Weibel Lines

Molting

v. molt·ing
v. intr.

To shed periodically part or all of a coat or an outer covering, such as feathers, cuticle, or skin, which is then replaced by a new growth.

Starting in January, I will be molting… traveling to the iSchool at the University of Washington to take up a sabbatical year away from OCLC Research, my professional home of the past two decades. OCLC has no tradition or policy for sabbaticals, so, being afforded such an opportunity is both wonderful and perhaps a little daunting. 

My sponsors at the iSchool – Michael Crandall and Stuart Sutton – are colleagues with whom I have worked closely for some years in the Dublin Core activity. Stuart has been active as chair of the DC-Education working group and the DCMI Usage Board, and Michael is a charter member of the DCMI Board of Trustees, and has been the spark plug for that group since it began.  While I am not going to UW to do metadata work per se, I’ll be among friends who understand my background and can help me extract maximum value from my visit.

The term sabbatical is rooted in sabbath – a day of rest. In today’s environs, sabbaticals are about focused work rather than rest. What both senses of the term share is the idea of renewal, and that is certainly at the top of my list of expectations.  My objectives for the year include writing (on the topic of persistent identifiers) and ventilating my thinking through interaction with a strong and diverse faculty.

I hope to make a contribution to both the iSchool and to OCLC Research while strengthening the outward-facing ties that have become increasingly important to us, and to the future of librarianship.  It is hard to imagine a more hospitable place to do this than the iSchool at the University of Washington.

I am indebted to many for this opportunity:

Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President for Research, has encouraged me and promoted the idea within OCLC. He also took it upon himself to seek support for the activity outside OCLC.

Jay Jordan, CEO, has been a supporter of standards in general, and of my own work in standardization for the duration of his tenure at OCLC. Without his enthusiasm, the idea would have gone nowhere.

Michael Crandall and Stuart Sutton made very clear that my welcome at the iSchool would be a warm one, and have seen to the administrative advance work in support of my visit.

Tony Hey, Microsoft’s Vice President for Technical Computing, has generously agreed to support the local costs and travel associated with my stay at the iSchool.

Finally, my wife, Marguerite, will be keeping the home fires burning in Columbus. Marguerite has for many years absorbed the intangible but substantial costs of my life on the standards road. True to form, she has supported this idea wholeheartedly as it has evolved.  Marguerite has completed three books of her own (its clear who the real scholar in the family is)... Buy them now at Amazon, or find in a library, here.

Radical Militant Librarians and the Jane Austen Action Figure

I must explain for both of my  readers in non-US venues (the other three of you know this no doubt) that America is lurching through a secondary paroxysm of legislative fear and political blustering that passes for making the country safe from the threats of terrorism.  Part of the current hubbub involves renewal of the so-called Patriot Act, so named to cow legislators harboring the delusional notion that civil liberties are sort of THE POINT of the US-flavor of patriotism. Patrick Henry didn’t say “Give me liberty, or give me access to your library records.” He probably didn’t even have a library card.

One of the stories in the news this week concerns this particularly controversial part of the act. According to a story on NPR:

Agents are particularly frustrated that they cannot get approval to use Section 215 of the Patriot Act, called the "library provision" by Patriot Act critics because it could be used to search library or any other business records.

One FBI e-mail from 2003 complains that the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR) "should be embarrassed that the FBI has used this valuable tool to fight terrorism exactly ZERO times."

The e-mail goes on:

"The inability of FBI investigators to use this seemingly effective tool has had a direct and clearly adverse impact on our terrorism cases. While radical militant librarians kick us around, true terrorists benefit from OIPR's failure to let us use the tools given to us."

Remember when librarians were characterized as middle aged women with sneakers and hair in a bun? We’ve come a long way, baby!

The patient reader may be wondering where the Jane Austen action figure comes into this story.  Well, OCLC Research just had its annual multicultural, poly-ethnic, northern-hemispherical-winter-solstice-proximal social get together.   You know... a Christmas Party. Part of our tradition is a gift-giving game wherein all participants bring a modest gift (costing about $5 USD). Everyone draws a number from a hat, and participants sequentially select either one of the wrapped gifts or a gift already opened by someone else. In the latter case, the victim then can return to the gift table or victimize another colleague in turn. Continue until all gifts are unwrapped. Its sort Kriss Kringle with a touch of schadenfreud, and this year’s edition was particularly mirthful. The hands-down winner of the Most Popular Gift was the Jane Austen action figure pictured above.  Jane  changed hands a dozen times before finally coming to rest.  Who would have thought?

I take comfort from being part of a group that is pigeonholed as radical militants on the one hand, and whose acquisitive instincts are inflamed to wine-spilling, gaze-averting passion by a Jane Austen action figure on the other. And what would the action part be, anyway??? That’s a quill in Jane’s hand, by the way, not a weapon.  Perhaps the pen is mightier than the sword?

Happy Holidays, everyone.  May all your action figures have literary merit, and your office parties be as much fun as ours.