WHY WIKILEAKS IS AN IMPORTANT VICTORY FOR DISSENTION

According to the confidential military reports published by WikiLeaks, from 2004 to 2009 there were 66,081 'civilians' killed during the U.S. Occupation of Iraq while there were only 23,984 'enemy(ies)' (those labeled as insurgents) that were killed.

One can draw all types of conclusions from these figures, namely, that three times the amount of civilians were killed in pursuit of insurgents, a.k.a. our enemies. Now take into account that restitution is offered to the families of civilians that are killed. Does it not stand to reason what we are losing as collateral damage in this occupation could be the very thing that we need to be successful. In other words, think about how many hearts and minds we could win over if we were just a little more careful with our trigger fingers.

I am not talking about mistakes made during war, something of which I know nothing about. I am talking about wholesale debasement of our soldiers, and the tarnish that accompanies our martial endeavors. In other words, we have outsourced our military ability to be precise and accurate by allowing mercenaries and contractual soldiers carte blanche to not follow the rules of engagement. To play devil's advocate, I haven't really offered any solutions, maybe because I don't think there are any solutions aside from the obvious one of disengagement and neglect.

Definitely a sticky widget but I, for one, as a patriotic, peace-loving American support the dangerous work that WikiLeaks is willing to do for the rest of us and salute the conscience of the dude that gave up this information and is sitting in the bottom of a brig, counting the lifetimes before parole.

REWRITE OF SEVENEXPRESSISHMAEL

Call me the pilot of my commute, the belly of the Seven.
Call me something indicative of my milieu, but that also harkens
to a harpooner that sleeps with his implement.
Call me customs agent of the feminine ingression, or mutiny
on the high stilt sea of the Queens el.
Call me pressure dyspepsia as the express barrels plaudits.
Call me jocular recluse: a farm christened, Arrowhead.
Call me unclassified tendril on terra firma, an abomination of superstitious pressured suits.
Call me Knickerbocker Clancy, South Pacific de la Carré, proto-Kipling.
Call me pulpo, octopus ink, Squid Bic, a stylus named epic tome,
didactic almanac, critical percolating rubble.
Call me alcove throne, a dromedary of solace.
Call me passed over for promotion all my lubber life.
Call me paperback flagon, symmetric synthetic, a poetry cabernet.
Call me Captain Apeshit with prosthetic pinepeg from the whirled woods
of Woodside, Corona Park, or Kissena.
Call me pip of mongrel caste, Admiral Deep Pockets.
Call me windlass of my lector time in the ratchet of Jonah’s gaze.
Call me capstan of the "stand clear of the closing doors" intercom command.
Call me something you can make more fancy by adding an "e"
Call me the great, white whale of Shea Stadium before Citifield.
Call me todos los mamones que van al U.S. Open in boat shoes.
Call me pelvis of the world, Ambassador to Foam, Prince of Cetyology.
Call me late for classes at library school on the frigate, U.S.S. Marm.
Call me “dismemberer of my dismemberer” with tact for tit for tat.

YAGO LOS ANGELES READING

Hello Friends & Fam.

As many of you know, I recently moved to LA. On Saturday the 23rd of October, I am going to read as part of the launch of PALABRA's sixth issue.

PALABRA is a literary journal of Chicano & Latino literature based in LA. The table of contents for their sixth issue will feature these writers (the url for the sixth issue is http://palabralitmag.com/id13.html).

Many of you don't live in the LA area so please pass this along to friends that you might have in the LA area that would be interested in attending a reading.

Please pass along accordingly, and if you can make it out on Saturday afternoon, Amanda, Berlin, and I would love to see you there.

The reading is at the RedCat Lounge. The RedCat Lounge is located

631 W. 2nd Street (@ Hope St.)
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(in the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex)

WHY I AM THE BEST CANDIDATE...

I am the best candidate for this position for three reasons: I am a multilingual, multicultural librarian with multiple life perspectives that has serviced an array of age-groups and communities. From 2004 to 2010, I serviced the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx--first as a high school English teacher and then as an academic librarian with Bronx Community College teaching Information Literacy. While at BCC I worked the reference desk, and cataloging books. In addition, during library school at Queens College, I worked at the Rosenthal Library as an Information Assistant, and volunteered to assist the registrar of the Museum of the Moving Image update their catalog and accession new artifacts.

My experience cataloging may not be vast, but I have always engaged in pursuits that cultivate an attention to details. For example, I am the publisher and co-editor of an online journal called Hinchas de Poesia, but also the designer of its website. Coding html is an arduous, time-consuming task, but it is certainly one that requires attention to detail. If one line of code contains a superfluous bracket or an extra div tag then your design will not display correctly, and you must ransack all your code for the error. Likewise, if the name of a book is misspelled and we just trust the copy, how will that item be found? The most important function of my job as a cataloger would be to ensure that people can locate the titles that they need. To do this, I will have to continue collocating accurate records and facilitate patron access to them.

Last but not least, I am a bilingual librarian, an ALA Spectrum Scholar, and a member of REFORMA. Even though English is my native language, I exert a native fluency of Spanish and worked as a freelance simultaneous interpreter for a non-profit that services Brooklyn and the Bronx Family Courts. I am an avid reader of Latin American Literature, and would love to augment the superb collection of the Public Library. My membership in REFORMA connects me with other librarians servicing Latino communities throughout California and allows me to create a dialogue with other librarians running successful Spanish language programs. Likewise, my relationship with the ALA and the Office for Diversity as the recipient of a Spectrum scholarship can only serve to reinforce ties that the Public Library has with the ALA.

WHAT IS AUTHORITY CONTROL?

Is it just a phrase, or simple a concept? Is it a precept, maxim, tenet? Will it tuck me in at night and call me pretty when I am feeling down? Will it raise my children, and make sure the airlines don't jip me on my flier miles?

According to Library Technologies, Inc. authority control is the "assignment of a unique form of a heading and the use of cross-references from unused and related headings". In other words, authority control is the process by which librarians, but particularly catalogers, create and collocate a heading along with its related headings (like see alsos). Now, what I would like to know is if the catalogers create the actual heading, or just link it up with its related headings? Another question I might have is whether the sole objective of an authority file is to "overlay" it with the Library of Congress authority file?

The Libraries Technologies, Inc website offers viewers a front-row seat to the steps in authority control. If you are curious, by all means, please proceed here.

AWESOME GERMAN ANTI-PLAGIARISM VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwbw9KF-ACY

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC LIBRARY REPORT

I have been invited to interview for a public library system in southern California, so in an attempt to be the best candidate and land the job I have decided to conduct some surveillance on this library system in an attempt to better understand how they organize the books in their collection.

From navigating their OPAC, I have been able to tell a couple of things. For example, this particularly library uses the Dewey Decimal System because a particular book, Eduardo Galeano's "Mirrors" has a call number, 909, and that specific class is for World History. Dewey is used in smaller libraries that need an easy way to orient their clients, like public school libraries and public libraries.

Their OPAC uses SirsiDynix which is a bibliographic management system. They have recently completed projects with Carnegie Mellon, and from the website I believe that the system I am interviewing with uses the Horizon product. But bullets from the SirsiDynix brochure selling the inferior product, Symphony (for 1 location libraries), leads me to phrases I am not completely familiar with like "n-tier architecture". According to Wikipedia, which is pretty good with technical descriptions, an n-tier architecture is "a client–server architecture in which the presentation, the application processing, and the data management are logically separate processes. For example, an application that uses middleware to service data requests between a user and a database employs multi-tier architecture. The most widespread use of multi-tier architecture is the three-tier architecture."

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A VOLUME AND AN ISSUE?

According to Webster's online dictionary, a volume is "a series of printed sheets bound typically in book form;" it is also "a series of issues of a periodical". Issue on the other hand is "the act of publishing or officially giving out or making available" when it behaves like a noun and seems to have no affiliation to it's meaning with magazines and publishing.

However, a look at a page from California State University Libraries, delineates a more precise definition of the word volume. According to this source (http://lib.colostate.edu/howto/gloss.html), a volume is, "physically, a gathering of pages bound together in the form of a book". In this sense, it is identical to the dictionary definition. In addition, though, "Numerically, a volume is a full set of issues (numbers) which comprises a SERIAL volume bound together." And here is where we get to the meat and potatoes of the difference between volume and issue; from this definition, it seems that issues comprise a volume when you are talking about a serial publication (magazine, journal, etc.)