Where Do We Go from Here?

A few weeks ago, I posted It's Time We Reconsidered Our Relationship (With Vendors) in response to a number of issues relating to law resource vendors. My original draft was quite lengthy and I cut it down considerably. However, there is more to be said on the issue. In particular, I liked the responses of two law librarians in particular. Tom Boone and Meg Kribble both responded in ways that went beyond mere anger at West' recent antics and instead looked at where our profession is headed and what we can do about it.

Tom Boone jumped into the fray looking at the situation from a different angle than most.

You want to be angry at West for that ad? Be indignant at the suggestion that their online systems are comprehensive enough or designed intuitively enough to eliminate the need for librarian (or West's own customer support) assistance. Be outraged that they charge so much for their services that, no matter how well designed, our library budgets are the only thing that makes it possible for researchers to use them.

But never forget that if West, Lexis or some other legal database vendor ever fixed these problems, the need for our expertise, at least in its current form, would be reduced dramatically.

He further states that although this is unlikely, he doesn't relish the idea of "relying on someone else's incompetence to stay relevant," and goes on to suggest that we, as law librarians, should put our efforts into designing, implementing, redesigning the systems to make them better, to focus on the systems and not expecting that the old reference model will last forever. This will probably upset the hardcore public services crowd that hates anything to do with technical services, but the truth has always been that the better the systems the technical services people use and the better they do their job, the easier it is for the public services people to do our jobs. He is, I think, suggesting that maybe some of that public services work is going to disappear, merged into the work the researcher/patron is doing on his own, but that maybe librarians, not vendors, are the best candidates to build these systems. Not that public services will go away, but the models are changing and we can embrace that and our part to influence the changes or we can stand helplessly and watch as it is done for us.

It is this change that Meg Kribble takes up:

Yes, I agree. It's insulting and offensive. But beyond the outrage, I'd love to see it lead to more discussion of the positive things we as law librarians are going to do to change things so that next time a major legal publisher makes such a blunder, we all just laugh it off. And more important than discussion, action. What do we, the legal information experts, do to take more control of legal information back from vendors?

She suggests a number of places we could focus our efforts, and asks do we start here? My answer is yes, we start here and in all other worthwhile projects we can find.

We need to explore options and contribute to open-source ILS projects like Evergreen, Koha and OPALS. Or open-source OPACs like VuFind, Blacklight, oss4lib, Rapi and more.

We need to develop more free services like Cornell's Legal Information Institute and find better ways to organize and use online government and court information.

We need to encourage our organizations to realize the importance of technical services, to realize that our online presence and our technology needs are too important to be left to the IT department. Law Libraries need web developers, network administrators and programmers. Our future is in online services and we can't expect the average overworked university IT department to have the time or the expertise to design and implement these systems. Neither can we continue to rely on vendors to administer these for us.

Some (more forward thinking?) academic law libraries have an in-house IT department. However, I would hazard a guess that the model at my own school is more common. That being one or two people who can do just enough UNIX administration to keep an ILS running and who have some web development skill. There is a resistance in such places to implementing anything that can't be purchased with support because only one person will know how to administer it. If that person leaves, no one else will be able to do it. My argument is that the next person should be able to do it. Organizations evolve, job responsibilities evolve and we should not be using job descriptions from ten or twenty years ago when he bring in new people.

We should continue on from there by looking into the future and not predicting where we will end up, but deciding where we want to end up and how we want to get there. We can sit back and do what we've always done or we can shape the dialog and the future.

Tinariwen, Cucu Diamantes - Heineken TransAtlantic Festival, North Beach Bandshell, Miami Beach, FL April 25, 2009

Due the the concurrent scheduling of the 2009 SEAALL Annual Meeting, I had to miss most of the Heineken TransAtlantic Festival. I would have liked to see Curumin the first night, but I was in Athens that whole weekend. So, instead of picking up a festival pass and going to all four nights, I only went to the fourth and final show, Tinariwen and CuCu Diamantes. The TransAtlantic Festival is organized as part of the Rhythm Foundation's concert series. While I think I heard something about the festival last year, I have to admit that I did not know about the Rhythm Foundation or the concert series they run every year. I will pay more attention in the future.

I arrived at the venue about a half-hour before the doors were scheduled to open. I heard music when I parked my car and realized that Tinariwen were soundchecking. I walked across the street to the venue, bought my ticket and stood in the queue listening to Tinariwen. They finished about 20 minutes later. I could tell the show was going to be great from the soundcheck.



They only kept us outside for a few minutes after the soundcheck finished. I went inside and grabbed a seat at the end of the middle aisle about five rows back. As I was alone and didn't want to give up my seat, I decided to forgo the usual pre-show beer and instead devoted my time to people watching. I heard at least six languages being spoken inside, as well as out in the queue (English, Spanish, French, German and a couple I didn't recognize). There were a lot of families and large groups of people who I believe were there to see Cuban singer Cucu Diamantes.

After a reasonable wait, someone came out to talk about the festival a little bit and introduce Tinariwen. Six people in desert garb walked on stage and began singing. The stage setup had three instrumentalists on the right side of the stage (guitar, bass, djembe) and three singers/guitarists on the left side of the stage. After searching a while, I had finally found a copy of Tinariwen's latest disc, Aman Iman: Water is Life, while I was in Athens, and only had the chance to listen a couple of times before the show. Prior to this, most of the Tinariwen music I had heard was played on Henry Rollins' show on KCRW (and before that, on his Indie 103 show, Harmony In My Head).

Led by Abdallah, they opened the set with the second song from Aman Iman, "Mano Dayak." At it's conclusion, he asked "Is ok?" and was greeted with applause. He said a few words of introduction in French and they continued on, with singer/guitarists Abdallah, Hassan and Intidao taking turns playing guitar and singing lead while the others backed him up. I found out later that the group's leader Ibrahim had gone into the desert before the Australia tour and missed both it and the US tour. The band has a long history and has many members passing through and even without its leader they were still stunning.

People filtered in during the first couple of songs. At the start of the show, most were sitting in the seats or standing in the back. A large portion of the crowd didn't seem to have any idea who Tinariwen were. As they played, the area in front of the stage slowly started to fill up as people left their seats to move up front to dance. By the end of the set, Tinariwen was playing to an enthusiastic crowd. I don't think I have ever seen such any band win over an audience like that before. It was truly amazing.

I only know of Cucu Diamantes what I read on the festival website. I stayed to check out her set. She's a New York-based Cuban singer from a group called Yerba Buena. She was playing in support of her first solo album, which was not quite out at the time of the show. When she came on stage, it was obvious that this was her crowd. She asked if the audience wanted her to speak in English or Spanish. This is Miami, like one really need ask. She went back and forth between the two for much of the show. The band played a more rock version of Latin jazz and while very good, it was all very professional and show biz, completely the opposite of Tinariwen. While enjoyable, my hunger won out and I went in search of food.

I started in the restaurant across the street. I was seated quickly, but after sitting with a menu for ten minutes, I left and found a small pizza place down the street. I ordered two slices and ate one since they were enormous. The second one went in the car and I went back to the bandshell to catch the end of Cucu Diamantes' set.

I will definitely be paying more attention to this festival next year. There were earlier shows I wanted to see, including one featuring Curumin. I am hoping that SEALL's later date this year means there will be no conflict. Tinariwen will also be returning to the US early next year to support their upcoming album (already out in Europe) Imidiwan: Companions. By all accounts, it's going to be even more amazing than the last one. Right now, the tour starts in mid-February in North Carolina and heads west. I plan to be at the opening night, even though it's a 14 hour drive. They're that good. Tinariwen's albums are excellent and I highly recommend giving all of them a listen. But live, it's a whole other thing. They are, without question, one of the most amazing groups I have ever seen and anyone who passes up a chance to see them is seriously missing out.

50 Bands You've Seen

Bob Boilen over at All Songs Considered made a post of random bands he's seen, commenting "I don't know where this started, but a friend of mine asked me to make a list of 50 bands or artists I've seen live. The instructions are simple. You have to do it from memory, ordering them as they pop into your head. Some of the fun of this is seeing the random list."

His list was interesting and it sounded like fun, so here's the first 100-ish that popped into my head:

1.Naked City
2.Cake (2x)
3.Phish (20x)
4.Hank Roberts (10+x)
5.Napalm Death (5x)
6.Type O Negative
7.Slayer
8.Tragedy, the All-Heavy Metal Tribute to the Bee-Gees (2x)
9.2 Skinnee J's (14x)
10.X
11.The New Pornographers
12.Thievery Corporation
13.Beastie Boys
14.R.E.M.
15.GWAR (3x)
16.Sick of It All (5x)
17.Murphy's Law (12x)
18.The Scofflaws (9x)
19.The Toasters (5x)
20.The Reverend Horton Heat (2x)
21.The Dwarves
22.Abalienation (50x?)
23.DROPDEAD
24.The Varukers
25.The Wernt
26.Doom
27.J. Willis Pratt & We're Bionic
28.Medeski, Martin & Wood (2x)
29.Joshua Redman
30.The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (12x)
31.Descendants
32.Snapcase
33.Social Distortion
34.Judas Priest (2x)
35.Megadeth (2x)
36.Anthrax (4x)
37.The Flaming Lips (3x)
38.Iron Maiden
39.moe. (5-6x)
40.The Dead/The Other Ones (2x)
41.The Police
42.Phil Lesh & Friends
43.Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
44.Radiohead
45.Beck
46.Sonic Youth
47.Of Montreal
48.The New Mastersounds (2x)
49.The National
50.!!!
51.Simon & Garfunkel
52.They Might Be Giants (14x)
53.Primus (3x)
54.The Boredoms
55.Brutal Truth (3x)
56.Carcass (2x)
57.Godflesh (2x)
58.Tinariwen
59.Tussle
60.Ratatat
61.The Rentals
62.Circle Jerks
63.Mike Gordon
64.Seu Jorge
65.The Who
66.Sex Pistols
67.The Cramps
68.Body Count
69.D.R.I.
70.Pro-Pain (2x)
71.Exodus
72.Prong
73.Cannibal Corpse (2x)
74.Obituary (2x)
75.Agnostic Front
76.Kreator
77.Biohazard (3x)
78.Morgoth
79.Malevolent Creation
80.Fear Factory
81.Overkill (3x)
82.Bad Manners
83.Madness
84.Zappa Plays Zappa
85.Stereolab (3x)
86.Atlas Sound (2x)
87.Insane Clown Posse
88.Twiztid (2x)
89.2 Live Crew
90.Public Enemy
91.Blaze Ya Dead Homie (2x)
92.Willie Nelson
93.Queensryche
94.Suicidal Tendencies
95.Barenaked Ladies
96.Trey Anastasio (3x)
97.Elvis Costello and the Imposters
98.Dangerous, The All-Heavy Metal Tribute to Michael Jackson
99.Flogging Molly
100.Superchunk
101.Elastica
102.Pavement
103.Cypress Hill
104.Butthole Surfers
105.Alice in Chains
106.Stone Temple Pilots
107.Sepultura
108.Sacred Reich
109.Harry Shearer, Michael McKean & Christopher Guest
110.Modest Mouse
111.David Byrne (2x)
112.The Ramones

Some were on purpose, some because they were opening for someone I wanted to see (*cough* Stone Temple Pilots). It's an interesting list, but not nearly complete.

It's Time We Reconsidered Our Relationship (With Vendors)

Hot on the the heels of AALL's refusal of Annual Meeting sponsorship money from West, a Thomson Reuters business due to their practice of refusing to submit pricing information to the AALL Price Index, there was another mini-scandal involving the removal of free printers from the Puerto Rican law schools. The students in Puerto Rico were using the printers "too much," so rather than institute some sort of quota system to control costs, they just pulled the printers out completely. Amid the hubbub, it was revealed that they also rather quietly pulled printers from some of the non-ABA accredited schools. Following a number of complaints, including some accusing the company of racism, West, a Thomson Reuters business, reinstated the printers at the Puerto Rican schools and made a statement to the effect that in the future, any limits to the printing program will be instituted across the board.

Almost immediately following the printer saga, an email was posted to the law-lib mailing list referencing a marketing email sent by West, a Thomson Reuters business proclaiming that those "on a first name basis with the librarian" are "spending too much time at the library." Later, a screenshot was posted publicly.



Anne Ellis, the Senior Director of Library Relations at West, a Thomson Reuters business apologized for the email on law-lib, but not before many posts were made by offended law librarians.

My use of the name "West, a Thomson Reuters business," rather than the usual "West" is deliberate. Apparently West Publishing wasn't enough of a mouthful, so Thomson Reuters changed the name and has gone to great pains to use this name in their correspondence and on the phone.

Jim Milles stated yesterday on Twitter "Law librarians need to get over the idea that Westlaw or Lexis are on their side, or the customer's. They're all about profit--of course."

I think long-time law librarians who remember West Publishing, before they were bought by Thomson, as a less profit-oriented more benevolent dictatorship. They're the people who throw the big party at AALL every year, and dole out money to support events. I think even younger librarians are swayed by large swag giveaways and helpful support reps into thinking that the companies are wonderful people. Not to take anything away from the people who work at these companies, and some of them individually are wonderful people, but the fact is that whatever they were in the past and helpful staff notwithstanding, these two companies are divisions of much larger public companies and as such, they are expected to maximize profits. Period. That's how large-scale corporate capitalism works. There is no morality, there is only stock price and maximizing profit for the shareholders.

I was part of several discussions at AALL's Annual Meeting this year and afterward on Twitter regarding our relationship with vendors as a profession, as an organization and as individuals. My own bias is that I believe the culture of accepting tchotchkes undercuts our standing as professionals and in the relationship with vendors. I was turned off to this culture early on in my library career. As a student, I attended the ribbon cutting at an ALA exhibit hall and was horrified by the behavior of the attendees. I watched as alleged professionals tore through a large exhibit hall looking for free junk and running people over with their carts. I think I lasted fifteen minutes before I convinced the fellow student I was with to leave in search of dinner. (Full disclosure: I did spend a minute talking to an OUP rep and grabbing a free copy of one of their guides to Austin and San Antonio before I left).

I was unhappy to find similar, though less obnoxious, behavior at AALL. Every year, I watch people load up on branded junk to take back home and fill their offices. Every year, we go to vendor-sponsored parties and eat their food and drink their alcohol (and have our pictures taken). We come home and fill our offices with the pictures and the branded toys and coffee cups. We, the information professionals who should always be advocating the best available tool for the job no matter who sells it, in effect become shills for the legal information publishers. This undermines our position both with our patrons and with the companies, who have bought us with parties, cheap trinkets and sponsorships.

AALL finally took a stand this year with West, a Thomson Reuters business, over the long-standing issue of the Price Index by excluding them from sponsorship of the meeting. While I commend the organization for actually taking a stand on something that might cost them money, I am with those who don't think we went far enough. I think our point will only be made by enacting a blanket ban on West or any other publisher who does not conform to AALL's Sponsorship Policy. West should not only not be banned from sponsorship of the meeting, but also from the exhibit hall and their annual "Customer Appreciation Event" should be excluded from the official program. I realize that AALL may be including it for convenience of the attendees, but its inclusion gives the appearance that it is an official AALL event.

Yes, I realize that this would cost the association a large amount of money, but last I checked we could afford it. The meeting made several hundred-thousand dollars the last few years, and there are likely some places where budget could be trimmed (say, overpriced keynote speakers) to offset the loss. AALL is a non-profit organization founded to "promote and enhance the value of law libraries to the legal and public communities, to foster the profession of law librarianship, and to provide leadership in the field of legal information." It's time for AALL to provide some leadership by example and put some distance between the nation's largest organization of law librarians and companies that sell legal information products to the organization's members.

As an individual, I picked up no trinkets at this year's meeting and upon my return I cleaned my office of branded gear. I gave away or threw out my branded mugs and brought an unmarked one from home (Full disclosure: I sometimes bring marked mugs from home that contain the logo of a sports team or a brand of coffee). I believe that Meg Kribble and possibly some others did the same. I still have one branded bag from a past conference which will be removed when I find a suitable replacement. I urge others to do the same, not as a symbolic gesture but as the start of a new relationship with vendors where librarians do not shill product, but treat each source as a tool to be used for its best purposes. Use WestLaw when it's the best option, LexisNexis when it's the best option, use FastCase, LoisLaw, Cornell University's Legal Information Institute or FDSys when they're the best options. I make sure to inform my students of the cost of Wexis when I teach the online portions of our Legal Research Bootcamp and let them know there are lower and no-cost options for a lot of the content. Most of our students start solo practices or work in small firms. A lot of these firms can't afford much past a Shepard's subscription and I'm not doing my job if I don't point out affordable alternatives. My position as an independent consultant and educator is undercut if I'm drinking water out of a Wexis mug while I'm teaching.

It's time for us to go forward and forge a new relationship with vendors. Think about it.

Judas Priest - Seminole Hard Rock Live, Hollywood, FL August 17, 2009

A few days ago I received an email from Evan about the upcoming Judas Priest/Whitesnake show at the Hard Rock. Ticketmaster was offering tickets for free plus service charges (of course). He was looking to see if anyone else was interested. I checked it out and found out that the tour is the 30th Anniversary tour for the British Steel album, and they're playing the whole album every night. I couldn't miss that for virtually free.

Setlist:
Rapid Fire
Metal Gods
Breaking The Law
Grinder
United
You Don't Have To Be Old To Be Wise
Living After Midnight
The Rage
Steeler
The Ripper
Prophecy
Hell Patrol
Victim Of Changes

Encore:
Freewheel Burning
Diamonds And Rust
You've Got Another Thing Comin'

This show broke a concert-going record for me, that for longest-time between two shows by the same band. Generally, if I see a particular performer multiple times, it tends to be on successive tours, or alternating tours. Some I see on as many tours as possible. Then, there are the oddballs. My previous record was 13 years, for The Flaming Lips. My first Lips show was when they were touring for Transmissions from the Satellite Heart in 1993, opening for the Butthole Surfers. I was really there to see the Surfers, but really enjoyed the Lips' set. For some reason, though, I never bought any of their records, and didn't seek them out again. Many years later, I heard some of their newer albums and started listening more actively to them. My second show was in 2006, just before I left New York. They played the New York State Fair with Sonic Youth and Ween. My third show was much sooner than my second. I saw them again on the same tour (for At War with the Mystics) in 2007 in Pompano Beach.

I first saw Judas Priest in January 1991, at the Broome County Arena in Binghamton, NY. They were touring for the Painkiller album, with Megadeth opening. This was my first arena show. I had previously only seen shows in local clubs or theaters. We made the trek to Bingo primarily to see Megadeth, but I had the latest Priest album and was looking forward to seeing them as well. They had recently hired drummer Scott Travis. The young drummer had energized the group and their tour was getting excellent reviews. I'd never been much of a fan. Although I liked a few of their songs, the records they'd released after I had begun buying metal albums (Turbo and Ram It Down) were underwhelming. Painkiller was different and I quite liked it.

The show opened with Rob Halford riding a motorcycle from underneath an enormous set of ramps behind and over Scott Travis. He shut the motorcycle off, leaving the headlight on and the band ripped into "Hell Bent for Leather." By the end of the song, the headlight had dimmed considerably and stagehands removed the bike. The remainder of the set was a mix of songs from Painkiller and their considerable back catalog. The band was tight, energetic (they spent much of the set running up and down the ramps) and, importantly, a lot of fun. I never ram out and bought up their back catalog, but I did gain an appreciation for some of those older albums and I have fond memories of that show.

Eighteen years later, I found myself in the upper deck of the Hard Rock waiting for Judas Priest to come on. The place was fairly empty when we arrived. Camera operators were stationed throughout the venue to record the show for a live DVD. I suspect that the free tickets (all to the upper deck, as far as I know) were to help fill the place up for better sound and better crowd sounds. Whitesnake canceled as singer David Coverdale has apparently wrecked his voice. No one we heard talking about it seemed too disappointed. I can't imagine the crossover between those two bands' fans is that great, so I was not surprised.

The group had a large banner with pictures of factories on in front of the stage. The show started with the sounds of hammers and machinery and a laser show(!) consisting of guys hammering metal. The pounding stopped and the band ripped into "Rapid Fire," with the banner dropping at Halford's first line of lyrics. The group on stage looked almost exactly the same as eighteen years earlier, albeit grayer (and balder in the cases of Halford and bassist Ian Hill). "Metal Gods" and "Breaking the Law" followed, and I guessed the band had decided to change the order of the album live. I found out later that they were playing the original UK track list of British Steel. Columbia Records changed the order for the American edition (as they did with all of Elvis Costello's early albums, so this is not much of a surprise).

They followed up with a curious collection of older songs, plus one from their recent concept album about Nostradamus. Most of the later part of the set was from the albums preceding British Steel rather than the 1980s albums with which I am more familiar, so I didn't really know that many of the songs. This did not deter from my enjoyment of the show, as they had already played what is largely considered their best album, and one of the two that I know reasonably well.

As for the performance, they were much as I remembered them, with a little less of the running around that they did on the Painkiller tour. Judging from some other live footage I saw on the internets, this may have been an anomaly of that particular tour, anyway. The band were still tight, energetic and a lot of fun. Yes, it's metal and some of the posing is a little silly, as are some of the lyrics (though Judas Priest's are better than most). But the mark of a great heavy metal band is that they help you forget your problems for 90 minutes and enjoy the show. For all of its pretension, the best metal bands know that they are entertainment (something many performers, particularly in other genres, have issues with) and give you an entertaining show for your money. Even if you pay full price. Judas Priest certainly lived up to my memories of seeing them all those years ago. These guys are my mother's age and still rock. That's an unqualified "rock," not "rock for old guys." The show was thoroughly enjoyable and may inspire me to buy up some of those other older albums, or possibly their recent box set.

Look what we bought

As has been mentioned several times here, Liz and I bought a house, in Southeast Hollywood. We're hard at work unpacking, painting and changing things around. This set of photos was taken after our offer was accepted, but before closing. The owners' furniture was still inside. Our move was crazy and I was unable to get photos of the empty house. These are dark and lousy for the most part, but is all I have for "before" photos. As we work through the house, we will have (better) "after" photos.



The living room, from two different angles.


Dining room.


Kitchen, with original cabinets.



Laundry room.


Garage.




Master bedroom and bath.


Hallway bathroom.


Liz's room.


My room.

New Digs

I've installed a new template here. The previous one was an emergency substitution for the original template, which wasn't working with my imported flickr photos. I like this one a lot better. I'm still tweaking it. For the moment, the above "recent posts" photo menu does not work, and anything in Spanish is a dead link. I'm also going through all of my posts and adding tags. I'm also going to import all of the posts from my previous page (John's Weblog of Doom). I'll be slowly working through it all and everything should be working by Monday.

I've also moved house, of course, and soon there will be posts about that. My plan is to go room by room and post pictures of everything we do to the place. None of the rooms are finished yet, but as we finish bits, I'll post the before and afters.