Tales from the CDG Tardis

Well, here it is, this blog is only a week old and I’m about to abandon it for a week. Hush; dry your tears. We will blog again soon. I’m off to sunny Tenerife tomorrow and Martyn and I have a sacrosanct NO INTERNET pact. I will be eschewing email, web browsing and telephones in favour of novels, conversation, sun, sea and honey rum. Fasting can be good discipline - we once did a corporate fast which included a week off the media and a week off non-essential shopping.

CDG is of course never far from my thoughts, and there’s a lot coming up in the next few months - April will see our national conference and AGM in Cardiff, plus the Scottish Division AGM at the Saltire Centre; May is Council, my Presidential Reception, a trip down to East Midlands Division and our first Scottish Revalidation course, which is shaping up rather nicely (I have a selection of useful Margarets at my disposal). And June is looking distinctly hairy.

In my holiday suitcase is a copy of The house of the spirits by Isabel Allende - always meant to read it and whaat better opportunity than to do so as part of the Passport to Latin America sponsored reading challenge, raising money for the group’s international projects.

It’s not hitherto been public knowledge, but when on holiday I seem to form part of a bizarre Celebrity Death Squad. It started when the Queen Mother passed away during our Spanish holiday in 2002. A trip to Portugal coincided with the last days of the Pope. Other vacations have seen us say goodbye to such luminaries as Jim Callaghan, Mo Mowlam, Brother Roger of Taize, and last year it was the turn of Bob Woolmer. It doesn’t seem to matter whether we holiday at home or abroad; we seem to spread chaos in our wake. So watch the news this week and think of us.

About to embark on a flurry of emails to first year forensic science students. They had four classes with librarians and several with IT trainers this semester, and have submitted a portfolio of 5 different assessments. The administration, scrutiny and marking experiences have been educational in themselves, but the submitted work is also fascinating.

The first library assessment is a structured literature search: the students choose a topic, list keywords and phrases, list resources searched and evaluate the effectiveness of their search. They also describe how they refined their search, and then list references for two of the items retrieved. Popular topics are forensic ballistics, blood spatter analysis, and fingreprints. I wince while reading the one on forensic odontology and bite mark analysis. At the top end, there’s some thoughtful reflection and analysis which is really pleasing. At the bottom end, the approach is minimalist and tells us what they think we want to hear about the evils of Wikipedia.

The second assessment is a 500 word evaluation/comparison of two websites. The students came up with their own list of evaluation criteria during the class, and recorded it on the class wiki. They’re supposed to refer to the agreed criteria in their assessments so it’s easy to spot who skipped the class! Referencing of websites foxes many of them. They are often preoccupied with design issues and fail to consider authority, currency and bias. I look up some of the sites myself but come over all queasy when there are pictures.

Two quotations that amused me:

“It’s a win-win situation for both of us” (Pattie to Ray, Damages, BBC1, 24.3.0

From the “eats shoots and leaves” school of grammar!

“…for a thing is never half so mischievous in its place as it is out of it” (George Macdonald, The golden key)

Something LIS professionals have known since forever!

OK, it’s barely 10.00 and already at least 5 things have gone wrong since arriving at my desk. I arrive to find one of our key resources isn’t working and a lecturer urgently needs access to the content. Fortunately the customer service advisor is (a) available (b) pleasant (c) helpful and we get a workaround straight back. My internet access is behaving oddly anyway so can’t help growing feeling of paranoia. Why is it only me that can’t get into stuff? Another lecturer sends me a new instalment in a series of emails. Respond politely, trying to fight the students’ corner a bit. A phone in the office keeps ringing but there is no one at the other end. A phantom fax, maybe? Eventually after reporting to various colleagues we resort to unplugging it. Most disappointing of all, I receive details of a much anticipated new product trial, but can’t get it to activate. Tantalising!

Such is the reality of the business we are in. It’s messy. It’s bitty. Interruptions come as standard. Yesterday I walked 10 feet from my desk to a set of shelves and forgot halfway there what I had come for.

The Famous Five never had to deal with this sort of setback. Until now, that is. I hear they are being revamped this year with a new multicultural mobile-toting gang led by Jyothi, daughter of George. One set of stereotypes replaced with another, though, as the drippy Anne mutates into Allie, the visiting valley girl. Why is it OK to be offensive about Americans? Let’s face it, there are millions of *jolly nice* Americans out there who deserve their lashings of ginger beer as much as the next muddy-kneed mystery-solvers. When I worked in Edinburgh, I had an American colleague and was once or twice mistaken for her on the phone. Hello? New York // slightly modified Cockney?

If Blyton remixes are not your Amazon wishlist entry of choice, perhaps you’ll go for the new Philip Pullman - Once upon a time in the north - a prequel of sorts to His dark materials. We get to learn more about Lee Scoresby and Hester. And we get to taste the real Pullman again and leave behind the oh so seductive visuals but oh so mangled plot of the film.

I woke up this morning having had a very vivid dream about Oxford. (I’m famous for my dreams - just ask anyone who’s shared an office with me. Sometimes I have CDG dreams, which nearly always involve long and impossible journeys). Anyway, I waxed nostalgic. (This is different to waxing nostalgically, which would be more ‘Oh, remember when I was young and had silky smooth legs’). Too many brackets and asides. Blame Pratchett.

SO to get to the point, I was thinking about personal information management. As an undergraduate in Oxford 16 years ago, these were the information sources I regularly had to monitor:

1. College noticeboards (formal notices from tutors etc)
2. College pigeonholes (internal and external mail)
3. Message sheet on door to my room (literally a blutacked piece of A4 where people would scribble a note if I was out)
4. Face to face conversation (Talking 1.0)

As a professional librarian in Dundee in 2008, here are the information sources I have to monitor:

1. Abertay email: own inbox, FOI inbox, Infodesk inbox, Marketing inbox…
2. Instant messaging (for internal IS communication)
3. Telephones: own and colleagues’ in a large open-plan office
4. Notes and postits stuck to my desk, monitor etc
5. Internal and external mail
6. Blogs
7. RSS feeds
8. Wikis
9. Forums
10. Sponsored desktop panel messaging
11. Professional email lists including 4 CDG related
12. Professional journals (from CILIP, CILIPS, 4 x SIGs, SCONUL)
13. Meetings
14. Videoconferences
15. Home email
16. Home post
17. Home telephone and answerphone
18. Mobile for calls and texts
19. Facebook
20. Face to face conversation

You get the point. I need a Personal Information Manager! I was chatting to someone recently who is writing a dissertation about personal information management. A very interesting topic. Another friend sent me a weblink about zen habits, including an article on How not to multitask. And I finally got round to reading the CIBER report on the Information behaviour of the researcher of the future, which talks incessantly about ‘power browsing’ - flicking, scanning and hopping between information sources and chunks, looking for a quick win. This behaviour seems an inevitable and necessary strategy in the 21st century, but I can’t help lamenting the loss of quality input. What happened to reading, reflecting, inwardly marking, pondering, savouring…?

Martyn remembers starting out as a research student in Oxford in the days of printed abstracts and indexes and the early CD ROMs, which took ages and were unwieldy by modern standards.  I remember navigating guard books and card catalogues in the Bodleian. So some of today’s technologies would have made my studies easier back then. But oh - I do sometimes long for a simpler life!

It’s not a day for work or even for professional development; it’s a day for the LIFE bit of work-life balance. Why is it we feel guilty when we’re working and guity when we’re relaxing? Or is that just me? It’s been a great day so far. Blazing sunshine this morning (yes, really, in spite of the cold wind!) and I potted up two new patio roses and gave my Cordyline a haircut. Went to church and led part of the service. Joyous hymns but too many high notes! Cooked a roast dinner with Easter eggs to follow. Martyn has a Dalek Easter egg that goes ‘Exterminate’ . It’s a thing of wonder. Domestic dabbling this afternoon and some more holiday packing before the evening service. Saving a glass of wine to enjoy when watching TV adaptation of The colour of magic tonight. Martyn and I like to joke that rare unsigned copies of Pratchett books cost double the signed ones. He does get around, bless him.

Saturday - no work, no visitors, no job applications to write. In fact I get to have some free time! Go to the garden centre and buy compost and pots to pot up the patio roses my inlaws gave me. I am a real newbie to gardening - it’s the one thing I do where it really doesn’t matter if I totally screw it up, and that makes it therapeutic. I’m constantly amazed by stuff that manages to grow in spite of my mauling and drowning it.

Also hop on to good old LibraryThing, fabulous web 2.0 amateur cataloguing tool (I can hear you raising your hands in horror). Check out my complete library here. I add a new book to my personal special collection. This is a small but growing collection of first edition children’s books from the 1970s and 1980s. A little indulgence to remind me, in this age of e-everything, that a book is a Precious Thing. My new book is a copy of The golden key by Victorian writer George MacDonald, beautifully illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Sendak is so much more than just Where the wild things are - not that ‘wild things’ isn’t fantastic. I used to work with someone who is an expert on George MacDonald. Incredible how talented librarians are, and how generally interested in life and stuff.

Continue writing and mailing my reception invitations. It’s not really the upfront stuff that makes me nervous; it’s more the thought of keeping tabs on the many and varied activities of the group, scanning the political landscape and so on. Daunting. But it’s a team effort, right?

Warriors of the deep really IS a turkey. The Myrka is a hopeless lumbering thing that can’t seem to even break through polystyrene. The whole thing feels like a home video of kids in a school playground. Sigh. If CDG was a sci-fi monster, I hope it would be something infinitely more charming and effectual.

Well, in the spirit of the age, I thought when I became President I should keep a blog. The eagle eyed of you will realise that I am not in fact President yet. Behold the usurper! Here I come a-usurping, among the blogs so green…

I’m reminded of my good friend Mary who once decided she would like to read the Bible in a year. But knowing her own fallibility and the busyness of modern life, she started in September of the preceding year, to give herself a few months’ head start. Since I’m on holiday for the first week of my Presidency, I thought I’d do the same.

If you want this blog to be full of sound advice and profound thoughts, you may be out of luck. It’s a little bit of what’s inside my head at any one time, and as they frequently say here in snowy Scotland, ma heid is mince.

Why the TARDIS? Well I’ve started the whole Doctor Who thing in my ‘Meet the Pres’ article; I thought you would expect it. This evening in fact I was watching an episode of ‘Warriors of the Deep’, which pits Peter Davison’s Doctor, Tegan (fashion victim) and Turlough (fashionably sullen) against the Silurians, Sea Devils and the Myrka. It also features a great pseudo-librarian moment - how not to do student induction - monotonous chant of “There-will-now-be-a-short-orientation”. I once witnessed a librarian presenting in excatly the same style. I won’t tell you where and it certainly wasn’t any of my employers.

I have a weakness for ranting. So much so that at work I have been limited to one rant a day, to be over by 09.10. Today was Tesco day, and I have to ask… dental floss harps: why…? What next? Beard trimming bassoons? Cuticle removing cellos? Where’s Eddie Izzard when you need him?

I have actually done some CDG work today, in between day job, church and shopping. I’m organising a Revalidation event for Scotland - the first one under CDG auspices at least. Had some expressions of interest already. Exciting. And I’ve been printing labels to send out my Presidential reception invites. So many great people I know, and so many I look forward to meeting.

At the joint churches’ Good Friday service tonight I was struck again by the good relationships and sense of fellowship between members of our five very different local churches. It reminds me a bit of the CDG vibe, meeting folk from different sectors, senior managers, students, frontline staff, backroom staff… none of the distionctions matter, we’re all people, we’re part of a single community and we connect.

But it’s high time I gave the fingerbones a wee rest and poured myself a drink.