BeerBrarian

An Interview with Stillwater Artisan Ales' Brian Strumke

2012-02-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

Over on DCBeer.com I have a post up that's an interview with Brian Strumke, the brewer/owner/sole employee of Stillwater, a "gypsy" brewing outfit loosely based out of Baltimore. Every beer brewed by Stillwater is made with a farmhouse-style strain of yeast, commonly associated with saisons and biers de garde. Strumke, however, blurs and blends styles, to great effect. The end result is often a series of yeast-dominant beers, an interesting contrast with more common hop-forward styles, like Pale Ales, India and otherwise, and malt-forward ones like brown ales and bocks.

His most recent creation is Stillwater Premium, a beer that doubles as an inside joke since it's based on ingredients used in macro lagers like flaked rice and corn, and hops like Cluster, Northern Brewer, and Saaz. Instead of a lager, however, he's made an ale, and he's used two wild yeast strains in addition to a farmhouse strain to ferment the beer. The result is something like "dirty Bud," or Stella Artois if it was good and not skunked, as has been the case the last few times I've had that beer. Also, at 4.5% alcohol by volume, you can drink a lot of it, if, you know, you're into that sort of thing.

Also also, he used to be a DJ, and so of course I ask him about Skrillex. He's an interesting guy, and his thoughts on beer are worth a read.

I paired the beer with a semi-reasonable approximation of congee, a Chinese rice porridge. The flaked rice in the beer compliments the rice in the dish, and the dryness of the beer on the back end, due to two strains of wild yeast, or Brettanomycnes, kept me coming back for more broth. I also dropped an egg into that bowl, so the slight acidity of the beer plays against that richness.

CicerOWN'D

2012-02-17T06:14:00.000-08:00

On February 14th, 2012, the number of Cicerone.org Certified Beer Servers (CBS) reached 10,000. As a present to all of us, the next day the exam was $10 instead of the usual $69, which triggered something like an exam stampede as over 700 people took the 60-question multiple choice exam on all things beer.

Backstory: the word Cicerone® means "guide" in Italian and becoming a Certified Cicerone® is vaguely analogous to being a sommelier, which translates to "wine steward" in French, but for beer. Cicerone.org Certified Beer Servers are the first level of credentials handed out, the next being Certified Cicerone®. The final level earns one the title of Master Cicerone®, and the organization is notoriously stringent with its trademarks, which they are entitled to be.

I'm waiting for the final tally, but I know that February 15th was the busiest day ever for the Cicerone.org website, which at times wasn't able to handle the traffic. The website allows one to view the number of CBSs by city, so we'll soon find out how DC stacked up among those 700, but an informal tally via twitter reveals that at least 26 people in the #dcbrews community took and passed the exam. Meridian Pint lead the way, as 6 of their staff joined the ranks of Cicerone.org Certified Beer Servers. Coming in second as an institution was yours truly, DCBeer.com, with 4 CBSs now on staff, including myself.

I took the exam over a period of about 10 minutes, and for the first third of it I was working with a staff member on scheduling, so it wasn't exactly taxing, though there were a few questions that genuinely stumped me. I think of it as a feather in the cap, a sign that my beer knowledge is up to snuff. Ten dollars isn't a lot to pay for that validation, but I am ambivalent about the Cicerone® program. I don't think this is something you need for external validation, and it saddens me when people think that way. Blind item relating to this point: once I interviewed a restaurateur who lied about being a Certified Cicerone®, the next level up. It's mystifying that someone I talked to for several hours, who clearly knew what they were talking about when it came to beer, would misrepresent themselves like that. When I asked this person about being a Certified Cicerone®, I was told

That’s a very interesting question. For me it was mostly a business decision. There are a lot of [redacted] companies in [redacted] and I thought this could really help with marketing and finding a niche, and it did. I think that some people will take you more seriously with these kind of credentials. At the same time, it’s nice to have this piece of paper that shows what I know, what I’ve been working on for a long time.

When I found out (this information is easily accessible on the Cicerone.org website), this person confessed via twitter:

Ouch, had always used that as a means of conveying my expertise, never again. Self taught. IAdmire your thoroughness #lifeslessonsinhumility

We haven't spoken since.

There is a tension between making beer accessible to all - and I think most people agree that beer is more accessible than wine, which is one of its appeals - and acting as a gatekeeper to that knowledge, and that dichotomy is inherent in the program. I'm also surprised that Ray Daniels, who runs the organization, is the only person doing this. It strikes me that there's room for more than one of these operations, even though I'm not sure these operations need to exist outside of my, and our, need to validate and codify what we already know.

What did you think of the exam, or of the Cicerone® program, or of the accreditation of craft beer? Does this make you more likely to sign up for a Certified Cicerone® exam, the next level up? Let me know in the comments, and if you were one of those who passed the exam, congrats!

[UPDATE: approximately 900 people took the CBS exam and passed on February 15th. Approximately 100 of them are from the DC-metro area. DCBeer has written about it. Also, please read JP's comment below, which could be a post on its own.]

Payola in the Washington, DC Beer Market

2012-02-16T06:29:00.000-08:00

If you've ever been to a bar or restaurant and complained, or thought to complain, about the selection of beer there, there's sometimes a nefarious reason for that, as opposed to a lazy one. I put on my journalism hat and delve into the word of payola, the quid pro quo that goes on between the people who make beer, distribute it, and sell it to us. I'll have more to say on this later, as there's going to be some fallout from this post over at DCBeer, especially since it went national. Some of that fallout is already in the comments, where a former Flying Dog employee, this brewery being the alleged victim of payola that got the ball rolling on this piece, adds some nuance to the proceedings in the comments section. In short, craft brewers and their distributors engage in this kind of behavior, too. Everyone does, and it's often hard to tell the difference between an illegal activity and building a business relationship. I'm not sure where the line is on this kind of behavior, and neither are the authorities who are supposed to enforce the law. Give it a read.

A Modest Defense of QR Codes in the Library

2012-02-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

Last summer, the library where I work began to use QR codes to link our print serials to their electronic counterparts. In short, we created a code for each title, and scanning that code will take one to a site, usually in a database, where one can search issues we don't have in print. I wouldn't say it's tremendously successful, but a large part of that is because few people use our print serials, and our budget reflects that. Since I've been here, our print serials budget has contracted by fifty percent, and that's no accident. I'd rather spend money elsewhere. But we do what we can to promote our resources, and QR codes are a part of that.

In addition, we're linking the stacks, in which books are shelved by subject area, to online resource guides, also using QR codes, and we're going to do something similar for individual books, at least the more popular ones, based on how often they circulate. For these and reserve books, we're going to link to online resource guides and our federated search, via QR code stickers in the books. All of this is trackable, so we'll see how it goes. Just as important, all of this is free. All it costs is time. And so when I see QR codes under attack, I'm a bit confused; healthy skepticism is always a good lens to view technology, but nobody is forcing anyone to use them. Here are some of the (increasingly) popular critiques.

I'll expand on these below, and add two others.

The first two tweets, which come to us via the Handheld Librarian conference and American Library Association Mid-Winter Meeting, Tech Trends, respectively, state that QR codes are a fad.
The third, also from ALA Mid-Winter, refers to QR codes as a prime example of the "garbage can" model of decision-making.
QR codes are hideously ugly.
The neo-Marxist and/or (post)structuralist critique.

I will tackle these arguments in order.

Calling QR codes a fad is a bit like calling VHS tapes or compact discs a fad. These codes have been employed in Japan for over 15 years. Yes, they probably won't last, but what technology does? Fifteen years is quite a bit of time for a "transitional technology." Moreover, by any metric one chooses, QR code scans are increasing, not decreasing. If this is a fad, it's still on the upswing.

The second critique is paradoxically both more powerful and less so. Is it the former because I can't disagree with it. It is the latter, because, well, who cares? Yes, QR codes may be a solution in search of a problem, but if one's aims, one's goals, are limited, they are a powerful and elegant solution to a problem. There is a proverb that goes something like, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." And yet, we, as librarians, have many tools in our tool belts. QR codes are one of them. They are not a panacea, nor should they be. Have modest goals and expectations in mind, and they may serve you well.

The third misses the point completely. If one thinks QR codes are ugly, then make them more attractive. All one needs to do to manipulate a code, turning it into something approximating art, is have a computer, an internet connection, and an imagination. Furthermore, the author of this article, also referenced above at number 3, fails to understand that QR codes differ from writing down a URL (and why not do both, if this is the concern?) because scanning a code is participatory and interactive in ways that writing something down are not. And that brings us to the fourth critique.

QR codes, according to neo-Marxists and/or (post)structuralists, offer the illusion of participation, of interactivity, but nothing more. It is no accident, according to this criticism, that QR codes began as advertisements, and that the barcode itself was popularized to sell Wrigley's gum is another piece of evidence cited in this school(s) of thought. Libraries should be spaces free of the trappings of late 20th- and early-21st century capitalism, a refuse from ads, from otherwise-omnipresent corporate activities. In this critique, scanning a code is not a form of play, it is something more insidious because the codes themselves are inextricably linked to their origins. Thus, the codes function as advertisements, but are cloaked in play, in interactivity. QR codes, to paraphrase Joseph Schumpeter, prepare souls for capitalism.

I admit that this final critique appeals to the academic in me, and as always, discussion is welcomed. I do think it is possible to divorce QR codes from their origins, to make them emancipatory. Again, they are a tool, no more evil than a hammer or a screwdriver. What QR codes serve, what role they play, determine their worth. A counter-argument that takes the neo-Marxists and/or (post)structuralists head on would state that QR codes are a symbol of modernity, a sign and signifier of technological prowess, that the library "gets it," whatever it is, though such an argument would still be structured within a capitalist hegemony.

SOPA Poster QR CodeAt my place of work, QR codes work. We have limited goals for them, and they suffice. And we're not alone. There's a wiki page devoted to using QR codes in library settings, mentioning what works, and what does. Our most popular library blog post achieved that distinction almost solely because I papered the campus with these flyers on January 17th, 2012. There were 80 views via the QR coded embedded on the flyer, far more than the results for the traditional way of viewing the blog, via a browser and mouse click. All that in 48 hours, on a campus with a full-time enrollment of 2400 students. In part, this is a function of our user population. Many, if not most, do not own a computer, or have internet access, but many, if not most, own a smartphone. In sum, we know our audience and we have limited aims for how we use QR codes. They do what we want them to, no more, and no less. Below is my presentation at the Catholic University of America's School of Library Science Bridging the Spectrum 2012 Symposium (quite a name, yes?), in which I say just this, with funny pictures (image credits in the presentation), some of which are above.Qr Codes Cua-slis

The #libday8 Post: A Day in the Life of a Library Director

2012-02-02T17:55:00.000-08:00

It's rare that I journal my days, though I suspect if I did I'd be more efficient. I try to do this once every Library Day in the Life; check out my less in depth account last year here, and more information on the participants here.

8:30 - Get to work. Drink coffee and eat a muffin (homemade, banana nut).
Answer email, do some social networking, which includes catching up on work-related blogs, and articles that have caught my eye.

9 - Work with consortium partners to get a circulation client up and running, which will continue throughout the day. Eat pineapple, field emails and phone calls regarding patron access to library resources from off-campus thanks to a ridiculous policy forced on me that I'm working to change.

9:30 - Tired of sitting, transition to standing desk, continue to do the same stuff.
Gaze longingly at Hostess Zingers in the vending machine, wonder why Pop Tarts cost both $1 and $1.25. Wonder who might buy them at the higher price, and why.

10 - Attempt to enter a webinar that’s really at 11, realize that after 10 minutes, then go over the January leave reports, due later today, and submit them. Do this while heading over to Pitchfork to check out recent tracks they’ve posted.

10:30 - Trail mix, because, why not. Still working on this circ client networking thing, with the consortium systems administrator on one line, and our IT deptment on the other. Also, do some collection development for the School of Education.

10:45 - Help someone send a fax. Continue to do the above.

11-11:30 - Webinar with someone who wants to sell me something; I find it helpful since it’s a one on one (one of the reasons I agreed to this), so we’re basically talking collection development for business resources. Always nice to get the vendor perspective. I confess to playing one game of Temple Run during it.

11:35 - Someone has locked one of the bathrooms, but as far as I can tell, there’s nobody in there. Call facilities.

11:45-12 - Social networking. You all sure post a lot of interesting stuff

12-12:05 - Look at Gilt. Buy nothing. Sigh.

12:10 - Oh hai, migraine. Adjust my standing desk monitor. Read, meaning delete without reading, various listserv email.

12:30 - 1:30 - Sit back down for lunch: leftover homemade bison burger (1 lb ground bison, tbsp chopped shallots, an egg, salt, pepper, smoked paprika, cumin - makes 5 patties), sourdough bun, pretzels, gold rush apple, social networking, read the paper.

1:30 - 2:30 - Work the front desk. Answer only questions about printing.

2:30-4 - Job/position description, because we hope to be hiring soon. More on that later.

3:15 - The bathroom is still locked. Also, I buy the Zingers. Continue as above.

4-4:25- More trail mix, still position description-ing.

4:25-4:50 - Talking to library staff. Topics include filing taxes, Burger King fries, and the library job market.

5 - The bathroom is now open. There are no cadavers in it.

5:01 - Changing policy definitions so ready reference items now formally circulate. In related news, Voyager ILS stinks. Eat a Zinger.

5:45 - Success. I’m so cool. Also, I should sit down since I’ll be standing while I teach.

5:47-6:25 - Social networking, while sitting.

6:30-7:45 - Library instruction session for a Nursing class.

7:48 - Someone has fallen in front of the library. A patron and I help her up.
8 - Home, to delicious Peruvian rotisserie chicken, and my family.

9 - Blogging, while attempting to get PsychInfo back up and running.

Music and beer, beer and music

2012-01-23T13:28:00.000-08:00

I have two posts up elsewhere today.

Every year this guy and I trade top ten, or fifteen, or whatever lists and then make fun of each other. He used to write review for a web 'zine called Losing Today, but now he blogs. My top 15 albums of 2011 are up over there, along with links to some of the music. You like music, don't you?

A sample:

8. Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die...: By embracing Krautrock and baroque, among other styles, Mogwai have made their best and most vital album in just about a decade. I placed it here because it doesn't sound like Mogwai.

9. The Joy Formidable - The Big Roar: Overproduced to the point of murder, but damn if it’s not the best sounding album of the year on computer speakers, which is the point of that overproduction.

10. Clams Casino - Instrumentals: Picture a cross between Moby’s Play and DJ Shadow’s Entroducing, if it were composed by someone who drinks too much cough syrup.

You know you want more, don't you?

The other concerns beer. 21st Amendment Brewing out of San Francisco makes a seasonal called Bitter American. It's low in alcohol, 4.4% by volume, but big on flavor, plus it comes in a can, which is convenient when going someplace where glass isn't allowed. Bitter American is going year-round, good news for fans of good beer.

The Library as Aquarium, or, The SOPA Post

2012-01-17T06:11:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I went to the Baltimore Aquarium. One of the things that struck me was how well the aquarium has integrated conservation into its exhibits, its building, its mission. The dolphin show has a message about littering in the ocean; the shark exhibits have interactive games concerning bycatch and the evils of shark fin soup; there’s an entire exhibit about the relationship between jellyfish and human activity; and the cafeteria has locally-sourced food and biodegradable or reusable utensils and plates. It wasn’t always like this, of course. Twenty-five years ago none of this would have been included in the aquarium. It was a place to look at fish.

And that brings us to libraries. And the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. And the Research Works Act, or RWA. Libraries have not integrated our equivalents of conservation into our shelves, computer labs, exhibits, buildings, or missions. That needs to change.

What forms will resistance to SOPA and RWA, and their future spawn take? For starters, signage

in the stacks concerning banned books and censorship;
QR codes with links to contact local, state, and national representatives on issues important to the library and its patrons;
near computers and in computer labs, reminding patrons of the importance of net neutrality.

Also, programs, events, and blog posts that address the importance of net neutrality, open access, and a copyright system that strikes a balance between rewarding creators and society writ large.

The integration of conservation into the aquarium is natural, and organic, not tacked on. We need to do the same in libraries.

This is a woefully incomplete start, but it’s a start all the same. What would you do? What will you do?

*Image via blackoutsopa.org. Do visit them.

New Year, New Library (kind of)

2012-01-09T12:45:00.000-08:00

When I’m in the library, I’m often not of it.
When I’m outside the library, I’m of it.

And that glibly sums up the first three-quarters of a year of my tenure as a library director. When I’m in the building, I’m often doing administrative things like payroll, setting schedules, keeping people happy, and planning, among others. I try to catalog and do reference from time to time, just to keep my skills fresh, but it’s not easy. In fact, I’ve found it easier to be a librarian outside the library, when I’m talking up the library to faculty and the university administration. It’s a strange dichotomy, one I didn’t expect, and I’m still getting used to it. With that in mind, I did something I consider unusual: I called a meeting of all our full-time and part-time staff, and told them to treat the library like a laboratory. We’re going to try some things here. We will fail some of the time, but that’s life, and I’ll do my best to limit the damage.

None of these staff members is over 30. All have skill sets that I, and the others, don’t. Some are still in library school. I retain veto power, but this will be interesting. More later.

Over at DCbeer.com, a post about my neighborhood

2011-12-01T12:11:00.000-08:00

“My house is about equidistant from the Young’s brewery and the Fuller’s brewery. This is no accident.”

— Michael Jackson

Unlike Michael Jackson, it’s happy accident that my neighborhood is in the middle of the first three production breweries in Washington, DC in about 60 years. My wife and I bought a house in Brookland eight years ago, and now we live about ten minutes from Chocolate City, DC Brau, and 3 Stars, and yes, I’ve timed the drives. This probably isn’t a reason to move to Brookland, but consider it a contributing factor. Read the article here.

* Neighborhood boundaries in DC, as in many cities, are contentious. My apologies if this map, from dcrealestateguide.com, offends you.

Road Trip: From Blog to Conference

2011-11-28T06:15:00.000-08:00

I’ll be presenting at two conferences in early 2012 on topics that began as blog posts in 2011. Prior to those posts, each was an attempt, successful, I’d say, to improve the library where I work. Also, it’s not a real road trip. These conferences are in Washington, DC, so they won’t require any travel. In fact, both are on the same Metro line, and the first conference is about half a mile down the street from where I work.

At Catholic University of America’s School of Library Science Bridging the Spectrum 2012 Symposium I’m presenting on using QR codes to link digital holdings to print. More details are here.

I’ll be exploring QR codes a bit more in depth at the 2012 meeting of Computers in Libraries as part of a panel. At that conference I’ll also be presenting on transforming library spaces, the subject of this post.

In both cases, the blog posts served as rough formats for abstracts that were accepted at these conferences. I used more academic language, of course, but the content and structure are otherwise unchanged. My staff and I identified problems, then thought of solutions. QR codes can be tracked, numerical data on building and space usage collected, so defining success was relatively easy for each project. What makes for a good read here makes for a good one on a conference submission form as well. I think these experiences are applicable elsewhere, and I’m eager to be part of the conversation on these topics.

Standby for witty and irreverent slide decks closer to each of the conferences.

Elsewhere: A Guest Post on Research Methods in Libraries and Library Science

2011-11-11T06:21:00.000-08:00

I wish Jessica Olin's blog, Letters to a Young Librarian, was around when I was in library school. Both she and guests post on things you weren't told in library school, but should have been, and when she asked if I was interested in writing something, I jumped at the chance.

Those who know me know that a pet peeve of mine is a lack of rigor, of scientific methodologies, in libraries and library science. I've written about it here as well. Please go read it.

The #StoutDay Post: Anatomy of a Beer Stakeout, or, The Canadian Breakfast Stout Post

2011-11-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

Beer is for drinking, not for fetishizing, and yet last month I found myself in line waiting to buy a bottle of Founders Brewing Canadian Breakfast Stout, probably my least favorite of their Breakfast Stouts (and yes, it felt ridiculous to type that; if you must know, regular, and then Kentucky, then CBS). Why did I spend my lunch break in line for this beer? Because I could. Because I really did get an adrenaline rush from this experience. Because I’m curious to see what CBS tastes like after being cellared, something I’ve been able to do already with Kentucky Breakfast Stout.

There’s a certain, seemingly-illicit thrill in leaving work to buy alcohol, especially in the middle of the day, and especially if the alcohol in question is scarce. But it's a slow day, and we've got more than enough front desk coverage, so away I go. Against my better judgement, I take the advice of Google Maps, which states that the trip will take 23 minutes. It takes twice that. Goodbye lunch break. I get to the store, hoping that CBS hasn’t arrived yet, and it hasn’t. So I wait, and wait, and wait. I’m the second person in the store anticipating CBS’s arrival. Clearly he’s also a beer geek, and just as clearly, it’s a he. The only female who enters the store buys cheese and leaves. I introduce myself to the person in charge of beer at the store. We’ve actually “talked” via twitter many times, but this is our first meeting in real life. We pick up the conversation where it left off online: beer and 1990s rap. Just like us, he’s waiting for the shipment of CBS, all the while fielding phone calls from other beer geeks.

The other guy in line is wearing a Cigar City shirt. We talk shop. Did I hear that a keg of CBS at Churchkey was kicked in under 15 minutes? I had not. We shake our heads, and the talk naturally turns to Hopslam, the other sought-after Michigan beer. A few more people enter the store, and join the conversation. We all scan the wall of beer: what have we had, not had, liked, not liked? And we wait some more.

The wine people stare at us. Apologetically, I tell one of the wine people that I like wine as well, just not enough to wait in line for it. He laughs and says “sure you do.” I scan the wine, getting hungry since this is technically still my lunch break, yet I’ve brought no lunch. More waiting.

Cheese samples! An excellent Gruyere, and a well-aged Gouda. It’s something. The cheese monger and I chat for a bit and he brings me a few more samples. But then it’s more waiting, back to scanning the walls of wine.

I approach the same wine person, inquiring about a bottle the shop doesn’t have from a producer the shop carries. This is a mix of boredom, curiosity, and defensiveness. I must show him I know what I’m talking about. I’m disappointed that he’s not caught off guard, but says he’ll look into it. More waiting.

I fill out a form for that bottle of wine to get a sense of its price and availability. Someone else is at the cheese counter discussing cured meats. I sidle up so I can leech a sample off this conversation. It works, I get a fantastic domestic chorizo, pimenton is dominant, yet more cheese appears, and I’m happy.

Finally, the distributor shows up. We form a surprisingly orderly queue based on who arrived first, which means I’m second in line. The Founders boxes don’t come off at first, though, so there’s more waiting. I’m getting irrationally giddy about this. It’s a 750mL bottle. I can’t drink that much imperial stout, I probably only want 6 ounces of it, at the most. I resolve to cellar it and then show up to a DC Homebrewers meeting with the bottle, arriving every bit the hero.

I purchase the bottle of CBS, along with a 4-pack of Founder’s wet-hopped Harvest Ale. I take my route back to work, not Google’s. It takes 22 minutes. It’s been 2.5 hours since I left work. Would I do it again? Of course. But first, I have some hours to make up at work.

On Digital and More Traditional Literacy

2011-11-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

My 10th grade social studies teacher, Mr. Schweidel, is my favorite teacher ever. He mocked, prodded, and harassed us into learning in a variety of inventive ways, some of which I try to use when I'm in the classroom, though I doubt I have the same results. When I read this article, a takedown of digital literacy, I thought back to Mr. Schweidel's class. One day, in an attempt to get us to not be mindless drones writing down whatever he said, Mr. Schweidel told us a story about how Hannibal invaded Italy with elephants, using snow chutes to transport the elephants through the Alps. While he was telling this obviously tall tale, I looked left and right, watching dumbfounded while my classmates wrote it all down. At the end, Mr. Schweidel asked the class what was the most amazing thing about what he had just said. When he was greeted with blank stares, he began to yell. "The most amazing thing is that this never happened!," he roared, and then lit into us for being so gullible. The message was clear: I am an authority figure, but I am not perfect. There is truth out there. Seek it. Find it out. Don't believe everything you hear, no matter who it's from.

And that brings us to the internet.

Annie Murphy Paul, the author of the article that got me thinking, notes that the Internet, which is an authority in the eyes of many, allows people to manipulate and misrepresent. But as the above example from my youth shows, you don't need Internet access to do that. Is there a more permissive environment for such hijinks online? Perhaps. On a listserv I belong to that discusses information literacy, someone asked a question about using websites that are patently false to teach website evaluation. A lively discussion ensued; there are a lot of purposely inaccurate websites out there. But I'm not worried about those. Anyone can do a little digging and debunk those for themselves. I'm more concerned with innocuous websites that have bad information. Ones written by self-proclaimed experts that are anything but. Ones that a library patron might actually use.

Overall, Paul draws a false dichotomy between digital and more traditional literacies, when really they are mutually constitutive. You can't have one without the other in 2011. The Internet is not going away, and people need to know how to use it, how to evaluate online sources just as they would print or oral ones. Below is a brief discussion I had with the author via twitter. Here's a link to it, and here's a good blog post from 2009 that touches on some of the same things.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T10:53:00.000-07:00

I'm back at it again over at dcbeer.com. This time with a post about pumpkin beers, which seem to provoke people, hence the video above. While the article is mostly about local pumpkin beers, I do mention some of the more popular offerings from around the US. Enjoy.

Great American Beer Festival Winners: Daytrips

2011-10-03T09:23:00.000-07:00

A new post over at dcbeer.com on breweries that won GABF awards and are within driving distance of DC for a daytrip. Enjoy, and congrats to all the winners.

On Beer Snobbery, Part II

2011-09-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

Last week I wrote a piece for dcbeer.com on what happens when craft beer gets "too popular." This week I defend, sort of, macro beers, like those made by InBev (Budwiser) and MillerCoors. Do check it out.

Transforming Library Spaces

2011-09-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

The library where I work is old. Not geologically, and not even all that old in terms of years. It was built in 1963, on a campus where at least one building dates back to 1897. It's old in the sense that it's out of date. Every wall in the building, every last one, is a load-bearing wall. In this environment, change is difficult.

While fancier digs are hopefully on the way, we're not standing pat. I've worked with stakeholders across campus to modernize the facilities, adding computers, and making the most out of the spaces we've been given by noting how those spaces are used and then acting in ways that complement and accentuate their usage.

For example, library staff noticed both students and faculty congregating in a ground floor space that also houses our microfilm and bound back issues of journals, magazines, and other serials. At the same time, our School of Continuing Education was looking for more space to hold classes. It just so happened that these students and faculty were primarily Continuing Education, and so a partnership was born. We moved the microfilm against a wall, installed two whiteboards, and brought in some classroom furniture from elsewhere. A drop-down screen and a hanging projector are en route. This space, so popular that adjuncts have asked to use it for office hours, is now going to be a classroom, and a place where students, faculty, and other patrons can come together to accomplish things. What began with qualitative evidence on the part of library staff became a partnership with another campus organization. Together we fought for that space, and in particular that projector, when some on campus wanted to skimp on materials. I can see how proud Continuing Education is of that space. These students are commuters and there's not much that "theirs" on our campus.

Math labs are all the rage on many campuses, and ours is no exception. A math professor proposed one someone on campus. I proposed the library, thinking that anything that gets people in to the library is a win. The professor agreed, and in a space that previously held empty shelving, we now have five computers and two white boards, with weekly math sessions and daily tutoring available. Thanks, math department!

Finally, an extra blackboard and an empty wall became a match on the 2nd floor of the building. Students were quietly using the Religion/Religious Studies room (our stacks are broken into rooms, I told you it was an old building) to study, so an uninstalled blackboard found a home.

Lessons learned from these experiences:

Observe how space is being used, then act on it - the data we compiled for these spaces began as anecdotal evidence. Library staff members telling each other what they noticed in the building. Without open communication and a staff committed to constant improvement, this will be difficult.
Find allies where possible - this doesn't happen unless there are regular lines of communication between the library staff and the rest of campus. Keep your eyes and ears open, as well as at least part of your budget. Be part of the greater community, because you'll find something
Be the squeaky wheel - I've been pushy as a library director, and I'm sure there are lines that people think I've crossed. I understand that and I'm conscious of it, but at the same time, I want results. This isn't a science, and it's not even an art, but if you don't ask for something, you won't get it (lifehacker link). It helps that asking is easier if you have other campus organizations and institutions supporting the endeavor.

On Beer Snobbery, Part I

2011-09-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

I've got another beer post up at dcbeer.com, do check it out. I may be spending more time over there with beer-related content, but as always, I'll link to it over here. As the above title suggests, the post is about that line you can't always see, but you know you've crossed, when you engage in snobbish behavior.

Thanks,

Jake

The Power is On!, or What failure looks like, and what it doesn’t

2011-09-01T07:03:00.000-07:00

Due to Hurricane Irene, sometime between the close of business on Saturday and our opening on Sunday, the library lost power. Conferring with the powers that be and staff on the ground, we closed the building for Sunday, hoping that we could reopen in time for the start of the workweek and the second week of courses. So we waited. And waited. We were without power for about 80 hours, and this is what happened, and what we learned.

On Monday library staff were relocated to a basement classroom in another building. It seemed that nobody missed us. We had a few e-mails, but no walk-ins, nobody asking about reserve books, even. It looked like a failure; a library goes dark and nobody notices.

But the next day, after finally persuading the higher ups that we needed an all campus e-mail about the situation (??), and word got out. We had a few visitors in our new digs, and I lead an impromptu reference session on the steps of the library via a laptop and wifi. Our reference librarian visited the bookstore, where students asked about us and when the building might reopen.

Wednesday morning was slightly busier, and finally we got power back on Wednesday afternoon. The library is hopping, so I am happy.

We don’t do a lot of marketing here. We’re an academic library and there aren’t any public libraries within walking distance; students are somewhat stuck with us, which is a lousy choice of words, but it’s true. They’ll continue to use Google and Wikipedia first, and then the library databases a distant second, but I was struck by how quiet our makeshift library was while the power was out. I didn’t like it.

This situation became, for me, something of a test run. What might a library look like without books, without a building? We went to other locations on campus, we interacted with students in locations they wouldn’t expect to see us, like the dining hall, the bookstore, and even outside.

And so a power failure shed light on what were were and weren’t doing as a library, and as librarians. A marketing failure became an opportunity, one that we’ll continue to explore. On my shelf I have a few books on library marketing. It’s time to take a look at them.

Marketing Today’s Academic Library, Brian Mathews (2009)
The Accidental Library Marketer, Kathy Dempsy (2009)
Building Bridges, Monty McAdoo (2010)
Academic Library Outreach, Nancy Courtney, ed (2009)

Another failure was our disaster plan. Chiefly, we didn’t have one. We will now. Laptops with all the software we need, a projector, a power source, and if the building is safe (and it wasn’t for a time here, as the power surge damaged one of our air conditioning units, threatening a fire) we’ll close the stacks and retrieve books for patrons.

And so what began as a loss of power became something beneficial by exposing what needed to be done. It’s post hoc, but it’s a start.

#libday7

2011-07-25T06:38:00.000-07:00

A smallish post for now, just a reminder that the seventh iteration of the Library Day in the Life Project begins today (7/25, Monday) and goes through Sunday (7/31). You can follow along, and contribute, using the hashtag #libday7, and you can view my tweets (insert shameless plug to follow me here) to the right of this post.

What's on tap for the week over here?

Vendor relations
Paying bills
Interviewing at least one candidate for a part-time job
Working on the website
Investigating social media options for the library
Expanding our use of QR codes
Collection development
and much, much more.

Google+ is Your New LMS

2011-07-07T18:24:00.000-07:00

Learning Management Systems. Blackboard. Moodle. Sakai. Something in-house. The first and last options are expensive. The middle two are open-source, but will require a lot of training and other costs up front. There’s a reason people make a living based on getting schools and other workplaces set up on them.

Google+, however, is relatively intuitive. You’ve likely seen, and used, Facebook. You’ve at least heard of twitter (a subtle nudge to follow me), if only to make fun of Charlie Sheen, or wonder why Lady Gaga has so many followers, and if that might be the decline of Western civilization (hint, it’s not). Yes, Google+ does these, but it can do more.

Strengths:

Circles. Sure, you can create groups in Facebook, and then grant or restrict access based on those groups, but very few people do this. I did it, then Facebook changed this process, and it’s less intuitive. In Google+, modifying access is easy. If you teach several classes, create a circle for each course. Post something to your stream (or “feed” if you prefer to use Facebook’s terminology) and then choose which circle or circles get to see it.
Spark. I’m a bit unclear on how this works at the moment, but I see great potential. You list your interests, and Spark brings them to you. Curation made simple, similar to Google Reader, or an RSS feed, in your social media platform. Between Spark and Circles, you can push out articles and posts of interest to a class, or other category of users (something like a listserv, perhaps).
Hangout. Got a webcam? Create a hangout, a place to video chat. It’s not asynchronous, but if you’re snowed out, cancelling class; want a review session before an exam; or if you and an out-of-state colleague are working on a project and want to talk, this is useful.
It’s Google. You’re already there. You use search. You might use gmail personally, and maybe your place of employment uses a gmail app. You know this company, or at least you think you do.

Weaknesses:

There’s no gradebook in Google+. That might be the biggie. Sure, you can create a Google doc spreadsheet (and input your grading formulas if you’d like), but then everyone can view everyone else’s grades, or you can lock it down, and no one can see them.
Your data. Google doesn’t make stuff for you or me. It makes stuff so that when we use it, it collects data on what we do. This data is very useful to a great many organizations. Corporations, governments, terrorist groups, NGOs... you get the idea.
Exclusivity. Joining Google+ is difficult now. It’s in beta, and locked down. I don’t understand why the former affects the latter (note: this is Google’s argument, not mine). Gmail was in beta for years, yet everyone could join. I also imagine that Google has the bandwidth for this. Make it happen. Open up G+ to everyone. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

Like Google+, this post is also in beta. After all, I’ve only been on it for a week. What did I miss? What did I plain get wrong? Got anything to add to Google+’s functionality as an LMS? Got another caveat? Let’s talk.

So You Want to Work With Me...

2011-06-20T06:25:00.000-07:00

Background: we’re hiring, but calm down, unemployed librarians, and there are a lot of you, because it’s for a part time position. Initially my place of work (MPOW, because why not) conceived of this job as an intern position. It’s paid, and intern doesn’t quite cover what the people in this role do. They are often the senior staff in the library. Under my leadership I haven’t been able to expand full time staff (someday, someway), but I have been able to double the number of part timers. I suppose in this way, we mirror the rest of higher education. Think of them as library adjuncts, and yes, that sounds better than “intern.”

Posting a library job in this economic climate leads to a lot of applications. For two intern positions MPOW received over 65 of them, and quite a few of the applicants had more experience than I. Then again, quite a few did not. All in all, the (virtual) pile of resumes and cover letters paint a depressing picture of the job market for librarians and library science students.

More depressing, however, is the picture of the applicant pool. Many lacked cover letters, one otherwise qualified candidate misspelled her location, right below her name on the top of the resume. That prospective employee did not make the cut, simply because of that typo. I have thick enough skin to be called shallow, but attention to detail matters in a library. We’ll teach the person in this position how to catalog, for example, and if there’s a glaring error at the top of a resume, I’m not letting you near a MARC record.

About that cover letter, read these first. Then, it’s not about you. Your resume is about you. The cover letter? That’s about us, in that, “what can you do for us?” Answer that and you’re well on your way to a call back.

We don’t score the applications, mostly because we don’t have to. It’s obvious to library staff and I who we’d like to interview and who we wouldn’t, often within about 15 seconds of opening the application package. We showed one of our interns this process, going through about 10 resumes in under 4 minutes, and she was mortified, but then again, she passed the eye test, and the interview (more on that below). I told her to tell her MLIS friends: know that this is what’s happening with employers. You’ve got about 15 seconds of my time, and if I’m not interested after that, you won’t be considered. This doesn’t mean you have to resort to gimmicks (and they're out there), but it does mean you need to be qualified and competent at presenting yourself on paper, which means you’ve checked out the library website, thought a bit about the library, and how you might fit in, among other things.

The people we’ve offered the job to had a clear narrative in the interview. They stuck to that narrative and presented themselves in terms of what they could do for us. They asked questions of us, about my management style, about the future of the library, and about a world without books, among others. And yes, I asked about retail experience, which netted us some great stories about the life of a flight attendant (job offered and accepted!), and how working at the Smoothie Hut isn’t really about smoothies.

In sum, folks in libraryland looking for work

Be competent. Just by doing that you’ll separate yourself from the pack.
Show interest in us. We may be just another library to you, on your 4th cover letter of the day, but your application doesn’t have to reflect that.
Sell yourself in the interview. What can you do for us. Ask questions, be curious.

Best of luck out there, recent MLIS grads. Those of us with jobs, we’re rooting for you.

SAVOR Wrap-Up

2011-06-14T08:33:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 4th I had the good fortune to attend the second evening of SAVOR. I was able to get the tickets, which sold out in something like 20 minutes, thanks to a librarian friend who’s also a member of the Brewers’ Association. It was my first time at SAVOR and I had a blast, although it was a bit overwhelming. My thoughts follow.

SAVOR bills itself as a place where fine food and craft beers are paired, but very few people are there for the food, which was fine. Think high-end wedding Hors d'oeuvre (what, you’ve never been?) getting lukewarm and you’re in the ballpark. That being said, a few pairings really stood out. Serving Alaskan Brewing’s Smoked Porter with smoked salmon doesn’t win any points for originality, but it was delicious all the same. I went back for seconds, then thirds. Odell Brewing Company’s sour fruit beer, Friek, was paired with Carr Valley bread cheese, and the vinegar-esque sourness from the beer cut through the dairy fat of the cheese. Like Greg Kitsock, who writes for the Washington Post, I paired Moon River’s Swamp Fox IPA with pork belly on a biscuit instead of a tiny mushroom tart. The dank woodsy flavors of the beer, rosemary is a featured ingredient and this beer does taste a bit like fresh forest floor undergrowth (this is a good thing, trust me), complimented the spices in the biscuit and the earthiness of the pork belly. This pairing had something like terroir, an impressive feat.

Each brewer pours two of their beers at SAVOR, and because I’m a guy and I’ve read High Fidelity, everything not only can be ranked. but must be. The best breweries, based on each brewery's two offerings, were Yazoo Brewing (a rye saison and a porter named Sue) and Captain Lawrence Brewing (a smoked porter and a tripel aged in applejack barrels). I also enjoyed the aformentioned Friek from Odell, and their second beer, an oak aged quad called Woodcut #5, packed a wallop.

Other standouts included

Avery Brewing Company’s Dihos Dactylion, a spontaneously fermented ale that’s hard to describe, but easy to drink. If you like red wine, maybe, just maybe, this will get you into beer. And if you like beer, but aren’t sure about sours, maybe, just maybe, this and Odell’s Friek will convince you.

Funkwerk’s Wit, a Belgian-style white ale brewed with lemons, oranges, ginger, with ginger dominant. You could drink this with brunch, you could drink this with Southeast Asian food, you could drink this by yourself.

Tank 7 from Boulevard Brewing, a saison infected with brettanomyces, which creates a slightly funky aftertaste that really does taste a bit like a farm, the origin of this style of beer.

Buckbean Brewing Company’s Orange Blossom Ale, a pale ale with a sweet and honeyed, but not syrupy or cloying, aroma of orange blossoms. For some reason it’s sold in 16 oz cans. Yes, craft beer in tall boys.

Trinity Brewhouse’s Decadence, a double IPA aged in Woodford Reserve barrels. Based on that sentence you should be interested. (Note: I feel dirty for linking to Beer Advocate. It won't happen much here. Promise.)

RJ Rocker’s Son of a Peach Wheat Ale. An American wheat ale, but with peaches.

If you’re noticing a trend above, there were an awful lot of excellent beers with fruit in them this year. I, for one, welcome our new fruit overlords.

The dark side of SAVOR is that too many breweries ran out of beer, often only half-way through the event, while the kitchen didn’t fare much better.

Also, an observation: it’s probably not a surprise to hear that the far majority of the attendees were white males between the ages of 25-50, but wow. With about 2000 people in the building, that’s a lot of white males.

Finally, it was great to be able to talk to the brewers themselves; with only a few exceptions they were the ones pouring the beer. That’s not something you’ll find at most other festivals, and many of the brewers I talked to were genuinely excited and appreciative of my interest and support. Well done, SAVOR. Until next year, cheers.

Staying Pretty in DC, or, In Which I Attempt Journalism

2011-06-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

At a time when pulling out of markets is the new black (IPA), I’ve got some good news. “Gypsy” brewer Pretty Things, based out of Cambridge, MA and brewed in Westport, MA (for now) is coming to DC via Legends Ltd as early as next week.

I spoke to Erin Tyler at Legends, and a certified cicerone, who reached out to Pretty Things about eight months ago, before withdrawing from territories was all the rage, and to Dann Paquette, Pretty Things’ brewer. The first two beers DC will see are Baby Tree, a Belgian style quad brewed with plumbs, and St. Botolph’s, a rustic brown ale that tastes like Newcastle, if Newcastle was handmade with care rather than by a heartless multinational corporation. By late June (via Legends) or mid-July (via Pretty Things) we’ll see their flagship beer, Jack D’Or, a saison hopped with citra that’s a personal favorite. We won’t see any of their offerings on draft, though, so you’ll have to settle for bombers, the only bottle size that Pretty Things uses.

I first had the pleasure of drinking Pretty Things Jack D’Or at Deep Ellum in Allston, MA in June, 2009 and was immediately hooked. I’ve been bringing their bottles from New York every time I’m up there. In the meantime, Greg Jasur at Pizzeria Paradiso has taken advantage of strange DC regulations that allow retailers and restaurants to self-import, so some Pretty Things’ products are already available at the two DC Pizzeria Paradiso locations.

Nice to know that more good beer will be available down here. DCBeer also has some information on this, and should be the first place you turn to for any and all beer news in DC. Stay pretty, DC beer drinkers.

QR Codes: Quick, Easy, Cheap

2011-06-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

A quick and easy use for QR codes at the library: take your online serials to the print serials. Here’s how.

1. You’ve got a master list of all print serials you subscribe to, right? If not, make one.
2. For each print serial, use your link resolver (my place of work doesn’t have one of these, which is a problem. I’m working on it) and/or database and/or OPAC (yeah, I just used that term, I'm old) that holds the online version, and get a stable URL for each title.
3. Use these URLs to create QR codes, for free, at QRStuff.com. Feel free to pretty them up.
4. Get yourself a smartphone, even if you’re borrowing one from another staff member. Install the free app ATT Scanner on an iPhone, or the QR Droid app, also free, on an Android phone.
5. Quality control: make sure even first generation smartphones, like my 3G iPhone, for example, can read the QR codes. Expand or contract the size of the codes as needed.
6. Print out the QR codes, and make sure to protect the paper, which might include laminating (expensive) or well-deployed packing tape (cheaper). Perform more quality control.
7. Place the corresponding QR code next to where each print serial is shelved. Post instructions in clearly visible locations. Don’t forget the details; at some libraries patrons may have to join a wireless network to access online serials.
8. Shamelessly promote it. Library blog posts, table toppers, posters... you get the idea.

Why do this?

1. Having the ability to search past issues of a title next to the more current paper issues can help patrons conduct research.
2. QR codes are hip, modern, and interactive. Making your library a hipper, more modern, more interactive place to be will pay off for you.
3. Many of the patrons at MPOW (my place of work) don’t have internet access at home, except for smartphones. It’s a tool that they’re comfortable with. We as librarians should be comfortable with it as well, and as we see smartphone use on the rise, I hope that vendors begin to design easy to use mobile sites alongside more traditional interfaces. In the meantime, let's bring the library to our patrons, via QR codes and mobile computing.

How I Got Over

2011-06-04T12:55:00.001-07:00

Radio silence on the library front since March 22nd. Wow, how did that happen? Here’s how.

At home we’ve been on a mad dash to upgrade and repair. Carpets, bathrooms, bedrooms, and oh yeah, iTunes crapped out during a hard drive failure, so I’ve been reorganizing 143 GB of music into playlists (ever the librarian!).

On the work front, I went from something titled Acting Senior Library Manager, to Director of Library Services. How’d I do that? Glad you asked. Both those positions above report to our Provost, also the Vice President for Academic Affairs. The person in that position, who I get along with quite well, took a medical leave, and I sprung to action. I presented to faculty on some of the many alternatives to textbooks, I invited the university president to the library to see what we had been up to (she came by when the library was busy, always a plus), and as it turned out, I was being watched, if not groomed. I'll expand on this later.

So what’s next? Glad you asked. Stay tuned.

Welcome to DC (Brau)

2011-05-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

Note: cross-posted at DCBeer.com.

DC and I, it’s complicated. I was born here, at George Washington Hospital, the old one that’s now being developed as Square 54, and my son was born at the newer version of the hospital across the street. I may as well go public with this and say that I’ve got one more on the way, and he or she will be born there, too (knock on wood). So if I want to, I can claim native status, and I do it when it suits me, but I was raised in New York City, and I came down here for holidays and summer trips to see my extended family. I moved back here in 2002 and immediately began to feel local pride. I’ve got more roots here now: a son in a charter school, a house in northeast, a job, family, and friends.

But growing up in New York, DC was “too hot”, “too quick to cancel school”, oh, and by the way, the mayor smoked crack. It was funny when Jeffrey Maier caught that fly ball over Tony Tarasco’s head, turning an out into a Derek Jeter home run, giving me more ammunition with which to taunt my DC cousins who grew up rooting for the Orioles (DC couldn’t even keep a baseball team!). When my parents visit me from New York, they always bring bagels by request, because the ones I’ve found down here don’t pass muster. A few of the above are still true, and here’s one more truth: by and large, nobody in DC makes anything. What I mean is that there’s not much in terms of a tradition of industry here. Baltimore has the docks and the Domino plant, or had them, Philly, New York, Boston, even Trenton (it makes, the world takes) all have industry. Up and down the east coast, things were (and are) being made, but not here. DC was different, is different. It’s not even DC, it’s “Washington,” a place that’s the butt of jokes because the federal government did this or that, and politicians who want to get elected elsewhere talk about an “inside the beltway” mentality like there aren’t real people here doing real work that most other Americans would recognize. And so it hurt when the Nats went with “Washington” instead of “DC.” Those of us who live here, we live in DC, not Washington. Washington is for tourists and politicians, DC is for us.

DC Brau gets that. Brandon and Jeff are from here. They understand. Every can of the Public Pale Ale, the first offering from DC Brau, is a political act, mentioning that we in the District are taxed without representation at the congressional level and features a link to DC Vote, an organization devoted to obtaining representation. Each pint pulled represents DC, not Washington. I could talk more about the Public, an IPA kindly masquerading as a pale ale, but it’s been talked to death. I’ll pause to note that it’s very good, although I think the mango and pineapple aromas from the Falconer’s Flight hop pellets are more pronounced on draft than in the can, and you probably should pour the canned beer into a glass to experience a wider range of flavors.

The point is that DC makes something, lack of industrial tradition be damned, and with Chocolate City and 3 Stars on the way, DC is going from a great place to drink beer to a place that makes great beer. In warehouses in northeast and Takoma, places that are DC, not Washington, we’re making something.

Welcome to DC. We make beer.

What We Mean When We Talk About Measurements and Metrics: CIL Day One

2011-03-22T06:10:00.000-07:00

I’m on record as complaining that library schools and MLS/MLIS programs aren’t rigorous enough. It seems that anyone can get in, GRE scores aren’t required for most programs, and once you’re in, it’s hard to get less than a B (or 3.0) average. This has real world consequences.

First, much like other post-graduate programs that involve education and teaching, there’s a lack of respect when it comes to libraries and librarians that stem, in part, from this lack of rigor. We’re easy to pick on and an easy target.

A second consequence was on display at the first day of the Computers in Libraries conference, here in Washington, DC. Both sessions I attended were marred by a lack of measurement, or by a lack of anything resembling social science, in its many forms. Of the 62 ALA-accredited schools that grant MLS/MLIS degrees none require a research methodology course. Zero. None. (UPDATE on 7/6/11: take a bow, University of Washington! You require methodology coursework.) The end result is that we graduate without knowing how to know. Assuming that there is a knowable world out there, a positivist conceit on my part throughout this post, I’m dismayed by how much librarians don’t know about designing experiments and measuring their results.

Take social media as a hypothetical example. Prior to implementing a social media strategy, one should take the current state of affairs as a baseline. There are many ways to measure this, and, in fact, it should be measured in many ways because most things out there are multifaceted. So, how many unique hits does your website get per month? How about overall visitors? Are programs at the building well-attended? What qualifies as well-attended in the first place? Are patrons satisfied, based on conversations with them (something like a focus group) or surveys? This isn’t exciting, but it’s important. Next, what does success look like? We ask this question regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya, and it should be asked for less serious matters as well. Once you implement a program, what do you expect to happen, and why?

Are your users on Facebook, Twitter, both, something else? Do they express a desire to “tag” the catalog via LibraryThing or something similar? How do they want to interact with your library? Implement your program based off what you've found, and compare data with the previous state of affairs. That's science.

Every single one of our daily interactions in a library is a data point. It’s a piece of information that tells us something. Leverage that. It doesn’t have to be a number. I know that math, and statistics, can be scary sometimes, and that ethnographic research can be nuanced and illuminating. There are many roads to Damascus.

So if your library wasn’t on Facebook and now it is, tell me what changed, and why. Did you get more visitors, both virtual and physical? Are the patrons more satisfied, as measured somehow? That’s science, and it’s time library schools put it back in “Library and Information Science.” It’s also time that conferences asked presenters for some rigor and analysis, instead of just telling stories (Update: I'm not anti-story; stories are emotional, I mean this in a good way, and help us connect to patrons, donors, and the outside world. They're great in annual reports, as are metrics. Stories with data are the best of both worlds). Although we’re not all academic librarians, being a librarian is an academic enterprise. Isn’t it time we acted like that?

#hcod and Academic Libraries

2011-03-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

The main source of outrage over HarperCollins decision to limit e-book checkouts came from public libraries and their staff, which makes sense since the market for circulating e-books comes more from their neck of the woods than mine. However, it's not difficult to envision a scenario in which academic libraries, even ones that don't loan e-books, are affected. That's one reason why I was surprised to see this post from the Annoyed Librarian, which challenges the big tent that is the American Library Association. I'm not going to get into the commonalities that all librarians share, mostly because Andy Woodworth does a good job with that, but also because I can see both sides of this debate. I think that the Annoyed Librarian's piece makes some good points about what separates academic, public, school, and special librarians, among others from archivists, and I saw these divisions from the start of my MLIS program, which were reified in the courses offered. So the following is done in the spirit of "If you tolerate this, then your children will be next."

The library where I work, the library that I now run, I guess, doesn't really do the book thing. We've got books, but they're books from the 70s, when the core of the school was arts and sciences. In the last fifteen years, four of which involve me, the school has expanded, moving from a college to a university with several professional schools. For a variety of reasons, all of them depressing, the library did not keep up. As a result, we've got a great collection of Victorian literature... and nobody to teach about it. We've got books in French and German... languages no longer offered. You get the idea. We're getting better, more current, but we've got a ways to go. We're starting a distance-learning, online-only program in the fall, and we push patrons towards electronic and digital resources because we think that's where the world's headed... but this make us more vulnerable. We provide access to information, to knowledge, that we don't own. E-books are different from books that way; we don't lease any physical copies of books, although students can do that through the campus bookstore.

What if the next move of other, more academic, publishers is to limit access to e-books in a way similar to HarperCollins? What if an e-book could be accessed or viewed, analogous to circulating, as I see it, 26 times? What would happen to our distance learning program then? What about e-books placed on reserve to be accessed via course management software? A class of 20 students wouldn't last half a semester under that regime, and thus the library's budget wouldn't, either. So you see, Annoyed Librarian, we're all in this together, we're not so dissimilar. Let's hang together instead of separately on this issue.

New York Times enacts pay-per-view

2011-03-17T08:14:00.000-07:00

I got this in my inbox a minute ago. Yeah, on St. Patrick's Day, on the first day of March Madness, perhaps when the NYTimes thinks we won't be paying attention. Well, are we?

An important announcement from
the publisher of The New York Times

Dear New York Times Reader,

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Who's a Bully? A reply to Martin Taylor and more on #hcod

2011-03-07T07:48:00.000-08:00

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the HarperCollins affair has lead to a wider discussion about e-books in libraries, access versus ownership, and the role that DRM plays in our lives. After all, HarperCollins decision wasn’t made in a vacuum; they have interests to protect and those interests aren’t relevant to just HarperCollins, but to all publishers, especially the Big Six, and to authors as well, who deserve to be compensated for their work.

Librarians, for their part, have advocated resistance (I assume that there’s also a silent majority or plurality out there that’s going to carry on as they did before HarperCollins decision), ranging from a boycott of DRM, a boycott of all of HarperCollins, a boycott of just HarperCollins e-books, to lobbying. But we haven’t heard much from HarperCollins or their supporters… until now.

Martin Taylor is the managing director of Addenda Publishing in New Zealand and has long had an interest in digital publishing. He founded the Digital Publishing Forum and claims both authors and publishers as shareholders and works with the New Zealand copyright regime.

No surprise, then, that Mr. Taylor writes

In spite of the heat HarperCollins can expect to receive from its library customers, I hope they stand their ground. Librarians need to shift their thinking as digitisation transforms the reading landscape. They are doing authors, publishers and ultimately themselves and their patrons no favours by this stance.

The fact is that rightsholders do have serious concerns and librarians have not managed to address them… In the face of rightsholders’ concerns, librarians must listen not bully, and they should be willing to experiment with new models that will ensure libraries and other channels can co-exist in the emerging, all-pervasive digital world. No-one has all the answers yet but we won’t solve this issue by denying the existence of the problem and closing off avenues for fresh thinking.

There are some good points made in his article, and I think that librarians need to hear alternative perspectives, away from the #hcod echo chamber, but to this reader two words jump out, “rightsholders” and “bully.” Let’s take these in turn.

Taylor is, I think, absolutely correct about the difference between print and electronic books, and what this difference means for the relationship between libraries and publishers, “the potential ease with which borrowers can get a free ebook is a quantum shift, not merely an incremental change” (italics in original). He also points out that it is print copies of books that sell when libraries circulate e-books, and publishers would like library patrons to buy e-books as well as print. Fair enough. But the distribution model for e-books and e-book publishers compared to print is also a quantum shift, one that is not addressed here. I may as well start with the inflammatory statement and proceed from there, so here goes: who needs publishers anymore?

We’ve seen traditional distribution channels circumvented in music publishing and distribution for some time now. Radiohead, a popular and critical success, has managed to make millions by selling mp3/wav file downloads directly to consumers, and then partnering with publishers to sell traditional materials. Hundreds of other bands don’t get rich using this model, but they make a living, and maybe even a career out of it, which in the end is their goal. I like to think that most authors don’t dream of millions of dollars, but of millions of people discussing their works and their ideas therein. Maybe that’s overly romantic of me, and so be it, but then again, I know a lot of writers, and I don’t think any of them would trade places with a cash-obsessed hack (no need to name names, insert your tastes here). Authors can sell e-books via Amazon’s Kindle store, something less than a publisher, something more than the Radiohead model. It’s already happening. And it's not entirely a good thing. Look at Borders.

Taylor's use of “rightsholders” is telling. Publishers create nothing; they share the rights with authors because of their ability to distribute and promote, and increasingly, authors can self-publish (many have self-promoted for eons). Taken in this context #hcod seems like the last gasp of a dying industry, doesn’t it? Publishers last comparative advantage is separating the signals from the noise since there are so many potential self-published and -distributed creators. Being published by a firm is a stamp of approval to the rest of the world. But outside of that (admittedly powerful) normative and intersubjective milieu, HarperCollins and other publishers will be left behind.

Now, this is the extreme, not very nuanced position. But tell me I’m wrong. Use the comments below, or use an excerpt on your blog and let’s have a conversation on the middle ground.

As for bullying, we didn’t land on #hcod, Mr. Taylor. #hcod landed on us. Librarians are not the bullies here. Bullies pick on the weak, using positions of strength to force their terms on others. HarperCollins capricious and arbitrary decision to limit check outs of e-books to 26 times was unilaterally imposed on libraries, without consultation or negotiation. Who’s the bully here?

In the end, however, I think the author and I agree on how this is going to end for many public library systems, at least in the short-term: some of the costs of e-books are going to be passed along to patrons. Librarians don’t like charging for services, but given the budget cuts, it’s going to happen. Right now most e-reader owners are affluent and can afford these costs. As e-readers' costs approach $0, though (and that’s going to happen soon), more people at all income levels will have them, at which point lending e-books for a fee may be a only temporary fix.

Maybe by the time we revisit this conversation, there won't be a Big Six, and that's what HarperCollins decision is all about.

The eBook User’s Bill of Rights

2011-02-28T10:04:00.000-08:00

The following post is from Sarah Houghton-Jan, who blogs over at Librarian in Black. I whole-heartedly endorse the following.

Meanwhile, there's spirited debate concerning a boycott of HarperCollins. Because librarians and libraries are about customer service, it’s not something I can completely sanction, but I understand. HarperCollins’ decision is what started this, but at least they make e-books available for a loan, or 26. Simon & Schuster, on the other hand, does not. If a boycott is what gets libraries to the table when decisions like these are made, then ultimately I’m for it. But to me the real enemy is DRM, and what’s below in the bill of rights is much more about DRM than it is about individual publishers.

The eBook User’s Bill of Rights is a statement of the basic freedoms that should be granted to all eBook users.

The eBook User’s Bill of Rights

Every eBook user should have the following rights:

the right to use eBooks under guidelines that favor access over proprietary limitations
the right to access eBooks on any technological platform, including the hardware and software the user chooses
the right to annotate, quote passages, print, and share eBook content within the spirit of fair use and copyright
the right of the first-sale doctrine extended to digital content, allowing the eBook owner the right to retain, archive, share, and re-sell purchased eBooks

I believe in the free market of information and ideas.

I believe that authors, writers, and publishers can flourish when their works are readily available on the widest range of media. I believe that authors, writers, and publishers can thrive when readers are given the maximum amount of freedom to access, annotate, and share with other readers, helping this content find new audiences and markets. I believe that eBook purchasers should enjoy the rights of the first-sale doctrine because eBooks are part of the greater cultural cornerstone of literacy, education, and information access.

Digital Rights Management (DRM), like a tariff, acts as a mechanism to inhibit this free exchange of ideas, literature, and information. Likewise, the current licensing arrangements mean that readers never possess ultimate control over their own personal reading material. These are not acceptable conditions for eBooks.

I am a reader. As a customer, I am entitled to be treated with respect and not as a potential criminal. As a consumer, I am entitled to make my own decisions about the eBooks that I buy or borrow.

I am concerned about the future of access to literature and information in eBooks. I ask readers, authors, publishers, retailers, librarians, software developers, and device manufacturers to support these eBook users’ rights.

These rights are yours. Now it is your turn to take a stand. To help spread the word, copy this entire post, add your own comments, remix it, and distribute it to others. Blog it, Tweet it (#ebookrights), Facebook it, email it, and post it on a telephone pole.

Putting DRM on Blast: HarperCollins and Libraries

2011-02-26T12:42:00.000-08:00

On Friday, February 25^th, the library-centric part of the internet caught fire. Why? Because HarperCollins decided that after one of their e-books is checked out more than 26 times, it will self-destruct. Meaning that a library that has purchased that e-book will have to buy it again, and again, and again. All of this in an era in which library budgets are being cut to the bone.

Why 26 times?

the 26 circulation limit was arrived at after considering a number of factors, including the average lifespan of a print book, and wear and tear on circulating copies.

I work in a library without a lot of e-books, or books that circulate, which is a long story, best saved for later, but we’ve got books, real, paper books, that are checked out more than 26 times. For me, this aggression will not stand, man, so here’s what I’m going to do about it.

The software that allows HarperCollins to “turn off” an e-book is called Digital Rights Management, or DRM. Not every library is in position to do what I’m about to propose, and I understand that, but as an academic librarian in charge of purchasing, I’m done with DRM. I will not purchase anything with DRM restrictions for my place of work, effective immediately.

Many public libraries won’t be able to do this. They have much tougher competition, like other public libraries nearby, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, or Borders if the local one has been spared, or mom n’ pop or alternative bookstores if you live in a city or hip college town. But public libraries can still do something.*

But I work in an academic library; my audience is more captive than that of a public library, and our user population is on its way to becoming more educated. My refusal to buy DRM is now part of that education. I don’t want patrons involved in the librarians’ dilemma of access vs. ownership; it’s unseemly, and access usually wins. But not this time.

Side note: while HarperCollins was doing the above, I had lunch at a conference with some music librarians who complained that the only existing recordings of some audio/visual materials were in iTunes, trapped behind Apple’s DRM instead of being “in a library.” I pointed out that by any modern definition, iTunes is a library. There are different kinds of libraries that serve different groups. One of the scoffers was an academic music librarian. It costs approximately $35,000 in out-of-state tuition to access the library where he works, while anyone with a computer, an internet connection, and a credit card can gain entry to the iTunes library. Which model is closer to the Carnegian ideal type? Food for thought.

*Sorry, folks, but it’s back to advocacy. Always back to advocacy.

Let HarperCollins know what you think of their shortsighted decision.

Let American Library Association President Roberta Stevens know what you think of HarperCollins shortsighted decision.

Let the authors who write under HarperCollins know as well.

Educate your patrons. They can be allies in this fight.

Want more? Go here.

Not Another MLIS Post

2011-02-17T06:09:00.000-08:00

Spurred on by a comment to a previous post, numerous posts elsewhere in the last few weeks (see below), and at least three undergraduates asking me if they should go to library school, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’d tell prospective students, beyond the xtranormal video, which manages to out-cynic me, no small feat.

We all have our reasons for wanting to be librarians. I grew up in a household of academics; I saw that lifestyle and I wanted it… right up until I defended a prospectus in a political science PhD program, at which point a doctorate and I mutually decided to part ways. But let’s back up. I worked at an academic library over the summers and between semesters of my undergraduate studies, and my first three jobs, four if you count the six weeks I worked for a vendor, after graduating were at academic libraries in paraprofessional positions. I continued to work at a library during my PhD program as well, and maintained an ALA membership for part of that time, so I was well-equipped with a back up plan. As a librarian I could stay in academia. I could participate. I could, hypothetically, publish. I should publish. In 2007, I executed that plan; I’ve been at this small, academic library since then, first as a paraprofessional, then as a librarian, a title I obtained before my MLIS. And let’s be clear about why I went back for yet another degree: it’s because I knew I couldn’t advance in my career, not in my current workplace, not hypothetically elsewhere, without an MLIS. For me, it was, and is, a union card, one that needs stamping. The prospect of a better job was not the sole reason I got an MLIS, but it was pretty close. Having worked the circ desk, the stacks, cataloging, and preservation before library school left me a bit jaded. And lo, upon receiving that degree, I got a raise and a promotion. But, and this is important, I already had a job, I already worked in a library and had years of library experience, and of graduate school. I didn’t have to deal with a brutal job market. Kids, if you can get your library school degree this way, I highly recommend it.

My path isn’t everyone else’s path. Again, we all have our reasons. And we can rage against the machine that is library school, but it’s not going to do you any good. By and large, if you want to be a librarian, you’ll need that degree. What else can you get out of it?

Elsewhere you’ll read that library schools teach critical thinking, but that certainly wasn’t the case where I went. You should have learned critical thinking skills by the time you graduated from college anyway. High school, even, if you lucked out with teachers. There’s a reason so many of these MLIS programs are easy to get into, and easy to get out of, and don’t think that lack of selectivity doesn’t play a reason in why this profession isn’t as respected as it could be (and if you’ve got a Masters degree in teaching or another education-related field and you’re reading this, I know you’re nodding your head for the same reasons). Rigor is not in the MLIS vocabulary. Certainly not research methodologies, either. In fact, most of what you’ll need to know to be a good librarian you’ll learn on the job, whether it’s a cataloging shortcut or the best way to manage student workers or volunteers.

Despite the above, and excluding the union card, here is what an MLIS is good for.

Socialization into the discipline. Librarians are a motley bunch, but we have our standards, or so I’d like to believe. At a minimum, there’s a baseline level of intersubjective knowledge you’ll be taught, and a vocabulary to go with it, because jargon is what separates academic fields from one another. If you’re lucky, the school you choose will also focus on communication, in person, in writing, presentations, project management and the like. You more or less have to go to college if you want to some measure of economic success, but you choose to go to graduate school, to become a librarian. Molding you into one of us, that’s what this is about. Also, I’ve met a lot of people who work in libraries. Believe me, we can use all the socialization we can get.

Exploring your options (thanks to Wayne for this one), or what kind of librarian do you want to be. At many schools archivists and school media librarians are tracked separate from the general population, and if you’re one of them, more power to you. Most everyone else, however, will take a bunch of courses, some compulsory and some elective, to figure out if they want to work in academia, or a public library; spend most of their time out front at the reference desk, or in the back managing electronic resources; or work in a medical library (hint, this is where the jobs are), law library, or corporate library. Take courses, figure out what you want do to, where the holes are in librarianship (provided you can actually get depth instead of width), and how you might fill them.

Now, is that worth whatever you’re paying for library school? But now that I’ve asked it that’s not really the important question, is it? You’re already hooked. I can tell because you made it this far down a blog post. Welcome aboard.

Since you’ve already put the time in, put in some more. Read these far better posts, and their comments
https://blogs.princeton.edu/librarian/2011/02/things_i_did_and_did_not_learn_in_library_school.html
http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/open-thread-thursday-library-school/

http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/reader-mail-unemployment-in-libraryland/
http://thewikiman.org/blog/?p=925

Transliteracy and Staying Positive in the Library

2011-02-01T06:21:00.000-08:00

If pressed to choose a side in the debate over transliteracy, I think I ally myself with David Rothman, a medical librarian who’s done some very good work in pushing transliteracy proponents to define their terms. As a recovering social scientist, I recognize the need to flesh out what exactly transliteracy is, and proponents haven’t done that. I also think that the best teachers of information literacy were using some of the techniques of transliteracy, showing patrons how to search across multiple platforms and media, for example, long before this term was coined. And yet, as an information literacy practitioner, I think there is something to transliteracy. The debate over what it is and isn’t is often frustrating, but it’s also helped me accentuate the positive when I teach.

My university doesn’t have an information literacy requirement (well, one school does, but the librarians don’t teach it and we have to put out a lot of metaphorical fires caused by the faculty that do), so the best I can do is often a one-shot, one session (one hour) tutorial in which I discuss library resources and common search behaviors on Google (and how to improve those search behaviors). Over the past semester, the point at which I became aware of the transliteracy debate, I read something that resonated and I’ve taken it with me since: our students are really good at searching. Granted, they’re skilled at using Google, that’s the platform I’m talking about, but it’s something. It’s a start. And I’ve got help, because database vendors are increasingly making their interfaces and platforms look like Google, part of a broader point that Lane Wilkenson makes about “the Library” and “the Internet” blending together (for better and for worse, that’s another post for another time). This positivity is key for me in the classroom. The university draws the far majority of its students from dysfunctional schools and school systems, and the smarter students recognize structural impediments to their success long before they meet me. This makes focusing on what they already can do, what they’re already good at, very important. From there I can teach them a few Google tricks, like how to search just one website, or to search for something with limited copyright restrictions. From there I can show them Encyclopedia Britannica Online in place of Wikipedia. And from there I can show them that gathering information through the library website, databases, and other resources, isn’t that different than what they’re already good at: finding information on something they're interested in via Google.

And that’s not nothing. So beware of buzzwords, and of gurus and false prophets as well, but even then, in the discussion you might learn something useful.

2010 Beer in Review*

2011-01-06T09:21:00.000-08:00

In lieu of properly ringing in 2011, I thought it appropriate to look back at the year in beer for 2010 with the benefit of a week's perspective. As an added bonus, this will allow me to avoid predictions that will no doubt be wrong. There’s no better way to do that than hand out some imaginary hardware, my way of saying thanks (beyond giving breweries my hard-earned money) for making good beer.

Honorable mentions to a few brewer-specific nights at bars and restaurants. Stone’s tap takeover of Churchkey was probably overkill (delicious overkill), but the 07/07/07 Vertical Epic aged in red wine barrels still haunts my dreams. Evidently I’m not alone in that.

Brasserie Des Franches-Montagnes (BFM) poured a number of odd beers at Pizzeria Paradiso, including an amber ale brewed with smoked tea leaves. BFM’s La Douze is an American pale ale that undergoes a secondary fermentation and is then laced with sea salt. The end result is hoppy, salty, and funky. It’s one of the few beers I sought out and ordered on multiple occasions.

The Founders night at The Big Hunt and the Bells stout night at Meridian Pint were more proof that Michigan might be the most underrated state for beer-making. Any variation Founders Breakfast Stout and Bell’s Harry Magill's spiced stout were probably the best I had in that style in 2010, although a cellared 2009 Babayaga from Pretty Things was also excellent.

Speaking of cellaring, perhaps the best value, and easiest way to start, is to buy Trader Joe’s Vintage Ale, which retails for $4.99 (750ml) during the holidays, and then leave it in a cool, dark place (back of the closet would work, I use the unfinished part of my basement) for 12-24 months. As of January 2^nd the Washington, DC Trader Joe’s still had it in stock. I opened up a 2008 bottle on Christmas Day 2010 and was greeted with the best Belgian Strong Dark Ale I can remember. I got notes of figs, plums, and roasted malts, with just a kiss of hops, and the yeast gives off a nice bready mouthfeel.

Best Local Beer: I’m unsure of how to define local. This region (DC/MD/VA) claims Dogfish as local, but it’s made in DE, about 2.5 hours away by car. Nonetheless, the beer that stood out to me above all others, and was readily available at bars, stores, and festivals, was Heavy Seas Loose Cannon IPA. A nice mix of grapefruit and pine from the hops, but balanced by a bready, malty sweetness somewhere between caramel and cane sugar, I think this beer holds its own again any other IPAs out there. Churchkey poured a wet-hopped, oak firkin of Loose Cannon during DC Beer Week that was still remarkably balanced while showcasing even more fresh hops.

Best Beer: Despite the goodies above, there was one beer I kept on coming back to, especially during the warmer months. I was curious to try this beer when I heard that it had beaten out German, and other, producers at beer cups and festivals. I bought 6 packs of other beers, but this was the only one I bought a case of. This beer is low in alcohol by volume (just 4.8%) and low in alpha acids from hops, so imperfections have nowhere to hide, and yet the beer is flawless. Schlafly Kolsch-style Ale, take a bow! Crisp, delicate, refreshing, sessionable: everything I look for in a beer. And I see that Schlafly will be bringing some of their offerings to Rustico in Ballston on January 11^th. I’ll be there. Stop by and say hi.

Here’s to a happy and healthy 2011.

Cheers!

*Puns! Always with the puns.

Net Neutrality and Federated Searching

2010-12-21T06:14:00.001-08:00

Net neutrality is a topic of frequent discussion in libraries, which makes sense given how many people use libraries as little more than an internet service provider. Unfettered and impartial access to the world wide web is an important part of library programming and activities, and many libraries and librarians have responded in kind, lobbying to keep the Internet neutral. However, the neutrality of federated search engines is often overlooked. Federated (or “Integrated,” according to at least one vendor) search engines “sit on top” of existing library resources, allowing patrons and staff to search multiple databases using one search. For many people that search may be their only experience with a library’s holdings in a search session. Federated search platforms are provided by vendors. Increasingly, the vendors that offer these services are the ones that also offer content, such as databases that contain articles and other documents. EBSCO’s Integrated Search (EHIS) and ProQuest’s relationship with Serials Solutions, developers of Summon, should have librarians and library administrators on edge because of the potential for conflicts of interest. Summon could funnel users to ProQuest’s content at the expense of content from other vendors. Summon has repeatedly stated that it is vendor neutral as libraries can purchase it without any ProQuest content. Will EHIS deliver neutral content, or content that favors EBSCO products?

When deciding on which federated search platform to use, net neutrality becomes part of the equation. A federated search that returns biased, non-neutral, results is one that may not deliver the information your patrons need. Disconcertingly, they may not realize that.

How do you test federated search engines for net neutrality? I am credentialed at an institution that uses EHIS. I searched for dozens of terms, and the results weren’t pleasant for EHIS. It’s a crude test, but EHIS failed it.

EHIS consistently promoted EBSCO resources, favoring Academic Search Premier, an interdisciplinary EBSCO databases, over product from other vendors that are more specialized. For example, a search for “anorexia” returned ASP results before PsychInfo* and allied health results.

Conversely, another library I have access to uses WebFeat by Serials Solutions as a federated search engine. Using the search terms from EHIS, WebFeat showed no favoritism.

In sum, be aware of the relationships among vendors, and between vendors and their products, when shopping for a federated search. If you have other ways to test the efficacy of federated search engines, drop me a line.

* This institution gets PsychInfo through ProQuest.

A Delicious Lesson

2010-12-18T13:27:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week there was a rumor that Yahoo! was going to kill off Delicious, a social bookmarking site used by many libraries (and many more people) as subject guides or as another service for patrons (here’s one such service from Cumberland County, PA). It’s now clear that Delicious will live on, but the widely reported imminent death of the service should serve as a warning to librarians.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket; have a back-up plan.

Platforms migrate, content on the web changes within static URLs, and URLs themselves can change. Will we be using mp3s to store audio in five years? I understand that funds are tight, and that staffing is sub-optimal, but use these moments to become stronger. Plan ahead.

In the meantime, if your library used or uses Delicious you may have a ton of information to move to another service or platform. Not just the links on Delicious, but the tags for those links as well. I’ve heard that Diigo will allow you to import Delicious links and tags, but they’re understandably swamped at the moment. Evernote is another option, although you’ll have to retag. I know someone with 15,000 bookmarks who’s not going to like that. Here are some alternative services.

Image from http://www.umbusiness.co.uk/?p=454.

Adjuncts (in beer, not the faculty)

2010-11-14T10:51:00.000-08:00

Adjuncts: it’s what distinguishes craft beer from the macros (besides all that extra production). No self-respecting craft brewery would add corn, or rice, or a bittering and preserving agent that’s cheaper than hops… and yet many do. The difference is intent. Macro brewers, BudMillerCoors, use adjuncts as a way to lower production costs, maximize profits, and make the body of a beer lighter in color. I think the latter is what the Bud Light “Drinkability” ad campaign is getting at. No harm in that, this being America and all, but replacing barley with rice and/or corn, and blending or replacing hops with hop extract (that’s still labeled “hops” on the ingredients*) makes for a different beer than the usual water, yeast, barley, and hops. An inferior beer, and a cheaper one as well.

As a result of this, there’s been some stigma, historically, against using adjuncts in the craft beer community, but there are signs that this is changing, and I think it’s a good thing. Macros use adjuncts to lower production costs and end up with fizzy yellow water, but some craft brewers are using them for additional flavoring. And some of these adjuncts aren’t cheap.

But first, a slight digression. According to the Reinheitsgebot, or Bavarian Purity Law, an adjunct is anything added to a beer beyond water, malted barley, and hops (and yeast, which their feeble 16th century minds could not grasp), which would make a great many beers guilty of doing so. But adding oats to an oatmeal stout or wheat to a wheat beer or spices to a winter/Christmas ale isn’t the same because those beers, by definition in many cases, can’t be made without use those ingredients.

Beyond the macros, my first experience with an adjunct came at the Union Square Heartland Brewery (note, actually a brew pub as no beer is made on the premises). Their Cornhusker Lager is made with corn. The end result is that the beer tastes a bit like Fritos. Seriously. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to you, but Cornhusker Lager is a good introduction to what adjuncts can do to a beer.

Flying Fish Brewing is working on a series of beers inspired by Jersey Turnpike exits (yes, really). Their exit 16 offering, not too far away from some of the chemical factories that make food adjuncts like “banana flavor” and “smoke flavor,” chronicled in Fast Food Nation, includes wild rice, a tribute to the marshlands that have been (mostly) paved over.

So if you’re into craft beer and are stridently anti-adjunct, ease up. Just like in the courthouse, intent matters. If you already knew all this, what are some of your favorite craft beers that include adjuncts?

-- I’ll get you started: Dogfish Head Bitches Brew, which uses gesho root because it’s hard for hops to grow on the arid steppes of East Africa**, and Brewer’s Art Green Peppercorn Tripel, a one-of-a-kind beer in which spice and booze give way to a snappy, peppery taste.

* What, you thought your Miller Lite was dry-hopped with Warrior? One of my favorite double IPAs, Lagunitas Hop Stoopid (sound), does something subversive (as far as beer goes) by including the same liquid hop solutions used by the macros, but at extreme levels, in addition to actual hops. The end result is delicious, similar to grapefruit juice. It’s rarely more than $5 for a 22 oz bottle and is worth every penny.

** Dogfish itself presents craft brewers with food for thought because by recreating and updating older beer styles they implicitly acknowledge that the purity law and concern with adjuncts are recent phenomena. For most of human history if beer was made it was made with what was local, usually including things that are now considered adjuncts. Sahti and tella are two examples of ancient beer styles.

How to get coffee in NE DC

2010-10-20T05:44:00.000-07:00

If you're familiar with the Northeast quadrant of DC, you've probably already bemoaned the lack of good coffee outside of H St, which is blessed with both Sidamo and Sova. Sure, there are McDonalds and 7/11s (the Dunkin Donuts on 16th and Rhode Island Ave is closed), but be honest: coffee at these two stores is a caffeine delivery system and nothing more (not that there's anything wrong with that). However, on the campus of The Catholic University of America, there's a Starbucks so obscure that it does not appear on the Starbucks store locator. It's the only Starbucks in NE and is much closer to where I work and live than H St.

If you're driving, park at a meter on John McCormack Road, or hypothetically press your luck by parking on campus. You'll only be there for 10 minutes, so why not live on the edge and risk a ticket? Walk to the Pryzbyla Center, using parking garage stairs as a shortcut through campus, and go up to the 2nd floor - voila. Order what you want and be on your way. I usually go for the off-menu cafe con leche (or cafe au lait if you're feeling more continental), which means I get to explain to the barista that I'd like coffee and not a latte. To get back to Michigan Avenue you'll need to cut through campus, exiting at the front of the Basilica.

* credit where credit is due, the image comes from http://1stincoffee.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/espresso_coffee-machine-making-espresso.jpg?w=300&h=300

Good Beer Everywhere!

2010-10-04T06:23:00.000-07:00

I spent this weekend in Front Royal, VA, mostly at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's open house (and no, I didn't get to pet a clouded leopard cub). As is often the case when I'm traveling, I do a bit of beer research before I go someplace. I tapped into the wealth of knowledge that is the DC beer listserv... and got nothing. Somebody posted something about Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which must be the most taken-for-granted good beer out there by now, and proclaimed Front Royal a beer wasteland. This same listserv downplayed the interesting beer options in New Zealand when I went there in May. In both cases they were wrong.*

Now, there's nobody in or around Front Royal making and bottling good beer, but there are certainly folks distributing and selling it. Products from Brooklyn Brewery, Bell's Brewery, Unibroue, Southern Tier, and semi-local St. George, most famous for letting the Tuppers make Hop Pocket at their facility, are all available. If you go there, check out J's Gourmet and Vino E Formaggio.

And on the way back to DC I stopped off at the Gainesville, VA Wegman's. Now there's a grocery store that understands good beer.

If you enjoy craft beer we truly live in a golden age. There's no better time to be alive, because good beer is everywhere. Thank formal and informal networks of brewers, thank effective supply-chain management, thank the interwebs... good beer has become globalized and democratized. And that's a very very good thing.

* Free advice: seek out Epic Beer's Armageddon IPA and Mayhem Pale Ale if you're in New Zealand. NZ brewers are increasingly influenced by the US, which means hops and Belgian yeasts are prevalent, and US beers can hang with the best of them.

Retail Librarianship

2010-09-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

I find myself, quite suddenly, in a position of some authority where I work, which includes hiring library staff (no, we're not hiring now, unless you want to be director, and you don't, trust me). While I'm interested in where you got your MLS, what your favorite class was, previous library experience, and other such things, I find myself coming back to one simple question: have you ever worked in retail or a customer service position?

Look, don't get me wrong, I care about the degree that put you tens of thousands of dollars in debt, but I'm more interested in if you folded sweaters at the Gap one summer. Why? Because regardless of where you work in a library, you're going to interact with other people. Even the Technical Service gnomes. And other people can be jerks. You probably knew that. Handling those jerks, being diplomatic about it, takes a certain kind of skill. It's a lot easier for me to teach you how to use the ILS than it is to teach you that.

So I understand if you want to hide your sordid retail experience on a resume or CV, but for an in-person interview, I want to hear all about it.

Beer! A Salute to Harpoon's 100 Barrel Series

2010-09-28T18:23:00.000-07:00

If you've been following craft beer news lately, a few trends stand out. You may have noticed more 22 oz. bottles (sometimes called "bombers") for sale at your local beer shop, and you may have noticed that those bottles tend to contain beer with a higher than average alcohol content, often between 7% to 11% alcohol by volume (ABV), compared to 3% to 5.5% ABV from the larger breweries such as Miller.* The high ABV beers pose something of a problem if you work mornings as 22 oz. of a 9% beer can add up. You could share with a friend or family member, or do what I do: cap the bottle with a stop (wine stops are less effective than plastic ones, but will do in a pinch) and come back to it the next day.
The good folks at Harpoon, however, have come up with something else: good beers in bombers with more manageable ABVs under the 100 Barrel Series. Harpoon, I salute you! In particular, I salute the Single Hop ESB, which features, for the first time in a commercially brewed beer, the Delta hop, a hybrid of the British Fuggle and the American Cascade. For a good example of each of these hops, I suggest Shipyard IPA for the Fuggle and Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale for the Cascade. Crossing the two, at least as expressed in the ESB, it appears that the Fuggle won out, as the mouthfeel is a bit earthy, lacking the citrus tang of Cascade. No shame in that, and not a surprise given that the Cascade is itself a Fuggle crossed with an obscure Russian hop. Clocking in at 5.8% ABV, the ESB comes as close to a session beer as you'll find in a bomber, which means you can drink the whole thing in a sitting and not regret it the next morning. In fact, a great many 100 Barrel Series beers clock in at under 7%.
This bottle happens to be the maltiest beer in my house, so I paired it with bratwurst and braised cabbage, treating it like a Marzen. It worked quite nicely. Well done, Harpoon!

* Some may point out that Heineken and malt liquors have come in bombers for some time, but I'm not talking about those, at least not now.

Moneyball and Libraries

2010-09-21T07:01:00.000-07:00

Moneyball, soon to be a major motion picture, wasn't written by a computer, like some people think. Michael Lewis, writing in the New York Times Magazine, studied the operations of the Oakland A's baseball team, and it's general manager (GM), Billy Beane, in particular. The A's couldn't, and can't, financially compete with the Yankees, getting outbid for free agents or scouting international players, but Beane figured out that some skills were underpriced. He then drafted and signed players who had those skills.* The result: Beane took over as GM in 1998 and the team had winning records from 1999-2006, making the playoffs in five of those seasons. Why haven't the A's made the post-season since 2006? Other teams caught on and began to value the same skills as Beane. Case in point, the aforementioned Rays. In sum, Beane exploited market inefficiencies to successfully run his team.

Libraries aren't baseball teams, but if they were, mine couldn't compete with others in the area. We don't have the resources. And this is where moneyball comes in. There are market inefficiencies for libraries, that librarians and library staff should be exploiting them. A couple stand out.

Data on library activity
Open-access journals

First, we are surrounded by a wealth of data about how libraries are used, how many books get checked out and if a run of call numbers is particularly popular, when the building sees the most foot traffic, which databases see the most use,... I could go on. All of these are measurable, and decisions on resource allocation should be data-driven. Let's go out there and collect that data. It's free, and under-utilized.

Second, and also free, librarians should be educating patrons (and faculty and students, in that order, if you work in an academic library) about the free scholarly resources that exist online. In particular, I'm thinking of the Directory of Open Access Journals. Compared to the cost of databases that aggregate journals and their articles, open access can't be beat on price. They don't cost libraries a thing. They are priced inefficiently, but never mind that; get those DOAJ titles into your catalog, or link to it from your library's homepage, or promote it on a blog, or tweet it, or all of the above.

That's two to start with, but I'm sure there are more out there. Let's start a discussion, shall we?

* For those interested in baseball, the underpriced skills mentioned above were the ability to get on base (as opposed to the ability to hit for high average), defensive excellence (which also plays a role in the recent success of the Tampa Bay Rays), drafting pitchers with college experience, and utilizing statistics called sabermetrics.

And yeah, I'm going to link to Wikipedia. I vetted both those entries and they look fine to me.

A Manifesto

2010-09-21T06:56:00.000-07:00

Libraries and beer. Beer and libraries. That's what most of this blog will be about, and I'll tag the posts appropriately.

I'm an academic librarian in Washington, DC, which happens to be a great city for drinking beer.

I'm married, have a kid, two dogs, and a house. All of those things may make an occasional appearance here, or not.

Welcome.