Tom Roper's Weblog

UKSG

'So what was the most interesting issue that came up at the [UKSG] conference?' asked an e-mail that arrived this afternoon, as I hurtled south on the train to King's Cross. I was stuck for a reply. It's hard to process three days of rich ideas about more or less everything that librarians and publishers have to deal with in the modern world.

A frivolous answer would be 'tartan'. I don't believe Edinburgh has seem quite so much checked woollen cloth since George IV's visit in 1822. This was the theme of the conference dinner and, to my considerable surprise, I won the prize for its best interpretation. I wore evening dress, but substituted a pair of trousers in the Rothesay tartan for my usual midnight blue ones. I have no photograph to prove this, though some do exist, I believe; but I do have a handsome bottle of champagne, beautifully presented in a tartan cloth bag

So would the most interesting issue be homosexual necrophilia in mallards? Open access? The changing OPAC? The big deal? How to measure the return on investment and impact of library services? New ways of finding and presenting information and data, as shown by Conrad Wolfram? The basic human need to make lists, something that cropped up in more than one presentation? Social media, as used by researchers? The uses and abuses of bibliometrics? Statistical fetishism?

I'll write up my notes over the next few days, but I'll be hard-pressed to offer as good an account as the official bloggers already have, led by Charlie Rapple, @charlierapple on Twitter, at http://liveserials.blogspot.com/

  

En route to UKSG

I haven't been to a conference for a very long time, but UKSG very kindly asked me to lead a work-out session at their conference in Edinburgh which starts tomorrow. How could I refuse? Once one of the globe-trotting conference going jet-set of the library world, I haven;t been to one for too long. And Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities in the whole world. I look forward to a run round or possibly even up Arthur's Seat. I type this on a train with German wifi—it defaults to German Google and invites me to Melden Sie sich in Ihrem Google-Konto an.

It's a beautiful afternoon and I shall not moan about the troubles I've had with trains; that's what Twitter is for. I've taken a quick break from preparing my presentation on the Economics of Information Supply – is free information good enough? to reflect briefly on the conference ahead. I'll blog, of course.

There are some fascinating plenaries with an impressive range of international speakers:

• the technology of information consumption, with Adam Bly on Rearchitecting science: a vision for STM in the 21st century, Richard Wallis on Technology and change and Conrad Wolfram on Computation, communication and the new era of knowledge
• economics of scholarly information, with Ted Bergstrom on librarians and the terrible fix: economics of the Big Deal, Marybeth Manning on Reset – a publisher’s response to the changing economy and Carol Tenopir on University investments in the library: measuring the return
• rights and licensing, with Dorothea Salo on Who owns our work?, Eelco Ferwerda on New models for monographs – open books and Jill Russell on paved with gold: an institutional case study on supporting open access publishing
• researcher behaviour, with two speakers I've long wanted to hear, Tony Hirst on network ecology and the knowledge economy: why researchers need to get online and social and Lucy Power on life scientists go online – collaboration, communication and credit
• research quality assessment – controversies and challenges, with Hugh Look on the raw and the cooked: bibliometrics and the flight from judgment, Alain Peyraube on research assessment in the humanities and the ERIH project (European Reference Index for the Humanities), Peter Shepherd on PIRUS 2: developing a standard for individual article usage statistics and James Pringle on citation impact and research evaluation: current trends
• the intriguingly named Light Programme, with Brendan Dawes on stop making sense: human approaches to exploring information and Marc Abrahams of the Annals of Improbable Research on Improbable research and the Ig Nobel Prize

I look forward to the break-out sessions too, in particular Anna Vernon's, who will be bringing the latest news from the JISC e-books for FE project.

Vic Venturi for the Grand National

What a glorious day for the Grand National. See previous years' posts for discussions of the democratic nature of the day, the race as a betting opportunity, diatribes against the crowds of people clogging up the bookies having each-way bets explained to them, and so on.

For today, I go for one of Dessie Hughes's two entries in the big race, Vic Venturi, who comes to the race from a nice victory at Fairyhouse, beating his stablemate Black Apalachi. He should have no trouble with the fences. Will he last four miles and four furlongs?

As for the rest of the Aintree card, I suggest
145: Peddler's Cross
215: Osana
250: Zaynar
325: Seven is My Number
500: Ghizao
535: Whispering Hills

In the great traditions of this day, the whole family will be betting. As I write, I can only tell you the Burra Mem's selection, My Will, chosen as the horse bears the same name as our first-born. As for the first-born himself, and his sister, their selections will be posted later, when they have woken up from that deep sleep so characteristic of teenagers on a sunny morning.

Update: daughter goes for Cloudy Lane, son for Irish Raptor

Boat Race day

It's a pleasant coincidence that this year the Oxford and Cambridge boat race should fall on my father's birthday. He would have been ninety-eight, but he died thirteen years ago. It was an event he enjoyed immensely, for he was part of that peculiarly Cambridge medico-athletic milieu; it is also frequently referred to in the work of his favourite author, P.G.Wodehouse. He ran for his college, played hockey and swam, and had the distinction of being the oldest contestant in the swim through Cambridge, an event that died out, partly because of irrational fears about the cleanliness of the Cam, partly because a new generation of feebler swimmers, used to the artificially high temperatures of indoor pools, could not be persuaded to take part.

Today there is not a great deal of interesting racing. I go for:

Haydock 330: Salut Flo
Haydock 435: Llama Farmer

Passions

If you came here looking for a post on erotic passions, I suggest you look elsewhere. I am using the word in its oldest sense, derived from the Greek πασχω, I suffer. For while I am a militant atheist, for the next week or so I shall be listening to a lot of sacred music, culminating in one of the Bach Passion on Friday. If I tell you that I shall be listening to Gesualdo's Tenebrae responses, settings of the Lamentations by Palestrina, Lassus, Victoria, Couperin and, best of all, Tallis, you may think I have fallen to late-onset religious mania. But there is something about listening to these works at their appointed time int he liturgical calendar that adds to the experience, and it is not necessary to give credence to flying spaghetti monsters, parthenogenesis, transubstantiation or any other hocus-pocus, to be moved by them. I think of it as like drinking a fine wine sur place.

When I first heard Bach it was the Matthew Passion that gripped me, with the dramatic intensity of Peter's denial, the mob's demands that Barrabas be released and Jesus be crucified, the veil of the temple being rent in twain, to name three. And it was a revelation to find the chorale, the hymn that we sang at school and knew as, 'O sacred head, sore wounded', appear in so many different and subtle ways. I laid my hands on a volume of Bach chorales from the library and would play them on the old upright piano in my bedroom; I found them well-suited for my self-taught piano technique. Later I discovered that the John Passion is even more beautiful. I think that's the one I will play on Friday. I have it in the version conducted by John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists

Cheltenham: the final day, the Gold Cup

In haste, so I will simply add to my selections that I go for Denman, who I think can put his disappointing performance in the Aon Chase at Newbury behind him.  AP will stay on this time.

130 JCB Triumph Hurdle 2m 1f: Westlin' Winds
205 Vincent O'Brien County Handicap Hurdle 2m 1f:  Rock Noir
240 Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle 3m: Najaf
320 totesport Cheltenham Gold Cup 3m 2f 110y: Denman
400 Christie's Foxhunter Chase Challenge Cup 3m 2f 110y: Turthen
440 Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle 2m 4 ½f: C'est Ca
515 Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Chase Challenge Cup 2m 110y: Fighting Chance

Surfacing and synthesising issues on the roadmap

CILIP's big conversation starts next month: http://communities.cilip.org.uk/forums/t/11176.aspx

We're stuck with the name, clearly. I hope that I am not the only one in our profession whose hackles rise at some of the crimes against the English language here.

'The conversation will be open to anyone interested in the Knowledge and Information domain.' When did we become a domain? I suppose the author thinks it sounds much more impressive than saying libraries and information services. And why put the K and the I in upper-case?

 "The Conversation will surface and consider issues." How do you surface an issue, please?

 "CILIP Council will synthesise issues from the conversation, then verify with members and wider stakeholders. " Poor issues, having been surfaced, they're now to be synthesised and exposed to these wider stakeholders. How wide, I wonder? I have a vision of portly peasants, armed with stakes, besieging Dracula's castle.

" CILIP Council will develop a roadmap." Of course they will. Nothing these days can possibly happen without a roadmap [sic...I would say road map should appear as two words, or perhaps should be hyphenated]. I suppose I should be grateful it isn't an overarching road map.

This is what happens when we spend too long with consultants, local and national  politicians and their hangers-on and other riff-raff and not enough in the real world.

Cheltenham: third day: Ladbrokes World Hurdle day

I think I should draw a veil over yesterday's selections. I have been kicking myself hard and often, for I looked at the Tizzards' Cue Card in the morning and for some inexplicable reason failed to back the beats, who won yesterday's bumper with aplomb at a price of 40/1 .

So for today:
1:30 Jewson Novices´Handicap Chase:  Seven is my Number
2:05 Pertemps Final Handicap Hurdle: Don't Push It
2:40 Ryanair Chase: Petit Robin
3:20 Ladbrokes World Hurdle: Tidal Bay
4:00 Byrne Group Plate Handicap Chase: I'm So Lucky
4:40 Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup: Shillingstone

In the last race of the day, the Lady Riders Charity Race, run to raise money for Cancer Research UK, most off-course bookies aren't offering odds, but Paul Nicholls seems to have confidence in Watergate on the faster going, ridden by Georgie Browne. I certainly wouldn't back anything ridden by a Murdoch.
You can donate to CancerResarch UK at http://www.justgiving.com/soliver

Cheltenham: second day: Queen Mother Champion Chase

I missed the first day of Cheltenham, Champion Hurdle day. This is very unlike me, as it used to be the day I would visit the festival, to see Istabraq win the Champion Hurdle again and again. I know the racing world has been lost without my selections. I can only apologise and offer you today's:
1:30 140th Year of The National Hunt Chase Challenge Cup: Mobaasher
2:05 Neptune Investment Management Novices´Hurdle: Rite of Passage
2:40 RSA Chase: Punchestowns
3:20 Seasons Holidays Queen Mother Champion Chase: Twist Magic
4:00 Coral Cup: On Raglan Road
4:40 Fred Winter Juvenile Novices´Handicap Hurdle: Hunterview
5:15 Weatherbys Champion Bumper: Shoot from the Hip

Titles and forms of address

'F--- off, grandad!', yelled an aggressive young man with a bicycle at me at Clapham Junction station the other day. It is, I think, the first time I have been called that, but since I am now over half-way through my sixtieth decade, I should not complain. It set me thinking about the modes of address we use for others to whom we have not yet been introduced. In truth, there are no satisfactory ones. Consider the possibilities:

Sir or madam: too archaic for everyday use. When addressed as sir in a shop or restaurant my democratic spirit rebels.

Mate: again has an old-fashioned feel

Boss: much used by students at work, though in tones laden with sarcasm. In any case, too American.

Only revolutionary societies have satisfactorily solved this problem: citizen in France, comrade in Russia. I may start to address others by these titles.