jail for helping it.
I'm not famous. I don't open a new pair of fresh underpants each day. Even for special days or special events, I still need to evaluate the merits of existing underpants. So in that way, I'm just like you, getting ready for Tim and Molly's wedding, poking through your collection of old and worn undergarments to find ones that won't embarrass you when you drink too much and pass out on the hood of the limo.
Which beings me to Aaron Swartz. Remember how he got busted for downloading JSTOR articles? You should.
I was having a conversation with my girlfriend when I remembered some of the stuff I'm telling you now. Because I have a truly shitty memory and I can't remember anything until something prompts me to remember. That's why I have tattoos. Ask anyone why I have tattoos and they'll tell you it's to remember. Without all this ink, I would have no memory at all of the 1980s. Yes, that's Maggie Thatcher on my right calf almost close enough to snog Bob Geldof all wrapped in an outline of Live Aid Africa.
So something came up on our conversation and I remembered how when I wanted to "steal" all the magazine articles contained on the CDs at the library. Kind of like what Aaron did. But back in 1988.
Ever since I became aware of magazine databases I wanted to find a way to get all the articles out of them. Before I became a librarian, I had to make a reservation at the college library to use the computer that had access to all the articles I needed. And I thought about ways to download all those articles so I wouldn't have to wait ever again to use that computer. But I never did it.
And when I became a librarian, our library had a huge CD tower with all these articles stored there and I wondered how to get them off of that one computer so they would be easier to distribute to our patrons. You know, move them from that one PC and host them on our web server so all our patrons could search for articles from any of our branches.
And even within the last 5-6-7-8 years, when we'd learn from a vendor that some publisher was pulling content from the databases we pay for, I wanted to copy all the content and make it available even after the publisher pulled out. My reasoning was that we paid for it, so it was ours up till the date it got pulled. And I was going to archive it.
I'm not attempting to compare myself to Aaron, but I'm saying that if I'd had even the tiniest amount of programming knowledge, I probably could have gotten myself fired from any one of my library jobs a long time ago for all this shit I wanted to do.
But I don't think the Justice Department would have gotten involved; I would have just been fired and not one person would have even known my name. And if they did, they'd say, "What the hell did you think was going to happen, asshole?"
And I think that's because I can't program. I'm guessing that I would have been judged as an extremely low profile target and an owner of very common underpants.
Again, I'm not trying to compare my non-event with a real one, but I wonder what might have happened if I'd known someone with skills who could have shown me how to do it.
But in my case, there was clear publisher ownership. So I guess I would have been a thief. Even if this was something our library had paid for.
But Aaron's position was that the JSTOR information was meant to be free, that it shouldn't be trapped behind a pay wall. Maybe. I didn't know the guy.
I don't have the time to explain the how or why of online information or who owns it or what legal rights or expectations a company might have regarding its ability to collect money for distributing that information. But the point is, that someone has legal rights to all these things, but it ain't you.
We call these people, these owners and publishers and content distributors by their collective name: motherfuckers. And all they seem to want to do is fuck with you. There was a time when you could count the companies out to fuck with you on one hand. But not so now. The conspiracy of motherfuckers seems endless.
Because the list is so long, I'm going to just try to list the motherfuckers who prey on libraries, the ones who answer with a cheerful, Fuck You, when we complain about their monopolies and oligopolies.
Which beings me to Aaron Swartz. Remember how he got busted for downloading JSTOR articles? You should.
I was having a conversation with my girlfriend when I remembered some of the stuff I'm telling you now. Because I have a truly shitty memory and I can't remember anything until something prompts me to remember. That's why I have tattoos. Ask anyone why I have tattoos and they'll tell you it's to remember. Without all this ink, I would have no memory at all of the 1980s. Yes, that's Maggie Thatcher on my right calf almost close enough to snog Bob Geldof all wrapped in an outline of Live Aid Africa.
So something came up on our conversation and I remembered how when I wanted to "steal" all the magazine articles contained on the CDs at the library. Kind of like what Aaron did. But back in 1988.
Ever since I became aware of magazine databases I wanted to find a way to get all the articles out of them. Before I became a librarian, I had to make a reservation at the college library to use the computer that had access to all the articles I needed. And I thought about ways to download all those articles so I wouldn't have to wait ever again to use that computer. But I never did it.
And when I became a librarian, our library had a huge CD tower with all these articles stored there and I wondered how to get them off of that one computer so they would be easier to distribute to our patrons. You know, move them from that one PC and host them on our web server so all our patrons could search for articles from any of our branches.
And even within the last 5-6-7-8 years, when we'd learn from a vendor that some publisher was pulling content from the databases we pay for, I wanted to copy all the content and make it available even after the publisher pulled out. My reasoning was that we paid for it, so it was ours up till the date it got pulled. And I was going to archive it.
I'm not attempting to compare myself to Aaron, but I'm saying that if I'd had even the tiniest amount of programming knowledge, I probably could have gotten myself fired from any one of my library jobs a long time ago for all this shit I wanted to do.
But I don't think the Justice Department would have gotten involved; I would have just been fired and not one person would have even known my name. And if they did, they'd say, "What the hell did you think was going to happen, asshole?"
And I think that's because I can't program. I'm guessing that I would have been judged as an extremely low profile target and an owner of very common underpants.
Again, I'm not trying to compare my non-event with a real one, but I wonder what might have happened if I'd known someone with skills who could have shown me how to do it.
But in my case, there was clear publisher ownership. So I guess I would have been a thief. Even if this was something our library had paid for.
But Aaron's position was that the JSTOR information was meant to be free, that it shouldn't be trapped behind a pay wall. Maybe. I didn't know the guy.
I don't have the time to explain the how or why of online information or who owns it or what legal rights or expectations a company might have regarding its ability to collect money for distributing that information. But the point is, that someone has legal rights to all these things, but it ain't you.
We call these people, these owners and publishers and content distributors by their collective name: motherfuckers. And all they seem to want to do is fuck with you. There was a time when you could count the companies out to fuck with you on one hand. But not so now. The conspiracy of motherfuckers seems endless.
Because the list is so long, I'm going to just try to list the motherfuckers who prey on libraries, the ones who answer with a cheerful, Fuck You, when we complain about their monopolies and oligopolies.
- You want that book/magazine/newspaper to remain in print? Fuck You."But it used to be in print." Now it's not. Fuck You.
- You want that book in electronic format for your library to lend? Fuck You.
- You want that ebook for the same price as we sell to Amazon/B&N? Fuck You.
- You want databases priced by actual use and not projected use based on service population? Fuck You.
- You want lower maintenance fees? Fuck You.
- You want us to stop increasing prices (when everyone knows that manufacturing/storage/delivery costs are going down)? Fuck You.
- You want publicly funded science research that's published in our journals to be priced based on our actual cost, which is probably zero? Fuck You. Fuck You. Fuck You.
- You want us to stop screwing you? We love screwing you. It feels great. Now roll over, we're not finished.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
YOUR TIME IS UP
You are born. And some time after, you will die.
You can argue whether you are born when you exit your mother or whether you achieve a sense of understanding before that or even much before that, that you are part of some universal consciousness that exists outside of space and time and that birth and death are simply small blips on your eternal journey. But after you are done being high, you will still die. And so you fear death because almost no one dies when it's convenient.
I had to think about that because I saw an image where someone had sprayed a wall with these words: "time does not exist. clocks exist."
This is one of those naive beliefs held by teens and possibly anarchists. No, not anarchists because they have meetings. But teens, definitely.
TIME is REAL.
In our universe. Time may exist differently or not at all someplace else, but it works here. And a clock is just a tool to measure it. Time exists because the Earth turns and the Sun appears and then relative to our position on Earth, moves elsewhere. Seconds and minutes may seem arbitrary when observed out of context, but the long view of a clock is that it reverse-engineers the day into somewhat equal parts. The event is planetary movement and the clock measures a small part of the cycle in a way that makes us always late for something.
TIME is MONEY.
Time is truly the only commodity where there is no standard of value. Love, you say? No. We know what love is worth. We've been told by experts. An engagement rings costs three months salary. You sleep with him on the third date. You buy her a nice dinner and get to spend the night. A lap dance costs around $40 for a 4-minute song. We know these things. And if you don't, you should. Lap dance: $40. The bouncer isn't happy if you can't find the other twenty.
So we know what love costs: love is free.
But Time is a mess to calculate. We attempt to measure it, but what we are really trying to measure is the space between events. That's why Time drags during meetings but flies when you're having fun: time is a measurement of space between events throughout existence.
So time is not arbitrary. Time exists. The day comes, then night. Seasons change. We age. We pay taxes. Anyone who denies the existence of time is someone with really old food in his refrigerator. Don't drink the milk. Don't even sniff it.
But Time is directly related to money. Anything that has value, gains or loses it over time. Books. You know that a new book is heavily discounted in order to increase sales and get the author on the Bestseller List. Then that 40% discount evaporates to 15% once the book is a hit. Until the market becomes saturated and the publisher remainders get marked down to $6.98. But if the book goes out of print and the author sleeps with the president, then all the available copies shoot back up to $100. Without Time, none of this could happen in any observable, enjoyable way.
Time seems even more arbitrary at the Library. Due dates vary by material. Or by demand. This book can be borrowed for 14 days, while this one can be yours indefinitely. That movie is due back next week, but that box set of Game of Thrones can be yours for 14 days.
But at least the library puts stickers on everything so you know.
You can argue whether you are born when you exit your mother or whether you achieve a sense of understanding before that or even much before that, that you are part of some universal consciousness that exists outside of space and time and that birth and death are simply small blips on your eternal journey. But after you are done being high, you will still die. And so you fear death because almost no one dies when it's convenient.
I had to think about that because I saw an image where someone had sprayed a wall with these words: "time does not exist. clocks exist."
This is one of those naive beliefs held by teens and possibly anarchists. No, not anarchists because they have meetings. But teens, definitely.
TIME is REAL.
In our universe. Time may exist differently or not at all someplace else, but it works here. And a clock is just a tool to measure it. Time exists because the Earth turns and the Sun appears and then relative to our position on Earth, moves elsewhere. Seconds and minutes may seem arbitrary when observed out of context, but the long view of a clock is that it reverse-engineers the day into somewhat equal parts. The event is planetary movement and the clock measures a small part of the cycle in a way that makes us always late for something.
TIME is MONEY.
Time is truly the only commodity where there is no standard of value. Love, you say? No. We know what love is worth. We've been told by experts. An engagement rings costs three months salary. You sleep with him on the third date. You buy her a nice dinner and get to spend the night. A lap dance costs around $40 for a 4-minute song. We know these things. And if you don't, you should. Lap dance: $40. The bouncer isn't happy if you can't find the other twenty.
So we know what love costs: love is free.
But Time is a mess to calculate. We attempt to measure it, but what we are really trying to measure is the space between events. That's why Time drags during meetings but flies when you're having fun: time is a measurement of space between events throughout existence.
So time is not arbitrary. Time exists. The day comes, then night. Seasons change. We age. We pay taxes. Anyone who denies the existence of time is someone with really old food in his refrigerator. Don't drink the milk. Don't even sniff it.
But Time is directly related to money. Anything that has value, gains or loses it over time. Books. You know that a new book is heavily discounted in order to increase sales and get the author on the Bestseller List. Then that 40% discount evaporates to 15% once the book is a hit. Until the market becomes saturated and the publisher remainders get marked down to $6.98. But if the book goes out of print and the author sleeps with the president, then all the available copies shoot back up to $100. Without Time, none of this could happen in any observable, enjoyable way.
Time seems even more arbitrary at the Library. Due dates vary by material. Or by demand. This book can be borrowed for 14 days, while this one can be yours indefinitely. That movie is due back next week, but that box set of Game of Thrones can be yours for 14 days.
But at least the library puts stickers on everything so you know.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Introverts in the Library. Extroverts in the Bedroom.
But I've been thinking a lot about introverts and extroverts lately. And so I'm reading Quiet by Susan Cain. And it's giving me lots to ponder. Because I'm an ambivert, so I do ponder sometimes. I was doing it earlier today. I may be doing it now. P O N D E R.
www.thepowerofintroverts.com
But am I an ambivert? Is that even a quantifiable thing? Let me take a quick check. [10 minutes later] Your Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator is: INTP, the “Engineer.”
-Introversion: 60%
-iNtutitive: 65%
-Thinking: 65%
-Perceiving: 65%
Oh, okay.
I don't think I'm strictly an introvert, even though I work in a library which is where I would guess you'd find them, but I shun social settings, especially social networks. But I enjoy public speaking and I'm a decent performer.
But I don't enjoy speaking until I've done my research. Or thought of a good fart joke.
Of the two groups, I prefer introverts because I believe this: when two people join together, they inevitably look to fuck with someone else. I think George Carlin said that. Or Gandhi.
I say that librarians are introverts because it seems that introverts would be attracted to that environment. But if you present programs twice a day to groups and you represent your library on Facebook, etc., then don't get you underpants in a bunch because even if you do those things, you probably prefer to do them alone.
No. 6, played by Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner, is a man with a secret. He was a spy who quit his job and someone wants to know why. Almost every episode is an exercise of will between the need for No. 2 to learn his secret and No. 6's desire to keep it. I just started watching this to see how it supports this introvert/extrovert theory and I feel vindicated each time 6 gets angered by everyone spying on him. If you've ever seen the show, you'll notice that when he suspects he's being watched (which is all the time), he modifies his behavior to trick the observers. So just as we can't really know what one is thinking when he sits quietly by himself, No. 6 shows us that we can't know someone's true nature even when he participates in the group.
The internet, or as we should call it, "the real world," requires that we share and be a part of a group. You can't just lurk in Facebook and you can't listen to a song on Spotify without being a member. Everywhere wants everyone for a member.
We need to remember that libraries are an essential refuge for introverts. Although that idea has been under attack for years by librarians who want us all in a group hug. But the entire nature of reading is internal. You may shout at the screen in a movie theater, "don't go in there," but no one shouts that at their book. But I'll concede that religious books inspire social reading because we have a guy who can't read his book without bringing some heavily underlined and annotated lines to our attention while we're trying to work: "but it says, one cannot worship the false god and be saved, but look at all these people worshipping their computers!" Yep, we keep an eye on him.
But when you begin converting all of your individual study carrels and study rooms into collaborative maker-spacers, don't be surprised when I tweet about what a fucked-up decision that was.
And that's the current problem with libraries. Someone it trying to convert us all, library users and library workers, from introverts into extroverts. From the job listings seeking DYNAMIC, UPBEAT, EXCITED candidates to the gamer librarians who expect us to move someplace else when the Wii is way too loud, libraries are ignoring a large percentage of their users, and their employees, who just want some QUIET.
What you don't understand is that the library is the only tiny piece of peace in our noisy cities. You can't look at the library and say, okay, this part is community commons area and this tiny part is for quiet study. Because the entire building was designed as a refuge. You shouldn't be allowed to bring the noisy back inside. So no food processors or Zumba classes or drill presses.
So I'm declaring an INDEPENDENCE DAY. For independent study and independent research. For independent thoughts that I keep to myself.
Yes, you can be dynamic. But go be dynamic way over there and quit crapping all over my quiet. Because you really don't want to force me to extrovert myself and have all that scary shit that I've been keeping in my head spill out. I'm not an introvert to protect myself from you; I'm one to save you from me.
www.thepowerofintroverts.com
But am I an ambivert? Is that even a quantifiable thing? Let me take a quick check. [10 minutes later] Your Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator is: INTP, the “Engineer.”
-Introversion: 60%
-iNtutitive: 65%
-Thinking: 65%
-Perceiving: 65%
Oh, okay.
I don't think I'm strictly an introvert, even though I work in a library which is where I would guess you'd find them, but I shun social settings, especially social networks. But I enjoy public speaking and I'm a decent performer.
But I don't enjoy speaking until I've done my research. Or thought of a good fart joke.
Of the two groups, I prefer introverts because I believe this: when two people join together, they inevitably look to fuck with someone else. I think George Carlin said that. Or Gandhi.
I say that librarians are introverts because it seems that introverts would be attracted to that environment. But if you present programs twice a day to groups and you represent your library on Facebook, etc., then don't get you underpants in a bunch because even if you do those things, you probably prefer to do them alone.
No. 6, played by Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner, is a man with a secret. He was a spy who quit his job and someone wants to know why. Almost every episode is an exercise of will between the need for No. 2 to learn his secret and No. 6's desire to keep it. I just started watching this to see how it supports this introvert/extrovert theory and I feel vindicated each time 6 gets angered by everyone spying on him. If you've ever seen the show, you'll notice that when he suspects he's being watched (which is all the time), he modifies his behavior to trick the observers. So just as we can't really know what one is thinking when he sits quietly by himself, No. 6 shows us that we can't know someone's true nature even when he participates in the group.
The internet, or as we should call it, "the real world," requires that we share and be a part of a group. You can't just lurk in Facebook and you can't listen to a song on Spotify without being a member. Everywhere wants everyone for a member.
We need to remember that libraries are an essential refuge for introverts. Although that idea has been under attack for years by librarians who want us all in a group hug. But the entire nature of reading is internal. You may shout at the screen in a movie theater, "don't go in there," but no one shouts that at their book. But I'll concede that religious books inspire social reading because we have a guy who can't read his book without bringing some heavily underlined and annotated lines to our attention while we're trying to work: "but it says, one cannot worship the false god and be saved, but look at all these people worshipping their computers!" Yep, we keep an eye on him.
But when you begin converting all of your individual study carrels and study rooms into collaborative maker-spacers, don't be surprised when I tweet about what a fucked-up decision that was.
And that's the current problem with libraries. Someone it trying to convert us all, library users and library workers, from introverts into extroverts. From the job listings seeking DYNAMIC, UPBEAT, EXCITED candidates to the gamer librarians who expect us to move someplace else when the Wii is way too loud, libraries are ignoring a large percentage of their users, and their employees, who just want some QUIET.
What you don't understand is that the library is the only tiny piece of peace in our noisy cities. You can't look at the library and say, okay, this part is community commons area and this tiny part is for quiet study. Because the entire building was designed as a refuge. You shouldn't be allowed to bring the noisy back inside. So no food processors or Zumba classes or drill presses.
So I'm declaring an INDEPENDENCE DAY. For independent study and independent research. For independent thoughts that I keep to myself.
Yes, you can be dynamic. But go be dynamic way over there and quit crapping all over my quiet. Because you really don't want to force me to extrovert myself and have all that scary shit that I've been keeping in my head spill out. I'm not an introvert to protect myself from you; I'm one to save you from me.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Publishing-on-demand: I'm saying this for the last time...
I publish my crap with CreateSpace.
Yes, CreateSpace is part of the "evil empire" that is Amazon, and yes, one day Amazon will dictate what librarians will buy because they will control all the bestsellers by promoting whomever they want on their sites and by sending suggestions to all their Kindle users and creating the bestseller lists from their stock of Amazon authors. Yes, this will happen.
But when I read about libraries assisting their patrons with self publishing by getting a "print-on-demand" machine or service, I think or how much better it is with CreateSpace:
CreateSpace is free. Totally free. Completely free. No cost. Nada. As free as free can be. When I published I Came in Peece, I paid nothing. My only cost was for the 3 copies I bought for friends (total cost for 3 copies, shipped to me, around $12).
I did not pay for a proof copy because I proofed online. Free.
I did not pay for an ISBN which costs around $125-$140. This was provided free.
I did not pay for a bar code, usually $25. Also, free.
I did not pay to have anyone design my book cover because CreateSpace has a wizard for that. I uploaded my own photo and used the wizard for all other design elements. Again, free.
I don't remember the payment system, but you also need to complete that information. But I think you don't need to enter too much personal information if you want them to send you a check for your royalties (ha!), but you need to enter bank info if you want your money sent to direct deposit.
And when I was done, my book was available on its own CreateSpace web page AND also on Amazon.
And after a few days, the "Look Inside" feature was available so that anyone could preview my book. So preview it, you cheap bastard.
Now, you can hate Amazon for destroying all the traditional booksellers by being the online version of "when Walmart came to town."
Or you can hate them for giving that Chicago grandma dozens of naked lady books in her search results when she only wanted to find books for her tween granddaughter.
Or you can hate them for patenting "one-click" purchasing, which is actually 3-clicks since you need to click to sign-in before one-click becomes active, so the patent really covers what every online business had already been doing for years.
Or you hate them for selling The Pedophiles Guide to Love and Pleasure, by Phillip Greaves, or Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers, by David L. Riegel, which were a big stories a while back, so I don't even know if those books is still for sale, or if any of the thousands of other books that cover topics that might piss you off are currently for sale. Dunno.
Or you can hate them for not collecting sales tax that could have benefited your state for the last 15 years, and you can hate them for all the other reasons that we hate multi-billion-dollar companies.
But if you want to get your library patrons published so that they have the best possible exposure for their books and so their family and friends can purchase them, then you should consider using CreateSpace for your "makerspaces." I know this process is not "print on demand," which might be what your patrons want, especially those really old guys who don't expect to live out the week. But my order for my books got me in about nine days.
Now, CreateSpace is part of Amazon's family, but they don't seem to communicate that well, so it's a dysfunctional relationship. I had a lot of trouble getting my book, I CAME IN PEECE (read it!), in Kindle format even though it was supposed to be a simple click of a button to make it happen. But I had to create a whole new account on Amazon and upload everything myself without getting any help from CreateSpace. But now it's out there in all its Kindley goodness. And it's only 99 cents!
And since CreateSpace is free, you can try it by uploading anything. Yes, even your dreamy-dream journal.
FYI, I published a book back in the 1990s and the 500 copies I had to order (and pay for) for the minimum print run are still collecting dust in the attic. So this is new way to publish is practically a freakin miracle.
Yes, CreateSpace is part of the "evil empire" that is Amazon, and yes, one day Amazon will dictate what librarians will buy because they will control all the bestsellers by promoting whomever they want on their sites and by sending suggestions to all their Kindle users and creating the bestseller lists from their stock of Amazon authors. Yes, this will happen.
But when I read about libraries assisting their patrons with self publishing by getting a "print-on-demand" machine or service, I think or how much better it is with CreateSpace:
CreateSpace is free. Totally free. Completely free. No cost. Nada. As free as free can be. When I published I Came in Peece, I paid nothing. My only cost was for the 3 copies I bought for friends (total cost for 3 copies, shipped to me, around $12).
I did not pay for a proof copy because I proofed online. Free.
I did not pay for an ISBN which costs around $125-$140. This was provided free.
I did not pay for a bar code, usually $25. Also, free.
I did not pay to have anyone design my book cover because CreateSpace has a wizard for that. I uploaded my own photo and used the wizard for all other design elements. Again, free.
I don't remember the payment system, but you also need to complete that information. But I think you don't need to enter too much personal information if you want them to send you a check for your royalties (ha!), but you need to enter bank info if you want your money sent to direct deposit.
And when I was done, my book was available on its own CreateSpace web page AND also on Amazon.
And after a few days, the "Look Inside" feature was available so that anyone could preview my book. So preview it, you cheap bastard.
Now, you can hate Amazon for destroying all the traditional booksellers by being the online version of "when Walmart came to town."
Or you can hate them for giving that Chicago grandma dozens of naked lady books in her search results when she only wanted to find books for her tween granddaughter.
Or you can hate them for patenting "one-click" purchasing, which is actually 3-clicks since you need to click to sign-in before one-click becomes active, so the patent really covers what every online business had already been doing for years.
Or you hate them for selling The Pedophiles Guide to Love and Pleasure, by Phillip Greaves, or Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers, by David L. Riegel, which were a big stories a while back, so I don't even know if those books is still for sale, or if any of the thousands of other books that cover topics that might piss you off are currently for sale. Dunno.
Or you can hate them for not collecting sales tax that could have benefited your state for the last 15 years, and you can hate them for all the other reasons that we hate multi-billion-dollar companies.
But if you want to get your library patrons published so that they have the best possible exposure for their books and so their family and friends can purchase them, then you should consider using CreateSpace for your "makerspaces." I know this process is not "print on demand," which might be what your patrons want, especially those really old guys who don't expect to live out the week. But my order for my books got me in about nine days.
Now, CreateSpace is part of Amazon's family, but they don't seem to communicate that well, so it's a dysfunctional relationship. I had a lot of trouble getting my book, I CAME IN PEECE (read it!), in Kindle format even though it was supposed to be a simple click of a button to make it happen. But I had to create a whole new account on Amazon and upload everything myself without getting any help from CreateSpace. But now it's out there in all its Kindley goodness. And it's only 99 cents!
And since CreateSpace is free, you can try it by uploading anything. Yes, even your dreamy-dream journal.
FYI, I published a book back in the 1990s and the 500 copies I had to order (and pay for) for the minimum print run are still collecting dust in the attic. So this is new way to publish is practically a freakin miracle.
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