A Break from the Heat
Posted On Aug 8 2007My wife and I just decided that we would rather live without heat than air conditioning. We decided this after living for four days without it, during the hottest week of the year in Raleigh. A mixture of bad luck and some repairman incompetence made for a very long weekend. I remember when I first started at NC State, I jokingly asked one of the older staff why everyone in N.C. walked so slow. She replied—quite wisely—that you can separate North Carolinians into two camps: those who lived here before air conditioning and those who moved here after it became …
An Unerring Eye for the Inessential
Posted On Jul 25 2007Every once in a while, I read something that just grabs me by the throat. If I’m lucky, it stimulates my thinking, makes me laugh, and prompts me to actually do something. I recently had such an experience when my boss forwarded a reprint of an article by Maurice Line, whom I am now ashamed to admit I had never heard of. He worked for the British Library and was a consultant before he retired in 2005. “Librarianship as it is practiced: a failure of intellect, imagination and initiative” was reprinted in Interlending & Document Supply (33/2, 2005, pp. 109-113). …
Annual, Day One: Homecoming
Posted On Jun 22 2007My first day in Washington for the ALA Annual Conference. I was born in this city and have so far not been reminded why I wanted so badly to leave. It’s nice when the nostalgia lingers. D.C. is a great city, but it can also be hard to live in a place where the barometer changes substantially every 4–8 years. I grew up in the burbs, but I still miss things about this place—the culture, serious politics, and some of the people. I miss the Washington Post. As I write this, I am actually squatting on the exhibit hall floor—it’s amazing …