Chicago: home of the President of the United fucking States

Yeah, me too.

Does anyone want to go see Wilderness tomorrow night at Schubas? 9PM

i want to but can't

Did you know...

If you need a replacement Chicago Card Plus, you can either pay $5 and have it mailed to you, which will take 5-7 business days, or you can go to the CTA HQ at Lake and Clinton, get one immediately, and pay nothing.

I was just at CTA this morning, putting more $$$ on my plus card.

Hi.

I have questions for librarians and librarians to be:

I paid my library fines (NO THANKS TO NICK) and got a pile of books out from HWLC last night and noticed that in the general fiction section, books are alphabetized by: 1) author's last name, then 2) title of the book. So if you are there after, say, Lush Life by Richard Price, you will have to find all books by people named Price, and then once you're in the Prices, look under "L" for Lush Life, rather than under "R" for Richard and then under L.

So my questions are: Has it always been this way and I just tended my entire life to read authors with unique last names or is this new? And if this is new, when did it happen? And most importantly, why? Because I don't like it. Change it back.

As far as I know, that is something unique the CPL. I'm not sure how long it's been going on. It is obviously unacceptable, I'm assuming it is just to make shelving easier or something???

^^this could be nick's campaign platform when running for Library President

(btw nick i emailed you, still using yahoo address?)

oh nevermind

yeah i replied ... i had never noticed that cataloging system before patronizing the CPL and i agree it's retarded. i can ask one of my profs and classmates about it

Librarian Johnson, I'm glad that you find this to be unacceptable, too. I was worried I was being a pedantic twit. It just seems to make a lot more sense that you would want all of a particular author's books to be together on the shelves. It certainly makes it easier to find the books. And I'm not always after a particular title; if I like the author, I will usually go back and see what else this person has written. That's a little more difficult to do if the titles aren't grouped together.

I've got some free time on my hands. Who can I complain to about this? Barack Obama?

xp - Thanks, Nick! I am really interested to know the thinking behind it.

I just got my severance contract! So much legalese! But I get health care under COBRA (aren't they evil?) for 18 months wha wha whaaa?!?

COBRA isn't a they, it's an it. Basically, COBRA is a law that says you are eligible to continue your health coverage for up to 18 months BUT (and this is a big ole but), you have to pay out of pocket what your employer paid for it, plus a little extra as an administration charge. If you can afford it, it's a good idea to keep your insurance coverage going or else you can get fucked re: pre-existing conditions if you fail to get coverage elsewhere within a certain time limit. But it can be reallllllly freaking hard to afford to extend your coverage under COBRA.

For example: The last time I got offered COBRA coverage was in 2000 and it would have cost me ~$400 a month to continue my coverage. There should be a quote in that contract somewhere that tells you what you have to pay to keep up your coverage.

COBRA = Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (yes, I had to look that up)

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_consumer_cobra.HTML

Oooh, crazy. Well, I have my regular insurance for the time being, but I guess I need to make an appointment to talk to the benefits office about stuff.

see I was thinking of this:
http://www.80stees.com/images/products/GI_Joe_Cobra_Commander_Is_Back-PosterDouble.jpg

i posted a question about the CPL bullshit on one of my class bulletin boards, we'll see if i get any answers

Under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, you can continue your health benefits as before, except Cobra Commander is your new doctor.

I will be happy to review your severance contract for $200. However, I am not qualified or allowed to give you advice with regard to it.

I never noticed that CPL filing system, just that books aren't likely to be filed exactly where I think they will be. I usually scan the surrounding shelves.

COBRA is the logical next step in the evolution of health insurance -- they've got tanks.

xps I reviewed it myself thank you very much

i'm not sure if it's all CPL branches that files that way - i think sulzer regional does it the "normal" way - but harold washington definitely does it the weird way

I never noticed that CPL filing system, just that books aren't likely to be filed exactly where I think they will be. I usually scan the surrounding shelves.

Yeah, me too. I only noticed it last night because there at HWLC there's an entire section of Prices and I kept finding Richard Price novels scattered throughout. Then as I was making my way to the As, I saw little signs posted on the ends of the rows explaining this last-name-then-book-title system. I probably would not have figured it out otherwise. In fact, I was going to complain to the person at the information desk that the books were woefully disordered. (LOL I complain at the library I am so old)

Hmmm... Merlo is my home branch and I can't remember how they do it. I go to Harold Wash more often than I go to Merlo, though.

I am gonna get a big fuck-off pastrami sandwich on my way home today.

http://web.mit.edu/ryangray/Public/Gnus/thumbs_up.jpg

Happy pre-Thanksgiving everybody.

here's what my cataloging pref said about the CPL filing controversy:

When I starting paging (shelving) at the St. Louis County Library I was shocked to discover that I was supposed to shelve novels by title under the author's last name and ignore the fact that we interfiled different authors. I think it's pretty common, though I'd be interested to find out what others have observed at their local library.

A more extreme version of it interfiles everyone with the first three letters of the last name. HarperCollins Publishers, which puts out the LIttle House series, has taken advantage of this known library quirk. All the writers who a hired to write prequels and sequels and spin-offs of Laura Ingalls Wilder are required to take a pen name beginning with Wil...

It's not the best for patrons, but it does give an unambiguous rule that doesn't require omniscience on the part of shelver or browser. If you've gone through the Smiths, you know whether something's there or not. In actual practice, you have to completely understand the collection to reshelve the books by grouping the authors with the same last names. At my daughter's school library (a typical small collection), the media assistant wants it done by last name only because most of her volunteers don't know the authors.

Cutter numbers are magical for this because you can express an entire last name with only a fixed-length code without having to do fancy processing on the book itself.

We don't have enough time to get into the nitty gritty details of book processing, but how you put things on the spine is key to ordering your shelves for browsing, and it's not just DDC numbers. Look at these books from my local public library (where a woman nearing retirement is in charge of cataloging and keeps the old traditions, including writing inside the book for pre-processing). Her staff does an insane amount of work just to make sure that the books browse on the shelves (St. Louis County never even had spine labels for author's names on fiction!) Look at the complex stuff: underlined last names of the main entry, a sticker supplying the author's name if it's not clear; Demco labels for genres and subjects, reading levels and new books (which have to be reprocessed when they're de-"newed." Cutter numbers would be way easier for the staff!

https://courses.lis.uiuc.edu/file.php/535/images/IMG_0004.JPG

still doesn't really make sense to me

I never knew that librarianship involved so much incomprehensible jargon.

yeah that doesn't really clarify or justify it for me either

de-"newed."

de-nude

Second City 24 hours of improv and music w/ Breeders, etc.

What's a Cutter Number? What the hell does this mean: "At my daughter's school library (a typical small collection), the media assistant wants it done by last name only because most of her volunteers don't know the authors." Why does your cataloging prof hate old ladies? How does a book "browse on the shelf"?

Library Science is the most inscrutable of all the sciences.

Possible the most uncrustable.

question -- why wouldn't it be normal for librarians to have jargon?

the cutter number is the number that comes after the classification number on the spine. the classification number is imposed by the dewey system or the LOC system or whatever classification system is being used. the cutter number is imposed by the library or library system, though there are dewey and LOC standards that are usually followed, and is based on the author's name. it's usually the first letter of the author's last name and then a two-or-three-digit number that's selected by looking up the author's last name in a big old-school guide. basically it's used for further shelving guidance after the call number, since lots of books can have the same call number, especially for a really general subject

actually you can look up the cutter number through freely downloadable computer program too, though they apparently haven't made a mac version yet, which seems really wtf - it's basically just a list of numbers, shouldn't be hard to code at all

it seems like the prof is against this system too, though she seems to be saying the CPL system might be easier for library staff to reshelve books because they only have to look at the last name and then the title instead of having to think about the first name too, which sometimes you have to look inside to find if the book has been rebound?

goddammit i cannot focus on this paper i'm supposed to be working on

I just ate a free sample of some sort of Pro-biotic "Wellness" Cereal as a snack and now I kind of want to vomit. Pro-biotic Pukeness Cereal is more like it.

why wouldn't it be normal for librarians to have jargon?

I don't know? It is normal? I was half making a joke/half being irked at my inability to comprehend the answer to my burning question, which seems to be: because it's easier to shelve. (Thanks, Nick. And thanks for the cutter number explanation.)

The Hold Steady have a few cutter numbers.

someone should make something fun happen this weekend.

Hi guys. I'm in an airport bar in Cowlumbus, Ohio.

sarah's fam is leaving on friday so we should be available to hang on fri eve or later in the weekend

Happy Tofurkey Day.

1. Where was Dan flying to?
2. I'm full of lasagna and crazy smoky, creamy whisky/scotch cocktail that Jenny nicked from the Violent Hour.
3. I would do something this weekend.