I'm going to reveal myself as not a "true man" but I do not like sports. I don't memorize stats, I don't monopolize the TV on Super Bowl Sunday, I don't care who got traded to where, and I didn't catch the game last night! Gawd! lol I know... And, coupled with the fact that I'm not that fond of beer, you're probably all asking yourself how I know I'm a man? Well I do like breasts and I like holding the remote, so I'm either a man, or a lesbian with control issues. lol

But, even with my bias against sports, I think it's reasonable for my objection to the classification of sports "news" as news. Sports information, regardless of what point we're at in the season is NOT news. Everytime I listen to CBC radio in the morning, the information that I like to hear and learn about is regularly being interrupted by sports details! A sport is a game. Nothing more. It is not going to affect your life unless you are on the team or have wagered money on the outcome of one. A game. That's all. What about other games-related news? Why don't they tell me how Jeb and Al did in their checker game on the porch last night? Or how the raid on Orgrimar went down on Earthen Ring? (World of Warcraft reference.) Or how Parker Bros. is changing the game of Monopoly? (Ok, that last one may have investment relevance.)

I wouldn't mind as much if they had other "news" on as much. Tell me about the new movies released or new albums recorded as often as how the Leafs did, and I'll shut up. But no. Entertainment news covers the whole of the entertainment world EXCEPT sports entertainment. That's what sports is. Entertainment. Unless you're a player. Then it's exercise.

But I'm probably all alone in this. Even the female librarians (that's almost redundant) talk more about sports than I do, so they probably have no problem with sports as news. Bah!

Labels: thoughts

 

In the car this morning, listening to CBC Radio, I heard the start of a report on "Animal Law", and the change in thinking about animals, in terms of rights and our seeing them as possessions.

It made me think, not of animal rights or PETA or vegetarianism, but about "perceptual ethics". (Yeah, I'm weird like that.) I BELIEVE I just made up that term, but what I'm thinking of is an aspect of information ethics that is concerned with our perceptions and understanding of our ourselves and our environment. Perception is an action so we can be conscious of it and manage it to some degree, so therefore there can be ethical behaviour regarding perceptions. In other words there can be a "good perceptual act" and "bad perceptual act". The two issues that come to my mind in terms of perceiving in an ethical way would be in questioning the biases that we bring to an instance of perception beforehand, and in determining appropriate assumptions and actions that result from perceptions.

It might not be obvious that it is the actual act of perceiving that is to be consider good or bad (the above two aspects can be seen as pre-perception and post-perception) and I'm not sure how to resolve that. But the act of perceiving is not easily distinguishable from these pre- and post- "acts" and they are certainly consistently connected so I believe that the label "perceptual ethics" is still appropriate.

In the animal rights example above, for example, most of us probably see no or insufficient evidence of any awareness like ours in the animals around us. From this, we leap to two conclusions: (1) that it does not exist, and (2) that therefore we can treat them as we wish. I don't think either of these follows in any well-justified way. We are acting unethically in our perceptions of animal awareness.

I am not aware of any literature on this topic, so if you come across anything, send it my way!

Labels: thoughts

 

Just read "Topeka Library Board Restricts Access to Four Books on Sex" by Norman Oder from the Library Journal on February 20. The article talks about how the library board for Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library has decided to restrict access bye age to four books on the topic of sex, despite the director's recommendation and comments from other groups.

This is not uncommon. And not really surprising. A group of mayor or county appointed concerned citizens claiming that any exposure to sexual information to anyone under 18 (I'm assuming that's what passes for a minor in that area) is painfully traumatizing. Despite the seemingly obvious fact that this kind of reaction is probably the biggest cause of all our adult problems with sex, relationships, intimacy, gender issues and the like... Despite the fact that putting sex education material where you have to ask someone specifically for it will place an insurmountable barrier to the vast majority of the very adults the books are there to help... Despite the seemingly obvious contradiction of censoring these materials in the face of their own country's declarations of freedom and democracy... Despite all our own experience of not being scarred for life on discovering our Dad's Playboys and our continued ignorance even with such a valuable reference on a subject that's central to all our lives by definition... Despite all these issues with this story, I think my biggest problem is with the lack of similar action with materials "harmful to minors" (as well as the rest of us) due to a lack of truthfulness and reason.

We have a bizarre sense of priority. We shut down discussions and educational opportunities on an act and aspect of our society that ensures the continuation of our species (and at least half of us would say a very contented continuation... lol) because we think it's dangerous. And then we embrace and protect or simply ignore whole areas of irrationality, nonsense, bias and unjustified claims. Those who are religious literally place faith or belief without justification above reason. We raise our children on deliberate lies we call fairy tales and tradition. We get so much "information" from journalists, authors, and friends without requiring any amount of proof. Sure Oprah Winfrey gets upset when she finds out a book she's put her brand on turns out to be blatant lies, but then where were the measures taken to ensure that didn't happen in the first place?

I'm not saying that we should all live our lives through pure logic (although Mr. Spock's ears are a conversation starter!) and that no amount of fiction or childhood innocence is allowed or even appropriate or that religion provides nothing helpful or positive. Imagination of what's not possible or falling into a make-believe world is wonderful and valuable and we must all put bounds on the level of certainty we require from all the various sources in our lives. What I'm dismayed at is the relative lack of awareness of THESE issues and the disproportionate preoccupation with what seems to me to be mere insecurities and phobias. These latter are supposed to be managed and surmounted in the name of the former. Not embraced and maintained.

I do think we're getting better though. Fewer cases of censorship seem to bubble to the surface and they are often accompanied by reports of opposition. Sex education IS more available in schools overall and hopefully (because I have no numbers to support anything more than hope) parents are helping their children learn more. And, although so many see it as the downfall of civilization, sex and other untouchable subjects are coming into the mainstream more, which is good if only to allow us to talk about such things and discover what IS harmful and what is not.

So go out and talk. Or just stay where you are and comment here...

Labels: health, librarianship, thoughts

 

One of my biggest beefs with how people search for information is that they don't know (and don't care to know) how the tool that they are using works. Whenever I bring this up, the common response is something like, "You don't have to be an auto mechanic to drive." But I think this is a misunderstanding of what it is to know how something works.

To drive, you certainly don't need to know about everything that's under the hood, how spark plugs ignite fuel causing pistons to move up and all the rest. It may help in some way, in order to push your car to its extreme, or to ensure that you are not causing unnecessary harm to the engine, or even how to interpret subtle reactions the car may have to what you're doing. But you DO need to know what happens when you turn the steering wheel, when you step on the accelerator, when you turn the key... You need to know what the result is in pretty good detail (how much do you turn the steering to cause so much turn in the front wheels or how much gas to give it to accelerate a certain amount). You don't need to know how the car does what it does but you do need to know what it does. That's what "knowing how a car works" in a operational manner means.

Similarly when searching for information, you need to know how your search tool works. You don't need to know Google's proprietary code underneath the "hood" or what programming language PubMed uses on it's servers. You do need to know that when you type in a word in the Google search box, it's looking for entries in its database (i.e. web pages) that has that word in the web page (or rather Google's record of the web page) somewhere. You need to know that PubMed not only finds the article citations that has the word that you typed in somewhere but also maps that word to possible subject labels and includes the articles tagged with those too.

But too often, novice users merely type words and phrases into the box without considering what the box will do with those words and phrases. Some think they are clever and include Boolean terms like AND or OR or short forms of those like the plus (+) sign, but don't think to check whether the tool recognizes those terms or whether it uses them in the way they think. And I've come across a few tools that don't know themselves how they work. (For example, TRIP at http://www.tripdatabase.com claims in the search tips that users can include the connector AND but it "ands" terms by default anyway, making using the word useless.)

So, please, when you're searching, test out the tool a little first. See what changing your search a little will do to see if it does what you think it does. If you think adding more words will get you closer to what you want, see if adding any other word actually reduces your results. If it increases them, it's not doing what you think. So test drive your search engine or article index a little first. Or better yet, ask a librarian.

Labels: internet, librarianship, thoughts

 

Read the article: "Welcome to the everything emulator" from the UK newspaper The Guardian, about the effort to create a single emulator to be able to open any old archaic computer file from any old archaic application. Reading this made me imagine the process in fast forward... In the beginning it would simply be a composite program that had the ability to open any number of important document formats, MS Word documents from the start of Office, image files of all the important types, and so on. As more and more format abilities are added to the emulator's resume, more "judgment" will be required of it, possibly identifying what version of what application best displays a certain file or something like that. I can imagine some young ingenius programmer thinking, "Why hardwire this thing to recognize individual file formats and link them up with the appropriate display process... I'll just write something to peel back the code and pull out the content and display it how I wish." The ability to recognize patterns and interpret meaning out of an never-before-seen encoded file would be, I think, at least theoretically possible. But this led me mentally to the concept of the Universal Translator from Star Trek. If a system can be developed to pull meaning out of an electronic file regardless of when or where it was developed, perhaps language itself can be interpretted automatically. Hmmm... What do you think?

Labels: reading, thoughts

 

I came up with the title of this entry with complete innocence, that is, lacking any "bone" pun in mind. It's simply that I have, for a long time, had a problem with the profession of news reporting. There are too many aspects of this line of work that get under my skin.

The first is probably the biggest: their claim to honest. When you hear someone in the profession talk about the purpose of journalism, the speech is full of words like honesty, accuracy, truth, unbiased, objective... They claim to find the facts and try to transmit them unadulterated to the people as best they can. I'll be the last one to claim that this is an easy job, but not only to they seem to avoid achieving their goals, but they fail extravagantly. When thinking of individuals that you would trust with information, I think that most people would put reporters dead last. This may be unfair to many who call themselves journalists, but generalizations come from somewhere and I don't find too many news reports brimming with the restraint and cold rationality I would expect from someone merely delivering the facts.

I have to reveal a small bias of my own. I am a librarian and I got my masters degree in library and information science from the University of Western Ontario. At this institution, the schools of librarianship and journalism are in the same faculty: the Faculty of Information and Media Studies. While there, I thought that this was an appropriate connection. Librarians (and archivists) collect, preserve and provide passive access to to information, and journalists, theoretically, actively discovery and disseminate information. How idealistic I was. The more I experienced the clash of the two schools, and the more I compared the actual output and practice of the two professions, the more I was disappointed. I'm not sure who's job it is to push information out to the masses but it's not reporters. Even the best of them are picking and choosing the most "interesting" pieces of "information" to push, and by that I unfortunately mean that it's only the most fantastic and entertaining news stories that make it to air. That's like an animal rights activist saving only the cutest and the cuddliest. Easier? Yes. Honest? I'm afraid not.

One particular bias has bubbled into my brain recently. I don't think I ever noticed before how much journalists are reporting on journalism itself. There seems to be an overabundance in the number of times that they are reporting on how freedom of the press is being trampled somewhere. I have no numbers to back me up - anyone want to take up this study? - so it's only a gut feeling based on my own limited experience but it only makes sense. What group of people wouldn't find themselves and their plight excessively interesting? But journalists claim to be above that.

Now I've been using the term "professional" to describe journalists out of a certain amount of courtesy and lack of other good labels but actually, not all journalists see themselves that way. Many wouldn't call themselves "professional" in the way I'm using it, and I've even heard them say that they don't really care for the "integrity" of the occupation. By this I mean that unlike other professions, anyone can pick up a pen and notepad and call themselves a journalist. For an occupation proud of their high standards of accuracy and trustworthiness, I'm not sure how they could ensure anything like that without also controlling who's allowed to wear the hat.

I'm sure there are some journalists/reporters out there who have something to say about all of this... Well? Have at me!

Labels: thoughts

 

Since getting my laptop, I've discovered that I NEED two computers at all times. I've taken to using it in my office, on a table next my desktop. I do most of my work on my laptop, initially just to give myself an excuse to get used to the slightly different OS and apps, a different feeling keyboard, etc. but now it's mostly because that's where my "stuff" is. LOL But I'm always going back to my desktop for the odd thing: printing something off quickly (not easy on my laptop yet), getting a file off it that I haven't moved over yet, or to use some app I can't install elsewhere. When it's my shift on the reference desk, I bring it out there to continue whatever it is that I'm working on, seamlessly, and to be able to save where and how I want. I'm convinced (or convincing myself) that it's more productive this way (it really is but of course there's a whole heap of security blanket piled on there too).

Now I come home and occasionally my wife leaves our desktop defenseless and I sit down beside it and I play episodes of Battlestar Galactica or play some Daft Punk tracks that I've left on there... It's my extra-media processor, providing white noise (entertaining white noise) in the background of my blogging, searching, WoWing or random goofing off. I could have my laptop doing it but for some reason it's not as multi-tasky.

Maybe I'll have to get a second computer of my own...

Maybe I'll have to find a support group for this...

Labels: thoughts, work

 

Although this is horrifying (in a very humourous way), it's also pretty true (except for maybe the death threat part). We don't like hearing the truth when it endangers our own self-worth. Let's just hope that the person who discovers the cure for cancer doesn't first show it to someone who would be put out of a job by it. Or worse yet, would end up doing more work because of it. *crossing my fingers*

Labels: funny, thoughts, work

 

Just had an interview on Friday for the position of "Reference and Government Information Librarian" at the local public library. Although I've gotten used to being an academic librarian for the past few years, the job description (responsible for the government documents, electronic resources as well as the reference collection) sounds like something that I would do well at and really enjoy as well, as well as being a lot of work (which I don't mind of course). They said that it shouldn't be too long until they make their decision, so I'm waiting on the edge of my seat for them to contact me. I'm still applying for others whatever the case but it would great if I got this one.

How come it's exactly those events that you want to happen inspire in me a reaction that makes it even more difficult for it to come to pass? The more you want the job, the more nervous you are during the interview, and therefore the less "perfect" they see your effort at impressing them. I can speak in front of a class full of total strangers including professors, doctors, whatever, and have no problem, but the second I have to speak to a small group of people about how awesome I am at whatever, I feel the god (or demon rather) of chickening out descend on my little head.

Anyway, I feel good about this one. Wish me luck!

Labels: librarianship, thoughts, work

 

The Readius! Woah. Just play the video below to see this new product with a thin rollable, bendable screen in action. As I've read in a bunch of different places, this certainly seems like the technology to completely revolutionize the whole e-reading and handheld computing and communication industry. There's all sorts of talk about how the Readius can access not only ebooks but newspapers and other text sources all wirelessly and "seamlessly" but in my opinion, just the availability of a flexible computing surface like this is a huge step in getting more electronic "power" into small portable devices. Pretty cool.

Labels: reading, thoughts

 

Here's a link to the 43 page pdf document, "Information searches that solve problems" report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project (Can't we Canadians ever do anything ourselves? Sheesh.), but here's 4 of the 6 major findings from the executive summary (2 about gov docs and e-government... yawn) for those of you who are too lazy to read the whole thing... like me. LOL

• People use something called the Internet to get information! Duh.


• "Searchers usually end up satisfied." Yeah, and people flock to McDonald's... that doesn't mean they're getting what they need!


• "Libraries meet special needs." They say 'special needs' and then they talk about libraries being filled with people in their 20s. (Maybe this deserves some reading of the actual report.) I'm glad they're coming in and all but the people who really need information (doctors, politicians, teachers, parents, etc.) don't all fit in that category.


• Some people have access - others don't. Again, duh.

Not much new. Not much interesting. What really needs to be studied is why people don't want to read or learn or think any more (if they ever did). I think most of the world's problems would disappear if everyone just "chillaxed", became a little more aware of how things actually work and became a little more responsible for their own thoughts and beliefs. What we think and feel affects what we do, and therefore we need to be armed with the best raw material on which to base those thoughts and feelings so that the actions that burst forth make a little more sense and work a little better with everyone else's actions.

Can't we all just get along?!? LOL

Labels: internet, librarianship, thoughts

 

A few days ago, a colleague of mine remarked on how, being Jewish in an environment of mostly non-Jewish people she is usually called on to be the expert on her "people", how it really sets her apart, and how odd and sometimes uncomfortable that is.

Of course (being the completely self-centered person I am) I immediately tried to think about how this concept can be turned around and applied to me! LOL I'm not Jewish so that's out. In fact I'm not religious at all (I'm interested IN religion but am not a believer per se) and most people are if only just a little, but I don't think that really works either. But I am a male in a primarily female field (librarianship, for those of you not paying attention) and to some degree I can see how she feels. I take great care to communicate my non-stereotypically-male characteristics: I don't like sports, I don't drink (beer or otherwise), I'm a total spice-wuss, I'm not totally colur-blind, etc. but I still feel occasionally that I'm slotted into the "oh, he's just a guy" category. It's not vindictive and sometimes I play it up just to get a laugh. But there is slight pressure there to be the example guy in the room (there is one other male in the library out of 20 staff in total, so it's not all on me... lol) and a bit of barrier that I work at keeping down.

Or perhaps I don't know how she feels. I am not often specifically called on to be the expert on the male perspective and perhaps this feeling that I am an example is all of my own making. There are plenty of us guys around to examine and interogate so it's not like I'm a new concept to be explored or an issue to be tip-toed around. I can imagine this is probably how some "minorities" feel - like a specimen or a land mine depending on the level of comfort the people around them have - when all they want to be treated like is a regular Joe... er, Joan.

I don't know how I would feel in that situation. I like to point out and push out my differences (and eccentricities sometimes) but to have your difference(s) defined and thrust upon you might become tiresome and restrictive. We all want to belong somehow and to constantly be held at arms length for some stupid, superficial reason would be difficult to handle.

Labels: librarianship, thoughts, work

 

I haven't received any of these warnings recently but I have been sent and told about all sorts of warnings not to use certain products or not to do certain things with the barest of anecdotal evidence to support the claims. Here are two firm denials concerning a message being sent around about how the evil Swiffer is apparently killing our poor defenseless household companions: Swiffer WetJet Toxic to Pets? - Netlore Archive and ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center Responds to Swiffer Wet Jet Rumor.

This is a perfect example of why the general public needs more education in the areas of general science (particularly as it relates to health) and in critical thinking and information skills. The average person would read a message like the Swiffer one and would probably think, "I'm not sure that this is so but I love my pet more than I love using this commercial product so I'll stop using the product just in case." This is not entirely a poor line of thinking and would probably have a good outcome if it stopped there or made them more doubtful of other commercial products. But no. Most people take this message and internalize it, spreading it to all their friends and acquaintances, adding their own personal acceptance of the message to the already emotional weight of the warning. They will also go out and buy some competing product, because if WetJet's no good, they'll have to go out and buy the Clorox ReadyMop Mopping System! Cuz you can't live without some sort of mopping system! What did they do before mopping systems?!? lol

Labels: internet, reading, thoughts

 

Here's a good article about a librarian who's a "wiz" at answering questions and all about the telephone reference service that she works in: News - Reference librarian: Where to turn when you need an answer - sacbee.com

Reading this article brings me back to my previous job where I occasionally had to march down to the basement and sit at the telephone reference desk myself. This pics in the article make their space seem a little nicer than ours was but not much different other than that.

I don't know if I'd describe myself in a favourable a light as Ms. Owens in the article but wouldn't it be great if all librarians were seen as such problem solvers, such "know-it-alls" as they say in the article? Especially in public libraries... this is really the reputation that librarians should try to cultivate. But there are too many librarians that don't think that librarianship is really about that, to who I say, "What else do we really do then?!?" And LIS masters programs don't really push this image. Come to think of it, I don't remember having any image pushed at me in library school! That's a shame. Just like any university program, and the professional programs in particular, an important part of the curriculum should be pointing the graduates in the direction of bettering the profession. They don't seem to do this... at least not enough. LIS programs are not typically very long so time is certainly a factor but I would expect some time devoted to what makes a great contributor and example for the profession... what our goals should (or at least could) be.

(Here's another of those librarians-we-all-want-to-be: David Smith from NYPL)

Labels: librarianship, thoughts

 

White sheep vs black sheep: The turbulent Swiss election campaign (from Radio Netherlands Worldwide) - An article discussing the issue of the "Swiss People's Party" (SVP) election poster depicting 3 white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag, and the reaction that the public and the party's opponents have had to it: claiming that the poster smacks of racism (update) and Nazism.

Now I am certainly not an expert in politics, let alone Swiss politics, but as a librarian and a philosopher, I do fancy myself somewhat of an expert on meaningful and informative expressions. We are all (at least the English speaking of us) familiar with the idea of the "black sheep" (definition) as being the one in the family that the rest of them don't want. I suppose that's because real black sheep aren't very valuable because you're only going to get grey or black wool out of them - not very marketable. When someone uses that phrase, no one accuses them of racism, so why should a political poster be seen in that light?

But what about the idea they are trying to communicate - that criminals ought to be kicked out of the country? Ok, I don't think that that's the answer - that's just making it someone else's problem - but does anyone actually argue rationally against that? Not that I've seen. And that if they're too young to be kicked out alone, then their parents will be kicked out with them? That's not exactly what the Nazis did, but even it was, just because a evil person did something, doesn't mean it's pure evil too. Hitler was an artist (bio) but that doesn't make painting evil. (Although I have not seen any of his work so... LOL)

People need to argue against the issue, not the details surrounding the issue. But of course, it's so much easier to find a connection to something scandalous and dismiss the idea as foolish or insane. Like I said before, I don't think simply deporting individuals for committing crime would solve any of the problem. Maybe, in the short term, for Switzerland, it would, but if everyone did that, we'd quickly run out of places to put criminals. That doesn't solve the problem of crime, but rather ignores it. Problems don't go away if you don't look at them. And although parents SHOULD be held more accountable for the actions of their children, especially if parents are to be given final responsibility for their children's upbringing, flat-out "punishing" the entire family for the actions of one person will inevitably result in much hardship for the innocent.

Moral of the story: Don't be any colour of sheep. Especially when thinking.

Labels: reading, thoughts

 

It's funny what occurs to you when you take the time to just sit and think. I wonder if it's Secretary's Day.

Labels: funny, thoughts, work

 

So, I was sitting in my office at work thinking, "I wish I had a way to make blog entries quickly from other pages" -- online newspaper articles, other bloggers entries, cool sites, etc. -- and, as a lark, I typed in "blog this" into Google (in the vein of bookmark this and digg this, etc.). Lo and behold, the first link is to Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?. Problem solved. Way to go me! (With a little help from Google and Blogger, of course.) So, I just made this entry with the "BlogThis!" link. QED.

Labels: internet, thoughts, work

 

Let start by saying (again) that I do like Wikipedia. But (and here we go) I don't think people really know how to "use" it. And I don't mean, they don't know how to look up specific articles in it, or modify things in it, etc. I mean, people don't know how to treat it as an information source. The common complaint about it is that it's not "authoritative" like the Encyclopedia Britannica (the usual comparison). And then the retort to that is, "Well the Encyclopedia Britannica makes mistakes too!" I hate that. First of all, let's try to get along people, ok?

Second of all, that dismisses the whole value of both sources, particularly Wikipedia. And it shows a fundamental misunderstanding about what Wikipedia is, or rather, what it does for us. Take as an example, how people usually refer to information they find in Wikipedia. I'm reading along in the 2006-07 Annual Report for the Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre (the Canadian part of the Cochrane Collaboration, an organization successfully high quality, timely, and most importantly as near-certain as possible, health care evidence materials... read the first few pages of the report) and they refer to a description of Cochrane found in Wikipedia by saying "Wikipedia, the popular online community encyclopaedia states..." it. This is the common mistake. Wikipedia did not state it. A user of Wikipedia stated it. You may think, "Well, duh!", but this is an important distinction. Encyclopedia Britannica (the organization) is an entity that has taken on the responsibility for the information put forth in the Encyclopedia Britannica (the information source). Wikipedia has not. They can't. All they've done is provide a forum in which anyone can manipulate text, that happens to be in the form of an encyclopedia. I'm not saying that this makes it less truthly or trustworthy or authoritative, just that when you citing something in Wikipedia, the author isn't Wikipedia. It's "Chrismoore123" or "Thinboy00" or "Noodlenozzle", the user that typed it in. They're responsible. They're the source that you're judging authoritative or not. Individuals created the entries in Encyclopedia Britannica too, but Encyclopedia Britannica (the organization) has taken efforts to make sure those individuals are qualified and us readers trust them on that, or at least hold them responsible for their efforts.

One interesting difference is how time plays into judging the authority of these two sources. In Encyclopedia Britannica, we assume that the newer the information is, the better, the more accurate it is. Although in Wikipedia we do this to some extent too, it should also be seen that in a community where anyone and everyone can change anything and everything, the older the content is, that is the longer it's stayed around without anyone changing it, the better (or at least, most agreed upon) it probably is as well.

Labels: internet, librarianship, reading, thoughts

 

Excellent list of ways that we humans regularly and often unintentionally misunderstand or misrepresent the world around us. They're a little academic so it's good that there are links to some sort of definition (although I probably wouldn't have chosen Wikipedia for so many of them). Read through them if you can... I particularly like some of the comments, or rather am somewhat dismayed at the comments -- too many of them are needlessly critical or bring up unrelated issues.

My favourite is the first one that says that these are "26 things which differenciate humans from logic machines" and that it's "a partially upsetting, partially comforting list… i.e. it's ok to have human faults!" The very first sentence in the post describe these biases as things "that our minds commonly do to distort our own view of reality". It's ok to have a distorted view of reality? You're proud of it? Yes, there's very little we can do to avoid all errors and biases at all times, but isn't it a good idea to be aware of some of the ways we make those mistakes? Shouldn't we try to make fewer? Human limitations are not something to revel in, nor should they make us feel ashamed. They are to be seen as challenges, things to be accepted as natural and sometimes unavoidable but ultimately areas for improvement.

Am I right? Or did I commit one of those biases listed? Please tell me... I'll try to do better next time, I promise. LOL

Labels: internet, reading, thoughts

 

Watched The Agenda again tonight. It was one of those episodes that had me almost yelling at the TV! LOL It was about the fairness of publicly funding, in full, the Catholic schools in Ontario. Two Catholic representatives and the CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress "argued" for inclusion of others faiths in this funding, and two other panelists on the side of having only one school system. I have to agree with having only one school system, for several reasons:

1. As the show asked and everyone there answered, there is an unfairness to having one belief system's education funded by our tax dollars, and all others given little or nothing. There are only two ways of resolving this: fund all equally (and I wrote about this at length on The Agenda's blog entry for this part of the show) or fund nothing but the non-religious public system.
2. As was also mentioned on the show, have separate schools, can only result in segregation and increased cultural mistrust and misunderstanding. Prejudice exists, in my mind, mainly due to lack of understanding and therefore wild assumptions and therefore fear and hatred. Although the gentleman from the London District Catholic School Board pointed out that religious schools regularly teach about other cultures and about tolerance and understanding, the only real way to see the similarities between us and respect the differences is to experience them. All the reading and teaching in the world can't make up for two culturally different children giggling behind the teacher's back together, sharing their lunches together, or eating paste together! LOL
3. And finally, my reason for many important things: why is it necessary at all? I don't see why Catholicism would need to teach their children math in the "Catholic way". Is Jewish science better than Buddhist science? Do Hindus believe history is fundamentally different than Muslims? Perhaps in interpretation yes, but in terms of facts, no. Yes, these different interpretations and viewpoints ought to be taught, but not to the exclusion of all other interpretations and viewpoints. In fact, that's probably the most important reason to teach about interpretations and viewpoints of certain facts, so that children learn that different ones exist.

If there's a problem with the public system, fix it. Don't run away and make your own. Come, join us. We need everyone's input and talent.

Now, I KNOW you've all got comments (or questions or cheers or hate mail) on this topic... Bring 'em on! LOL

Labels: thoughts

 

Tonight's "The Agenda" was about what we're going to argue about if/once the concepts of left and right are no longer on the table. Pretty interesting. But most of the discussion, rightly so, was actually based on what each panelist thought of the concepts of left and right. I don't really think any of them really got it. I think left v right is a little more basic and fundamental than government involvement v hands-off/minimal government. It's more like this, I think: The "right" sees the best outcomes coming naturally (or at least potentially naturally) out of much of what we do when left to our own devices. That human activities generally even themselves out to take care of the problems of the world. The "left" on the other hand feel that there is too much that falls through the cracks when humans act naturally, and that we have to act specifically to correct these problems, to help those who need it, and that aren't being helped by the others acting naturally. I think both of these extremes are true at times, depending on the situation: human processes do tend to be generally good and effective and self-regulating, that sometimes careless meddling can do more harm than good, but that it's too easy to be caught up in the momentum and miss the flaws in our systems, that we have to tweak the machinery and prod certain people to make it all work a little better.

What do you think?

Labels: thoughts

 

Just finished watching an episode of The Agenda about the issue of banning trans fat, whether it is the best way to fight against unhealthy behaviour, but the debate seemed a little one-sided, and not in a particularly reasonable way either.

It started off well, with details about what trans fats are, where they're found and what has been or will be done about the problem. However, when it got into the real issue: whether banning (as is done in NYC, Denmark, and possibly soon in Toronto) is the best way to help people, the discussion seemed to go down a rather narrow and frustrating path.

Nadiim Esmail from The Fraser Institute, brought up the comparison of banning versus education as the means of reducing trans fat in the public diet. And he spoke of the issue on a seemingly much higher level than the rest of the panel. The other four immediately disagreed with him, so much so that they eventually returned to simply stating, as William Smith said, "I just disagree." No attempt to take on the issue that Nadiim brought up, that banning trans fat, deals ONLY with trans fat, that why were we choosing that particular issue when there are other closely related issues such as saturated fats as well, and that it brings us down the road of government protecting citizens from their own actions.

Several guests said that banning trans fats was a "no brainer". Certainly in the short term it is: it will certainly, as they all acclaimed, reduce trans fat usage, and improve out health. But where do you stop? If you ban trans fat because of the undeniable and immediate health benefits, then why don't we ban smoking? That would undoubtedly make everyone's health improve. It wouldn't happen because there would be a public outrage. The real answer to Nadiim's point is not that banning is simply better than education, but that education doesn't work because people don't want to think. Banning is a "no brainer" because it allows us not to have to think about what we are shoving into our mouths.

One possible better way to explain Nadiim's point is that banning trans fat would be like banning benzene in cigarettes, assuming that there is something that could replace the "great taste" of benzene in your cigs. LOL Benzene is bad for you. Removing it from cigarettes would certainly improve the health of smokers. But aren't there all sorts of other things in cigarettes that are bad? What you want is for people to stop smoking. In the trans fat example, what you want is for people to stop eating so many french fries. Taking out the trans fat in foods doesn't miraculously make fries health food! But that's what a ban on trans fat says. By pointing out one particular bad thing, you are raising it's importance, resulting in the neglect of any other bad things.

There's only two ways to effectively ban things like trans fat: all or none. Maybe a third: to somehow draw a line where you think banning should stop/start, that there must be x amount of risk to ban something. If you don't, then all government will ban are those things that the industry doesn't mind banning. Lynn Silver from New York said specifically that the restaurants had no problem with the idea of the ban. That's because it's a free advertising concept, an opportunity to reduce on of their biggest barriers to increased profit: the idea that pleasure eating is unhealthy. Well, despite the improved message that's it's ok, it's still not ok. We still all need to be better prepared to judge what we eat. We may not want to be nutritionists, but no one is responsible for what I eat (or what my children eat) except for me, regardless of any helpful ban that exists.

Read more on TVO's blog entry on the topic.

Labels: health, thoughts

 

Long simple day at work today. I received an email requesting advice/help with a search yesterday that was described as being for a systematic review. Now, in medicine, systematic reviews are the cream of the crop in terms of documentation/publication. They take a lot of research (in the literature), a lot of care, a great deal of analysis, are incredibly practical and focused, and are meant to be regularly and eternally updated. I thought, "Yes! I'm going to really do a good job on this and be part of something really useful!" I worked all day preparing the search, checking definitions, finding subject headings and synonyms to ensure that the search would be comprehensive, and I wrote back to the requester mid-stride to make sure they were aware of what I was doing and what they could expect. Also, for stats purposes I wanted to know whether they were faculty or professional health care staff... Near the end of the day I get a response saying that they are a student actually working on an assignment that they will be handing in (the first part of, anyway) to US!!! All that work for someone I can't do the work for! Gaaahhhh!!! Well, hopefully their supervisor (this person is on a work assignment outside of the school doing this research) is the one doing the systematic review so that I can at least give the work to someone. Maybe. Who knows. At least it was a good experience and the next time a request like that comes in I have learned a few tricks and tips to help me do an even better job!

It's funny though. This really came at an appropriate time. I have been thinking lately about how I (and other librarians) really should do "more work" helping our users. Not that librarians don't already do a lot of work, or that we have loads of extra time on our hands. I just feel as though we could (and should) be doing more impressive work for our users. For example, not many libraries do literature searches for their patrons. Many, if they do, charge for the service. Bracken Library here at Queen's University does this for staff and faculty and health care professionals for free (at least on an individual level). But even though these are time consuming, difficult, and usually much better than the user could have done alone, sometimes I feel as though we're still not doing enough. I discussed this with a colleague of mine and I'm not as confident in this opinion as I was... I'm not quite sure what exactly we could do more, given our time and education restraints, but I feel as though we are not quite as impressive as I know we could be. Or perhaps I'm just feeling as though I could do more and wish I had the opportunity. I don't know.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been playing the free beta version of Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) for the past week or so. It's not bad. World of Warcraft (WoW) is still my favourite but I can definitely see how someone could like LOTRO more. The graphics (of the environment) are much more impressive (flowing grass, more realistic animal behavior, etc), the quests and activities, etc. are much more involved, serious and have many more layers than WoW. But there're still some things that are keeping me in WoW: the interface graphics are much nicer and clearer, the world seems much bigger and full of more possibilities, and there are vastly more people using it making the experience a little more varied in terms of interactions and socialization. They both have jerks and morons who cheat, swear, hate, disturb others, or don't play "fair" although I'm surprised at the numbers of these players who have swarmed into LOTRO already. I'll play it until I have to pay, and then move on to another free demo/trial edition: Final Fantasy, Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Trek Online (whenever that comes out), etc.

My daughter is suffering from a bad headache right now. Well, actually she's probably asleep now but she was feeling pretty bad before she went to bed a while ago. Aren't headaches about the worst kind of pain you can imagine? It hurts sometimes just to think, and try not thinking for a while! Go on, try it. LOL Unfortunately, migraines seem to be common on both my side of the family and my wife's.

And I just finished watching my current favourite show on TV now: TVO's "The Agenda with Steve Paikin". Not for the faint of heart, or rather, mind. A political show, but one that deals with issues calmly, rationally, and intelligently. Today's show discussed France's upcoming presidential election, and the recent provincial vote in Quebec. One of the leading candidates in France (in second place no less) is a woman, who, if elected, would be the first female president in France's history. It always dismays and confuses me why, in this day and age why (US, Canadian, European, etc.) political leaders are still always white and male. Are voters the last to be able to see past our prejudices? And an interesting last note in the French election portion of the show was some comments about the animosity France has for the States, talking about how France sees itself as having once what America has now, and that it represents for France both their worst fears and their best dreams for their future. At the end of the discussion about Quebec politics, one of the "panelists" spoke of how Quebecers tend to vote for and respect intellectual candidates more than Ontarians (gawd, what a mouthful). I think this is a trend throughout Western society (and probably the whole world), that we seem to be getting smarter on average and yet we still despise or at least avoid intelligence. Quebec may be able to fend this bad habit off a bit more, thanks to a language barrier between them and us english-speaking troglodytes but we'll bring them over to the dark side yet! LOL Finally, at the end of the show, Steve spoke with one of the producers of the show, which totally cracked me up. Following on the heals of the anti-intellectualism comment, it was brought up that the producer had (and has) spoken to guests on the show about words they cannot use: "narcissism" and "ontological" being two examples of words that "don't travel well". Writing this down now makes me wonder why I totally cracked up at this at the time! LOL

Labels: family, funny, librarianship, thoughts, work

 

Check out this entry from InfoTangle. Warning: It's incredibly long (for a blog entry) but it's totally worth it. It's a great summary of some of the trends, changes, new tools and new concepts in web design now such as drag-and-drop functionality, use of bold colours and bold shapes, and navigation by "heat map". Some old hat stuff for those who are paying attention, but it's always great to see it summarized so succinctly. (Found via this entry on Tame The Web.)

What I have to say about all this is that there are two reasons a user visits a site (and I'm really focusing on library web sites here but I think it can be generalized), or rather two situations they are in when they come to a site: they either have time or they don't. They are either there to find something they need or they are browsing and wandering around. In the first case, your site must be simple and straightforward. They are looking for what they want and if they don't find it within microseconds, they'll get fed up and leave. In the second case, intricacy is often preferred, or at least enough "stuff" to entertain, to tempt, even to confuse temporarily. These two design guidelines are somewhat contradictory but they can be used simulataneously. Obviously the first case takes priority: navigation must be simple. But then you can fancy the rest of the pages up with some interesting images, tools, interactivity, etc. as long as they don't crowd out the simple navigation. It's a fine line, but I have faith in you... LOL

Labels: internet, thoughts

 

Max continues to get up several time during the night and managed to, for the past two mornings, end up in bed with us without knowing until it was too late. I swear he's now hardwired to get up and stumble over (with incredibly ninja stealthing abilities) to our room.

Listening to Pink Floyd's "Coming Back to Life". I remember listening to this in university, alone in my dorm room. It starts out as a very "pity me", "how could you" kind of song but then turns into "Damn straight, screw you, I'm gonna make it" kind of song.

Did a HUGE literature search for a faculty member/resident/grad student (not sure really... it's very complicated... LOL) yesterday on zinc. Yes zinc. That's pretty much all I had to go on. Rather broad don't you think. Just RCTs and reviews of course, but still. Now you're jealous of my fantabulous job, aren't you?

The fire alarm went off yesterday... Thank GAWD it was a pretty nice day, weather-wise.

Found out that a co-worker of mine is pregnant. Congratulations and good luck and all that, yeah, yeah... go on maternity leave already so I can stay at Bracken a little longer please!!! LOL

Watched a couple webcast/webinars today. One on the databases Expanded Academic ASAP and Academic OneFile (didn't learn much new, already played around with them a few weeks ago), but the other one was about getting new knowledge to clinicians more and faster (see a summary of the session). We thought, "Hey, that sounds like libraries should and would be involved in that. Nope. He didn't really put librarianship in too flattering a light. In fact, he put us in a column of other "ways for doctors to stay current that DON'T work". Thanks, Bri.

But in a way I agree with him. We don't do enough. We do a lot of work, and, what we do, I think we do well. But when it comes to pushing the information out to the users, changing people's minds about the value of good research practices, helping answer the questions that people have and may not even know that they have, we're not pushing hard enough. Most of the time we're not pushing at all. We need to be proactive, to be out there in people's faces, showing them that we exist, that we are valuable, and that we want to help. We can't always wait for them to come to us. That may sound odd from a librarian, but we need to be "loud and proud" and prove out worth. But it will take more work and smarter work for us to do it. But we can. I hope we will.

Labels: family, librarianship, music, thoughts, work

 

This news item makes me think of the whole "no sex ed is the best sex ed" theory -- people thinking that if we give kids information about sex they'll go out and have more of it... That's like saying that despite all the signs out there that point to a particular minefield nearby, the best way to keep people out of it is not to mention it. That way no one is tempted to go and play in it! Oh, and screw anyone that accidentally goes there or doesn't recognize the dangers of a minefield! LOL

Of course the article doesn't mention any of this. It's your standard, "things are getting better but there's more work to be done" political statement...

Labels: reading, thoughts

 

This news item talks about a study done to see if providing individuals with a primer on health risks and interventions would help them understand those risks and interventions. (See Steven Woloshin et al. "The Effectiveness of a Primer to Help People Understand Risk: Two Randomized Trials in Distinct Populations" Ann Intern Med, Feb 2007; 146: 256 - 265.) Not bad but it's on a pretty high level... it would have been better to test particular methods of teaching within the primer than testing the effectiveness of the primer as a whole. What they basically proved was giving people info about something helped most of them learn a little more about something. And although they say there's never been any study like this, I highly doubt that. There's certainly work on effectiveness of teaching materials and methods in the education literature. Maybe there's never been anything done specifically in the area of learning about health risks assessment but surely this can be generalized.

Labels: reading, thoughts