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It is a very interesting time. As I gear up for another ALA conference, in the very rare spare moments I encounter I’ve been reflecting a bit on my life, my career, and inevitably… this blog.

I’ve seen the signs– blogging is dead. Well, no it’s not. But I’m certainly not the only one I know who’s taken a hiatus. I know the arguments– Friendfeed and/or Twitter have killed blogs. However, in my case that’s really not it. I remain semi-active on Twitter, but I’ve rarely spent any time at all on Friendfeed.

I have a lot going on right now. The transition from Library School student to full-fledged MLS’d librarian happened in mid-April, when I gave my final capstone presentation. I thought, “Ah-ha! Now I will blog again.”

But I did not. I spent evenings with my daughter. We went for bike rides, we read aloud together, we went to the park, and we spent many, many hours on the swing in the front yard.

And I don’t regret a minute of it.

However, by late May I began to feel antsy again and I started putting together presentations, trainings, reading a few blogs here and there, etc. But I just haven’t had the extra time to blog. As you can see from my last “post”, I had intended on live-blogging the Rocky Mountain Innovative Users Group summer workshop—but I ended up needing to come back up to Boulder after our patron network crashed for most of the day.

Which leads me to why I’m really not blogging. It turns out that moving from a position where you have little power (and therefore little responsibility) to one of great responsibility is a huge shift in many different ways.

Before, I could spend the evening on a whim staying up late coding a cool website or mashup just because I thought it would be fun. I could head off to pretty much any meeting, conference, or committee that I could drive to and afford. I could spend my time exploring and playing with ideas and writing rants about what needs to change.

But now I actually have to *do it*.

There’s no one to blame anymore if things don’t turn out well. There’s no “administration” that won’t let me implement something cool for our department. There’s no lack of ability to control the purse-strings or to delegate the tasks. Now I have to figure out how to be the one to get buy-in. I have to figure out how to take ideas from conception to reality not just in my own little office sphere—but across an entire organization.

I have to manage people. Granted—I managed work-study students at the University Libraries, and I managed all kinds of folks in the past in restaurants, sales jobs, etc. But it’s very different managing people who are mostly older than you, who are highly skilled, and who just plain have a whole lot more experience than you. Let me say this—I am ever more grateful *every day* that I had a management class in library school and that the Colorado Association of Libraries Leadership Institute has been so fantastic. It has really taught me a lot and helped me through some pretty intense challenges.

I also have spent a lot of time adjusting to my new role as professional. It’s no longer my job to do all of the nuts and bolts of coding up some new web tool or bringing online a new gadget. That’s something I have to remember. Now it’s time to trust and, when necessary, coach my staff and let them go do it. I need to keep my head in the clouds for strategic visioning and future casting. I need to participate, contribute to, and help shape policy development. I need to empower others.

I have to remind myself of this every once in a while. I almost spent this last weekend at DrupalCamp Colorado because it was “cool”. But I would have come home and played with Drupal all night, and not paid attention to caring for myself, my house, my pets, or getting ready for ALA—not to mention handling my management responsibilities for the week. I had to step back and remember, “things are different now”.

And that’s just fine. It’s tough to be stretched in many directions. However, I prefer to think that’s just a process of expanding myself. Expanding who I am and what I’m capable of. I only hope I remain malleable like silly putty—and don’t crack like old rubber band.

See you in Chicago!

So, you probably know the drill by now:

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your home page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.

Of course, like my friend the fabulous Colleen, I chose to break the rules and just post it in my blog so I can share it around to Friendfeed (oh yeah, I should check that site once in a while, shouldn’t I?) and other digital places I once had time to visit. (Remember me, teh Internet? Oh hai!)

1. I am the Brewin’ Librarian…. but I rarely have time to brew any more. I hate to confess this, but in the last two years I’ve probably only made about four batches of beer (and one didn’t turn out well– first time in 10 years!). Also, I drink more red wine than beer these days, and except for at conferences, I don’t actually drink very often at all.

2. From the time my daughter was 2 until she was 7 I was a single dad. I didn’t really know that much about parenting or children, but I worked hard and asked a *lot* of questions and she seems to have turned out alright. =)

3. During that same time I returned to school as a “non-traditional student” and received my undergrad in political science. I did this mostly to live off of student loans so that I could keep my parenting schedule open and flexible. I was fairly unfocused at the time but was tired of sales and restaurant management and needed a change.

4. When I first went into library school, I knew I loved libraries but I wasn’t entirely sure it was the right field for me. I primarily did so to avoid paying off my massive undergrad debt (see above). However, I have since found that librarianship has brought happiness and a fulfillment to my life that is only rivaled by being a dad (although libraries are still distant second to that).

5. I am a certified ballet Dad. When my daughter was younger, she was very interested in ballet and I did everything I could to support it. I swallowed my pride and asked for scholarships, I moved my own school/work schedule around hers, and I learned more than I thought I’d ever know about an art form previously bewildering to me. On the day before her first recital, she accidentally tore off some of the sequins from the bottom of her tutu. Although I can’t sew for the life of me, I sat in a restaurant that day, sewing up a child’s lavender tutu and did a pretty damn good job of it. I consider this one of my greatest accomplishments.

6. I got my first computer at age 12, it was one of those old TRS-80s with 4k RAM that you had to program in BASIC, and run off of a cassette drive. Later, I took it apart and upgraded it to a whopping 16K RAM.

7. For years I was part of the “Elite” BBS hacker scene. I ran a series of BBS boards, founded and ran a network of BBSes that spanned 7 countries. However, I was never a “black hat” type hacker, I was only ever interested in learning what cool things I could do with a computer or network– I’ve never caused any harm. This was WAY before the Internet.

8. However, once I heard of the Internet, like every good little hacker, I promptly managed to “borrow” an unused Washington University student’s account to gain access. This was before you could purchase an account. As soon as I could purchase Internet access, I did so, mostly because I had drifted away from the hacking and BBS scene by then anyway.

9. Like most computer geeks, my diet growing up was terrible. I could probably eat pizza three times a day. Sadly, although I struggle with this, my diet still has not improved as much as I’d like it to.

10. I have memorized the lyrics to probably hundreds of songs. I seem to have a knack for it. People used to joke that I could pull out a song for any occasion. I know the lyrics because when I’m alone in my car, or with my daughter, I sing constantly. However, I *highly* doubt you’ll ever hear me singing in public. Last year at Internet Librarian, I was positively mortified at the thought of doing karaoke. Well… until I saw Stephen Abram’s video.

11. If I had my way, all schools, offices, government buildings, etc. would start their business day at 10am, not at 8. Starting the day at 8am is just uncivilized.

12. I am addicted to coffee. And no, I don’t see it as a problem. I have done the research and as far as I can tell the one Mocha I have to start each day is having very little negative effect on my health. I keep it pretty strictly at one Mocha a day. If you see me drinking a latte in the afternoon or evening, look out– I’m getting ready to party!

13. I am gaming librarian partially because I feel it is a professional obligation. In truth, while I enjoy games, I really don’t feel like I have enough time to be gaming a lot. However, I do enjoy Civilization IV to the point where I have to watch myself from being sucked in for 2 days straight.

14. I love technology, but I don’t think it’s nearly as important as being nice to each other, having clean air, providing affordable health care, etc. Perspective, people, perspective!

15. I grew up in an extremely backwards Pentecostal church that not only believed that the world was going to end in 1989 (it didn’t) but hated homosexuals, people of color, etc. To this day, I am pretty suspicious of religions.

16. Because I didn’t fit into my surroundings as a child, I spent hours and hours and hours in the library. Eventually my reading habits caused me to be kicked out of the house. I left home at age 17 and slept under the bleachers of my high school football stadium. I went to school every day and work every night because I knew education was my future. I graduated from high school with honors.

17. Although I’m an old school punk rocker from the 80s, somehow I ended up going to about 8 or 9 Grateful Dead shows before Jerry died, and I’ve been to more Phish shows than I can count. I don’t like to just be stuck in one box—musically, or otherwise.

18. I spent about 10 years of my life essentially “homeless”. During this time I was neither destitute and most of the time I was not miserable. I was exploring the possibilities of alternative lifestyles and gathering material for writing. I’ve slept in abandoned buildings, tents, caves, in trees, vacant lots, you name it. I met an amazing array of people and traveled almost all of the country during this time. I took temporary jobs in whatever town I landed in– often day labor positions– and learned about a side of America few understand.

19. Despite my amount of traveling, I have never been to “the South” other than (grudgingly) Texas and Florida.

20. I grew up during the height of the great 80s punk rock scene. I saw Black Flag, Naked Raygun, Big Black, the Circle Jerks, MDC, Operation Ivy, and a slew of other bands in tiny little clubs. I used to party with the Smashing Pumpkins when they were nobody. Still to this day I can’t resist getting into the mosh pit when a good band comes around– I just do it wearing a black suit instead of a spiked leather jacket.

21. I rode a skateboard daily from age 9 until age 25. I used to be pretty good– just on the edge of competition quality until the 90s broke open a whole new class of tricks. A couple of years ago, I pretty much gave it up. It hurts a lot when I hit the concrete now and between that and my bad knees and ankle it’s just not as much fun anymore.

22. To make up for my loss of skateboarding, when I moved to Colorado about 9 years ago I took a job at the local ski resort for the first winter before I went back to a “real” job. I learned to snowboard and in one season progressed from a total novice to a back-country junkie. I still love it, although I’ve slowed down a bit and stick mostly to ski resorts and the blue and black runs.

23. When I was 18, my Grandma (who was not a part of our crazy church and did her best to expose me to other things) took me to what is now the former Yugoslavia for my high school graduation present. Her parents had come to the U.S. in the early 1900s from there and spoke Serbo-Croatian in the home. We both wanted to see the place our family came from. It was lovely, and the people were kind. But when I spoke to the young punks and anarchists over there, they warned me that trouble was brewing. Two years later, the country was torn apart by civil war.

24. One of the most profound experiences of my life was getting off the plane in communist Yugoslavia and realizing that the people, and their way of life, were really no different. To this day, I remain stubbornly unconvinced that capitalism is always “good” and that communism is always “bad”.

25. Although I always expected to be a writer. I found that the truth is…. I hate to write. I feel like my vocabulary is poor and my ideas predictable, and I just hate making myself sit down and slogging it all out. That’s why my blog is lonely and this list took forever. =)

Tag! You’re it!

The new director at BPL and I share an ambitious vision of what libraries can and should be and are very excited to begin working together toward those goals. I’ll be working with the local Boulder technology scene to create a learning laboratory supporting the creative expression of the staff and community.

We will also be implementing programs to address the digital divide, which I see as more a compelling problem than ever as our job market is not only tightening, but requiring a greater range of technical skills. There are still so many without easy access to computers or the training needed to use even the most common software packages on the job.

An interesting thing about this opportunity is that it really highlights the leadership-management differences we discussed in the recent CAL Leadership Institute. During the interview I asked for clarification on this point and it was stressed that this was *leadership* position in which they were looking for vision, much more so than a management position in which I was to maintain the status quo. That is the most exciting thing about the job!

Here’s to an exciting new year!  I’ll be writing more about what’s coming later….

Oh, well… test video. Consider it an “alpha”. =)

I’m disappointed that I won’t get a chance to hang out with Max Macias a bit more– but he’s busy with a much more important project right now. (I’m leaving my skateboard at home now, buddy). But I’m excited to spend some more time with my online friends in person and connect with more LSW members I haven’t yet met.

One of the things I’m doing for myself is a long, leisurely two-day trip down to Monterey from San Jose. I am planning on going through Big Basin Redwood State Park and hiking and just sleeping amongst the trees. I haven’t done anything like that in a very long time and I could use a little time breathing in some pure air.

Posted by http://flickr.com/people/meghannfinn/ (Thanks!)

I may go down and check out Santa Cruz, which is a town I’ve never visited, but everyone tells me I’d love. I might visit my yoga lineage’s ashram, Mount Madonna. I really don’t have a plan– just get off the plane at 11am on Saturday in San Jose and arrive sometime late afternoon Sunday in Monterey to check into my hotel.

I *love* not having a plan. Open to anything.

It is that spirit that I plan to take to Internet Librarian. I’m about to graduate in May and I get to move forward in my career as an information professional. I know I love libraries, I like Web 2.0 (but not just for its own sake), but what will come next? What will be the right fit?

I plan to spend plenty of time talking to people at IL about what their job entails, what their projects are, and try and discover what I can add to all this. At my current position, I’m mostly playing catch-up, “hey other libraries are doing this– let’s finally do this, too”.

But I don’t want to follow forever, I want to have something to contribute. I want to give and not just take.

I think a period of soul searching, a strenuous hike or walk on the beach. A step back from working all day and reading LIS all night might help clear my head enough to be back to “Zen Mind”.

Then it’s back to video games and gadgets!

However, it’s definitely not all about socialization and fun. I feel like I’ll learn more in this weekend than in most semesters of library school. (Although as an alumni, I plan to help change that).

My schedule, as always, is quite likely to change, but here is my tentative plan:

Sunday evening: I have to be online for a class but I plan to do my posting early and then head off to the “Gaming & Gadgets Petting Zoo”.

Monday, I’ll attend Howard Rheingold’s keynote. Then I plan to go to:

“Giving Your Marketing and Advocacy a Second Life” with Nancy Dow

“Digital Marketing: Successful Plans/Organizations” with Sarah Houghton-Jan and Aaron Schmidt

“Web Site Assessment With Google Analytics” with Marshall Breeding

“Cool Tools for Library Webmasters” with Frank Cervone and Darlene Fichter

“Mashing Up and Remixing the Library Website” with Karen Coombs

“Facebook & Libraries: Ethnographic Evaluation” with David Bietila, Elizabeth Edwards, and Christopher Bloechl

(Then I plan to head out for Karaoke with the LSW folks!)

Tuesday, I plan to attend:

I may or may not go to the keynote with Danny Sullivan

“Innovation” with Helene Blowers

“2.0 Learning & 1.8 Users: Bridging the Gap” with Rudy Leon and Colleen Harris

“Microformats: Big Ideas in Small Packages” with Jeff Wisniewski

“Solving the OPAC Problem” with John Blyberg and Christopher Barr

“Using RSS, Podcasts, & XML to Deliver Rich-Media Content” with Jason Clark

“Solving the Interest Problem” with Kelly Czarnecki and Cliff Landis

“Solving the Buy-In Problem” OR “Ubiquitous Computing & Libraries” with Michael Porter and Chris Peters

That night I’ll also go to the “Good Internet Librarian Practices Worldwide” thing with the Shanachie Tour guys. WooHoo!

Wednesday:

I will DEFINITELY be going to the keynote, “Social Media & Networked Technologies: Research & Insights” with the freaking awesome danah boyd.

“Strategic Framework for Library Automation” with Marshall Breeding

“Twitter & How the “Twittest” Use It for Keeping Up” with Michael Sauers, Christa Burns, Cindi Trainor, and Jezmynne Westcott

“Creating Games & Services With Digital Natives” or the “Pecha Kucha – Conversation Face-Off!”

“Information Visualization Tools” with Darlene Fichter and Jeff Wisniewski

Then I plan to attend the final keynote, “Learning & Play in a Social & Mobile World” with Elizabeth Lane Lawley

After that I must RUN back to the San Jose airport to fly home. I get into Denver at 11:30pm, so I will be dead tired on Thursday (and my introvert will be screaming inside).

However, I think it’s all worth it. This should be a fantastic experience!

Why haven’t I blogged? Well, mostly busy with work and school…. BUT…
I have also set up a new domain.

You can now find this blog (updated no less) at: http://thebrewinlibrarian.com. It’s actually a subsection of my larger web site that I will be developing for my spring web design class. It will include my resume, my portfolio (capstone project)…. that kind of thing. I will also have a Drupal and a Moodle site to play around with so I can build up my skill-set. So stay tuned!
My WordPress hosted blog will no longer be updated as of October 3, 2008. At some point, I’ll take it down.

Ah, in all seriousness… I don’t want to waste to much space on the Internets with posts that don’t really contribute much. But there is a lot going on.

I am thoroughly enjoying both my LI863: Project Management course as well as my LI846: Networking for Information Agencies. Project Management is helping already. It is surprising how hostile I am finding my library to Project Management principles. Granted, we certainly are already very much overworked. We define the bottom in terms of staffing levels of ARL libraries.

However, while Project Management presents the appearance of more work up front– the point is to increase the chances of success, and to prevent pitfalls along the way. It is also to increase efficiency. By planning well, we get a chance to properly allocate time, money, talent, and tasks. By keeping track of progress we ensure proper timing, which keeps costs down as well as stress levels. By evaluating the project, we learn from our mistakes as well as successes and gain more confidence and expertise in planning future projects.

So why the resistance?

I’m writing up three papers right now. Two of which probably aren’t of interest to anyone, but my Gov Docs class project is touching on some very interesting stuff.

I’m looking at how the privatization of government services alters the way we have access to government information via FOIA requests, etc. I’m also interested in looking into the privacy implications of allowing corporate access to what was once considered government information.

Why? Paranoid much? Tin-foil hat on too tight? Perhaps too many Philip K. Dick novels? Doctorow’s “Little Brother” got me down?

Well, yes. Always. But in this case, I just needed to find a good topic to write about for class, and since people have done the secrecy of the Bush Administration to death I thought I’d try to find something different.

Likewise, there has been much Hullabaloo (I just wanted an excuse to use that word other than talking about the old punk band) about privatization in the armed forces ala Halliburton; Kellogg, Brown & Root, Blackwater, etc.

So, I thought, privatization, eh? Where else is this happening? It’s no secret that it’s happening elsewhere.

Sure enough, it didn’t take long for me to find that Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest Defense Contractor, has also become one of the top data storage and mining contractors of the federal government.

Why does this matter?

Well, first of all. How much do we know about them? Like all corporations, much of LM’s activities are protected from FOIA requests as “trade secrets”. Whereas a government agency’s internal communication may be requested via a Freedom of Information Act request– this is not true of a corporate entity. Sure, government contractors are supposed to be accountable to information requests when they are doing business with the federal government– but that so far applies to things like finding out the details of a contract, etc. It doesn’t apply to the good stuff, the internal memos, etc. And like most corporations, LM has already taken pro-active steps to broaden the definition of what is allowed to be exempted from FOIA under the guise of “Homeland Security”.

Second, where is the oversight? Federal agencies are supposed to be watched by various other watchdog offices, including the OMB, Congressional Committees, etc. However, again– it’s pretty clear that this is not the case with LM. Sure they can be subpeoned, but the process and quality of information is different for a contractor who can still fight revealing information based on claiming “trade secret”.

Third, do we want our nation’s data in private hands? This is an extension of the question most often asked about Google and their library digitization project. People worry, what if they go under? What if it’s stolen? What might they do with it that we haven’t thought of yet? And basically, why do they want to do it?

Now, I personally don’t see any problem with Google digitizing books, because I see it as supplementary access– you can search through a book, you can know you want/or need it. You can reference a title that may take you weeks to get your hands on through Interlibrary loan, etc. And in that case– there are still hard copies of the books themselves in other hands.

This isn’t the case with some of LM’s data storage projects. In that case, data is being actually stored by, or at the very least stored in systems built by, Lockheed Martin. For example, the EPA is outsourcing their storage to LM. Who guarantees its integrity?

Fourth, what happens when someone puts all this data together?

The FBI is using a “Next Generation Identification” system built (and maintained) by LM that contains immense amounts of biometric (as in more than fingerprints) data on millions of American citizens.

The TSA used LM for its passenger list.

The DOD’s health care system is integrated through software applications purchased from LM.

The IRS has used LM’s data mining capabilities.

Okay, so the details are light right now, but I think you get my point.

While we are worried about what Google might do, there’s a whole world of data mining happening that isn’t discussed as much as perhaps it should be. Think about Credit Bureaus and the information they have on you. Think about marketing data and how it follows you through your web surfing. Seems innocent enough at first (it’s just a *cookie*), but how much have we really pondered this unless we’re members of EFF or EPIC?

I’ll update this post later with links to each of the sources. But for now– I need to write my paper to turn it in but I’d challenge you to think about this.

Then what are we going to do?

EDIT: The rudimentary results of my Lockheed research are here: http://theotherbrother.tumblr.com/

For anyone wanting to look into the Lockheed world, the Tumblelog may be a good starting point for finding federal documents related to what I wrote about. I plan to clean it up a bit more, add more detail and then continue to develop it over time.