Marian the Librarian

Just 'cause:



Just 'cause, The Music Man is on the schedule for the Stratford Festival this summer!

I'm kind of partial to the finale, "Seventy-Six Trombones", as I used to play it in a marching band with my father:

Reading on a Dream...

Just what we've been waiting for--a library musical!



Supposedly the rest of the library patrons were unsuspecting but I personally think it was staged. How else did they set up all those cameras?

Just in time for Halloween!

I wrote up this phony press release for work as a joke last Halloween, and many of my co-workers seemed to find it funny, so I thought I'd post it for all to see.

A bit of backstory: some of my coworkers noticed some teenagers using a ouija board in the library, and another one joked we should adopt a ouija reference service.

Anytown Public Libraries is pleased to offer another information service for our customers. We already offer our top-notch public service, our 24-hour email reference service, and our one number for all your information needs: (555) 555-BOOK, as well as our website located at www.anytownlibrary.com. This year, in the wake of Ontario Public Libraries Week, Anytown Public Libraries is pleased to add our newest information service, InfoGhost.

Using proven necromantic principles of ouija and seance, Anytown PL is now able to ask questions of the dead and departed on your behalf. Genealogical research has never been easier--why not ask you late grandfather exactly where his grandfather came from? And if great-aunt Winnie is haunting your attic, maybe she knows where your missing library book is!

InfoGhost will launch on October 31, 2007, as our psychic consultants have informed us that the etheric energies released by Ontario Public Libraries Week will form a sympathetic resonance with the Gate to the Underworld while Scorpio is in the House of Jupiter at the end of the tenth month. Assuming these auspicious portents hold true, InfoGhost will go dead--er, live on Halloween!

InfoGhost is available only to registered members of Anytown Public Libraries. We regret that because of a deeply-held cultural belief in metempsychosis, InfoGhost may not be able to contact deceased relations of the Hindu or Sikh faiths.

Pun fun

Thought I'd take a break from all the tributes to dead people with some amusement. Via MadJenny, I got this amusing picture:

Librarians are groaning right now.

On a somewhat related note, the youth services librarians at work are gearing up for the Summer Reading Club, and to celebrate this year's theme of "Lost Worlds", have transformed Arthur the Aardvark into...

...Arthotep, the Ever-Living!!!

Star gazing

This evening, the Deranged Squirrel, Mad Jenny, and The Blogless One (AKA JL), went to an author visit (at our library) from the Dean of Canadian science fiction, Robert J. Sawyer.

Alas, poor Hominid--I knew him!

Sawyer read from his latest release, Rollback (which is highly recommended), and fielded questions from the audience. He is a talented public speaker and storyteller, and very well-informed and practiced, nimbly parrying and riposting a question of mine concerning the first novel of his I read, Calculating God, and the Anthropic Principle. Afterward, he autographed two books for me:

The Hugo Award-winning Hominids.	Its immediate sequel, Humans.

Click on the photos to enlarge them. As you can see, Robert J. Sawyer is a keen observer of humanity.

Don't you know your Dewey Decimal System?



Thanks to Queen Azura for the pic.

Kurt is up in heaven now

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007

Kurt Vonnegut, great American novelist, passed away yesterday. Bookninja links to a slew of obituaries. My friend GS sent me a link to this article, one of Vonnegut's last rants against the current Bush administration. Read the whole thing, but I'll point out the section wherein he praises my vocation:

While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

And still on the subject of books: our daily news sources, newspapers and TV, are now so craven, so unvigilant on behalf of the American people, so uninformative, that only in books do we learn what's really going on.

I will cite an example: House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger, published in early 2004, that humiliating, shameful, blood-soaked year...

...So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and a Chicago paper called In These Times.

As for the title of this post, it is at Kurt's request:

I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, "Isaac is up in heaven now." It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now." That's my favorite joke.

Keep 'em laughing, Kurt.

UPDATE (May 24, 2007): Almost forget I had a previous connection to Vonnegut.

Now that the internet meme is behind us...

...we can resume your regular diet of links and YouTube videos!

Does Montreal have the worst library system in North America? This Montreal Gazette op-ed writer seems to think so!

Via LISNews.

You got served



This librarian has a creative way of dealing with the late fees of teen patrons. If they can beat her at Dance Dance Revolution (the library has the game onsite), they get their fines wiped.

New Library Toy



LibraryThing is a site that claims to catalogue your personal book collection. In practice, it's not very comprehensive, partly because it's hoping users will provide cataloguing information (like a wiki). Still, it works if you want a place to list all the books you own but don't have the time or skills to do it in Excel or Access. Also lets you share your collection with others as a way of social networking ("You've read jPod? So have I!").

Look me up!



Remember the card catalogue? Now you too can be part of those good old days again, with the Catalog Card Generator!

UPDATE: From Retrospectacle via Pharyngula.

Time to let our hair down again, fellow bibliophiles!





In all the rush of the holiday season, I almost forgot that Naughty Librarian Month has rolled around again. And I don't have a thing to wear!

Sometimes, being a librarian is rewarding

I got a really interesting question through the library's email reference service. I really went to town trying to answer it, and I'm quite proud of the result. I'll reproduce the question and my response below, concealing identifying details:

Major Beatles fan, here. Aside: (In fact, I had the distinct thrill of seeing them perform in the Kaiser Kellernightclub in Hamburg, Germany before they hit the bigtime. Raunchy, goofy, loud, loutish, obscene? Yes to all of that. Electrifying? Charismatic? Yes to both. It was easy to see that the four moptops had "star material' written all over them)

My question : I want to find information on the death of Beatle George Harrison in 2003. You will no doubt recall that the news media provided the world with all kinds of post-mortem details after John Lennon was shot to death. One papparazzi even snapped a photo of Lennon dead on the table. We all learned that his body was cremated, the urn containing his ashes rests in the home of Yoko Ono, and that a special area in New York's Central Park was dedicated to him and given the name "The Imagine Circle."

However, did you notice that there was hardly any media coverage of Haarrison's death. We were told in most accounts that he expired in Los Angeles at a friend's house. The media reported nothing (that I can find) on the disposition of his bodily remains; memorial service or death rights that may have been performed for him. Was he creamated or buried? Isn't that a curious thing. I tracked down one account from a website about baby boomer cultural practices around death, which I paste into this window : "...generation long into self-actualization and self-expression is now processing death on a gut level as it moves through middle age, as illustrated by the recent departures of boomer heroes George Harrison and Ken Kesey. Kesey, a pillar of the '60s counterculture, commanded a parade of his compatriot Merry Pranksters in his honor. Harrison, the "mystical" Beatle, sought eternal rest in the Ganges River."

What? Did someone just dump "Harry" into the Ganges and let him float away, or sink? I knew that Hindus consider ablutions in the Ganges a holy practice, but I've never heard of dumping bodies into the river to float away, sink, and rot.
What happened to Harry's body? I have been unable to locate any mention of a memorial service for him.

Did Harrison's family deliberately keep informaation about his death out of the media? He had a sister living in the US. Did this sister "manage" news about details of his passing?

Can you suggest a source where I might be able to get these details?

And my response:

On to your question--it does seem that there is some mystery surrounding George Harrison's death. Harrison's death was late November 2001, only two months after the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington, and about a month into the NATO operation in Afghanistan, so perhaps Harrison's death did not receive the kind of media saturation it would have under different circumstances.

Time magazine's obituary gives the official story that he passed away at a friend's house from cancer.

The Melbourne (Australia) paper The Age had this article on the release of Harrison's will. It also notes that Harrison was cremated but his ashes were not released into the Ganges river as expected.

The web site "The Smoking Gun", known for presenting scans of important documents of celebrities, politicians and other public figures (e.g., marriage licenses, mug shots, etc.) posted George Harrison's death certificate but noted that the listed address doesn't exist.

A couple of reports noted an official complaint about the erroneous address listed on Harrison's death certificate.


However, this BBC article claims the complaint lead to an investigation by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, and that the address was corrected (but not revealed in this article).

The prevailing theory for the false address is noted in the BBC article: "It is thought the first address was given on the certificate in an attempt to deter memorabilia hunters and tourists."

Marc Shapiro's biography, Behind Sad Eyes: The Life of George Harrison (available through [the library system I work for]), notes the following details about Harrison's death:

• George was checked into New York's Staten Island University Hospital in early November 2001.
  
• Reportedly, Paul McCartney had a six-hour visit with George in the hospital.
  
• Friends and family were of the opinion that George had resigned himself to dying, and only continued to receive cancer treatments to extend his time with his family.
  
• On November 15, George, his wife Olivia and his son Dhani flew to LA. George continued treatments at UCLA Medical Center.
  
• While in LA, the Harrisons stayed with friend Gavin de Becker (who later reported the death and the erroneous address).
  
• George passed away November 29, 2001 at 1:30 pm.
  
• George's remains were cremated hours after his death at Hollywood Forver Memorial Park. George's ashes were returned to London, where two members of the Hare Krishnas performed formal Hindu rites.
  
• Shapiro then states Olivia and Dhani brought George's ashes to the Ganges and immersed them in a pre-dawn ceremony.
  

A Rolling Stone article from June 6, 2002, counters many of the claims about Harrison's death:

Harrison's Mysterious Last Days

It's been six months since GEORGE HARRISON died after a long battle with cancer, and there are still many mysteries about his last days. According to sources close to Harrison, reports that Hare Krishnas were present at his deathbed, that his ashes were spread on India's Ganges River and that he left $30 million to the Krishnas were all false.

Questions have also been raised by those close to Harrison about the conduct of Staten Island University Hospital's Dr. Gil Lederman, who treated the ex-Beatle last fall. Following Harrison's death, Lederman gave a number of television interviews commenting on Harrison's religious beliefs, personal values and whether he was in pain at the end. “George actually spoke with Dr. Lederman very little,” says family friend Gavin de Becker. “But Dr. Lederman mounted a press tour exploiting George in the most shameless way.” Lederman did not return calls for comment, but a representative of the New York State Department of Health confirmed that the doctor's statements to the press could be considered misconduct.

De Becker himself came under scrutiny when a Los Angeles district attorney accused his office of falsifying the address on Harrison's death certificate. An investigation later determined that no impropriety had occurred. “They still don't know where George died, and they never will,” says de Becker. “Which proves that even a very famous man can lead a private life and have a peaceful, private death.”

Another Rolling Stone article from February 5, 2004 (abstract acquired through the EBSCOHost database, available through our web site: [URL]), reported that Harrison's estate sued his doctor at Staten Island University Hospital:

Eliscu, Jenny
Source: Rolling Stone; 2/5/2004 Issue 941, p10-10, 1/5p, 1c
Document Type: Article
Subject Terms: HARRISON, George
INTERPERSONAL relations
MEDICAL ethics
MUSICIANS
PHYSICIANS
ACTIONS & defenses

Abstract: The article reports that the estate of the musician, George Harrison has filed a $10 million lawsuit against a doctor who allegedly, mistreated him during the days leading up to his death in November 2001. The doctor, Gilbert Lederman of Staten Island University Hospital, New York, is accused of giving interviews that violated confidentiality and of forcing the bedridden Harrison to autograph a guitar. According to the suit, the doctor brought his kids to the home where Harrison was convalescing.


This People magazine article from February 25, 2002, allegedly reveals the actual address where Harrison died:

AND IN THE END...CONTROVERSY

Section: Scoop
When George Harrison passed away at 58 last Nov. 29, the death certificate said the former Beatle had died at 1971 Coldwater Canyon Road in Beverly Hills. The only problem: There is no 1971 Coldwater Canyon Road there. Now, after an investigation, the L.A. District Attorney's office has determined that the death actually occurred at 9536 Heather Road, a Los Angeles house once rented by Harrison's ex-bandmate Paul McCartney. (The certificate has since been amended.) Gavin de Becker, whose firm provided the erroneous address, calls the probe "a big waste of money and time." Civil rights attorney Gloria Allred, who filed the complaint that spurred the investigation, disagrees: "No one has the right to falsify public records. There is no celebrity exception in the law."


Here's the map to the address.


That's what I'm able to find. I hope it helps to answer some of your questions.

If you have any further questions please reply directly to this message or contact [phone number].

Thank you for using [our email reference service]. And thank you for a very interesting question! It was a lot of fun to try and answer it.

Update: This map shows that the false address on Harrison's death certificate was just around the corner from the actual house where he died.

After years--nay, decades of searching, the Cure for Information Overload has been discovered!

Getting all Google-eyed

Well, it's been an interesting couple of weeks to be a librarian, that's for sure. First, the obvious: CNN notes how today's students avoid using print sources in their essays and assignments. What a shock. We librarians have known this for quite some time. When I was working at an academic library, the "Google mentality" was evident when students would search the databases. If they were writing an essay on "feminist perspectives of Shakespeare's plays" you can bet they would type "feminist perspectives of shakesperes plays" into the database. To be fair, it would be nice if all the database publishers would adopt a standard search interface, but I'll save that digression for a future post.

Anyway, the average student's lack of familiarity with books is quite clear to me. At the library, we get the desparate students who've been told they "need a book" and ask where the books on X are. "X" is usually some broad topic that they know nothing about, thus they have no clue how to narrow it down. Say, "marijuana." "Where are the books on marijuana?" they'll ask. And we'll say, "what about marijuana? The medical effects, the physiological effects, the sociological effects, the legalities of it, how to grow it, what?" Because, if you'll indulge me a moment, the intricacies of the Dewey Decimal system spread these things around. Marijuana as a drug will be in the 610s, while the social effects will be in the 300s or 330s. Growing? Probably 630s or 640s (641 is cookbooks--look for your hash brownie recipes there). Legal aspects? The 340s. I don't remember the Library of Congress system (used in most academic libraries in North America) but it would be just as messy.

But these students (who, of course, have left this to the last minute and need their book tonight), having done no preliminary research, have no clue where to begin and thus say "give me everything!"--or rather, what's left after their classmates have stripped our shelves. Hey, I wrote essays the night before they were due all through high school and undergrad (I wrote my 25-page paper on the Second World War planning of the invasion of Italy in 2 sleepless days). But unlike other procrastinators, I did my research weeks in advance. I'd go to the library one afternoon, find and grab about two dozen books on the subject, and pile them in a corner at home somewhere. A day or two before, I skimmed them, found 4 or 5 that were useful, and threw together an essay from that. Of course, most students with a topic like "compare and contrast these two plays" will try and find a book that compares and contrasts the two plays. If the book doesn't exist, they'll complain vocally, not understanding the purpose of research and the assignment is to compare and contrast the two plays, not regurgitate someone else's comparison of the two plays.

Well, tomorrow's students are more likely to never have to set foot in a library again, thanks to Google and its initiative to digitize and index the complete collections of five university libraries.

Several opinions have been voiced on this development--is it good, is it bad, etc. Scott Rosenberg warns us that though Google is crewed by some extremely cool and innovative grad-student types now, it is a publicly-traded company now. Larry Page and Sergey Brin are two cool dudes who've given us this incredibly powerful search tool, while managing to not be sucked into the downward-spiral-life of corporate shills. But that might not be the case tomorrow. Right now, Google intends to offer this archive of knowledge for free. Will that be the case tomorrow?

Andrew Leonard at Salon.com (you need to be a subscriber or watch ads) talks about the possibility of Information Overload:

But where will it end? Certainly not with the inclusion of every book in the world that already exists. On the Internet, there will also be every critique of every book, every alternative history, every conspiracy theory, and all the real facts and fake facts to back every story up. You think we suffer from information overload now? Just wait until the sum total of all human knowledge is one click away. We are doomed! In a good way!

He begins this essay by referring to Jorges Luis Borges's short story, "The Library of Babel," an amusing read. Now, how do I feel about all this? Well, Rosenberg makes some good points--I would like to see this repository of knowledge owned by the public as well, but in today's economic and political climate, it will never fly. I don't fear too much for the future of my profession, because one thing I've learned as a librarian is you can make a fancier search tool, but someone has to learn how to use it. Until they make a search interface that reads minds and works instantly, most people will need to turn to their information specialists.

Plus, we're a long ways away from getting all information into a digital format. Read what happened to Mark LeVine when he mentioned a historical event that didn't exist on Google (in English, anyway). LeVine has also written on the dangers of using Google as a historical record. So the Ultimate Digital Repository of All Human Knowledge is not upon us just yet. I mark every milestone on the journey with enthusiasm, however. I remember when Pages from the Past, a searchable digital archive of every issue of the Toronto Star newspaper since 1894, was released. Created by scanning the old microfilm reels of The Star (which you had to view on one of these babies), Micromedia-Proquest ensured us of a future where we wouldn't have to look at microfilm and microfiche again. And as someone who spent 5 days straight reading the Collected Minutes of the Meetings of the Combined Chiefs of Staff from World War II, I was extremely grateful.

UPDATE (12-22-o4): I've just been informed that Blogger, the system through which I can post these thoughts to the web, is owned by Google. And I for one welcome our search-engine overlords...