Marcus' World

Seven Year Anniversary

Tonight we celebrated our seven year anniversary, with dinner at Boulevard on the Embarcadero.  Helen and I started dating on Feb. 27, 1999, and were married on the same day two years later.

It's always gratifying when people call or write on this special day. Tonight Mom called as I was riding along in the train to meet Helen (thanks Mom!). This morning Professor Fawole--our host in Nigeria last summer--sent us a note of congratulations. Helen and I were both extremely impressed by his memory.

When we married Geja's, a great fondue place in Chicago, was our place for the anniversary splurge. Eventually we grew fond of Blue Hill in New York. Tonight Boulevard had a bustling air and great service, but I'm not sure yet if it will be a keeper.

The restaurant doesn't matter all that much in the end, of course. But a caring relationship, tender feelings, and big smiles matter very much indeed.  Here's to seven more years of all of those.

Ralph Nader Rides Again

Today's news that Ralph Nader is running for President again--using the same argument that both parties are equally in thrall to special interests--made me chuckle, both at Ralph's stubbornness and the likely reaction from Democrats.

I won't be voting for Nader; there's a significant difference between Obama or Clinton and McCain. But it's his country and he can run if he wants to. This is still America, after all.

The Absurd ALA Email List Controversy: Lawrence Lessig's Candidacy

A few days ago I posted about Lawrence Lessig's deliberations about whether to run for Congress for a Bay Area seat vacated by the death of Tom Lantos. (Note:  It appears that Lessig would run as a Democrat, despite his early career work on behalf of conservative justices Richard Posner and Antonin Scalia.) Since then I've joined the Facebook group urging Lessig to run, and that's about it.

I learned of Lessig's candidacy through an email to a mailing list maintained by the American Library Association. It was a neutral email that pointed out the fact that Lessig was contemplating a run, and in no way advocated that people vote for him--the thrust of the message was surprise that this already wasn't wider news.

Here is the email, in full: " This is still fairly recent news and not getting much play that I can see in
library circles. Point your browsers to: http://lessig08.org/"

The day after it appeared ALA scrubbed the email from its files [but it's still in my records, and now on the blog], for fear of running afoul of regulations that non-profit organizations cannot support particular candidates for office (due to their tax-exempt status).

From ALA: "ALA legal counsel reviewed the posting. Her response is below...the posting has been removed from RUSA-L and the other ALA list where it appeared."

Some of the legal counsel's reasoning:  "A discussion of Mr. Lessig's possible candidacy would seem to come within the IRS definition of a person proposed by others as a candidate for public office. This means his potential candidacy should not be discussed on ALA electronic resources."

This reaction from ALA has several levels of absurdity:

1.  There's no true way to expunge the record, as I've demonstrated by posting the offending email above. Rigorous moderating of every message sent would be necessary to keep this genie in the bottle.  Clearly IRS law interpretation lags behind the current speed of electronic communication; Lessig's candidacy, ironically, would focus on the fact that analog-era laws are grossly inadequate for the digital age.
2. This year all the major Presidential candidates have attended churches across America to campaign. Churches are non-profit organizations; their very hosting of a candidate is an implicit endorsement of that candidate, much more so than the innocuous email about Lessig.  If it is necessary to (futilely) scrub such an email from the archives, then surely these churches should pay some taxes after endorsing Presidential candidates.

Of course, if I worked at ALA headquarters I would see this differently--at least, officially. But  from the outside looking in, ALA's reaction is quite disproportionate to the alleged offense.  And there's something more than a bit unsettling about a library organization--of all things--casually expunging its records at the slightest possible hint of trouble.

 

Lawrence Lessig for Congress

Lawrence Lessig, founder of the Creative Commons and brilliant legal theorist, could be running for Congress.  If I lived in his Bay Area district--which has a vacant seat because of the death of Holocaust survivor and US Congressman Tom Lantos--I'd vote for Lessig. At my very first Medical Library Association meeting in 2003, Lessig gave a mesmerizing speech--with his trademark of one word per slide, white text on black--that left the audience both enriched and enthralled.

Lessig is not necessarily a Democrat, contrary to what people may think. One of the lesser-known parts of his biography is his law clerkships for Richard Posner and Antonin Scalia--two stalwart conservative justices.  Perhaps Lessig has moderated his views; or perhaps he finds harmony between old-fashioned conservatism and his new-fangled ideas  about fostering creative expression online.

Whatever the case, Lessig is a fascinating enigma.  It would be interesting to see him in Congress, even for just a few months.  I hope he runs, and I hope he wins.

There Goes that Liberal New York Times Again

I don't care whether or not John McCain had an affair with lobbyist Vicki Iseman; that's a personal matter.  McCain denies it, while the New York Times stands by the story (which doesn't say explicitly that they had an affair, just that McCain's aides were worried by the appearance of impropriety.)  Due to an avalanche of criticism about how the Times reported this story, the editors and reporters who worked on it are answering questions from readers about it.

Avalanches don't develop from nothing. This one came about due to a concerted attempt by the McCain campaign to impugn the "liberal New York Times." 

As always, the GOP's ritualistic bashing of our nation's paper of record makes me chuckle. This effort has two classic elements:  repeated inveighing against the offending party (i.e., the Times), in tones of mock shock; and the ever-so-ominous intonation of that most awful word..."liberal." 

For some people, that combination seals the deal--let the money flow to our man McCain!!

But those of a more liberal bent might wish to read the first definition of "liberal" in dictionary.com: "Favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs."  Seems pretty good to me.

Journals to Blogs, Cont.

Thanks to David Rothman for rounding up the reactions to my call for librarian journals to evolve into blogs.  Thanks also to commenters here; and for those who follow the action over on T. Scott, he and I had a pretty good discussion about this last week.

A fair criticism of my idea is that it is too binary and absolutist. Why can't we have journals and blogs? Or journals for some purposes and blogs for others?

So, a refinement: I'm not so much concerned with the vehicle (journal or blog) for sharing research or hypotheses in library and information science.  What I care the most about is putting our ideas into circulation more quickly than we do currently. I believe that in the high majority of cases quality peer review could happen after an early version of an article appears.

In this context there must be an incentive to make constructive peer reviews, rather than leaving brief and/or inflammatory comments in reaction to article postings.  Authors would need to be comfortable  with posting less than fully vetted ideas.  And there would have to be solid management so that postings like "This is a cool article!!" don't appear on any reputable web site.

I don't have a very good handle on how to operationalize these ideas.  Anything close to what I am describing will be a distant development. Conceptually, though, the idea is sitting pretty well (for me at least!). I look forward to the continued discussion. 

"Urim and Thummim": A Movie Review

Last night we saw the movie Urim and Thummim with friends, as part of the 10th San Francisco Independent Film Festival.  It's a documentary about an everyman named Todd Walker, who purchases a thoroughly unremarkable object (an incense burner, perhaps) at a Goodwill Store in Nashville for 69 cents.  Unremarkable to us, that is--to Walker it is the "Urim and Thummim," an obscure Hebrew term for the sacred breastplate worn by Moses's brother Aaron.  Mormons also place holy emphasis on the Urim and Thummim.   

Walker fashions an instrument to peer directly inside the object without being distracted by any peripheral vision.  If someone is open to the possibility and allows enough time, Walker claims that they will see visions from God.  Many people in and around Owensboro, KY (where he lives) and Nashville believe him.

It sounds crazy, of course.  But Walker's persistence eventually yields interviews with experts in archeology, psychology, and religion at Vanderbilt University. The archaeologist suggests dating the stone scientifically; the tests he suggests are very expensive, but Walker's real hesitation is that such a sacred object should not be tested.  A psychologist argues that  Walker's  claim to religious truth is just as valid as anybody else's, while a rabbi (who attempts to teach Walker how to pronounce "Urim and Thummim")  feels that Walker may be the catalyst for a new American religion. The psychologist and rabbi are people of much higher social standing than Walker and his friends (he has two buddies who will also defend the stone with their lives). Their graciousness to Walker was encouraging.

I don't believe that Walker's object is holy, but I do think he's sincere.  There's no con game going on here, and I could tell that I would like Walker if I ever met him.  His Southern blue-collar accent reminded me of many of my father's relatives; I'm sure that if  they met Walker, he would have some new converts.  So while many parts of the movie were funny, I couldn't laugh at them myself.  And I couldn't help but think that Walker would have an easier time if he spoke differently and/or had a professional position.  Most people would still conclude he was odd, but they'd listen to him longer before making that judgment.

A case in point: This morning I heard a radio interview with a tenured physics professor at the University of Connecticut, Ronald L. Mallett, who devotes his energies to studying time travel.  Mallett was smart; he didn't let on that he believed in time travel until he had secured tenure.  Now that he can't be fired, he's found funding to pursue this seemingly fanciful line of research. 

I don't believe in time travel any more than I believe in the Urim and Thummim. But it sure does seem like Professor Mallett is having an easier time gaining respect than Todd Walker.

Last Post--Blog Readers Survey

In my recent survey of health sciences librarian blog readers, people stated their primary job responsibilities (and in many cases used comments to tell me about additional categories that I had not included--public librarian, corporate librarian, government librarian, etc.)  People also identified how long they had worked as librarians. During my presentation about the survey, I didn't address these variables.  So below are a few observations about how job responsibility and years of experience affected people's responses. Below all that is the presentation, for those who haven't seen it.

I learned a lot about the challenges of good survey design; short of an exhaustive vetting process, it's very hard to identify categories and answers that will appeal to all (or at least most) respondents.

The discrepancy between the primary goals of blog authors and readers--stimulating discussion (authors) and keeping current  (readers)--is very interesting to me. Also, it's not yet clear what people mean by "acting" on what they read in a blog post. Is forwarding information about a post acting on it? Or should this designation be reserved for more substantial work that attempts to utilize the information in a blog post? There's a lot more to be discovered in this area (as always).

Without further ado, some final observations:

A. Respondents by category:
Reference librarians:  120 people
One person librarians: 52 people
Administrators: 42 people
Catalogers: 7 people
Other categories (public, government, corporate): 54 people [some of whom also identified themselves in one of the above categories]

Compared to one person librarians and administrators, reference librarians were apt to say that they were would act on the information in blogs more than listservs.  This was still a minority of reference librarians--40%. But one person librarians and administrators were both under 20%.  The "other" group was around 27%.  Catalogers were over 50%--but that sample of 7 people is very small.

B. Everybody answered the question about years of experience, and there is a good distribution:

0 to 3 years: 62 people
4 to 6 years: 32 people
7 to 10 years: 31 people
11 to 20 years: 73 people
20+ years: 68 people

Of these groups, librarians at 4-6 years and 11-20 years disproportionately stated that they act on what they read in blogs "somewhat frequently."  People above 20 years were the most likely to answer in the cluster "somewhat frequently/frequently/very frequently."

As I type this up I see just how many more data trends it is possible to follow! But I must be moving on (for now)...if any reader would like to see all the raw data to make your own analysis, please let me know. 

Post-Script: Of Superdelegates and Winner Take All

Today Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein make an argument for superdelegates that is very similar to what I offered yesterday.  How nice to be ahead of the curve!

Of Superdelegates and Winner Take All

Today's Times article about the jousting between Obama and Clinton for superdelegates is a very worthwhile read. I know a lot more about superdelegates than I did a few hours ago.

Republicans generally have winner-take-all caucuses or primaries, which is why John McCain is unstoppable now [he's picked up Mitt Romney's endorsement, making him even more formidable.] Since the Democrats assign delegates proportionately to how candidates do in a primary or caucus--democratically, you might say--neither Obama or Clinton is likely to have enough delegates to carry the day by June.  Obama will probably be around 100 delegates ahead, like now, and they'll both be short of the 2,025 pledged delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination.

Enter those "superdelegates"--party officials and other leaders who are free to vote however they choose. Clinton tends to do better in larger state primaries; she says the superdelegates should support her because she wins in states that are more representative of the nation.  Obama says fair is fair--the superdelegates should support him if he earns more pledged delegates.

Although I support Obama, Clinton has the better case here.  If she wins in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania, after taking California and New York, that has more meaning than Obama's carrying Utah, North Dakota, and Idaho.  The whole point of being a "superdelegate" is that you are at liberty to think beyond simple accounting of states won and lost.

Nevertheless, it would be unsettling if superdelegates actually swung the election to Clinton even though Obama  had more pledged delegates (which is not necessarily the same as more votes). The Republican winner-take-all method avoids this  problem, but  is anti-democratic in smothering all complexity.  I like the Democratic way better, as maddening as it is.  With that said, all of Obama and Clinton's fighting for these delegates will be a great distraction that presents a golden opportunity for John McCain. 

Two months ago, a Republican president in 2009--especially one who has fervently supported the Iraq war like McCain--seemed impossible.  Now it's looking much more likely.