explodedlibrary bunker

my blogging nemesis: the elephant in the room not spoken about

When I announced the retirement of the explodedlibrary in the main blog, I wrote mainly about one reason for retiring the blog. That it was like a favourite t-shirt which had served me well over the years, but is now starting to wear out and which no longer fits me comfortably.

The other reason is more complicated. I wouldn't call it blogger's block - that's when you don't know what you want to write about. My situation is different. There's something I desperately would like to write about, such that everything else pales into insignificance, but there is absolutely no way that I can write about it publicly. It's hard to act as if something which seems so important is not happening.

I'm not going to into all the details here either, because although this bunker blog is more obscure, it is not a private space. But I can give some basic information.

It's quite commonplace, really. Mergers and acquisitions happen all the time amongst organizations associated with libraries. One's happened to MPOW. Yes, mergers and acquisitions happen all the time, but a merger amongst true equals seems to be extremely rare. There usually is a dominant party and a subordinate party. It has turned out that my place of work is on the losing end of this merger.

There is now an integration process underway. Integration after a merger is a strange process. The integration that I'm experiencing means that the subordinate party is completely disintegrated and then parts of it are absorbed into the dominant party and the rest is discarded. That is what will be happening at MPOW. No, I'm not happy about it. The process is by no means over yet, and is likely to get worse before it gets better. It will be easier for me to handle this situation and still do a good job at work if I don't have to worry about this blog as well. Maybe it will all work out for the best in the end, and this will lead to me moving to an interesting position in the other library - or a completely different employer. If that happens, I'll mention that here, and who knows, I may resume blogging at the explodedlibrary.

I was doing some research for an interesting project at work today and I stumbled across this:

55. One key element in dealing with stress is taking control. A feeling of helplessness increases stress. So take some action that reflects that you do retain some amount of control over the situation – even if that little control is only over your reaction to the stressor.  [Project Management Source]

I'm sure I could find a lot more inspiring or relevant quotes about dealing with this situation, but this one resonated with me because I found it in the course of doing my work.

To close, while the explodedlibrary is in retirement there still may be the occasional post here in this bunker blog. But this is it for now.

selecting & evaluating blogs, as an outsider

1. Find all relevant blogs (bloglines, newsgator, technorati, del.icio.us, Google blog search, relevant blog rolls)
a) Note down all of these blogs into the "long list", except the following - (i) abandoned blogs, (ii) blogs which don't appear to produce any original content whatsoever and (iii) blogs whose content is quite buried by external or internal advertising (the site is really about selling X goods/services and the blog is just an extension of that with no other redeeming value).
b) Arrange the long list alphabetically and keep it, it is important

2. Make a short list of five blogs - the three best ones, plus two others which don't suck, chosen randomly from the long list [why the random element? although it is necessary for me to devise and use some system for evaluating blogs, such systems are always subjective and flawed and aren't to be relied up without reservations]

3. How to choose the best blogs? Rate each blog in the long list according to the following criteria, scoring from 1-3

• Advertising (a blog with zero advertising scores a 3, a blog with instrusive and annoying advertising scores a 1)
• Conversation (are there helpful & interesting comments and trackbacks, or nothing or just a lot of spam?)
• Frequency (don't update too often or too infrequently to score a 3 here)
• Originality (is it just saying "me too" or does the blog seem to add something different to the conversation?)
• Quality (whether it be quality of research, argument, writing style, links, design)
• Bonus points. Anything else relevant not already taken in account? Add or subtract up to 3 points

If there's a tied total score and the tie means the difference between inclusion or not,  prefer the blog with the highest quality score, if that's tied, decide the "winner" randomly.

This is just for finding a short list of blogs in an unfamiliar area, if I were forced to evaluate blogs in a known area, I would use a different criteria.

the role of press releases in coverage of retractions

No Press Release, No Retraction, Overcoming Bias
Citing Roy F. Rada (2007), Retractions, press releases and newspaper coverage, Health Information and Libraries Journal 24 (3), 210–215.

This study extends the results of the case study of one retraction 19 by analysing the reaction of major newspapers to a random sample of 50 retracted publications. ...
While medical science writers for newspapers may read sources such as the New England Journal of Medicine, they may pay more attention to press releases than to the primary sources. Scientists should be particularly careful in describing their work when that description might become part of a press release. Major newspapers may give coverage to a publication that has a press release and sensationalize the findings.

testing

Test friend feed in Facebook

discarded prelude

The following was originally going to appear at the beginning of this post, but it didn't quite fit so I took it out minutes after first publishing it. But I liked the discarded section, and so it's ending up here.

I've just noticed something about how I find information on the internet: I have different ways of searching. At one end of the spectrum there's the professional research mode, where I use a wide variety of search resources and databases, depending on what I'm looking for. In this mode, I approach my subject from a number of different angles and try to be skeptical of my sources. When I search in this way, it seems effective, but it's also time-consuming and tiring. I'm not in full-on research mode very often, that would seem like running around carrying a heavy sledgehammer.

At the other end of the continuum there's when I just "look stuff up". This is quick and easy and lazy, but for the most part it works. When it doesn't, I usually increase the intensity of my searching until I find what I'm looking for.

But I have to tell myself again and again, that most normal people (in this context, people who aren't librarians) don't have as many options.

the other point of view

Read the article linked to from here.
I can't say that I agree with her, but it's never hurt anyone to read an eloquent exposition of an opposing viewpoint.

authoritative or useful?

The usefulness of information is not determined by its source. Some sources are more likely to produce accurate information than others, but accuracy is different from usefulness. Sometimes I wonder if there's an inverse relationship between a source's accuracy and its ability to provide useful information - not in every case. Could this be the reason why many libraries have competed so poorly in the online world - they are obsessed with information being accurate and authoritative but not so much with information being accessible and useful. I'm not against accuracy and authoritativeness - especially in information which we consume and can transform into something more useful

My own practise is to be omnivorous. All information can be relevant, it doesn't matter whether it comes from blogs, books, journals, graffiti, or overhead conversations on the bus.

Currently playing in iTunes: Innocence (Simian Mobile Disco Remix 12") by Björk

apathy and the crowd

The wisdom of crowds becomes an excuse for apathy if you forget that you are a part of the crowd and that your voice matters.

[2nd outtake from this post]

the cure for information overload

By the way, I also think that this idea ["It's not important to know everything that's happening as soon as it happens"] is the cure for information overload. There are some people who are employed to know every development about something as soon as it happens. I'm afraid that this option is available for you. I know, I used to work in Competitive Intelligence.

[1st outtake from this post]

friending on Twitter

It's always nice to get an email saying that "You're Somebody's newest friend!". It makes me just want to add them back, but recently I've been rethinking this.

As with MySpace and LiveJournal and Vox, Twitter uses the word "friend" to describe the act of choosing to follow somebody's journal or whatever, and I wish they didn't. Friend is a very loaded word. It has connotations, that if I choose not to friend somebody in Twitter that I am therefore choosing to be unfriendly to that person, or that by friending somebody, I am asking them to be my friend.  Of course, at one level most people don't think like this and realize that friend in Twitter is not the same as friend in RL, but all the same, using "friend" is not helpful.

Here's what I've decided regarding friending in Twitter:

1. If you're a RL friend, acquaintance or relative, I'll add you back.
2. If it seems like we have something in common, be it it libraries, blogging, living in Sydney, living in Minnesota, working in a university, whatever, I'll add you back.
3. If it doesn't seem like we have much in common, but your tweets look interesting and you don't have hundreds/thousands of friends already, I'll add you back. I don't like the zillion friends pissing contest and I'm not going to enable that by cluttering my Twitter with that kind of person.
4. I have never removed someone from my f-list except someone whom I wouldn't have added if I had been following point 3. I'm not going to go into all the reasons why I might do this, except to say that if you tweet too often - every 5 minutes of every waking hour for a few days would certainly qualify - I will probably remove you from my f-list. It's nothing personal. I might really like you, but I can't deal with that volume. I may check back in a few days to see if things have quietened down and then add you back.

Like everything, this is subject to change. At this stage, I would prefer to err on the side of inclusion, but later on, I may go the other way.

I don't want this post to sound that I don't want new friends on Twitter. I do,  but for me it's not a numbers game. Here's my Twitter, and if you feel like adding me after reading all the above, I'll most likely add you right back.