Rant about Contractions

Posted by Kanga.

This picture was taken in Ras Al Khaimah. It isn’t related to what follows, but I liked it and just thought I’d post it for your viewing pleasure.

I work with students who are learning the English language as a second language. 100% of the students, not just a small percentage. I have no training in teaching English as a first or second language. As a librarian, teaching the language is not my task, but in attempting to get the students to read English materials, I cannot escape some of the challenges of learning the language.

I’ve always known that English is a difficult language full of exceptions to the rules. I before E, except after C, and a lot of other exceptions like weird, forfeit, vein, etc.

This week it was contractions – can not into can’t, are not into aren’t, etc. Being someone who probably thinks too much, I began to ponder why do we do this in this manner and who decided that the laziness of speech should be noted in written form. Why not just write “cant” and “wont” and “arent” and “wouldnt”, etc. I suppose because some of these would be confused with other words, like cant and wont, although context ought to indicate which meaning is appropriate. And, why not spell woodnt and shoodnt? Why bother with “ould” which is not very phonetic.

It is no wonder that Globish is becoming so prevalent. Arabic, for example, lacks definite and indefinite articles. It seems perfectly natural to say “Miss, I want pen” instead of “Miss, I need a pen.” Actually, it is often just “Miss, pen” or “pen.” There is also “Miss, I want paper.” Which really means “I need a piece of paper” not “I need a ream of paper.”

[Correction - there is a definite article in Arabic - Al. I should know better than to write about things I don't really know about.]

 

New Job Off to Interesting Start

Posted by Kanga.

Here’s a taste of what my desk looked like when I arrived at my new job.

I spent the first few hours filling the recycling bin.

Contrast to how my old desk looked. I filled that recycle bin, too.

There are some signs that will have to go, too. No Saturday hours, thank you.

This poor library has been neglected for a long time and there is a huge amount of work to be done, but that is what I like about the job. Every book in the place will have to be cataloged and put in it’s rightful place. There are eight boxes of new books to unpack and more of the same coming later this week. Right up my alley!

Several teachers dropped by to welcome me and express their excitement at the idea that the library would be fully functional in the fall. Eager to make use of the books.

My Blue Heaven

Posted by Kanga.

Here it is, my new job. We were in town to apartment hunt and stopped by to see my future library for the second time. I took the time to scan the shelves. There is a lot of empty space and a lot of work to be done. I can hardly wait to get started.

This is the view from the library windows. A definite job perk.

And, the best job perk, a labeled, covered parking space.

Miss Karla has Left the Building

Posted by Kanga.

Yes, last day at former job completed. My desk has never been so clean. I’m a little sad to leave the people behind, but am very excited about the challenges and opportunities coming in the new job.

Now, packing in preparation for moving gets stepped up a notch.

Bugging Out

Posted by Kanga.

It is about as official as it can get, so it is time to announce our future move from Dubai to Fujairah. (see map) My contract with my current employer is drawing to a close and my last day of work will be June 16th. We will then scramble to move by June 30th. I will start my new job on July 10th.

Why the move? Well, the current job isn’t the right place for me. I’ve made a point of not discussing it here, but it has been a roller coaster of ups and downs and frustrations. I don’t want to be a marketing rep, a facilities manager, an IT technician, a photocopy machine attendant, or even a teacher. I want to be a librarian. Therefore, this is not the job for me.

My new job will be at the secondary school level with about 1/5 as many students and this time they will be all male. I will be the ONLY librarian, the queen of my little domain. My first royal decree may be to move the photocopier (the bane of my existence) out of sight. I advocate for the long overdue paperless society!

We have not found a new residence, yet. We will begin our housing search this weekend.

We will be taking Bert & Oliver with us. It is approximately a 2 hour drive from Dubai to Fujairah, so they should survive fairly unscathed.

We will still come back to Dubai every once in a while to combine visiting friends, visiting favorite restaurants, and shopping for those hard to find items.

I suspect that the next two months will be packed with errands, box packing, wrapping up details, and moving related stress, but there are some things we would like to do before retreating from Dubai.

Our Dubai bucket list:

• Go to Ibn Battuta Mall to actually learn about Ibn Battuta
• Visit the Sheikh Saeed House
• Go to the Burj Khalifa observation deck on a clear day

Suggestions to add to the bucket list are welcome.

Way Beyond Web

Posted by Kanga.

I wrote previously – Predictions of Future Past – about Internet predictions and what actually developed. I’m going to prattle on about this some more from a slightly different tack.

I’m amazed by the paradoxical ease and complexity of accessing information these days. We can google most anything, although the answers we find might raise more questions than certainties. (Notice how Google has become a verb?) The recent 50th anniversary of The Flintstones resulted in a discussion (via Facebook) about exactly when was Pebbles born. Googling led to conflicting answers and questions of which source could be believed. (If my students had any idea what The Flintstones was, I would use this as an example for how to evaluate sources. Unfortunately, it is not culturally relevant.) Anyway, I’m going with Feb 22, 1963.

I’ve talked about Twitter before and how important it has been for us in making friendships with a wide variety of people. For example, this week we had a dinner with 13 people (including us) in which 6 of those people were expats (foreigners like us) and 7 were locals (citizens). You will have to take my word on just how extraordinary that is. However, Twitter is also a major source of information about what is going on locally and in the world. Tweeps (people who twitter) read an interesting article on a news website or a blog and tweet a link to the article. I, being lazy or harried, rely on this referral system and use these links to go to articles that pique my interest. Yes, I could use RSS feeds to collect articles in an automated way, but I kinda like the added social aspect that the person who shared the link also read the article (I know there’s a bit of assumption there) and if I have a strong reaction or opinion about the content, I can “talk” with them about it.

Now, back in the “real” world, students are flocking into the library during their breaks to grab newspapers (in physical format), find an article and scan a copy of it on a daily basis. I have concluded that there is at least one professor who is convinced that the students must “learn to read newspapers” and is requiring the students to produce an article each day. There are teachers who are scandalized that these students have never touched a physical newspaper. But, let’s face it, newspapers are dead, they just don’t know it, yet. Most newspapers have websites where they post all their articles and possibly additional content. These websites have become quite sophisticated, well organized, searchable, and incorporate social media functions so that you can comment on what you read. The tradition of the leisurely breakfast with the morning newspaper is a luxury only the retired have. These students are not sitting down with the paper, reading it through, and coming away fully informed about what is happening locally and globally. Let go of format! Paper is dead, long live the web (until the next thing comes along). Content is where it is at. It doesn’t matter if it is carved in stone, painted on papyrus or sheep skin, inked on wood pulp, or displayed on screen.

Ironically, there are some “services” that are designed to take your Twitter feed and turn it into your very own personalized “newspaper.” At least one application for iPad combines your Facebook and Twitter to make a personalized “magazine” for you. Just how many interfaces do we need to filter our information through?

I don’t think that the word “web” describes the Internet accurately anymore. Maybe “fractal” would be more appropriate.

Why librarians don’t sit around and read books

Posted by Kanga.

I had one of THOSE conversations with a good friend last weekend. “If you don’t read books all day, what does a librarian do?” Every librarian has had this conversation multiple times.

So, this has not been a typical week, but I am going to describe it for you so that you will know why librarians are not sitting around reading books all day.

Sunday (first day of the work week in the Muslim world):

• Late shift, came in at 10 am, worked until 8 pm
• One hour – new student orientation to the library
• One hour – collection analysis, comparing the titles in our collection to a recommended core collection (percentage is too low, need to order a lot of core titles)
• Meeting with other library staff to discuss how the first session of student orientations went
• Lunch – yes, for my health I insist on actually taking a break and eating something
• One hour – reference desk = being available to answer any questions people have and help them use library equipment (photocopier, scanner, computer)
• One & half hours – preparation for instruction sessions I will be doing Monday & Tuesday evenings
• Rest of the “day” until 8 pm – “manned” the circulation desk, sole library staff person on duty

Monday:

• In one hour late, because I am staying late to provide instruction to an evening class
• Four hours on the reference desk – photocopier help, etc.
• One hour – new student orientation
• Lunch
• Administrative tasks – trying to catch up on paperwork, follow up on tasks that have cropped up, responding to faculty requests, scheduling instruction sessions, etc.
• Instruction session for a class – teaching them information literacy in preparation for a major research paper they will be doing

Tuesday:

• Three & half hours – proctoring an English proficiency test
• Lunch – totally starving because I missed breakfast
• One hour – new student orientation
• Three hours – reference desk
• Instruction session, just like the one the night before

Wednesday

• Administrative tasks – trying to keep up with my email and paperwork
• Collecting together all our policy documents related to “collection development” = selecting, ordering, receiving, and withdrawing library materials (On another day, I will read all these, edit, and add to these documents.)
• One & half hour – attend a class to see students give their first presentations in front of the class and to talk about blogging.
• Lunch & run to the bank
• Responding to emails and following up on some requests, trying to keep my head above water
• Meeting with another staff member to revise some documentation on our process for ordering books from vendors like Amazon
• New student orientation
• “Manning” the circulation desk so that the assistants can be free to do other end of day tasks

Thursday: (tomorrow, so this is speculative)

• Library staff meeting – one hour
• New student orientation – one hour
• Reference desk – two hours
• Lunch
• Meeting about donating withdrawn books to another library
• Meeting with another librarian to draft proposals for a change in how we do some of our tasks in hope of freeing up some time

Now, I do have to admit that I did check out a book. It is a book on how to build a core library collection, so not an exciting read. I’ve managed to read about one page. I did pick up another book. This was during a orientation session time slot. I was waiting for students to arrive and wandered into the biography section, discovering that we have a biography of Yul Brynner written by his son. So, I looked at all the pictures, read the captions and read about one page of the first chapter while waiting. I also did some reading while proctoring the test, but it was mostly Twitter on my iPad.

So, there you have it. This is what those strange non-reading librarians are up to.

Predictions of Future Past

Posted by Kanga.

This has nothing to do with “living the travel channel.” It’s just what I’ve been thinking about lately.

A long time ago (1992) when I was in graduate school learning to become a librarian, we were shown a short video that predicted the future of information.
First let me set the scene:

• This was pre-graphical Internet browsers. (Mosaic was another amazing demonstration at the time, but there was no Internet Explorer, Firefox, or whatever.)
• We were using Pine for email.
• We were posting things to “bulletin boards” and usenet. (I remember spending hours reading the leaked script to the Star Trek Generation movie and being disappointed.)
• There were no images, no videos, no animations, no search engines.

The video we were presented with showed a business man getting up in the morning and having a relaxing cup of coffee while his computer generated “information butler” (my terminology) told him verbally about news reports he might find relevant, gave him the stock report on his investments, told him his schedule for the day, and responded to the man’s verbal feedback. All those things that personal assistants do for the rich and powerful. The message for us apparently was that we had just signed up for a profession that would soon cease to exist. I looked on YouTube for this video, but that is like looking for a needle in a very big haystack with my eyes closed.

Happily, 18 years later, the death of the librarian profession has not been realized. We still don’t have artificial intelligence and we still need people to organize, channel and disseminate information. (We still need people to figure out why the computer system isn’t giving us what we want when we want it.)

There are things like RSS feeds that we are supposed to use to glean information we want from the overwhelming mess called the internet, but only a few use them (the info savvy). Even I haven’t taken the time to set this up for myself (mainly because I expect to be deluged with more info that I can possibly handle). I’m a secondary consumer, I suppose. I rely on my Twitter friends who are using their RSS feeds to find out what is happening in the world. They then share the link via Twitter and if their comments catch my eye and I think I might be interested in the information, I follow the link and read for myself. I’ve found some really important information that way.

In a way, the Internet is seriously inbred. For example, someone out there writes something interesting. Someone reads it and channels it in my direction. I find it interesting and useful for others, so I put it in a wiki or a blog for further distribution. Search engines index my wiki enabling others to find it and before long my wiki is linked to someone else’s wiki or website. Etc., etc., etc.

In the spirit of inbred Internet, here is a link I think you might find interesting. The Internet in 1969 via the Huffington Post

Mass Casualty Incident

I don’t seem to be able to embed this video, so you will need to click on the link below to see the video of what I was doing on Monday the 15th.

http://video.gulfnews.com/services/player/bcpid4267205001?bctid=72563437001

Back to Work

I’ve been back to work for a full week now. It will be another week before classes start. There is a distinct difference over last August, in that most everything is familiar, rather than bewilderingly new and different. I expect the stress level to be much lower this year and considering that the stress level last year was drastically lower than what I was used to before that, it is going to be a good year.

Oliver is terrorizing us. He is a whirlwind biting and scratching machine. We bought  a bag of 50 plastic balls for him to chase around the apartment. This morning while I was getting ready for work, he took his first dip in the toilet. I had forgotten to put the lid down. He didn’t much care for getting wet, but then he stepped into the litter box while his feet were still wet. It is the clumping style litter, so it stuck to his feet and I had to rinse them off. So, he got more than his fair share of wet this morning.