Koans and Haiku for librarians and anyone who owns a PC

From the zen site, this hilarious collection (some of which are reproduced below). If only error messages were written by Zen masters!






Haiku for Windows
original source unknown

The Web site you seek


Cannot be located, but


Countless more exist.

Windows NT crashed.


I am the Blue Screen of Death.


No one hears your screams.

Stay the patient course.


Of little worth is your ire.


The network is down.

Serious error.


All shortcuts have disappeared.


Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

Another gem - the laughing librarian proudly presents Koans for the Zen Librarian.
Some excerpts are:

The Zen Librarian said, "Reference service is like a man hanging from a rope by
his teeth over a cliff, with his hands bound to his sides and feet resting on no
ledge, and another person asks him for books about Enrico Fermi for a child's
school assignment."

As a student in library school, the future Zen Librarian witnessed an argument
between a professor and another student. The other student said that Internet
access in public libraries should be filtered, and the professor said that
unrestricted access should be provided. "The mind needs to be filtered," the
future Zen Librarian said to the other student. "The mind needs to be
unrestricted," the future Zen Librarian said to the professor. The professor and
student were both amazed.

The Zen Librarian searched for nothing on AltaVista and received 27,987,384
hits.

The young patron approached the Zen Librarian at the Reference Desk. "I
think I have figured out what the call number is for Alan Watts' The Way of
Zen!"
"Well, what is it?" asked the Zen Librarian.
"294.32," replied the young patron.
"No!" answered the Zen Librarian emphatically, returning his attention to the computer monitor. "What is the call number, then?" asked the young patron.
"294.32," replied the Zen Librarian. After the young patron
went away, the Zen Librarian elaborated, "But this is an LC
library."

(Above koan submitted by Curt Allred, Michigan, USA)

A student in the library computer room was trying to fix a computer by
turning it off and on. The Zen Librarian told him that he cannot fix the
computer by turning it off and on with no understanding of what is wrong. The
Zen Librarian then told the student to turn it off and on. The computer worked
fine from that point on.

(Above koan submitted by Mike Hoy, Arizona, USA)

Buddhism 2.0

I have been around on some of the bigger buddhism sites for a while (Buddhanet, Zen buddhism virtual library, etc), so it's no surprise to me that Buddhists (seemingly western buddhists in particular) are using Web 2.0 technologies to connect with information and each other. Silly, but I didn't realise just how many interactive blogs and groups around buddhism there are as well! - Livejournal, SecondLife, Blogger, wordpress etc....

Just like other remote groups, there are gains and losses with these I guess. You do lose something when a community does not know each other's names or locations or anything about their real lives!

Then there's podcasts and news sites devoted to Buddhism.

What I wonder is, libraries are starting to use web 2.0 technology to engage with their users or patrons, right... and to create spaces for people online in a parallel way to the physical spaces in a physical library... are these being done in a social way, or is it merely replicating explicit library services - in a kind of virtual reference & OPAC way? Which seems kind of limited.

How exciting would it be if libraries developed into places where these sort of interactions, online or physical, were hosted - a way of developing community that could extend from the impersonal to the personal. Public libraries are there not just to provide the information for their community, after all. Isn't there an expectation of the library helping to feed the growth of a community as well?

There is so much online activity and then you go into a public library and (at least where I live) it might as well not exist. These are two disparate experiences. For all I know the person whose blog I'm commenting on might be the person in front of me in the self-checkout queue. Isn't this an opportunity libraries should at least explore??

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Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! MSN Messenger

Hello

Just trying the post by email service to see if I have got the settings right... fingers crossed!

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Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! MSN Messenger

New year, new ideas

Who'd want to be a systems librarian?
Not an IT person, not a librarian. Well.... a bit of both.
All the exciting tech stuff but you don't have to be an expert; depending on your library, still doing reference or cataloging or suchlike... this, at any rate, is what I gather from reading about it.
And reading, and reading, and reading.

MLIS papers for 2008:
My probable schedule, which may change depending on how the workload fits in with my new job... Library Assistant in a law firm.

• T1 (Feb to June 08): INFO523 (Information Resources & Client Services, in other words: Reference & Searching), & INFO527 (Organisation of Information)
• T2 (July to Oct 08): INFO528 (Research Methods), & INFO546 (Bibliographic Organisation)
• T3 (Nov 08 to Feb 09): INFO580 (Research Project) & possibly another elective.

I am really looking forward to 527 and 546. I have collected a lot of material about metadata, LCSH, DDC etc, in the time I was focusing on cataloging as a specialty. Very interesting stuff. Plus, lets be honest, I like the technical side of things as much because I pick it up quicker than most as that it requires classification and analysis of ideas.

I think I'll buy the textbooks for these, rather than borrow/beg them (though possibly not the AACR2R and DDC volumes!).

And.... am interested in doing the following electives/MMIM papers if possible:

• INFO561 (Special Topic: Web & Intranet Content Management)
• MMIM534 (Web & Intranet Content Management)
• INFO541 (Electronic Publishing)
• INFO544 (Advanced Reference Services)

Plus, INFO548 (Law Librarianship), which I had heard was defunct because no teacher could be found for the course, but they appear to be offering it for the T3 2008 summer...

May be a bit late by then as I would have picked up quite a lot on the job, but still, could be worth a look.

Google strikes again!

In what has to be yet another example of how privacy is disappearing, especially for the Americans (yeah, I hear you all sighing with pity), Google Earth might be recruited to help find missing US adventurer Steve Fossett. Friend Richard Branson also has friends at Google and is trying all avenues possible to find Fossett's plane or direction he was flying in. Hope they find him alive and well.

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Apparently librarians are a little sensitive about stereotypes... what the??

After a lot of fuss on the nz-libs listserv, with around 2000 subscribers, several items appeared in the news about librarians and their antagonistic attitude to a generous Paula Ryan offering to host a session at the LIANZA national conference on fashion and style...

apparently some objections were lost in the need for an entertaining story. Professionalism and dress sense are not as closely linked to some as hinted in the promotional email for the event.

What's more, there was not a whisper, not a skerrit, about what was most interesting to me personally... the gender bias of the event and how it was considered a suitable event to have at a professional conference. I voiced some objections on the listserv and a kind male colleague advised me that the flash-over-substance attitude is moving to the male-dominated arenas too... apparently it's quite common to get a group of male professionals together and tell them they need to wear more fashionable clothes at work.

What are we coming to when this sort of 'sizzle' is more important than the 'steak'?

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A Number of Things

As the heading suggests.....

Linux - I'm running FC3 (dual-booting with WinXP) on my Asus laptop... why am I still running this when FC is up to number 7??

I'll need to update at some stage but really it's too much hassle at the moment when I haven't even got all my basic functionality working. I am still trying to get the wireless modem to work.

MLIS - Doing the compulsory management paper this semester. Not the most fascinating topic, but it has to be done. Next semester I'm enrolled for digital libraries, which I'm looking forward to.

Locket with poems inside - my new discovery. I'm carrying around a tiny Desiderata in 3-point verdana folded inside a locket, close to my heart. The artist's version of a crucifix! Now I just need ee cumming's i thank you god for most this amazing day on the other side of the paper.

It's late enough, I'm feeling soppy and sentimental. Have just seen Love Story for the first time. Cried more than once.... and not many movies have made me cry. And have been railing recently how success in so many movies and stories is finding a partner... but perhaps there is something I'm missing.

Open Source Technologies - Review of some Internet Resources

Open Source Technologies for a Corporate Information Centre


1. The Open Source Software for Libraries Community

This community contributes items relating to open source technology and libraries. Primarily in a news format, posts can be sporadic. In the current year posts have been around two per month. Any registered user can post items, although there is an editor to oversee the information.

Features of this site include a number of external links to related sites, a searchable archive, a listserv which is open for free subscription, and an RSS feed for posts.

This is not a one-stop shop for information on open source in a corporate information centre, but does provide a way of finding out about what is happening in the open source world which relates to libraries, including who is using what technology. The site is also worth monitoring for the results of these projects, and is a way of communicating with others who are in a similar position.

2. Sourceforge.Net

Sourceforge.Net is a software development website run by OTSG Inc, a subsidiary of VA Software Corporation. It hosts over 100,000 open source software development projects, acting as a repository for code and applications as well as providing project management and communication services.

Projects are indexed and catalogued and searchable. Details which are viewable on each project include the username of the project administrator, project stage, recent activity, the operating system the project is designed for, the programming language and the kind of license the project can be distributed under.

When searching for ‘ILS’ in the quick search function, eight results come up of which 6 could potentially be interesting to a corporate information centre, depending on their needs. The benefits of using this site to evaluate projects for potential use are that it is easy to determine at what stage the project is at (i.e. planning stage, production stage) and if it has reached maturity, and whether the project is still being worked on.

3. Koha ILS Software

Koha claims to be the first open source Integrated Library System (ILS). It was developed by Katipo Communications in Wellington and is distributed under the General Public License. Liblime has recently taken over much of the work Katipo does to look after the Koha development community and library support.

Koha is scalable for large and small libraries and able to run on low spec machines, although the more RAM a machine has, the quicker it will be able to process requests. Its modules cover the range of library tasks, and it will run on all major operating systems (Linux, Windows, Mac OS and Unix).

This site is an example of what to look for when evaluating open source technologies for possible use. Documentation and FAQs which are up-to-date are a key sign of a mature and actively maintained product. One common problem with open source is that there can be a lack of productisation and hence a lot of work to be done by the organization to make the product useful. Koha’s site has been set up to actively encourage libraries to adopt Koha as their ILS and includes a support section with links to communities, mailing lists, documentation, and even companies which offer support services.

In evaluating Koha for possible use there is a lot of information here to help. Most importantly, there are a number of current users of Koha listed so it is possible to contact them and get a real-life perspective on the software.

Intro

Hi there

I am a part-time library and information studies student and a full-time records management professional. Whew!

I have created this blog as part of the requirements for my studies, but I plan to use it to compile information about a range of subjects that interest me.
Some of these are:
poetry & fiction
philosophy
library studies (naturally!)
open source technologies
the information society
the open society

All as & when I come across a resource, text or thought that interests.

My next post will concern a review of electronic resources in a scenario for my studies.