Loving diesel

Three weeks ago, Dean and I bought a new car.  Ostensibly, it is my car.  In fact, of the 367 miles that we have put on it to date, the vast majority have been “his” miles.  The car is a Volkswagen Jetta Wagen, TDI.  That TDI stands for, I think, turbo-diesel injected.  Translation:  This car is going to get really good mileage. It is also beautiful.

One of the cool things about the display in the car is the DTE (distance to empty) indicator.  When we got the car, it registered 400.  As we drove it, the DTE number increased!  Our official odometer reading is now 367, and the DTE is reading (drumroll) 200!  I drive it very little, and I do a lot of coasting.  I am mezmerized by the display.  I know that eventually I will have to fill the tank, but getting “free miles” until then is pretty satisfying.

Tools of the Trade

My position as Library Director has recently taken on a new dimension.  Because of budget rollbacks, when our Archivist retired this year, another staff member assumed the responsibilities of the position, resulting in the need for him to give up some of the things he was already doing.  One of the things that he gave up was “Facilities Management.”  I had managed to avoid that aspect of my job for eight years.  Now was the time to step up to the plate.

During my first week as facilities manager, I quickly got on a first-name basis with Nancy, who answers the phone and triages problems at the Office of Physical Plant.  I acquired all of the building keys, and my own set of allen wrenches.  I developed a tracking system so I could keep up with the reporting and completion of work orders.

But yesterday I really came into my own as facilities manager.  A plug broke, leaving a metal piece stuck in an outlet.  I called it in, but also decided that I should cover the outlet pending the repair.  Voila, duct tape!  I can do this job.

Learning in the Archives

The Phillips Academy Archives contains countless treasures.  The OWHL’s summer student workers, Cassie and Ashley, have spent time exploring those treasures while helping Interim Archivist Tim Sprattler work on projects this summer.

In response to an inquiry from an Andover alumnus who was part of the Academy’s Jazz Band “The Aces” during the 1950’s, the girls found and scanned pictures of the band.

They were surprised to learn that the Academy also had a marching band during the fifties.

Arranging itself into the letter “A” was the band’s signature move.  Another request (for information on Andover’s “Secret Societies” led the students to discover that not too long ago, Andover had what ammounted to residential fraternity houses.  This is the house inhabited by the members of PBX.

Many of these old houses still exist around campus.  It would be fun to do a scavenger hunt to see how many could be identified.  Cassie and Ashley enthusiastically agreed that it is great to have a summer job where you can learn interesting things while you are working.  The entire staff of the OWHL is in complete agreement.

Tim’s shirt says it all:

Primary sources at your fingertips

As recently as a generation ago, primary source research in American history required a great deal of patience and persistence.  Some of the best resources for contemporaneous accounts of historical events–newspapers–were available, if at all, on microfilm.  Few high school collections had the budgets necessary to offer users access to  the micro forms or the equipment needed to view them.  Fast forward to 2009.  Phillips Academy students  are indeed fortunate in being able to draw from a vast trove of digitized primary source material, including full-text access to important historical newspapers licensed by the OWHL.  The librarians are very proud of the resources that we offer, and frequently remind students that they can’t get to this excellent content using Google, because the materials are proprietary and hence not available on the free Internet.

While this remains true, the list of excellent free resources sponsored by universities and government agencies continues to grow.  A case in point is a rich site offered by  the Library of Congress.  The LC  has created Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers as part of  the National Digital Newspaper Program.  This site provides  digital access to historically significant  United States newspapers published between 1836 and 1922, and is freely available on the Internet.  The site is searchable and browsable, and the full-text page views are in PDF format and have durable URLs.  The site will continue to grow as additional states receive grants to digitize local papers.

Students of history have a much easier time these days finding primary source materials, so that they can devote their efforts to the hard work of interpreting and using them.  Come to think of it, that will still require patience and persistence.

YouTube and Education

It is impossible not to have an opinion about YouTube.  Based on an unscientific survey of my colleagues, many intelligent, thoughtful educators have little regard for the enormously popular video-sharing site.  But if you haven’t looked at YouTube lately, you might want to revise your judgement.  Many top colleges and universities–including UCLA, Stanford, Dartmouth and many more–have created excellent educational videos and uploaded them to YouTube’s educational site–http://www.youtube.com/edu.

YouTube EDU functions as an aggregator of the YouTube channels of the participating institutions.  Content includes lectures on hundreds of topics, as well as speeches and special presentations.  For example, commencement addresses (including the one at Notre Dame by President Obama, and the one at Duke by Oprah Winfrey) are archived for free viewing.  If you haven’t been to YouTube lately, you are in for a pleasant surprise.  What began as a fairly frivolous vehicle for self-promotion has morphed into an important educational resource.

Access to scholarly journals in print: A thing of the past?

Librarians have known for some time that this day was coming, but still, the announcement last week by the American Chemical Society that it is ceasing the distribution of the print editions of  all but three of its academic journals, and will offer the journals only online, was sobering.  It is hard to argue with the rationale for this decision, that “printing and distribution costs now exceed revenues from print journals.”  But are we really ready to give up, cold turkey, access to print-based publications?

Suspended!

Twitter (a free social messaging service “for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” has finally gained “academic respectability.”  According to a recent article in the British online journal the Telegraph,  “The social networking tool, which has 1.8 million users, will be listed in the 30th anniversary edition (of the Collins English Dictionary) to be published later this year.  The website, which allows users to send brief online updates to their friends and family, will appears as both a noun and a verb.”

Remarkably, after being a staunch Twitter-resister for more than a year, I recently took the plunge and created an account.  I did so because Elizabeth Thomsen, whom I highly respect, has encouraged me to do so, and Marci Silverman, with whom I rode my bike cross-country, twittered the whole trip.  In addition, at the recent National Educational Computing Conference, it would have been totally uncool to admit to being Twitter-less.  I began by “following” a few interesting people.  During NECC, I decided that it was time to “tweet.”

I sent one, very banal post.  Following the rules, I tagged it so that it would become part of the pool of NECC tweets by using the #NECC09 tag.  It was, I am confident, completely within the guidelines.

Imagine my shock and dismay when I attempted to log in to Twitter a couple of days later only to find this very harsh message.

I have again followed the instructions and appealed my suspension, but haven’t heard back from the Twitter police.  If you know me, you know that I am a dedicated rule-follower.  I was a girl scout and girl scout leader!  I am a librarian!  If you have a Twitter account, please tweet them on my behalf (@Twitter)  Please help free my account!

Mixed Marriage

Dean and I don’t always agree.

For instance, he is a night owl, while I am definitely a morning person.

Recently we had a disagreement about bicycles.  We both love to ride, and for a couple of years we have been researching  travel bikes.  These are bikes that are able to be packed in a standard suitcase.   (My desire for such a bike was recently reinforced when my beloved Trek was badly damaged by FedEx when I shipped it home from Florida.)   My investigations led me to Bike Friday, a company based in Eugene, Oregon, which is generally acknowledged to be the leader in packable performance bicycles.

I fell in love with the Pocket Rocket Pro Petite, and ordered one  custom built to my measurements.

This is what it looks like, except that mine is British Racing Green.

It is small and light, and I can take it apart and pack it in under 10 minutes.  It has excellent components, and it rides as well as my Trek.  If you have never seen a Friday before, you will probably be struck by the fact that it has small wheels. Honestly, you don’t notice it when you are on the bike, but Dean couldn’t get past it.

Instead, he decided to order a Bilenky. Bilenky is a real person.  This guy.

Dean went to his workshop, in a pretty sketchy part of Philadelphia, to order his bike.  It is  a custom-made steel bike with an S&S coupler connection.  The connection makes it possible to disassemble the bike and it just barely fits in a square (but still airline-compliant) suitcase.  However, it is MUCH more complicated to assemble and disassemble the bike.  More than I wanted to take on.  But Dean is delighted with it.

Given our experience in failing to agree on travel bicycles, I dreaded the negotiation that would be required to purchase our new car.  For a decade I have wanted to get a hybrid, and the last time (6 years ago) that Dean and I bought a car I got out-voted and we ended up with an Acura.  I began this round favoring the 2010 Prius and the new Honda Insight.  But then my son Alex suggested that I look at the Volkswagen TDI Jetta Sportwagen.

We began looking in December.  (Looking was complicated by the fact that all three of these cars are very popular, and hard to find.)  Eventually, (miraculously) Dean completed his “due dilligence”  and we agreed that the VW was  the car for us.

We took delivery last Thursday, and we are really pleased with our purchase.    We have driven the car 300 miles, and have barely made a dent in our first tank of diesel fuel.  Thanks, Volkswagen, for promoting  harmony in this mixed marriage.

NECC ’09: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

GOOD

The National Educational Computing Conference was excellent in many ways.  It was great to be in the nation’s capitol.  The program was packed with interesting, stimulating sessions.  The venue was spacious and comfortable.  The logistics, including the hotel shuttles, were well planned and executed.  And the vendors by themselves were worth the price of admission.

The entire lower level of the conference center was packed with exhibits.

The booths were attractive, imaginative, and, most importantly, informative.  Many vendors provided scheduled presentations on their products, and all of the exhibits were manned with helpful representatives of the sponsor.  Elvis was there.

As was this friendly Bee.

And the President and First Lady.

BAD

It was a great conference, but I had one significant disappointment.  I had agreed, ahead of time, to be registered as an official conference blogger.  (I also contributed four hours of volunteer time during the conference.)  There was an excellent wireless network at the venue.  Unfortunately, when I unpacked my suitcase late Sunday night, I realized that I had failed to include my power cord.  Having used my computer all day, I was nearly out of charge.  The hotel business center couldn’t help me, but I figured that I could come up with something at the conference.  On the second day, a very nice lady at the NECC volunteer booth let me charge my computer for a couple of hours.  Since the computers at the volunteer booth were not used after 6pm, I hoped to be able to borrow a cord over night.  Alas, my most persuasive arguments did not sway the conference coordinator to whom I made my request.  I think that the situation was analogous to that of academic reserves in the library–even though they may only be borrowed for 2 hours, we allow them to go out overnight, on the theory that no one is being deprived of their use while the library is closed.

I was disappointed that the ISTE rep. was so inflexible.  The down side risk was very low.  I was a registered attendee.  They know where I live.  I think that member organizations (like libraries) should have policies that recognize that they exist to serve the members.  Service organizations need to find ways to say “yes.”   I did manage to maintain a charge by sharing a cord with a couple of different people at my hotel, but it was complicated, and unnecessary.

While I am on the subject, I continue to be amazed that you can count on getting a free wireless connection from every Hampton Inn and Best Western across the country, but the much-more-expensive hotels rarely offer free service.  An Internet connection has become nearly as essential in a hotel room as the lights.  It should not be metered.

UGLY

This is not really the fault of NECC, but air travel has become increasingly difficult and unpredictable as the airlines have cut flights to stem their losses.   On Wednesday, a combination of bad weather and mechanical difficulties resulted in my spending more than ten hours at Washington National airport, two of which were on the tarmac. By the time the plane landed, my husband had already gone to the hospital for his overnight shift, so I was at the mercy of public transportation–very spotty at that time of the night.

It was an excellent conference.  I learned lots of things that I will share with the library staff and with the larger academy community.  But I am glad to be home, and back to work.

NECC at 30 — Washington, DC

One of my favorite Sunday morning rituals is reading the  NY Times cover to cover, sitting on my sun porch and balancing a mug of coffee on my lap.  Last Sunday I read the Times on a plane from Logan to Reagan International Airport, in Washington DC.  I was there for four days attending the 30th annual National Educational Computing Conference, sponsored by the International Society for Technology in Education.

Over the last decade, the library profession has been transformed by technology.  While the core principals haven’t changed isince the early part of the 20th century, when they were formulated by the Indian Mathematician and Librarian S.R. Ranganathan, the ways in which librarians select, arrange, deliver, and instruct about our resources are vastly different today.   Making it pretty hard, and very important, to keep up with technology tools that are currently influencing teaching and learning, and finding out about those that are on the horizon.  When I am at the Academy, I feel pretty confident in my status as a technology evangelist.  I am an early adopter, and eager user of available technology tools.  I am on the Academic Committee on Technology and teach teachers about technology tools and their uses in enhancing teaching and learning.    Nevertheless, whenever I attend conferences like NECC and Computers in Libraries, I am  blown away by the things that teachers and librarians are doing on the cutting edge.  It is humbling, but also tremendously energizing.

Before the conference actually began, I attended  a half-day workshop on Fair Use.  Having just spent my sabbatical studying Copyright, including taking seven online courses offered by the Center of Intellectual Property at the University of Maryland, the content was not new or surprising to me.  However, the presenters did an excellent job of pulling together materials (freely available on Wikispaces at Copyright Confusion) and in presenting them in such an engaging manner that the three hours (no break!) flew by.  The session featured Renee Hobbs, Temple University, Media Education Lab with Kristin Hokanson, Michael RobbGrieco and Joyce Valenza.

Joyce and I went to Japan together in 1998 as part of the Fulbright Teachers Program, and it was good to catch up with her.   The bottom line of the workshop is that fair use rights are extensive, and entirely consistent with the purpose of copyright.  We as educators need to understand and use these rights, and model appropriate fair use for our students.  To the extent that Librarians adopt a “gatekeeper” role, we shoot ourselves in the foot.

After the workshop, the conference got off to a fast start with the Opening Keynote by Malcolm Gladwell, whose best-selling books about contemporary social phenomena are very popular in the library.  Gladwell’s newest work is Outliers.

Because it is NECC’s 30th anniversary, we were treated to an opening gala featuring champagne and cupcakes!

The conference mirrored life in the information age, with plenty of technological overload.   There were keynote addresses, dozens of concurrent presentations, BYOL (bring your own laptop) instructional sessions, poster sessions, demonstration classrooms, ISTE division meetings, and dedicated “playgrounds.”  I volunteered in the 21st Century Media Center Playground, where participants could learn about Web 2.0 tools from wikis to Second Life.

The attendees were extremely engaged in learning from and with the expert presenters.

And all of that content was only the tip of the iceberg.  The vendors turned out in full force, offering displays, mini lessons, and unlimited technical support.  It was both exhilerating and exhausting.  By the time I boarded the shuttle bus route for my hotel each day, I had put in twelve hours of work/learning.  I was on the pink route, naturally.

The conference was held at the DC Convention center.  It a huge venue, on three levels,  on both sides of 11th street.  It took me a couple of days to learn my way around.  The center sported some unconventional sculpture.  This bicycle wreath, suspended in a stairwell,  was my favorite.

I ventured outside of the convention center one evening to attend a client reception and tour of  the new Blackboard coprporate offices.

The Bb offices were beautiful, but couldn’t compare to the understated majesty of the Library of Congress.

LC sponsored an evening reception for attendees.  It was an incredible privilege to be allowed inside areas that are usually off-limits to the public.