A tip to prospective realtors and homeowners

If you want to sell a house, it's best not only to remove the carpeting that your dog urinated on, but also to deal with the flea infestation. If the urine smell doesn't turn off prospective buyers, it's likely that being attacked by hordes of fleas and suffering multiple bites will.

SEALL Institute 2009: The Impact of Electronic Resources on Today’s Law Library

While I twittered a lot of the SEAALL meeting this year, the first day I took notes on paper. With a pen. Here's a quick and dirty summary. I didn't take very good notes as to who was saying what on some of the panels.

HeinOnline surveys (Roxanne Marmion, HeinOnline)

• HeinOnline bound volume survey:


• 24% of libraries surveyed have moved journals in HeinOnline to remote storage


• 43% have discarded journals in HeinOnline


• 67% have cancelled journals not in HeinOnline due to budgetary restrictions


• HeinOnline journal survey


• 50% of journals on HeinOnline are current (latest issue available)


• 23% are all published (discontinued, retitled)


• 17% are added to HeinOnline by volume


• 10% have a one-volume delay or more

Future of tech services (Kevin Butterfield, College of William & Mary)

• At William & Mary, from 2000 to 2009, 1274 subscriptions were cancelled. As a result, there was less work in labeling, shelving, filing, etc. 2FT positions were retooled. 30,000 e-resource records were added to the catalog.


• Trying to follow the Google model (from Harvard Business Review article). 80/20 rule. 80% of an employee’s time spent working on core duties. 20% spent on personal projects that enhance core services. Wants staff members to find projects that they are passionate about and that will enhance core services. Employees are evaluated on the 20% projects.

Communication (First segment vendors, second was Billie Blaine, Supreme Court of Florida, Marian Parker, Wake Forest University and Kay Todd, Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker)

• (I didn’t take a lot of notes on the vendor presentations as I knew about most of the things the concerned vendors were doing. Exceptions were the HeinOnline blog and wiki and BNA’s law school professional information center. I already knew about the Lexis newsletters and West trainings and email newsletters, etc.)


• Libraries using Facebook to push out trainings, workshops, etc.


• Law review requires students to take a certain amount of workshops, on a points system.

The (Almost) All-Electronic Library (Gordon Russell, Lincoln Memorial University)

• Just-in-time model; small staff (model allows for fewer staff members).


• Smaller print collection means less filing, shelving, cataloging and invoices.


• Cataloging records are purchased from YBP, Cassidy and others.


• E-Book licensing model: Purchase from publishers with more open model (allow printing of entire chapters, etc.) and who provide MARC records.


• Just-in-time print model


• Patron-driven purchasing


• Only 4,000 linear ft. of shelving at Lincoln (10,000 at Charleston)


• No journals or reporters in print.


• Main university uses Voyager. LS will use as well, but only print materials will be added to catalog. The others are all in Aquabrowser and Serial Solutions.


• Seminars are offered as 3 credit course. One credit is pass/fail research segment taught by librarians.

Forecast and Impact Today (Billie Blaine, Marian Parker, Faye Jones, Kay Todd, Sally Irvin, Kevin Butterfield)

• 3 lists: Sacred Cows, Endangered Species and Chopping Block. Things are moving rapidly from Sacred Cows to Chopping Block.


• Firms are “deconstructing” libraries. Materials are being moved into practice group offices & satellite libraries.


• Moving to just-in-time model might be more shocking to faculty than anyone else.


• “Students think they know everything because they come in searchers. We need to teach them to be researchers.”


• Staffing changes coming. Librarians will be more like law faculty. Staff members will be fewer but will be more like a bridge between paraprofessionals and what librarians used to do.

Pizza night

Michael Ruhlman declared this week National Make-Pizza-at-Home week. I already had pizza on the brain, ever since making those pies when James and Elizabeth were down from Buffalo. Ruhlman's post was enough to get me to the store to buy more flour, as I was running low, and some cheese. I used to make pizza almost weekly when we were living in Ithaca and a bit less often in Syracuse. I stopped making my own when we moved to Hollywood. The proliferation of decent pizza joints (not an issue in Syracuse) here makes it easier to give it a pass and order out. But, for those outside the five boroughs, a homemade pie is more satisfying than most takeout.

Since I had to stop on the way home from work to get the flour and cheese, as well as herbs for the sauce, I opted for a quick proof dough. I used the basic recipe from Ruhlman's post, but with a whole packet of yeast and some good warm water. I also put a pizza stone on the bottom rack of the oven and preheated it to 200. I had some problems getting the dough wet enough. I needed just a touch more water than called for to get the consistency I wanted. Problem was, I added twice as much as needed. I tossed in a little extra flour and kneaded it in. Catastrophe averted. After kneading, I coated the inside of a mixing bowl with olive oil, tossed the dough in, then covered it with a damp towel and put it in the oven for 30 minutes.

While the dough was in the oven, I put a sauce together. I chopped up some of the basil and parsley I bought and added them to a can of tomato sauce and half a can of water. I added a couple of minced garlic cloves and a little bit of olive oil along with some dried oregano and thyme (no fresh at the store today; at least you can get away with those—dried parsley, not so much).

After 30, I pulled the dough out and cranked the oven up to 450. It was a little too warm on the edges, but that's to be expected when you heat it in a metal bowl. It wasn't unworkable, though. I nicked the parchment paper idea out the comments on Ruhlman's post. I stretched the dough out, then dropped it on parchment paper, sauced it and loaded it on the stone with a peel. Yes, I have a peel and therefore don't need the paper, but I'm out of cornmeal and on parchment, you don't have to be so exact. If you miss an edge, you can grab the paper and move it over. It's ridiculous amounts easier.

I, of course, did not think to pick up any toppings for this pie, so I had to improvise out of what I had in the refrigerator. The black olives were kind of old and scary looking, so I tossed them and pulled out the green ones. I grabbed two slices of ham out of the meat drawer and sliced them up along with a handful of the olives. I added some baby spinach from the crisper.

After 10 minutes, I pulled the pie out, added some cheese, then the spinach, ham and olives and then more cheese to hold it together and put it back in for 10 more minutes. The split cooking is important if you're using oil in the dough. If you put everything on at once, the cheese burns well before the crust is cooked. Yes, the guys cooking on belt ovens put everything on the pizza before baking, but that's because it's faster. Anyone using a belt oven is concerned about speed, not quality.

I sliced it up and cracked open a bottle of the 2005 Firestone Central Coast Vineyard Select Riesling. I read somewhere on the internets that it was a good buy. I forget where, or I'd link. It's a pretty decent Riesling on its own for $10 and it went perfectly with the pizza. The fruitiness was offset nicely by the salty ham and olives. This is one of my favorite recent dinners.

The Pogues - Pompano Beach Amphitheatre, March 7, 2009

Photo by Liz.

Setlist:

Streams of Whisky
If I Should Fall from Grace With God
The Broad Majestic Shannon
Turkish Song of the Damned
A Pair of Brown Eyes
Repeal of the Licensing Laws
Cotton Fields
Greenland Whale Fisheries
Sayonara
Tuesday Morning (Spider)
Kitty
Sunnyside of the Street
The Body of an American
Lullaby of London
Thousands are Sailing (Phil)
Dirty Old Town
Bottle of Smoke
The Sickbed of Cuchulainn
-------
Sally MacLannene
Rainy Night in Soho
The Irish Rover
-------
Poor Paddy
Fiesta

I was particularly disappointed when Langerado was cancelled this year because I was finally going to be able to see The Pogues. I missed them when they played their first U.S. reunion shows around 2002-3 on account of being broke and also not being able to take the time off to go to downstate for the show. The bonus for the current tour is that Phil Chevron is healthy enough following his cancer treatments to be back on the road. As it turns out, the cancellation was nearly a death blow to the tour, and their booking agent quickly found them a replacement local show in Pompano Beach.

Following poutine and burgers at Homeburger USA, we made our way to the arena. Fast food for dinner meant that we were unusually early, arriving about ten minutes after the doors opened. The place was pretty empty, with just a few people wandering around with drinks. I bought a Pogues scarf at the merch booth and we went to find seats and overpriced beer ($8 for a draught can of Guinness actually isn't that bad for venue beer).

Openers Kiss Kiss were a pretty good indie rock group, with a violin player and touches of Eastern European melodies. Unfortunately, the singer is from the school of whiny emo vocalists, which detracted greatly from my enjoyment of the performance.

Eventually, the place filled with in with other old geezers, drinks in hand, and the Pogues emerged from backstage. It's always a crapshoot with older performers, as some, especially rock guys from the 1960s and 1970s, lose a lot of what made them vital when they get older and richer (see The Rolling Stones or Osbourne, Ozzy). Others only get better with age (see Aitken, Laurel or X). I was very interested in seeing an older Pogues perform, as the band always seemed so much younger than their songs. Shane grabbed a beer off a tray set next to his microphone stand and the band launched into "Streams of Whiskey." The lineup of the band touring now is the one that recorded the middle trio of Pogues albums (If I Should Fall From Grace With God, Peace & Love and Hell's Ditch), but the setlist was skewed heavily towards the early albums and associated singles, with only one from Peace & Love, two from Hell's Ditch and one from the Shane-less Waiting for Herb, the single "Tuesday Morning."

Shane now has the permanent slur of the lifelong drunk, but unlike the recordings from that last tour before he left the Pogues in 1991, when he was sloppy and sounding ready to pass out for most of the show, here he was coherent and in good form, just harder to understand. The band, although obviously aging, are all quite spry (James Fearnley in particular) and can still kick up a racket. They were tight, energetic and really seemed to be enjoying themselves. Spider Stacy in particular seemed to take great joy in making jokes and giving Shane a hard time. I can't say enough good things about this show. Well worth the money and time spent. Our consolation prize for the Langerado cancellation turned out to be a full set of The Pogues. Cheers!

Danshui

Our last night in Taipei, Julia took us to Danshui. She explained it as basically the Coney Island of Taipei. It's a waterfront area out of the main city a bit. To get there, you take the red line north all the way to the end.



We arrived in Danshui and a couple of us grabbed coffee to go, and then we walked to a restaurant on the top of a hill that offered a great view of the water. We all did our usual confused tourist thing and accidentally ordered enough beer for about twelve people, even though there were only five of us. Luckily, this was explained to us and we adjusted our order. The local brew came is large bottles and we had assumed they were much smaller.



The food at the restaurant was good, but not great. I think the attraction is more the setting than the food. They had the satellite radio on a station that was playing American hits of the 80s and 90s. We had the feeling this was for our benefit. Unfortunately, a couple of us at the table are music snobs and after the third Celine Dion song, we couldn't take it anymore and asked for it to be changed (by this time, we were one of the last tables still eating).



Following dinner, we went for a walk down the waterfront, which was strikingly similar to waterfront areas of the northeast United States, only the signs were in Chinese. The girls found a photo booth, so Mike and I walked to a place further down that had a large neon sign of a beer glass, assuming that it was a bar. It turned out to be a restaurant. They walked us up a couple of floors, through a storage area, to the top floor deck outside. I think they were a touch put out when we only ordered beer, although I think they were a little happier when the girls showed up and we ordered a bigger round with some snack food.



After the drinks, we walked back to the station and took the Metro back to the city and walked back to the apartment from City Hall Station.



On the walk back, we passed a restaurant and bar that's open from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM. Liz and I had noticed it our second day in Taipei when we made the same walk. Tuesday is "foreigner night." Show your foreign ID and get 2 for 1 drinks. After much discussion, we decided to stop for a drink.

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial

After our entirely too-filling lunch, we visited the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial (which is now called the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. Mike remarked that the whole thing had the feel of something like the Nixon Presidential Library. All of the exhibits talked about how great General Chiang was, and included a strange assortment of personal artifacts.





Generalissimo's Cadillacs.



Generalissimo at his desk.



You will show respect in the memorial. Or else.

Last weekend, Liz and I went on the Hollywood Beach Art Deco Walk, run by the Historical Museum of South Florida. The walk is led by Paul George, MDC professor and local historian. The walk covers the historical area of Hollywood Beach, up Surf Road.



Although less well known than the area on South Beach, there are some interesting examples of art deco buildings on Hollywood Beach, as well as some older buildings.



Unfortunately, the light wasn't really good for taking pictures in the morning, so I didn't get much. But now, I know where some of the more interesting buildings are and I will go back in the late spring or summer and get some more shots.