Author: Erica Firment

Erica Olsen Firment is an omnivorous mammal of the genus Ailurus, having an endothermic physiology and a long, furry tail. Erica's range extends to both deciduous and coniferous forests, and can often be found working on software user interfaces and creating information architectures in Silicon Valley.
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I, for one, welcome our new alien overlords…

So, yesterday was fun. Didn’t you have fun? I sure did.

Work was a funeral yesterday. Everyone trudged around with these 1000-mile stares. A couple of us went to the gym at lunch to work off some anger. Surprisingly, it worked. After the first ten minutes the endorphins kicked in, and my feelings of suicidal angst toned down to a mild incapacitating depression.

Today I’m feeling better. We had the first frost of the year, and the walk to work was enchanting. A pond filled with frost-tipped cattails is a good tool to restore calm. Like most blue state Americans today, I’m going to get on with my life, do my job, and live the way I want to live. That’ll piss ’em off.

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The librarian vote

I set all of my clocks back an hour last night, which was fine, but I forgot to reset the cat. He woke me up this morning at 6am by doing an extemporaneous tap dance on my head.

Tap!

Tap tap!

Tapetty tap tap POUNCE!

Purr, purr, shuffle-toe, purr purr POUNCE!

The other cat, by the way, the rescued-from-a-tree one, was given the boot after a short incident where he violently reconfigured my hand. Since the last potential owner fell through, we decided to put the thug outside, hopefully to return to whence he came.

I’m going to be an election inspector tomorrow. That means I’ll be one of the people who checks off your name in the book and gives you the little “I voted” sticker. There will be no spurious vote challenges on my watch. Grr, I say! Grr. F334 my l33t voter-facillitation skillz!

Actually, the whole thing is rather librarianish. I got this nice reference packet during my training, that explains the whole process. I get to inform voters of their rights, handle long lines, and if someone is in the wrong polling place, I research where they should go. It’s going to be a 16-hour shift, but it’ll keep me from frantically checking the internet all day, and I’ll actually be doing something to help make sure this all goes right.

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Cat up tree. Seriously.

Meyow meyow…MEYOW!

I’m getting in my car to go to work when I hear pitiful cat sounds coming from above my head. Waaaay above my head. 33 feet above my head. I know this because it is exactly eight feet taller than our tallest ladder. Which I got out when I realized that this was the same cat I had heard outside the previous day. Making his total time up in the tree at least 32 hours. Making me worry that he would starve to death up there. Making me get out the ladder.

I get out the ladder, some cat food, and my best kitty-calling voice, but nothing works. I fall off the ladder and land on my back in a pile of leaves. Cat food flies everywhere. The cat is still meyowing, and I’m late for work.

I call the Cayuga Heights fire department’s non-emergency number and am connected with a sympathetic woman in the village office. A few minutes later the fire department shows up. I spend about five minutes apologizing for bringing them out on such a dumb call, but they appear excited. One of the guys has a digital camera and takes photos as they lash my ladder to the tree and climb up to rescue the cat.

The cat is rescued. A kind neighbor calls around and finds someone who might own him. I stuff the cat into our cat carrier and haul him down the street. In spite of his ordeal, this cat is still seriously overweight. The nutball potential owner has apparently forgotten that his similar-looking cat DIED A YEAR AGO and sends me on my way. I haul the growling cat back down the street and put him in our downstairs office. I feed him. He eats faster and more heartily than any cat I’ve ever seen.

Anybody want a cat?

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New Schlock

t-shirt photoIn case there was any doubt:

“Librarianship, Profession of the Overeducated”

As always, proceeds go to the “Librarian’s mortgage” fund, where they will go toward the Actual Mortgage of a Real Librarian.

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Number Inflation

number inflation

What has happened to big numbers? Units aside, a sizable amount of something used to be counted in the hundreds. One thousand was Grand. Tens of thousands were quite enough.

The digital age has brought about a curious sort of obsolescence for formerly large numbers. Googol (the number) became popular around the 1980’s, with its goofy appeal and almost inconceivable size. As processing power increased, Megs shifted to Gigs, and on to Terras. Goofy googol became a simple search engine, billion is a household word, and nobody is very impressed by millions anymore. What’s next? What gigantic sum will satisfy our ever-hungry minds? Must we begin speaking in scientific notation? Will the cockroaches that inherit the earth discuss infinities of infinities over their radioactive lunches?

It’s too much to think about. I’m going back to preschool, where a hundred still means something.

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Hi Wired News readers, Publib.

Jeepers. A recent link in Wired News (thanks Katykins!) has led to lots of unexpected traffic, which means I should probably get off my e-butt and do some updates.

If you’re new to this site, welcome, librarians are great, don’t be afraid of the reference desk, and by the way, our webforums got hacked awhile ago and I haven’t pieced them back together yet.

Librarian Avengers visitors usually fall into the following categories:

  • Frazzled librarians looking for fellowship
  • Hipster librarians looking to put the “hepcat” in cataloging
  • Library students looking for evidence that their future can be cardigan-free
  • Disenfranchised humanities majors tossing around the idea of becoming a librarian
  • Journalists trolling for material for the next “ohmygod librarians have a sense of humor and are kinda sexy” article.

With that said, I’ll try to provide some appropriate resources. ‘Cause that’s what librarians do.

Compulsively.

  • Librarian.net – Jessamyn’s librarian news site. Check out her naked librarians page. Updated daily, and chock full of goodness.
  • Well Dressed Librarian – A librarian with style. I just love this fellow. I’d have him over, but I’d have to polish my silver first.
  • The ALA’s guide to accredited U.S. library schools. You’ll be wanting an accredited one if you want to work in the States.
  • Gin, search and retrieval, the weblog I kept while I was in library school. All of the dirt. Well, 5% of the dirt, anyway.
  • A list of frikkin’ funny librarian websites.
  • Unshelved, the comic strip about librarians. No kidding. It’s funny.
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Blogging for the library crowd

Sorry I haven’t updated in a few weeks. I’ve been busy downloading music from this quasi-legal Russian mp3 site. But not at work (hi library colleagues). And there was some vacation involved. And dog-sitting. And basement wall dry-locking.

Speaking of the theft of intellectual property, at work recently I’ve been looking at online digital collections and identifying nifty interface elements we can borrow for the cataloging/digital library software we’ve been making. There’s some pretty rad stuff out there.

I’ve been liking the NYPL’s Picture Collection Online, in spite of it’s bass-akwards name. (Adjective Adjective NOUN, people. We don’t call you the Public Library New York, do we?) Plus, it’s the only library search interface I’ve seen to contain the word “bollicky” in the source code.

You all might know about this already, but coolperson Marguerita clued me in to the new TNT movie “The Librarian“. Unless April fools came early this year. Or USA Today isn’t a legitimate news source…

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George W? Not in my backyard

I’m really torn. Should I take a vacation day to attend the Republican National Convention protest? Yes, of course I should. Friend Scott and I wanna join up with the Billionaires for Bush. We’ll strut around the Free Speech Zone with canes and top hats, and carry signs that say: “More Blood for Oil” and “The Poor are just JEALOUS, darling!”

Does anybody know if any librarian affinity groups are going? Perhaps a radical reference gang? We could all don our best “librarian” outfits and form a Book Bloc! Dozens of librarians in cardigans and sensible shoes decrying the Patriot Act! It would be beautiful…

Also, an administrative note: the webforums will be down for a few more days. The database is currently sitting on my desk in a box. I’m reinstalling and recreating the whole thing. I’m sorry, but once again real life has taken the reins. Installing new gutters and painting the downstairs office gets done first. It’s not that I don’t love you, it’s just that I love my foundation more.