explodedlibrary.info

questions and answers

This post is in an FAQ format, but I hesitate to call them FAQs because they're not Frequently Asked Questions. I don't even know if they're frequently thought questions. But here goes:

Who are you?
Morgan Wilson.

That's kind of androgynous name ...
Not that it's hugely relevant to my blog, but if you don't whether to call me a her or a him - I'm a guy.

How can I contact you?
The best way, initially, would be by email. My email address is morganwilson @ gmail .com (without any spaces). I also like instant messaging, but don't usually turn on the software unless I'm planning on communicating with somebody in particular

Whereabouts do you live?
I'm living in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia right now. I was born in Queensland, grew up in Tasmania, and also have lived in St. Paul, MN, USA between 1997 and 2004.

Are you really a librarian?
Yes. Originally I thought that I wanted to be a lawyer and did a B.A., LL B (my arts major was German). The most important thing that I learned at Law School was that although I enjoyed the intellectual exercise of studying law and legal research, the job of being a lawyer wasn't the thing for me. I decided to go to library school and become a law librarian. I've worked as an academic law librarian, a special librarian doing corporate research and competitive intelligence in financial services, as well as a special librarian in the electricity industry. Most of my positions have involved managing electronic information - be it in Lotus Notes databases, library websites and intranets and library automation software. I'm currently working as a Law Librarian in a large Sydney law firm. With this information, I will add the increasingly standard "the opinions and points of view expressed in my blog are my own and not my employer" disclaimer.

Why should I read your blog?
No particular reason. Sometimes I indulge in shameless self-promotion but I'm not in the mood for it tonight. Read it if you find it at all interesting and have room in your life for a not so frequently updated blog.

What sort of things do you write about?
In the explodedlibrary I write about some library-related issues. The thing is that these days, the issues affecting librarians who are searchers and consumers and managers of information, are relevant to so many more people. I try to write in a way that engages those who are and aren't library people, avoiding the odious jargon, especially words which start with "biblio". I also do some reviews of software, mostly Mac, and occasional posts about law (particularly intellectual property), politics and anything else which takes my fancy. There's more than a few posts about blogging itself. If you hate blogs and contemplate metablogging with revulsion, you may want to stay away.

Do you have any other blogs?
Yes, the explodedlibrary library even has a supplementary blog, where I dump the drafts and outtakes and rants which I'd prefer to share with a smaller, possibly more interested audience. It's neither public nor private. I don't link to it overtly, but I do link to it. I also maintain an pseudonymous blog that has nothing to do with information and libraries and is more personal and creative. I also keep a LiveJournal.

How long have you been blogging?I started my LiveJournal in June 2002 and the very first version of the explodedlibrary in August 2002.

Why do you blog?
Blogging combines three things which I really enjoy: 1. Reading and finding information; 2. Writing; 3. Mucking around with computers. I would continue blogging in some form even if I knew that nobody else ever read it, because I like doing this stuff. Blogging about things has become a way that I make sense of the world.

What is so special about blogging anyway?
The blogosphere is place of words and ideas. There are still moments when it doesn't matter what you look like, how much or little money you earn, how many degrees you have or how accomplished you might be - the only thing differentiating one blogger from another are their actual words. As such, it has given some people a voice who have never had one before. This situation may change, but while it remains, I am grateful for it.

How often do you update this blog?
I can be fairly erratic with how often I update this blog. It's usually once or twice a week, but it varies a lot. I make no apologies for this. If you subscribe to the blog in your feed reader, this shouldn't be a problem.

What is your policy on comments on this blog?I really like receiving comments, all comments except the ones which are spam, nasty or illegal. I can handle comments strongly disagreeing with me on the issues, but if you cross the line into being mean and insulting, I am not so noble that I'll let those ones through. Unlike many bloggers, I don't have an absolute ban on commercial comments - provided they are relevant to the post and add something to the conversation. In addition, once a post has been around for about six months, I close the commenting.

Why do you moderate commenting on the blog?
Look at it this way. It  is better that you wait a few hours for your comment to appear on my blog, than it goes there right away but is lost forever in the sewage of comment spam. Alternatively, better this delay than there be no commenting or no blog at all because the comment spammers were driving me crazy. Seriously, the drudgery of dealing with comment spam nearly caused me to quit blogging. Comment moderation has been an absolute godsend for me.

Hey - I noticed a typo, a missed word or some other error on your blog
If it's a factual error on a recent post, I definitely want to know about it and I'll make a correction once I've verified what's going on. If it's about a broken link on a post on a post that I wrote 3 years ago, I'm probably not interested. Even if it's a really important post, I'd  rather revisit the area now and than correct what I wrote 3 years ago. I tend to avoid post-publication editing -and when I do it, I have set particular rules for myself. After over a year, these still generally apply, with one significant exception. I reserve the right to break the letter of any of these rules if: it makes life easier for me and my readers and commentors and I'm not violating the spirit of the rules (which is basically not being sneaky about post-publication edits)

What tools do you use for blogging? TypePad for the actual hosted blogging service. Right now I'm reading blogs on the Google Reader.

I'm having a hard time printing this blog. This blog is intended to be viewed online, not printed. If you must print it out, I understand that there are better results with Internet Explorer. Read this post for more on my views about blog printability.

Currently playing in iTunes: The Garden's End by Sarah Blasko

a year in Sydney

At first it was to be temporary thing - I'd move to Sydney, but still keep an eye on the job situation in Tasmania. If something good came up, and if (definitely the more uncertain if, given my experience of unexpectedly brutal job market in Tasmania) I got the job, I'd move back in a heartbeat.

Now I see that my time in Sydney is not so going to be so temporary. I'm likely to be here for at least 3 more years. I'm not going to be looking at jobs in Tasmania anymore. My new job in Sydney is just what I've been looking for, and I have no pipedreams that there might be an equivalent job available in Tasmania which could entice me back. This isn't to put down Tasmania, it's just stating the fact that the way my career has developed, I am most competitive in legal and special library positions - of which there are very few in Tasmania. Although I'd be willing to work in just about any sort of library position, in most situations employers would prefer somebody with a background in their particular sort of library - whether it be public, school, academic science / humanities etc. This hasn't changed.

I can't just breeze into a public library position feeling all superior because of my academic or legal or special library experience, and expect a public library to fall over itself to hire me.

Yes, some specialties are generally paid more than others. Others might be more comfortable places to work - or provide access to more expensive resources/toys or be more intellectually interesting. While others may be rewarding in other ways. How is it possible to quantify the knowledge that one's work is clearly and unambiguously furthering one's goals in politics and social justice? The best or most ideal sub-specialty will vary according to each individual's priorities and situation.

I have made the decision although Tasmania is a beautiful place, and although I miss family and friends who are there, I cannot be sustained by these alone if I am miserable because I am unemployed or underemployed. I'm better off living in Sydney, where I have far superior employment options, and deal with feeling homesick for Tasmania. I can alleviate these symptoms by participating in the annual or bi-annual pilgrimage rites observed by other Gen-X members of the Tasmanian diaspora. I've already booked my trip back to Hobart for the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.

A few words about my current home in Sydney. Sydney gets a very bad rap amongst the rest of Australia. It is viewed as the epitome of the excesses of Australia's urbanization. Most Australians live in cities, and for the majority who don't live in Sydney, it's comforting to think, well at least my place is not as crazy and frantic as Sydney. In some ways it's true. Nowhere else in Australia can you see the extremes and chasms in Australian society than in Sydney, where the beggars and derelict haunt the same streets frequented by the Armani and Prada-clad beautiful and successful people. I've never seen people as hurried and stressed as certain people in Sydney - but having lived here for a year, I understand how people can stress out here. You can't really judge Sydneysiders until you've stood in their shoes and can see what it's like to live here. I've also found people in Sydney refreshingly accepting of people from different places, as many are from other places themselves. After all the negatives, why would any one move to this huge city which seems to be choking its own growth and expensive real estate? The bleak view is that people move to Sydney when their hopes dry up in their original home. But I prefer to think maybe it's that fairy tale notion of moving to the big city to find one's fortune. I vaguely remember Mary Donaldson from my high school, Taroona High. She certainly found her dreams in Sydney.

Currently playing in iTunes: Confessions on a Dancefloor (Non-Stop Mix) by Madonna

left-handed adventures with Mighty Mouse

I am somehow doubting that Apple's Mighty Mouse is going to be a raging success. Even at the Apple stores I've been to lately in Australia and the US, Microsoft and Logitech mice seem to be getting more loving than Apple's new mouse. I'm no marketing person, but I think that Apple needs to give this product a different name. Mighty Mouse may be a good nickname or something catchy to use in advertising copy, but I don't think it works as the official name. Even I felt a little embarrassed asking for the Mighty Mouse.

Other than the name, it's a pretty nifty mouse. I was worried that the scroll wheel/button was way too small to use effectively - but that hasn't been a problem at all. It seems to allow for some very precise scrolling. And it is very nice to be able to do horizontal scrolling - especially in the Finder and applications like Photoshop.

My scroll button is set up so that clicking on it opens and closes the Dashboard. For me at least, this has made the Dashboard a lot more accessible and I may use it more.

I wasn't so sure how the idea of invisible left and right buttons would work - but it hardly took anytime to get used to. Clicking on the top right area of the mouse is the same as a regular click (well for most people, see below for my left-handed experience), clicking the top left area is a left click.

The weirdest thing about the Mighty Mouse are the side squeeze buttons. Maybe in a few more days, squeezing the sides of a mouse will be second nature to me, but it still seems kind of odd. Initially it was quite awkward - what if I don't squeeze the two side buttons exactly simultaneously - will something bad happen? (the answer to that question is no) The squeezing movement is different - the only analogy is like giving somebody a bad handshake where the hand doesn't open properly. The necessary pressure would greater than a dead fish handshake but the firmness of a good firm handshake wouldn't be necessary - not that this would break the mouse.

I have Mighty Mouse set so that the side buttons open Exposé - something which will make this a lot more accessible and useful for me - the idea of using Exposé by function keys or screen corners never ever worked well for me. But it's also possible to set the side buttons - or left click or right click or scroll button - to do anything else - such as open the desktop, any application or an Automator workflow.

Now for my left-handed story. I'm a left hander, and prefer to do my mousing with my left hand, using the forefinger for most of the clicking. This means setting the buttons the other way around from the default - so that right button is the main one and the left button brings up the contextual menus. Like most left-handers I need to survive in the right-handed world. In my current job, the shared reference and circulation computers have right-handed settings - and I am able to use them without too many hassles. That said, on my own computers at home and work, I always do left-handed mousing - I work faster and think more clearly and am happier this way.

Anyway, when I first tried using Mighty Mouse I thought it was badly broken. There seemed no way getting a regular click - everything seemed to open the contextual menus. After some tweaking, I got it so it worked as a regular right-handed mouse held in my left hand - the most annoying and confusing of all mousing worlds for me. Then I realized what was going on. I unplugged the Apple mouse and returned its predecessor, a fairly basic Logitech two-button mouse with a scroll wheel. With that mouse plugged in, I changed the Logitech mouse settings back from left-handed style mousing to the default right-handed settings. When I plugged the Mighty Mouse back and set its settings to left-handed mousing, everything worked as expected.

Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine released in Australia

[12 May 2006: I have followed up on this post here]

I know it's old news that Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine, which was leaked onto the internet in March (here's what I wrote at the time) has been released by Sony-BMG, albeit in a slightly modified form.

It's taken a bit longer for the official version of Extraordinary Machine to be released in Australia, but it's available now. As I promised back in March, I bought it. I haven't listened enough to give any sort of meaningful review, other than to say, I don't hate this version. I still prefer the unofficial O Sailor, but the other one is ok.

It is nice that the album comes with a DVD containing a very amusing video of the Extraordinary Machine single, plus some live performances, as well as some audio-only remixes of tracks from the album. This is one that's not going to be available in the iTunes Music Store for quite some time, seeing that Fiona Apple's record company is Sony-BMG.

It's interesting to hear that apparently it was Fiona Apple, not her record company, who was behind the delay and subsequent reworking of Extraordinary Machine. Well I guess it is possible. It's also interesting that on the liner notes accompanying the CD, "everyone from Free Fiona" is on the list of people being thanked.

the view from the outside

I find this sort of thing fascinating. It's also nice to see librarians being praised in unlikely places.

Unexpected places to encounter Warcraft geekery: "I was doing some research in the Boston Public Library about management ethics, which at first doesn't sound like it's related to World of Warcraft. I found this book that looked interesting about how librarians were expected to relate to those 'scary' questions from people who want geek-related reading, such as sci-fi or fantasy. In the book was a 'quiz' that was meant to prove to the unsuspecting librarians that they knew more about geek-related subjects than they thought.

One of the questions was,

Harry Potter is a student at...
a. Harvard University (where he is studying for an MBA)
b. Hogwart's [sic] School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (where he is studying to be a wizard)
c. The Jedi Academy (where he is studying under Luke Skywalker)
d. Lordaeron University (where he is studying warcraft)

The random Warcraft reference just about killed me in the middle of the BPL. I may be the only person since the original author to have read that book and gotten that reference. Kudos to the author of 'Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader's Advisory' for being a Warcraft geek!"

(Via LiveJournal World of Warcraft community.)

from the Non-Meetup Sydney blog meetup

I don't usually repost other blog's posts verbatim, but it seemed appropriate for this one. It was nice to try a different venue, play in the trivia night (yeah, we should have won, but our 2nd place was pretty respectable for a first effort, and gives us something to look forward to for next time) and meet some more Sydney bloggers.

Memo to Youse:

You know those people last night? How you politely asked the name of their blog and promptly forgot it? Fear not.

Disambiguation Blog -- Glen
Papertrap -- Mark
Spleenie's Rant -- Spleenie
James O'Brien -- James
Exploded Library -- Morgan
The Other Andrew -- Andrew [who has just posted pics of this on his blog]
For Battle! -- harry, Coz (Cozalcotal), Rob (Anti Ob), Amanda
Flop Eared Mule -- Amanda

(Via Sydney Blog Meetup.)