Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Detritus

Gordon Paynter

Wed, 09 Sept 2009 07:29:54 +1200

they have build a new catalogue besides the existing system

That's the same technology (Primo by ExLibris) I linked to and talked about briefly above.

Tony Siu

Sun, 06 Sept 2009 22:08:07 +1200

Thank you to whoever suggesting Zotero (installing now!). Endnote is a evil piece of a software to work with on essays. It once ate my 3 page bibliography 6 hours before a post-graduate level essay was due. After a rather awkward meeting with the lecturer, I ran back to my…

Simon Grigg

Sun, 06 Sept 2009 14:41:20 +1200

Yeah, unlikely to happen soon, Sacha. I think James and Jason may be ok with it but Paddy would likely veto it. I may mention it though next time I see him whenever that may be. A digital release only though inevitably.

Stranger things have happened.

Sacha

Sun, 06 Sept 2009 13:34:37 +1200

Geoff, thanks for thinking of me but no, the album doesn't exist – partly for contractual reasons. I encourage Simon to hang onto those recordings as part of our country's musical heritage, even if he can't release them. If he ever could, I would be delighted.

Steve Barnes

Sun, 06 Sept 2009 12:34:57 +1200

Too many coincidences here for my liking.
We are off to The UK this week, family matters you know, will post from there.
Anypoo, has anybody come across this guy before? I just found this random video on Google Earth, in Balmoral road to be precise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItmG1clCROY&feature=channel_page

Geoff Lealand

Sun, 06 Sept 2009 03:39:55 +1200

Sacha: would I find one floating around London? In South Kernsington at the moment, having visited The French Bookshop in Bute Street (my son wanted graphic novels in French, to combine two interests) and sort of missing not being part of these conversations.

God, that 26 hours on Air NZ…

Sacha

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 21:48:28 +1200

Simon, I'd still pay good money for a Mesh album.

Simon Grigg

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 20:13:24 +1200

And Mesh were totally Orsome

Yep, agreed. I came within a whisker of releasing a Mesh album at the time (Paddy left to do Pitch Black so it didn't happen). I found the 10 tracks they recorded for it in a box a few weeks back, and they sound as…

TracyMac

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 18:51:30 +1200

Here's another vote for Zotero as a reference manager. It fucking rocks, and is one of my top 10 pieces of software, full stop.

I totally agree that most library software sucks big time. I suspect because the heaviest users are public institutions, and there's not a heck of a…

TracyMac

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 18:39:51 +1200

I'd just like to ask WHY Pitch Black are playing the night before I arrive in Auckland. ARGH.

The only time I've been able to check out Mr Free (and any of his collaborators) live was in the Mesh days. And Mesh were totally Orsome. Pitch Black even toured London…

3410

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 14:20:53 +1200

Thanks, Russell, Lyndon, JoJo, and Islander, for your thoughts on the Google book thing.

Russell Brown

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 13:36:47 +1200

BTW despite forever clicking the 'remember me' and 'keep me logged in on this computer' check boxes when logging in I get logged out with pretty much every page refresh. This does not happen on other sites, what gives?

Unfortunately, I don't know: it's just something that seems to affect…

James Green

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 12:27:01 +1200

Join with me now in saying EWWWW =IF($B310="incollection",(CONCATENATE("@incollection{",$A310,",author={",$C310,"},year={",$D310,"},title={",$E310,"},booktitle={",$F310,"},editor={",$G310,"},pages={",$H310,"},publisher={",L310,"},address={",M310,"}}")),"")

Sacha

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 11:17:48 +1200

I feel bibliographically challenged in this company. Downloaded Zotero, and that's as far as I have got.

James Green

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 11:04:44 +1200

I, um, used that famous piece of bibliographic software, Excel , and a very long and dirty CONCATENATE to output my references in BibTeX. citeA{embarrassed09}
I wouldn't go as far as to say that I prefer Excel to Endnote, but I definitely prefer BibTeX to CiteWhileYouWrite (Endnote's intext integration).

Sam F

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 10:32:23 +1200

I mean to say, the records obviously didn't come from EndNote but from WorldCat online – I exported it all to EndNote and worked with it from there.

Sam F

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 10:31:09 +1200

Ah, that's the thing – believe it or not I didn't bother to actually figure out how to do the bibliography in EndNote, and thus did the lot manually...

I only used EndNote to find global holdings of books and journals from a particular publisher, then work out roughly what…

Danielle

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 09:52:45 +1200

Luuuxury! When *I* were a young lass writing my thesis, Sam, we typed out all our bibliographies by hand! And we were happy to do it! Oh yes! :)

Sam F

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 09:48:18 +1200

It would have been nice to know of alternatives to EndNote before I used it in my thesis – had to manipulate thousands of bibliographic records to get data for my last chapter...

James Green

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 09:39:25 +1200

Thanks for the interesting post Gordon. This reminds me of a few other things.

The reason why catalogues interface with the library backend is to do with the current status of the book (how many copies, are the on the shelf, lost, cataloguing etc.). One way to get around this…

Sacha

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 09:25:03 +1200

Thank you for the explanation, Gordon. The problem sounds kind of fundamental.

Danielle

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 09:05:03 +1200

It's not a case of replacing the search functionality on your website, it is a case of replacing a piece of workflow software shared by your entire organisation

Actually, despite my being the Yappy Little Dog of Hating the MLIS More Than Anyone Has Ever Hated Anything, that's a good…

Peter Ashby

Sat, 05 Sept 2009 08:37:58 +1200

I'll third the comment about EndNote, I will always be an afficionado for ProCite. That was a Real Database (TM) that was, unlike EndNote which wouldn't know the first thing about being a database. My PhD thesis was referenced using ProCite and it worked flawlessly.

My first references database I…

Gordon Paynter

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 23:39:48 +1200

Library catalogues do have a history of being feral like that. I'm not really sure what it is.

I'm not a systems librarian, but I can offer a few observations having worked in Libraries (currently the National Library).

1. Library software is generally poor quality software. I'm not sure why…

Islander

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 21:21:54 +1200

Google Book Grab:

I opted out.

Beattie's Book Blog has the best cache of settlement stuff, including many links over the past 2 months.

What Google has done goes against their supposed "Dont be evil' 'creed' – it tramples all over the Berne Convention. I find sundry publishers' attitudes interestingly…

stephen walker

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 20:36:39 +1200

sooooo, this sample of USAers is about as intelligent as a sample of the cream-of-the-crop-of-NZers offering their wisdom on heraldyourviews...quite surprising reallly

Simon Grigg

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 20:24:18 +1200

And I'm enjoying this one half the respondents think Obama attempting to indoctrinate children with socialism with his upcoming back-to-school speech.

And the comments are rather excellent too. I get a weird sense of amusement out of this stuff. Yes, odd, I know.

Simon Grigg

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 19:29:40 +1200

They "fixed" that. Twice.

I own that second version on VHS (although I'm not sure if it still works as I've not owned a VHS player for most of a decade now). It kinda works and the extra footage is mostly very good, clearly being sliced out originally because Gf…

Lyndon Hood

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 17:29:08 +1200

The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies.

Awesome. (I studied several years after all that vanished completely.)

Expect pantone books. What possessed them to include pantone books?

JoJo

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 17:23:01 +1200

Anyone know anything about the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement? [Also, FAQs]
Specifically, the wisdom of opting out or not?

There's a heap of information (including different publishers' opinions) on Beatties Book Blog.

I've been talking to a few NZ publishers about it, and most seem to feel that opting…

Ian Dalziel

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 17:16:14 +1200

Obscured by clouds...

For amusement, compare the racy cloud for Chad Taylor's Electric.
With the earnest, cardigan-wearing language of my book.

Interestingly your cloud includes Race
and Chad's includes Cardigan

Spooky – inverse, reverse and perverse

Yrs commonly
Go Ogle-Cluster
Vapour and the Trails

Ian Dalziel

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 17:01:16 +1200

Collage Degree by mail...
If scalpels and redundant technology fill
that special place in yer psyche... step right up
to The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies.
I can smell the wax now...

yrs reprographically
Bro Mide & Bull Gum
and I thought a Red Light Area
was a Dark Room...

Lyndon Hood

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 16:56:15 +1200

Also: that it's something I would find useful if other people did it with their books.

And that, too.

Lyndon Hood

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 16:54:36 +1200

Anyone know anything about the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement?

My (mostly second-hand) impression is it depends on pragmatism – if you want to control what they do with your work – or if you approve, of course – opt in. If you feel like taking a stand against global companies…

Russell Brown

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 16:48:49 +1200

Anyone know anything about the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement? [Also, FAQs]
Specifically, the wisdom of opting out or not?

I wasn't sure till deadline day (today) but I opted in my one little book, having been somewhat persuaded by Auckland University Press's point that opting in actually gives the…

Russell Brown

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 16:36:56 +1200

It's like it belongs on scalpelandgluedisasters.com

That site is my new best friend.

3410

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 16:34:34 +1200

Anyone know anything about the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement? [Also, FAQs]

Specifically, the wisdom of opting out or not?

James Green

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 16:27:20 +1200

Library catalogues do have a history of being feral like that. I'm not really sure what it is. I'm not sure if it's changed, but Te Puna always used to redirect you to one of n servers, each with a different name, but search engines always manage to hide behind…

Rex Widerstrom

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 16:27:18 +1200

You've uncovered my secret fetish — old broadcast gear. Even pictures of it has a similar effect to that which pr0n has on other people (or so I'm told).

Stored somewhere in NZ I have an NZBS "portable" tape recorder. It comes in two parts – a drive unit to…

81stcolumn

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 16:11:39 +1200

Hmmmm...

Despite their origin or indeed because of such I fear for the Monkeys...where do they land ?

I strongly suspect te Beatles would have been a better band had they chosen nicer guitars.

WIth respect to the Sony PVR it struck me that you can see how this would…

giovanni tiso

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 16:02:23 +1200

Gio, from your post on This is New Zealand (Asian Edition), this image makes me very happy.

I can't get over integrating forestry and farming. Somebody just popped in to explain that it didn't quite work.

Giovanni, if your copy looks like it might have been stored in a garage,…

Hilary Stace

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 16:02:09 +1200

Danielle, I agree re Endnote. So much it doesn't do.

Hilary Stace

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 16:00:34 +1200

Giovanni, that is a fascinating post of yours. That image of the book cover This is New Zealand (Asian edition) reminded me of Max coming home with a pristine copy (and there may also have been presentation copies in boxes?) but it was just a work PR thing and I…

Lyndon Hood

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 15:59:26 +1200

this image makes me very happy.

It's like it belongs on scalpelandgluedisasters.com

Danielle

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 15:50:08 +1200

But .... why?

Fuck only knows. There's probably some interminably long and boring article about it in a mind-numbing LIS journal somewhere, because That's What Librarians Do. Any systems librarians want to pipe up on this one?

Endnote sucks, though. Zotero is much better.

Kyle Matthews

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 15:45:45 +1200

No more little luxuries, like animal protein or soap, for a while.

If you run out and slaughter something, you can take care of both of those things between the meat and the fat.

Rob Hosking

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 15:39:07 +1200

tDo Wellingtonians need to be reminded that the DCM bookfair is on this weekend?

Not here. Our biggest family outing of the year. Other Half was born in Holland but has become quite a History of NZ art and literature buff. That and my personal addiction to second hand book…

Robyn Gallagher

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 15:35:56 +1200

Oh, oh, oh! At last year's book fair I picked up a travel guide to the South Pacific. In the Wellington section, it had a photo of Cambridge/Kent Terrace, with a caption saying it was a "typical wide Wellington boulevard". Lolz!

st ephen

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 15:25:35 +1200

At a street market in Sydney I picked up a copy of Discovering New Zealand (1970, McGraw-Hill), where I discovered that
"In some ways they find it difficult to adapt themselves to accepted patterns of behaviour".

No, they weren't talking about rugby league players...

Heather W.

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 15:14:25 +1200

And for those wanting some light reading the SuperCity report is out.

Donald Reid

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 15:09:03 +1200

They also should have removed the time travelling scenes.One minute it is the seventies and then it is not. This was done so much better in Back To The Future II.

This reminds me of a wonderful Film Studies 101 essay that introduced "Double Indemnity and The Maltese Falcon as…

Russell Brown

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 15:00:24 +1200

Gio, from your post on This is New Zealand (Asian Edition), this image makes me very happy.

LegBreak

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 14:56:55 +1200

he'd just realised that the NZ Symphony Orchestra were actually a covers band

Fantastic.

NZSO should look at running with that line. Might actually work.

Russell Brown

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 14:49:30 +1200

A lot of catalogues are like that.

But .... why?

Paul Litterick

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 14:39:04 +1200

Wow. A searchable online catalogue where you can't link to what you find because every URL expires after 20 minutes.

Rad, isn't it? What's more, search results are not compatible with EndNote, the industry-standard referencing app.

Robyn Gallagher

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 14:38:00 +1200

Michael's voice sounds simply weak and pathetic. For that matter, he wrote very few of his songs.

Hilarious! This reminds me of some punk kid on NZmusic.com who declared that he'd just realised that the NZ Symphony Orchestra were actually a covers band (and therefore shit) because they didn't write…

Danielle

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 14:35:27 +1200

Is this particularly user-hostile, or am I missing something?

A lot of catalogues are like that. In fact, one of my library jobs included going through links on course pages and running them through a little programme which removed the expiry stuff, so you could link to items permanently.

Russell Brown

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 14:20:57 +1200

(And Russell, my natlib link doesn't go anywhere now, so perhaps delete?)

Wow. A searchable online catalogue where you can't link to what you find because every URL expires after 20 minutes.

Is this particularly user-hostile, or am I missing something?

Hilary Stace

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 14:17:03 +1200

at the DCM fair last year I found the fantastically entitled This is New Zealand – Asian Edition, and I've been fielding requests for it since.

Giovanni, if your copy looks like it might have been stored in a garage, it might be the one we donated. Oscar's father was…

Leopold

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 14:04:31 +1200

"And re the Values Party. As a Library School exercise in 1974 I compiled an annotated bibliography. There wasn't much material available by 1974 as the Party was only two years old, and it was mostly newspaper cuttings from then leader Tony Brunt's personal collection. But I must check it…

George Darroch

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:57:55 +1200

Do Wellingtonians need to be reminded that the DCM bookfair is on this weekend?

It can't hurt. I missed a bookfair recently, and kicked myself for it.

Russell Brown

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:55:25 +1200

Case in point: at the DCM fair last year I found the fantastically entitled This is New Zealand – Asian Edition, and I've been fielding requests for it since. I just don't tire of that shit.

You and me both, Mr Tiso. I did once contrive to be in Wellington…

Paul Williams

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:55:09 +1200

Bonus: the "Tag" ad is also really cool.

Heather, that is fantastic, thanks. I shall now enjoy hearing it repeatedly played around my office. Perfect Friday-fun!

3410

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:51:01 +1200

They also should have removed the time travelling scenes.One minute it is the seventies and then it is not. This was done so much better in Back To The Future II.

They "fixed" that. Twice.

Eddie Clark

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:47:48 +1200

Russell, I think the scary junk shop to which you are referring is more formally known as The David White Gallery which, given the hilariously awful pictures therein, is somehwat funny in and of itself. In the shop's back room, which consists of bad art and scary piles of books,…

James Butler

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:47:13 +1200

My late father thought that The Beatles had written some nice tunes, so he went out and bought Ron Goodwin and his Orchestra present: Classic Beatles or somesuch – which he thought did the material far more justice than the originals.

His only other pop record was __Days of Future…

giovanni tiso

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:46:18 +1200

Do Wellingtonians need to be reminded that the DCM bookfair is on this weekend? Last year it was 60,000 books (plus magazines, puzzles, records of various kinds...) and Sue reports that this year it looks a dozen or so tabels-worth larger. Can't wait.

Dr Daniel Yu-Tang Lew, Chinese ambassador to…

Russell Brown

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:44:55 +1200

Unfortunately the site's of the pretty-but-ungoogleable persuasion. Ad agencies love flash for the first attribute, web developers hate it for the second. Also, if your internet connection's not all that, it's VERY IMPORTANT to let the whole vid load before watching it. Mid-stream pause is untenable.

If you click on…

Russell Brown

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:38:08 +1200

Hilary, I fixed up your link so it points directly to your bibliography. The NatLib site still doesn't seem to want to let you link to a search result.

Danielle

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:33:13 +1200

They also should have removed the time travelling scenes.One minute it is the seventies and then it is not. This was done so much better in Back To The Future II.

That has made my day, even if they are taking the piss. I like this, from another review: '…

Peter Calder

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:32:39 +1200

Russell, Your "monkeys flying out of my butt" reference put me in mind of the great Bernard Levin theatre review, which it resembles rhetorically if not thematically:

"Strictly speaking, I cannot swear that being kicked in the stomach by a horse would be an experience preferable to seeing this play…

Heather Gaye

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:30:30 +1200

Apropos of nothing but the post's last paragraph: The internet (both content- and home-connection-wise) finally caught up with one of my lifechanging TV experiences... my favourite ad ever ever ever of all time ever, and a decent-quality version too. Don't bother with youtube.

Unfortunately the site's of the pretty-but-ungoogleable persuasion.…

David Slack

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:26:38 +1200

In my opinion, The Beetles were the Spice Girls of the 60s. Mindless twaddle with no point or meaning to their existence

If you like that, you'll love these views of people who hated Godfather II. My favourite:

They also should have removed the time travelling scenes.One minute it is…

Danielle

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:24:23 +1200

The Beatles are terrible. Some good jingles for sure, but listen to songs when they try to harmonize! It really is pure rubbish.
In my opinion, The Beetles were the Spice Girls of the 60s. Mindless twaddle with no point or meaning to their existence.

These people are *legion* on…

Paul Williams

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:18:07 +1200

These Friday threads used to frustrate me somewhat since I could seldom see the bands/gigs you were all spruiking but this time is different... i haz tickets to Shihad who're touring this month! Now if I could just find a way to convince Mr Carter to tour Dimmer I'd be…

Russell Brown

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:15:30 +1200

It just keeps coming:

Pink Floyd is brilliant – but you have to be in the right frame of mind to sit and listen. It's not background music.
In my opinion, The Beetles were the Spice Girls of the 60s. Mindless twaddle with no point or meaning to their existence.

…

Russell Brown

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:13:54 +1200

When the Herald asked the 'Your Views' crew 'Who do you think are the most overrrated bands and singers in history?' you just knew it was going to be crazyville:

Oasis have built an entire career of copying The Beatles.
Second most overrated band?
Easy. The Beatles

And:

Freddie Mercury…

Hilary Stace

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:12:04 +1200

The Taiwanese Ambassador's son, Brian Lew, was in my class at primary school. He had some quite startling morning talks about the communists which I used to go home and discuss with my knowledgeable mother. 'Mum, is it true that...?

And re the Values Party. As a Library School exercise…

FletcherB

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:09:16 +1200

"Are they like those creepy flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz?"

I can confidently state that the type of flying monkey that may or may not be flying out of Russell's butt has not yet been categorized... in fact, it would seem premature to try and determine what type…

Danielle

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:04:29 +1200

Are they like those creepy flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz?

Lyndon Hood

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 13:02:42 +1200

But if it should prove to be the case that monkeys are in fact flying out of my butt, the situation will be reassessed.

Now, there's a medical post I'd like to see.

Robyn Gallagher

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 12:57:03 +1200

So the chaotic shop on Abel Smith Street, near Real Groovy, proved a considerable diversion to me.

I've only been there once. I spent so much time trying not to fall over or crash into stuff that I realised I couldn't actually browse and left feeling all annoyed.

But, really,…

Phil Lyth

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 12:32:27 +1200

if it's from the 1972 election

Quite probably. That was Dreadon's first time up as a candidate and the last election that Marshall contested.

Public Address

Fri, 04 Sept 2009 12:32:27 +1200

Discussion from blog post.