CONSER 2007: day 3

Friday, May 4th, 2007

Last day. Today was all CONSER, but it was also a short day, ending a bit early (3pm instead of 5pm) to allow for people to get out and sightsee if they so desire.

Our morning consisted of more discussion of the CONSER Standard Record, naturally, followed by a rehashing of an old debate on single versus separate records for different formats, but with a new twist: digital archival copies of the works. After going in circles for a good hour, we decided to not change our policy, and while the single record format is allowed, CONSER policy recommends separate records. That's our policy and for now we're stickin' to it.

I'm not sure all of the CONSER Standard Record issues have been resolved, but I'm not sure they all can be just yet. We voted to go ahead and implement the new and slimmed-down record as of June 1st, and basically see what happens. There are a few things that have to be worked out before implementation (software issues), but we're moving forward.

Since it was a short day, we went to the LC cafeteria for lunch. It's a pretty nice cafeteria, with salad bars, sandwich bars and hot dish options. Plenty of options. So we got our trays and sat with a bunch of other CONSER folks for a very nice relaxing lunch. After lunch it was back to the meeting room for some more discussion, member updates and a wrap up. Towards the end of the meeting, the previous CONSER Coordinator walked in for a visit. Shortly after her arrival, we adjourned, this time for some social time at Bullfeathers.

It's amazing what you learn about your colleagues when you just sit an chat. We learned that our current CONSER Coordinator is a pretty damn good blues guitarist on the side, and he has posted several videos on YouTube. You can check him out here. Of course, as a cataloger, he was careful to tag his videos properly so they would be findable. We're all about the findability of items. Our purpose is to make things findable to the user, and the way we tag things in our personal lives is no exception. This admission of his and his desire to tag things correctly led to an interesting commentary about how librarians tag things versus how catalogers tag things versus how a non-librarian tags things. Yes, we really are all geeks. And that's "Ms. Library Geek" to you, thankyouverymuch.

After some socializing, B and I set out to find a gift for her cat sitter. Apparently her cat sitter is a Republican and a HUGE fan of Ronald Reagan. We decided a good place to start would be the Library of Congress gift shop in the Jefferson Building. We hit the jackpot. A talking Ronnie doll. No joke. They had a whole collection of talking president dolls. Clinton, Reagan, both Bushes, and I think I even saw Carter and Nixon in there. The perfect gift. We left the Capitol Hill area with our quarry, and headed back over to the Firehook Bakery & Coffee House for coffee and a cookie (see, I told you I saw another cookie in my future!). Not only do they make really good cookies, they make really good coffee, so I bought a bag of beans. I can't wait to try them (I have to finish the last of my other beans first, don't want to mix different beans and roasts after all).

Post coffee and yummy cookie, we retrieved our bags from the b&b (I'll definitely stay there again) and headed for Union Station to catch the Amtrak back to Philly. B's garment bag once again attempted to hang her when she went through the METRO turnstiles. We made it to Union Station with time to spare, and just sat and relaxed a bit. Once on the train, B and I managed to get one of the "foursome" setups, with two sets of seats facing each other, which gave us a bit more space to stretch out. Being Friday night, the train was full, but not so full that we had to share. Train rides do produce some interesting people. At the first stop a girl got on carrying a suitcase and a cage. A rodent cage. The rodent, however, was not in the cage, but all it's bedding/food/dishes were. The rodent was in a little rodent carrier that looked kind of like a purse. I'm guessing it was a guinea pig, but I didn't ask.

We arrived in Philly exhausted and hungry, and caught a cab back to my place. Once there, we dropped our stuff and headed back out in search of cheesesteaks. Specifically Abner's Cheesesteaks. We ordered three: one for there to split, and two to go (one for each of us). Oh, and an order of cheese fries and two Smithwick's beers. We learned on our first trip that half of an Abner's cheesesteak with all the fixins is more than plenty. That cheesesteak I took home was lunch on both Saturday and Sunday. Which was good, since I had no food in the house and desperately needed to go grocery shopping (remedied on Sunday afternoon once I had some energy). After our very very late dinner (it was after 11:00PM), we headed back to the house and crashed out. Unfortunately, B had to head out of town by mid morning, but we'll see each other again soon, in Louisville, KY for NASIG. And conference season continues!

Needless to say, after 3 days of meetings, no access to e-mail except in the evenings (when I was too exhausted to do anything but check for urgent/disaster type messages), I picked up the dog from the kennel on Saturday morning after B left and we (the dog and I) slept most of the rest of the day. And I'm still catching up on my e-mail both at home and at work.

CONSER 2007: day 2

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007

Today opened with a joint meeting with the other half of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC): BIBCO. CONSER deals with continuing resources, and BIBCO deals with monographs. Both groups participate in creating authority records for people, places, corporations and series. Authority is a joint all-hands-on-deck activity.

We discovered at breakfast that another CONSER library representative was also saying at the same b&b, PF. He came down to breakfast after us, and was still sitting there when we left to catch the METRO. B and I were trying to give ourselves enough time to get a coffee before going into the joint meeting. Alas, today was not our day for the METRO. We missed the red line, watched it pull out as we reached the platform. Once we caught the next train and transferred to the orange line at Metro Center, heading for the Capitol South station that dumps us at the back door of the Madison Building, we thought out luck was getting better, as a train arrived just as we did. We were wrong. We sat on the orange line train an waited, watching our chance for coffee slip by. Ironically, PF caught up with us. Even more amazingly, he reached the meeting room in the Madison Building before we did. How did he do that?? Hmm...what does he have hidden in his backpack...a transporter maybe?

Anyway, today there were tables, and a much larger meeting room. Of course, being a joint meeting, there were also a lot more people. PF realized he forgot a pen. Like, forgot to bring one to DC with him. He had pencils, but no pen. So B loaned him a pen, and PF vowed to buy a new one during lunch.

The morning consisted of reports by various standing committees, an OCLC report that updated us on status of the merger of RLG and OCLC update, and a discussion of the one format both groups are responsible for (integrating resources). Also included was a speech by Beecher Wiggins on the reorganization of the various divisions in cataloging and acquisitions going on at the Library of Congress, discussion of adding non-roman text to authority records, and some really interesting demonstrations of software that automatically adds non-roman text to records. I realize that for most of you this means nothing, but let me explain. Every time something is cataloged, it is input in a romanized form, in other words characters are spelled out using the roman alphabet. This may not sound all that serious, but often meaning is lost in the translation, and it's not a true one-to-one conversion. So, now that our software can handle it, we're trying to add the non-roman text to the records. So when you catalog something in Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc., you put the title in twice: once using the romanized form of the words, and once using the actual script/characters. It looks really cool. Well, a few people got together and wrote a script to add the fields automatically, translating the romanized text into the characters and vice versa. For people like me, who don't read or write, say, Korean, this is awesome. Amazing what software can do these days.

Anyway, it was a full morning, and we were reconvening as a joint meeting again after lunch before splitting off into our respective groups again later in the afternoon. Knowing that the afternoon was going to be just as full as the morning, B and I once again opted to leave the building and get some fresh air during lunch. We found our way to a Thai place on Pennsylvania Avenue, figuring some spicy food would help clear up B's congestion (a head cold to make traveling fun) and perk us both up a bit after sitting for hours on end. So we ordered lunch, and had a rather bizarre experience. Our food came at completely different times, literally a good 10 minutes apart. The service just kept getting more and more bizarre, we had a hard time getting the attention of either one of the two servers. Additionally, the clientèle were equally as bizarre. One lady sat there and snapped her fingers at the server while we were talking to him. So he left us to talk to her and then never came back. How rude. But the food was good (although not good enough to make me want to go back and deal with the bizarre service again). I had a vegetable coconut curry dish that wasn't too spicy but just enough to give my lips that "curry tingle" and make my nose run a bit. And bonus, they had mangoes and sticky rice listed for dessert. Alas, the menu lied...the mangoes weren't good, so no sticky rice for us. Instead we stopped at Firehook Bakery & Coffee House for a treat. A delicious cookie. A really delicious cookie. I see more Firehook cookies in my future.

Returning to the room after lunch, we learned that PF really did buy a new pen. Two pens, actually, just in case one of them didn't work. Which was a good thing, since one of them didn't work. We sat there trying to stifle our giggles as PF wrestled with his new pen, trying to get it to write, only to give up and pull out the second one.

After a few more reports, the groups split, and us CONSER folks headed to our meeting room. Fortunately, this room also contained tables. Our afternoon meeting contained a report on the state of the ISSN. Always informative. This was followed by discussion of, you guessed it, the CONSER Standard Record. Today things got a bit more passionate, but that may have been the fact that there were more people present. After several hours of discussion, we finally adjourned for the day.

B and I left the meeting, deciding to head out for Kramerbooks for some well earned pints of Rogue Dead Guy Ale. Rogue ales are delicious brews made in Oregon, and hard to find elsewhere in the country, so finding them on tap is like gold. We took the METRO to the Dupont Circle station, exiting on the north side. As we stepped onto the escalator, we got about 10 feet and it came to a grinding, screeching halt. Nails on a chalkboard screeching, some shuddering, and then a complete stand still. A collective groan rises from the packed escalator. Two things to note: one, there are three escalators, two going down, and only one going up. Two, the Dupont Circle station is rather deep, it had to go under a streetcar tunnel. So imagine the stairmaster nightmare as we all started climbing. We earned our pints. We really earned our pints of Rogue Dead Guy Ale. We topped the night off by eating dinner in the Afterwards cafe as well. They make killer nachos, as well as killer desserts. Specifically the Cafe Nachos Grande Gigante. We ordered guacamole with them, and they were big enough for us to split as dinner, but not to worry, it was a balanced meal, with plenty of veggies including salad topping off the chips and cheese. These nachos are so much more than an appetizer, or "sharezie." Dessert was a Dysfunctional Family Sundae. We thought the dysfunctional fit, given that CONSER is often very much like a big dysfunctional family in itself. But you love it anyway.

Ironically, on our way back home, the up escalator was working, but now both the down escalators were out of service. Sigh. At least we had a chance to work off that brownie and ice cream with some more stairmaster.

CONSER 2007: day 1

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007

Today was the "bonus" day for CONSER. Normally, the annual operations meeting is only two days, but due to the CONSER Standard Record, an extra day was added to discuss it this year.

And discuss it we did. The room was packed. I'm fairly certain we violated several fire codes with too many people, too many chairs, and all in a rather small room with only one small door. No tables to write on. [Caution: begin rant] This is a pet peeve of mine. I have short legs, legs that usually barely reach the floor. Which means when I don't have a surface to write on, my legs must be tensed in order to provide a stable and flat surface that my paper won't slide off of. Even more difficult, where do you put your cup of coffee (necessary for survival) and possibly your snack where you or anyone else will NOT kick it? There really is no perfect place. Oh well. [end rant]

We started the day with two of our colleagues reviewing the CONSER Standard Record and it's elements, highlighting the changes to cataloging from past practice. They did a very good job, however, one of them, V, needs to switch to decaf. She's a petite woman, and is far far too energetic. The kind of high energy person that can be likened to a hamster on speed at times (visualize a hamster running on it's wheel at high speed...yeah, like that). It was almost too much to take at 10:00 in the morning. But we all survived, and like I said before, the overview was very well done.

B and I ventured outside for lunch, deciding to walk down the street until something caught our fancy. Getting outside becomes very important when you're in a windowless room in the middle of the Madison Building of the Library of Congress with 50 of your colleagues for hours upon hours. You need the fresh air. We decided upon a place called Taverna the Greek Islands (305 Pennsylvania Avenue SE). We both had a very nice salad with gyro meat on top. It was filling without being too much, so we wouldn't be falling asleep during the afternoon session.

The afternoon was dedicated to discussion of various questions and issues that came up during the morning's overview. Someone did not get lunch, as they categorized (we're catalogers, what did you expect?) and typed up the list of items from the various scrawled notes written down on flip charts during the morning presentation. This discussion was relatively calm, much to our surprise, but our esteemed CONSER Coordinator probably could have used a whistle on several occasions just to get people's attention. Fortunately, V, the high-energy presenter, was there to get our attention for him. We did not, however, solve all the issues that were raised. Meaning that the discussion would be continuing the next day.

After the meeting adjourned, a group of around 8 of us headed out to find some beverages and to rehash the day. I've learned that frequently discussions continue well after the meetings are over, usually over a beverage or two, and I always learn something, so it's worth my time. That and I enjoy the company of my colleagues even when we aren't discussing work-related issues. This time was a happy combination of continued discussion and general fun. We wandered down Pennsylvania Avenue until we came to a bar that several members of our group had been to before. I have no idea what the name of it was, but I will find it again. They made a damn good vodka martini, exactly the way I asked, and bonus, it was happy hour so it didn't break the bank. We sat and chatted, decompressing from the day of discussion, until it was time to get back for dinner.

Dinner was an arranged dinner for CONSER members at the nearby Young Chow (312 Pennsylvania Avenue SE). It was a set menu of tea, soup, egg rolls, and a variety of meat dishes, served family style at two tables of 10 people each. And all for 10 dollars, including tax and tip. The food was good, the service was great, and it was very inexpensive. Who can ask for more?

After dinner it was back to the b&b to rest up for day 2 of this year's CONSER meeting. What would tomorrow bring? Besides more discussion of the CONSER Standard Record, of course.

CONSER 2007: day 0, arrival

So bear with me as I catch up. This will be the first of four posts about my recent trip to Washington, DC for the annual "CONSER cage match" (I say this affectionately, and I'm proud to be a part of said cage match, really).

Tuesday, May 1st, 2007

Tuesday was travel and arrival day. I took Amtrak down with my friend B, who drove in from farther up into the Northeast. Due to traffic, she barely made it (damn turnpikes) before the taxi was scheduled, but she did, albeit a bit tired and cranky. We got to the train station in plenty of time. We even had some time to stop for a refreshment before boarding our train.

The train ride was uneventful. I have vague memories of riding the train as a child with my grandma from DC to New Jersey. I was no more than 5 years old and I do remember learning that dot-to-dot activities are not the best thing to do on a train. What I can tell you is that the seats are infinitely more comfortable than plane seats, I don't have to strip down to go through a metal detector (bonus! 'cause I always always set the damn things off...usually because of the underwire in my bra, no joke), and you see some really interesting things. We made a trip to the food car for some water about 1/2 way through the 2 hour trip. Our food car attendant was a comedian. I think he was bored and saw us as a break in the monotony.

We arrived into Union Station and hauled our crap via the METRO to the bed and breakfast we stayed at for the meeting. B has sworn to invest in a nice rolling suitcase that is mid-sized after her garment bag nearly killed her when she tried to get through the METRO turnstiles. The b&b was very nice, the Woodley Park Guest House, in, you guessed it, Woodley Park, and very close and convenient to that METRO stop, making it easy to get to the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill. It's a very nice large house, with many rooms in varying sizes. B had a bigger room, with a nice double bed and an attached half bath, and I stayed in a cute little single with a twin bed and a shared bath next door. It was only fair that B got the bigger room since she's stayed there many times in the past and let me know about it. The breakfast is basic, but good. I don't usually want much, so the variety of cereal, fresh fruit, yogurt and pastries was perfect. And they make excellent coffee. Excellent coffee, which is very important (as those of you that know me have learned). And it's all at a reasonable price. I do believe I'll stay there again.

After checking in and dropping our stuff, we headed out to 18th Street up in Adams Morgan in search of Ethiopian cuisine. We took the METRO to Dupont Circle and walked north on 18th for a good 10 or so blocks until we came to Meskerem (2434 18th Street NW). The tables are tiny, woven straw things that the dishes set down in, almost like a straw bowl on a stand, and are called messobs. Next to the straw bowl tables are small side tables for your injera, a pancake/crepe that you use to pick up the food (no silverware here), and your beverages. We decided to share a combination platter and each sampled one of the available Ethiopian beers. Our only complaint is that apparently we were invisible to our server so it took awhile once we were done eating to get her attention so we could go get some rest.

We walked back to the b&b, and headed for bed. We needed to get some rest in preparation for the long meetings over the next 3 days.

I declare conference season open

Conference season for libraries begins sometime in April and doesn't end for most librarians until the ALA Annual ends at the end of June. Just about every week and weekend you can find someone at your library that's out attending a conference or meeting. In April, ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries), CIL (Computers in Libraries), and a variety of state library associations and user groups all had conferences. May means more user group meetings, NASIG, and more state library association meetings/conferences.

I have my first conference of the "season" this week. Well, it's not really a conference, but rather a very long meeting. A meeting that lasts for 2 days. CONSER has it's annual operations meeting the first Thursday and Friday of May each year. It's an opportunity to throw a bunch of catalogers in a small windowless room in the middle of the Madison Building of the Library of Congress and watch us duke it out over a variety of pressing issues. Think cage match with less blood but more drama.

This year they're adding an extra day for training on the "new" CONSER Standard Record. I say "new" because it's been in development for over a year now. We discussed it last year at the operations meeting, only it was called the "access level record" at that point. Not everyone is particularly happy with everything about the record, but you can't make everyone happy all the time or nothing gets done. Basically this record is the result of serials, oops, excuse me, continuing resources catalogers trying to simplify our rules and look to the future. But discussing it can be very interesting as people get very emotional. And I include myself in that statement. Don't ever accuse a librarian of being meek or quiet or afraid of confrontation. We're not. Just sit in on a meeting and you'll see. We are very passionate about what we do. VERY PASSIONATE.

Fortunately, I've been to enough events at this point that I do know most of the people attending. And after the meetings each day, there will be much "self medicating" with a variety of adult beverages together as well as dinners at the myriad of international restaurants nearby. Well, maybe not too much "self medicating," but there will be plenty of social time with my colleagues at a variety of institutions from all across the United States and Canada. It's a fantastic opportunity to network, and, for my type of specialized position that like for most means I'm the only one that does what I do at my institution, that networking is priceless. It means I have faces to go with the names I see on listservs and people to contact directly for feedback or someone I can ask my questions or another head to troubleshoot/solve issues/interpret the cataloging rules with when I need it.

Since the meeting is at the Library of Congress, it means the dog goes to the kennel and I travel to Washington, D.C. For the first time, I won't be flying. Philly is only a 2 hour train ride away from D.C., making the trip less expensive and much less stressful (I hate hate hate airport security...I have the WORST luck for always getting the "extra" screening). D.C. is an odd thing for me. I was born there, and lived in the area through most of elementary school. It always feels surreal to walk down the Mall and see the Smithsonians and the monuments. Kind of this I-know-exactly-where-I-am-but-don't-ask-me-for-directions-'cause-I-really-don't-know kind of thing. You know, most of the Smithsonian museums smell exactly the same as they did when I was 5 years old. It always amazes me how smell takes you back.

Happily, I'm not all on my own this trip. My good friend B (who visited E in New York with me this past February) is my counterpart at another institution. Seriously, we do pretty much the exact same job. This means we see a LOT of each other at various meetings and conferences, and end up spending way way too much time together during conference season. And lucky for us and everyone around us, we like each other and enjoy each others company and have yet to get sick of each other. Well, maybe not lucky for everyone else (peanut gallery, anyone?), but definitely lucky for us as we can be very self-entertaining if needed. Just read about the New York City trip if you don't believe me. Given previous years and trips, this trip to D.C. should be fun.

I promise to report on our adventures searching the city for good food (Ethiopian!) and beverages, our trips to Kramerbooks, and the general entertainment I'm sure will follow us where ever we go, if we don't create our own entertainment first.