Would you like to hear something beautiful?

The Syracuse University Library is making digital copies of their old wax cylinder recordings available. Have a listen to these beautiful church bells, recorded in 1923.

It's a part of Syracuse University's Belfer Audio Archive. They are digitizing thousands of these old wax cylinder recordings.

Not into church bells? How about a rousing march, instead? Or perhaps some whistling?

It gives me goosebumps to think of the wonderful audio treasures they're preserving and sharing with the world. Explore their site and enjoy.

Thoughts on Purchasing Magazines and Books

Issue by issue, Crossed Genres is disappearing. Disaster has not struck, but by contract, the publisher possesses the rights to the short stories for one calendar year, after which the rights revert to the authors. When my story "Stay" was published in Issue 12, Issue 1 was still available in the store, so I didn't quite realize the full ramifications of the contract. Issue 1 was removed from the Crossed Genres website and from all stores at the end of November. Issue 2 will be removed at the end of December, less than two weeks from now. In just ten months and a couple of weeks, Issue 12, with my story, will vanish from the world until I find some other avenue to get it republished.

The editors of the magazine were very good about publicizing the end of Issue 1 via their blog (and are now doing the same for Issue 2). Read it or buy it now, or lose your chance forever. So I bought a copy of Issue 1 in late November. Issue 1 is gone from the website and from all stores. You can't get it anymore. But I still have my print copy on my bookshelf. There is no way for any publisher or lawyer to revoke it. It is legally mine for as long as I choose to own it (barring theft, fire, or other unforeseen events, of course).

For my Christmas present to myself, I purchased Issues 2-13 in print. So when Issue 2 vanishes at the end of December, I won't have to worry about whether or not I've finished reading it. I have a print copy that will be mine forever. It will never expire. I won't have to worry about the rest of the issues disappearing month by month. I can read them at my leisure, even if they sit on my shelf for ten years before I get to them. (And I do have books that have been waiting ten or more years in my Garden of the Unread. I'm stockpiling for a snowy day, or retirement.)

This brings me to the idea of ownership versus access, a huge topic in the library world.

The University of Anywhere Library subscribes to Database ABC, which includes full-text access to 10,000 journals. It's great for the students who can do their research from home. The library serves them, even if they never once set foot inside the building.

The library's shelves are packed to bursting. There's no money for a building expansion, so something has to go, or they'll be forced to stack books on the floor. The librarians decide that since Database ABC has full-text access to 30 years of back issues, they can weed their print copies of any journals that are among the 10,000 included in the database. That frees up a lot of shelf space, and the students, preferring online access, haven't been using those paper copies anyway. For a while, everyone is happy.

But the library has budget cuts. The cost of serials goes up every year at a rate much, much higher than the rate of inflation, so even if the library has a static budget, that translates to real cuts in journal subscriptions. And Database ABC is expensive, and the price just went up another couple thousand dollars. After several years of static budgets alternating with cuts, the library has already cut everything nonessential, and they're now forced to take a long, hard, painful look at Database ABC, which is so very critical to the collection.

So the library drops their subscription to Database ABC and subscribes to a new service, Database GHI, which is significantly cheaper. Database GHI also has full-text access to 10,000 journals, but only 6,000 of those were included in Database ABC. So the library has gotten 4,000 new journals, but has lost 4,000 old ones. There is no access to back issues for the years they paid for. They're just gone.

Among those 4,000 lost are a couple hundred journals for which the library once had print subscriptions. If the library had kept their paper copies, they would still have access to the back issues, even though they canceled the subscription. But since the library tossed them to make space, they're just gone forever.

See the difference? You buy a print journal or book, and it's yours. You own it. You don't have to worry about licenses or contracts. You paid for the print copy, and you have the right to read it, loan it, give it away, sell it, or keep it until you die and designate its new owner in your will. That is ownership.

With electronic materials, what you're typically buying is access. You might have access for a set period of time, or you might have access for as long as you subscribe to the service. It all depends on the license agreement. You don't own anything. You can't loan it, give it away, sell it, or even keep it. If you cancel the service, your access vanishes.

And access is often proprietary. If you bought 100 books for your Amazon Kindle, and you want to switch over to a Barnes & Noble nook, do you think you can transfer those 100 books to your new device? If you're not sure, the answer is no. Will that change in the future? Maybe. Will it change in time for it to matter? Who knows?

Remember the brouhaha a while ago about George Orwell's works on the Amazon Kindle? There was a licensing issue, and Amazon deleted those editions of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm from the Kindles of everyone who had purchased them. The customers' money was refunded, but that wasn't the point.

If people had purchased print editions of Nineteen Eighty-Four, then no matter what licensing issue came up, neither Amazon nor the publisher would have had the right to go into people's homes and remove the physical books from the shelves.

There was a big outcry from the public, and Amazon basically said, "Sorry. Won't happen again." But there is really nothing to stop them from doing it again. There is actually nothing illegal about what they did. Since copyright law was involved, Amazon probably felt they not only had the right but also the obligation to delete those books from customers' Kindles.

And this is the main reason I prefer to buy print copies of things I want to keep.

Sometimes I'm fine with simple access. If I watch a video on YouTube, I don't necessarily want to own a DVD of it, and I wouldn't particularly care if the video were deleted the next day, never to be accessed by anyone again. Likewise when I read an article in the news or on someone's blog, I rarely have cause to refer back to it later. Access is enough, and if it goes away, I'm not troubled.

Generally, I don't care to own magazines. Crossed Genres is different because each issue is a collection of short stories, which in my mind are less ephemeral than most articles.

For books, when I borrow a book from a friend or a library, I return it when I'm done. I access it via a promise or a library card, but I don't own it. But if I really, really like the book, I'll go out and buy a copy to ensure that my access to it will never vanish when my friend moves away or when the library weeds it from their collection.

Some people say content is the only factor of importance, and the carrier (physical or electronic) is irrelevant. But I say that the carrier fundamentally transforms the way we relate to the content. I'm not saying one is superior to the other, but that they are different. You must think about this when you decide whether you want to own or simply access a particular book or magazine. Do you want to just read it once and be done with it, or do you want to ensure that you always have it whenever you want it? And if you want to loan it, you need to own it.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the ownership-versus-access question, but it's important to consider it as you make decisions about how you want your media, whether it be books, magazines, movies, or music.

Video + Book = ?

Remember how I was ranting about video ads in print magazines?

Vooks are ebooks with video interspersed through the text. And while there is no print involved with Vooks, some people (like me) don't really like to read long texts on a screen. I prefer online for short texts and print for long ones. And since there are still a lot of people like me who want physical books, anyone who desires to make money will try to get their text into as many formats (i.e. markets) as possible.

With those ultra-thin video screens they're designing for magazines, they could make print editions of these Vooks (minus the social networking aspects, unless some clever person figures out a way to build a wireless connection into a print book). Of course, I hope the next company to get in the game comes up with a better name than "Vook."

Now, I wouldn't want all of my books to have videos. The whole point of reading a novel, for me, is to enjoy the pictures that form in my head. I'd just as soon not have that spoiled by someone else's idea of what the characters and setting look like.

However, for illustrated children's books, how-to manuals, textbooks, and many other types of print material, accompanying videos might be very appealing. But let me tell you, if a video is integral to the text, I'd MUCH rather have it physically embedded in the book than have to stop reading, head over to the computer or dig some electronic device out of my bag, and go online, as you'd have to do if you were something like Anthony E. Zuiker's Level 26: Dark Origins. (I haven't read it, so I have nothing to say for or against the book. I'm just pointing out its existence as a hybrid text, which I wouldn't have even known about if it hadn't been mentioned in the New York Times article.)

At that point, you really cease to have a book. You have something new. That's not necessarily bad, but reading a text in a linear fashion--with no hyperlinks, no video, nothing but you and the printed word--engages the brain in a different way than one typically interacts with an electronic text. I don't know about you, but when I read something online, I tend to follow links, check out less-familiar terms in Wikipedia, shoot off the occasional email, then return to the text. Before I finish an article, I might have ten related browser tabs open. In other words, when I read online, I multitask.

Reading offline, in print, provides the opportunity to monotask. That's not something we do a lot of in the modern world. And I think it's something we need.

So maybe we don't need videos embedded in our books. I'm sure someone will do it anyway. People will always experiment with combining technologies in all kinds of ways. Some will fail, and some will take off and change our society. But I think there will always be a place for the old fashioned print novel alongside all the new forms of storytelling. The new hybrid books will not supersede the original; there's plenty of room for coexistence. We need different formats for different experiences, and I think people like to be able to change pace once in a while.

The Joy of Serendipity

Ah, Serendipity!

My nephews loaned me all five books of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I'm only a few chapters into The Lightning Thief, but so far, I'm enjoying it.

However, as it happened, I forgot to take the book to work this morning. Then when lunchtime came, I had nothing to read.

Well, I work in a library, so this wasn't really a problem. I checked the catalog to see if we had The Lightning Thief, and we did. So I went out to the shelves to get it, so I could keep reading where I'd left off.

However, it was missing from the shelf. In its place was a misshelved book. I took that book to reshelve it in its proper place, and there I spotted a stray book that fallen into the space between shelves. It likely would have been lost forever if I had not noticed it through the gap between the properly shelved books.

As I pulled it out the fallen book, intending to reshelve it properly, neither its bland blue cover nor its nondescript title Nine Fairy Tales caught my attention, but the author's name certainly did. Čapek. I thought, Now there's a good Czech name. I wonder if this is a Czech book? And indeed it is. It is written by Karel Čapek and illustrated by Josef Čapek (and translated into English by Dagmar Herrmann, which is good, because I can't read Czech).

Karel and Josef Čapek, you may know, are the authors of R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), the play which gave the word robot to the world.

So I took Nine Fairy Tales to the breakroom to read during my lunch break.

It is wonderful! It is filled with delight and charm, with a fair dose of that excellent Czech dry humor. The first chapter began with a clever old woman and her black cat, a disobedient princess, and an honorable king, then predictably ended with a rich old woman, a happy princess and cat, and a somewhat bemused king. In the second chapter, the cat met the palace dogs. I knew how I expected this chapter to progress, however, I was surprised by the turn of events. The third chapter brought more surprises. I think the predictable first chapter was only to lull the reader into a false sense of security. I am greatly looking forward to the next chapter, because I can't even imagine where this tale will go.

And I would never have even known it existed if not for an unlikely chain of events. It's little coincidences like these, too perfect to be random, that fill the world with mystery.

Save our Children's Books!

The poorly-conceived, overly-broad Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act which went into effect on Feb. 10, was intended to protect children from lead in toys and other products for children. However, an unintended side effect could ban access to all children's books printed before 1985. What a horrifying loss to our culture.

What can you do? For easy, but probably ineffective, action, sign a petition. For the chance to actually make a difference, contact your congressman! Representative Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska has sponsored H.R. 1692, which would exempt normal books from the CPSIA. Urge your representative to support this resolution!

And if the impact on books isn't enough to get you upset about this dreadful law, think about it's impact on everything from secondhand clothing to hand-me-down bicycles. Handmade toys and clothes are likewise contraband. Have a favorite toy from your childhood? Forget about passing it on to your kids.

The more I read about CPSIA and how it is absolutely destroying entire industries, the more it sickens me.

Nearest Book meme

"dribbling violation: steps, traveling, walking"
Flip Dictionary, Barbara Ann Kipfer. Writer's Digest Books, 2000.

Rules:
* Get the book nearest to you. Right now.
* Go to page 56.
* Find the 5th sentence.
* Write this sentence - either here or on your blog.
* Copy these instructions as commentary of your sentence.
* Don't look for your favorite book or your coolest but really the nearest.

(My quote probably would have been a lot more interesting if the nearest book to me hadn't been a reference tool.)

I caught this meme from The Travelin' Librarian. Pass it on. And if your nearest book is a juicy novel (or not), post your sentence in the comments section (if you feel like it).

The Three C's: Coffee, Candy, and Cataloging

I attended a workshop on cataloging sound recordings today. (It was excellent, by the way. The Nebraska Library Commission always does such a good job.) During the lunch break, a colleague and I ventured forth to find coffee. We spotted big awning that proclaimed in huge letters, "Panache, your neighborhood's best coffee." When we went into the building, the letters on the door identified the place simply as "The Coffee House." My colleague got an iced latte, and I got a "Mex Mocha."

I knew I was in for a higher class of latte when I saw the barista get out the massive glass jug of milk. Yes, they were using real organic farm milk. Oh, heaven! Oh, bliss! As implied by the "Mex," the flavor was more like cocoa than the average mocha-grade chocolate, and there was a nice cinnamon bite to it. I have had "Aztec" or "Mayan" mochas before, but this was by far the best.

Now, perhaps I was just pumped up about the cataloging workshop, or perhaps my brain is just naturally warped, but I actually found myself thinking about the sign on the awning versus the sign on the door. I imagined creating a MARC record for the coffee shop. Hey, librarians catalog much more than books. We catalog tools and artwork and historical artifacts, so I see no reason whatsoever that we couldn't catalog a building. But the question is, would one catalog a building as an architectural structure or a place of business? I suppose that's the difference between cataloging it as a serial or as a single monograph of a numbered series.

Anyway, AACR2 and LCRI probably don't prescribe a chief source of information for a building. Would it be the largest sign, visible from the street? That was my gut reaction. On the other hand, what about the sign on the door? Well, with a book, the chief source is defined as the title page. If you take the awning to be analogous to the cover and the door to the title page, then The Coffee House would be the title proper and Panache would be an alternate title.

Well, a little searching on Google verified that The Coffee House is the official name of the business, and Panache is actually the brand of coffee they serve. However, I found a spot on a UNL webpage referring to "Panache Coffee House" as a co-sponsor of the Elizabeth I: Ruler and Legend Conference (how cool is that!), so obviously some Lincoln residents do think of Panache as the name of the business. That's enough justification for inclusion for me. (Add access points based on actual use! Bend those rules! That's what cataloger's judgment is for!)

Anyway, this brought me to:

245 14 $a The Coffee House.
246 1_ $i Sign on awning : $a Panache : $b your neighborhood's best coffee


Those of you who don't work in libraries are looking at that and thinking, "WTF?" Those of you who do work in libraries are looking at it and thinking, "Hey, where's your GMD?" What would be the GMD for a building anyway? Realia?

Anyway, I'm going to stop now, before I lose my non-library readers, if I haven't lost them already.

After returning to Omaha, I made a beeline for my bank. The new presidential dollars were supposed to be released into circulation today, and I was hyper-hyper-hyped for it. Hooray for Thomas Jefferson, our third president on his own shiny gold dollar!

I got to my bank and they didn't have any. They won't have them in until next Wednesday.

Sigh.

Despondent, I trudged over to get some take-out Chinese food and a candy bar for dinner.

Now, about this candy bar . . . it was a Peanut Butter & Banana Creme Reese's Big Cup, "King Size" in honor of Elvis. Now, the idea of peanut butter and bananas together was absolutely appalling to me. However, I have this thing, see--I must try every new flavor of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups that comes out, and I must buy it upon first-sighting. It's a requirement. Okay, I lied. It's just an obsession. Anyway, with great trepidation, I bought the PB and banana cups.

To my immense shock, I liked them. It's actually a delicious combination. I'm traumatized and delighted at the same time.

So now I'm stuffed full of Shanghai chicken and peanut butter, banana creme, and chocolate, and I'm still sliding off the caffeine buzz. The PlayStation 2 calls . . .