Kyle Banerjee's Blog

Oregon is known for its cool and wet weather, but this year has been nuts. Almost every time I get on my bike, the temperature drops and the sky spits on me to remind me of my role in the universe. Despite a 20% chance of rain forecast yesterday, I spent almost 4 hrs getting misted on. The day before, I enjoyed rain and temps in the 40’s as I rode into work. It’s literally been weeks since I’ve ridden without getting soaked.

This picture was taken today at my favorite place to train for climbing rides such as the Shasta Super Century and the Everest Challenge. It is within biking distance of our house and it’s short enough that I always climb it multiple times.

As you can see, conditions aren’t exactly prime for cycling. However, we did have a lot of fun skiing. I can’t believe this is how we’re spending June weekends…

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I try to keep some contact with the real world, but every now and then something happens which makes me realize how insulated my environment is. Last night was one of those times.

Shirley and I went to an authentic Russian restaurant where we decided to do everything Russian style. At the next table, 4 business travelers watched flabbergasted as we washed down an excellent meal with 10 shots of vodka. This may sound like a lot, but it is very tame by Russian standards.

The travelers asked what we did for work, and when we mentioned that we were librarians, they were in shock. They made it clear that we looked like no librarians they’d ever seen, and it never occured to them that a librarian would know anything about vodka, let alone drink the stuff. They decided that they liked us and had a new opinion of the profession on that basis alone. They invited us to knock down a few shots after dinner. We accepted and had a great night with them.

I’m glad we helped our new friends see librarians in a more positive light, but I find it disconcerning that this change of heart was based on our sense of fun and an ability to put away more high octane hooch than they could. While I find it amusing that they assumed I was trying to improve the Dewey Decimal system when I mentioned that I worked with library systems, that is also a dead giveaway that they didn’t realize we actually provide a useful service.

As a profession, we celebrate the fact that we are viewed as meek, socially inept dorks by the rest of the world. We cultivate the image of the spinster with a bun in her hair. If we want to show how hip we are, we shave off a few pounds and a few years. Then we add a bit of makeup, an updated hairstyle, and a higher energy level. It’s the same idea with a little sex appeal.

Why do we play to such stereotypes? I suppose it makes people feel warm and fuzzy, but so does the image of the milkman who lost his job a long time ago. The internet has changed the way people interact with information, and we must make it clear we’ve adapted our services accordingly unless we want to relegate ourselves to irrelevance.

We can get you any book or article held by just about any library regardless of where you live whether or not it’s in digital form. We can get you electronic articles from well respected journals that would cost you a fortune to download (assuming you could find them at all). No other outfit, including Google and Amazon, can do this. I can’t help but think that if we want long term success and continued funding, we’re much better off encouraging people to focus on what we do rather than on anachronistic images.

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For the past few days, I’ve been at the Innovative Users Group annual meeting. At the IUG meeting, roughly 1600 dweebs from around the world discuss library systems, particularly those produced by Innovative Interfaces Inc (III).

I’ve been a fixture at these meetings for a number of years, but many people acted surprised to see me at this one. I’m coordinating the migration of a resource sharing system used by 35 academic libraries in Oregon and Washington away from a III product to something else. They assumed my work would put me in an awkward position.

My project is not helping relations with the company. However, the situation was largely unavoidable. We have had a long and productive association with III, but their needs have evolved with time as have ours. After intense negotiations failed to result in a mutually acceptable contract, our board of directors unanimously decided that the strategic direction we were headed required a resource sharing system based on new architecture.

Right now, the library world is in a period of total upheaval. Just a few years ago, the whole idea of a library was to provide a controlled, centralized environment to centrally acquire, process, and preserve materials that people needed. More and more, the most important function libraries perform is helping people find and get electronic and physical materials that are owned and maintained by others. While libraries will continue to buy books and journals, these materials will play a shrinking role over time.

The reason we’re changing our resource sharing system right now is because of differences in opinion as to what library services will look like in view of a the new way people want to use libraries and information. No one knows what will work best in the end, so a little disagreement is healthy.

Our relationship with III is entering a new phase, but we continue to have many common interests. The member libraries in our consortium rely on III products for mission critical tasks. Even if we were unable to reach an agreement for a new contract, we are still interested in solving the same problems and can learn from each other.

Just as I still regard workmates from former workplaces as colleagues, I think the same about the many III staff I’ve worked with over the years. That is why I was glad I was able to attend the meeting and share ideas with others as I always have.

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This is particularly true of weather forecasting. Satellite imagery has been around for some time, but it’s only been in the past few decades that increasingly sophisticated radar and mathematical models have given us predictions that are worth listening to.

For some reason, we turn to experts who have proved incompetent at their trade. Take Punxsutawney Phil for example. He’s been predicting the weather for a long time, we wait with baited breath for what he has to say, and our faith isn’t shaken in the least when he consistently gets it totally wrong.

This year, he predicted 6 more weeks of winter. That means that spring should have kicked in somewhere about the third week of March. Normally, I’d like to be biking on weekends at this time of year. However, the snow keeps coming down — even in Monmouth where the stuff is rare in January and February. When I rode into work, it snowed on me. Last week, here is what I looked like.
Don’t be fooled by my attire. It was 23 degrees Fahrenheit out there. We got pelted with ice and snow, and today it snowed more this past week. That buried structure behind me is a shelter for skiers.

What makes us listen to nonsense like that while ignoring useful information? From the time I learned to read, there has been a constant barrage of magazines claiming you can lose weight quickly while eating anything you want. Politicians say they can bring all kinds of great services without raising taxes. People know it’s nonsense, yet if you want to go broke the best way would be to sell books explaining that if people exercise and eat sensibly for the rest of their lives they will slowly become more healthy If you don’t want to get elected, tell people that if they need to pay for what they want.

We love to believe that the outcome we’ll see is the one that seems the most improbable. That’s why we vote for the underdog, why people buy lottery tickets, and insist that the insignificant things that we like to do make a big difference, while the things we don’t like don’t matter. But in the grand scheme of things, that’s OK. Perception is probably a better indicator of reality than facts would lead you to believe.

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Normally, I incorporate a little wiggle room into my plans, but sometimes it’s just fun to operate at the margins. Today has been one of those days. I had to be up by 2:00am so I could leave for an early flight to San Francisco to deliver a presentation.

If everything had happened according to schedule, I would have arrived just as things were beginning. However, BART was much slower than planned so I was still waiting for a bus miles away from my destination when festivities started. Realizing I was going to miss my presentation, I flagged down a cab and made it into the room just before it was time for me to speak.

Still energized by nearly not making it on time, I delivered the presentation which went over well. Afterwards, I washed down a very decent lunch with some nice beer and returned to the airport for the trip home. On an aside note, the buses in San Francisco suck. You wait forever, they’re jam packed, and they crawl. I really missed my bike today. I might check to see if there’s a folding bike that can be taken in the cabin of an aircraft.

Once the plane landed, I had to drive a natural gas powered car a little over 60 miles. That would not be significant except the needle was buried on Empty within 20 miles and the low fuel light came on. It was after 11:00pm, there were no natural gas stations, so I was holding my speed around 50mph, drafting off trucks when I could, and shifting to neutral in some places to save gas for the remaining 41 miles. I didn’t think I was going to make it, but I coasted into the parking lot on fumes.

The trip from the motor pool was not without excitement. 3 blocks from home, I got pulled over by 2 cop cars (bad tail light). It’s after midnight now, and I’ve been up for more than 22 hrs straight, but strangely I’m not tired.

Today’s been a good day and having that many close calls all break my way is worth a drink. Nothing less than Auchentoshan Three Wood will do to wrap things up.

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For those of you who are fans of cloud computing, Google announced their new App Engine service last night. It looks pretty cool — you just develop your app, upload it to their servers, and they host it. Plus, the first 10,000 developers get to use it for free. Unfortunately, by the time I found out about it, the free accounts were gone so I was put on a wait list. It’s still worth a look.

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Since most people over 40 don’t look forward to getting older, you’d think that birthdays would get less fun with time. I’m finding that’s just not the case. Last year was the best one ever — which is saying a lot. And even though I specifically decided not to have any kind of special celebration, this year has already been great.

First of all, birthday wishes have been coming in from all over the world. It always touches me how many people remember since I often don’t remember until the last minute myself. Plus, I got what I really wanted. Last March, Keiko was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given 2-3 months to live if her meds worked. I was never given the slightest hope that she’d be around this year. The cancer has definitely gotten much worse, and I often sleep with her on the floor by the back door because she has to constantly go out. However, she’s well enough to enjoy eating steak with me tonight, and that’s better than I would have dared hope for.

In addition, I got a nice and unexpected present on my way into work today. When I had a few miles left to go on my way into work and stopped for a light, a college kid who was obviously a cyclist (based on his build, clothing, etc) pulled up behind me on a decent racing bike. I shifted over and told him he might want to go ahead since he was probably faster and I didn’t want to hold him up.

He replied “I don’t know about that — kind of breezy today” (riding conditions were 39F, 10mph headwind, and light rain) and stayed where he was. He shadowed me the rest of the way in. We weren’t racing, but we did maintain a brisk pace. I’m not pretending I “beat” anyone, but the birthday gift to me was having a cruising pace that’s good enough to satisfy an in shape cyclist who’s half my age.

It’s been a good year.

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Yesterday, I passed a business with a huge sign on the front indicating that the premises were protected by a guard dog.

If you’re wondering what’s unusual about that, the business specializes in alarm systems.

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There are a zillion videos on the Internet, but there’s one in particular that I think is worth watching. In it, a popular professor from Carnegie Mellon named Randy Pausch shares some thoughts in his final lecture (76 min). There is also a condensed 10 minute version that was broadcast on Oprah, but I highly recommend the listening to the full version if you can. The reason it is his final lecture is that he will succumb to pancreatic cancer in a short time.

I learn from everyone around me, but there are a few individuals who I have always looked to as a source of inspiration. In addition, there are a handful of people who were in my life for only a short time (maybe as little as a few hours) who said something that burned itself into my brain forever. I never met Randy, but the full length lecture makes me think that if I did, he would have been one of the people that really affects how I do things.

One of the problems that most of us suffer from is that our priorities are all screwed up. We dedicate ourselves to the grind, passively let opportunities go by, and spend our time and energy on things we don’t even value to the detriment of what is most important.

Many of us don’t act like we have any sense until we’re about to lose it all. For example, when peoples’ houses are on fire, they grab the dog, a few pictures hanging on the walls, and the drawings the kids made from the fridge. No one thinks about the plasma TV or the other garbage that we value only because of its cash value or the status it confers upon us. When we’re not in crisis, we treat the true gold in our lives like crap and vice versa.

Randy’s lecture reminded me of the last conversation I had with a colleague who passed away after a battle with cancer a few years ago. Despite the fact that she was exhausted, in pain, and knew she literally had only a few days left, we still had a great time together and even wound up laughing. That she was able to have fun in such a situation is one of the reasons that she’s one of the people I model my own behavior from.

The fact is that we’re always on borrowed time, and we should act like it. Fortunately, it appears that Randy had this figured out long ago so he’ll be able to leave without regret even though he is a young guy. Anyway, check out his lecture. He won’t tell you anything you don’t already know deep inside, but he may remind you of a few things that are always worth keeping in mind.

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Of all the conferences I’ve attended over the years, my favorite by far is code4lib. It’s like no other. The level of passion and sense of community is far greater than you’ll see elsewhere. The spirit of invention, willingness to work hard, and desire to help others reminds me where the bar for excellence really is. Plus it’s just plain fun.

Organizers for other events should be taking notes. Long talks at code4lib last 20 minutes. Short talks last 5 minutes. This means that you get exposed to great ideas fast and if a presentation is a dud, you’re quickly in the clear. Presenters assume that if you’re interested in something, you’ll follow up on your own so spoonfeeding is unnecessary. As a result, you don’t lose time repeatedly reviewing the basics.

Barely over 200 people went this year, but it seems like every time there’s something interesting going on, people from code4lib are involved. Just since last week, I’ve met with totally separate groups to plan for LOCKSS throughout our consortium, discuss uploading our digital collections metadata to the Talis platform for experimental purposes, and discuss specifications that will improve interoperability between library systems with vendors and the DLF ILS task force. Participation from code4lib participants was disproportionate at all of these venues even though the conference has no actual connection.

In other words, if you’re into library technology, code4lib is really a great place to learn, meet interesting people, and get involved with some pretty cool projects.

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One thing I’ve always wondered is when age would start catching up with me. I’ve been told for years about how my attitudes and a number of other things would change. None of these predictions has come to pass except my hair has mostly fallen out. Since I buzz my head like many other cyclists, the fact that my hair doesn’t grow is no biggie.

I’ve never felt I have generation gap with today’s college students until yesterday. Apparently, Alternative Reality Games (or ARGs) are extremely popular. The basic idea is that you plant clues in the real world which makes people seek information on websites.

For example, to advertise a session at a local conference, someone sent me a piece of paper in the mail with nothing but a library call number on it and a web address. I wasn’t expecting this mail, so I did what I do with all unsolicited mail — I just pitched it. Someone in my office saw it and asked me if I was curious. I said no because it was undoubtedly some vendor trying to draw me into a dialogue since they couldn’t sell their products the regular way. I get calls, letters, and emails from people using strange angles to promote things all the time.

Later, I learned that a lot of people that received the same mail that I did wondered what it was and investigated until they resolved what was going on. This behavior puzzles me — I imagined such constructs would appeal exclusively to extremely bored, socially inept, lonely people. Turns out these things are very popular with lots of people even though in the real world, they are often used to promote movies, music, and other products.

I just don’t get it. I don’t even get around to the important stuff, and I’m definitely not going to waste time resolving weird details that appear to have no meaning. If the new way of doing things is to hang out in ARGs rather than reality, I’ll be perfectly happy being a dinosaur.

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One of the things that’s always made me nuts is how quick people can be to thwart others from doing anything new based on little more than vague fears.

Recently, a school asked a university library where a colleague works if they could download catalog records. The school library was hoping to avoid manually keying in all this info themselves since that is time consuming (i.e. expensive).

The university library said no. Lame excuses were given as to why fulfilling the request was impossible, but I suspect that the real reasons were related to emotional discomfort rather than an actual problem. The fact of the matter is that the university runs a publicly accessible Z39.50 server (and intends to continue doing so), it has the legal right to distribute their records even before you consider the fact that they were created at public expense, the system impact would be virtually nonexistent, and it would help the school. As a practical matter, the school didn’t need permission in first place and asking was really a courtesy.

Only library geeks even know what Z39.50 is, let alone know how to use it, so I’m scratching my head as to why an organization would host such a server if they don’t want people using it. It’s like buying a subscription to satellite TV and blocking out all the channels.

If we are going to wring our hands as we try to figure out how we will adapt our services for the future, we could start by not tossing up roadblocks unless there is a compelling reason. I don’t know how many projects I’ve seen sunk by nothing more substantial vague discomfort on the part of one or two individuals in gatekeeper positions. It seems like I’m constantly hearing people say something to the effect of “I’ll never try that again” because they were sent to bureaucratic and meeting hell for asking about doing things a different way.

This example might sound petty, but it’s stuff like this that really holds us back. I recently had a conversation with someone who expressed surprise at how easy it is for me and a few others to ask for favors. There’s no secret to it. Just look for excuses to help people rather than excuses for why you shouldn’t. If you make life easy and enjoyable for others, they like dealing with you and cut you slack when you need it. Otherwise, don’t be surprised if people treat you like you have a communicable disease whenever you come near…

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When she suggests that she make a special trip to the store to pick up beer and onion rings while you take care of the dog.

That is all.

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I’m not sure how this wasn’t on my radar, but today I learned about a pilot project where the Library of Congress is putting photos on Flickr. For those of you who aren’t librarians, this might not sound like a big deal — even kids mount lots of photos on Flickr and the combined size of the high profile collections LC has added is smaller than many peoples’ personal photo collections.

However, LC’s willingness to work on Flickr represents a quantum leap forward because a key player in the library world is realizing that the ticket to success is to use the Internet like everyone else. Historically, librarians have collected, organized, and physically protected information. While this is a great strategy for physical materials, it’s not good model for resources that require massive technical, staff, and financial resources that we don’t have.

Just as practically all decent sized libraries depend on vendors for collection development, acquisitions, cataloging, and processing when physical resources are concerned, there is nothing wrong with doing the same for electronic resources. Besides, processing photos with Flickr is a heck of a lot easier than it is with CONTENTdm. Oh yeah, you also don’t need to drop $50K to get started and keep paying many thousands each year in maintenance fees.

I have heard fears expressed that this amounts to a loss of control over the information. I think that quite the opposite is the case. So long the information can be extracted (Flickr has a pretty decent API), it could be even safer than we could make it.

Although, if some joker changes the password for the account and gets flattened by a bus, there could be some real headaches. But everyone knows that the best way to keep electronic information safe is to maintain more than one copy.

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Recently, I learned that Google is expanding its digitization program to include newspapers. Apparently they’re contacting libraries and content providers to see what resources and partnership opportunities are available. You’d think this would be a good thing, but a colleague told me that it created a squawk where she works. Upon learning what Google was up to, a number of people at her library started discussing how to stop Google by throwing up intellectual property barriers and other means.

This reaction is sad but all too common in the library community. Although we talk a good game for open access, many libraries adopt a very different stance when it comes to giving away useful things that they create. The vast majority of catalog records are created at public expense, yet these are copyrighted and cannot be legally used without paying substantial fees. Critical library tools are designed by librarians who work at public expense, but then are copyrighted and sold by the American Library Association or OCLC (a cooperative of libraries). We tell everyone else to mount their content on open web servers, but very few of our publications are distributed this way. When we set up digital archives consisting of local resources, we often put in access restrictions, even for low grade materials like student papers.

The thing that’s particularly vexing about the Google example at hand is that practically every library project has the explicit goal of being included in Google, and that lots of money and endless meetings are dedicated to this objective. I suspect my colleague’s library fears that successful efforts by Google may cause the grant fed cash cows grazing on library digitization turf to wander off.

Just as it is bad for the sport when an athlete intentionally trips the opponent he is unable to beat in a fair race, undermining others is a disservice to our users and our profession. The fact of the matter is that Google will do a much better job of digitizing and providing access than any library can — we simply do not have the resources and expertise to compete at this level.

Besides, institutions with a lot more resources than us have been unable to stop Google. Google has been sued for their indexing, how they crawl, advertise, and digitize — the publishers weren’t too happy when they started Google Books. We need to come to terms with reality, and that is that Google will continue to digitize things. That is probably good for most people. We should welcome anything that improves things for users, even if it forces us to learn new things and take our services in new directions.

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