Lolcataloguer

Inspired by a facebook comment of Heidi's.

Bureaucracy

Quote from a colleagues' email explaining the three years it took for us to reach the current stage of a certain still incomplete project:

"...the difficulties in getting several large bureaucracies to move in sync while dealing with a set of complex and sometimes uncertain requirements..."

Sometimes the surprising thing is not how long it took but the fact that it happened at all.

Qualitative data redux

I've been asked to chair a session at the annual Big Conference for Data Library People in May. That is good; it makes it look like I'm going there to network, be professionally productive and pad my scholarly resume rather than because it's a chance at a subsidized vacation with a bunch of interestingly odd people who like data and tell dirty jokes.

However, the session they've asked me to chair is the one on qualitative data. Pretty much everything that I know about qualitative data was summed up in an earlier blog post where I noted that, as far as I could tell, qualitative analysis software doesn't actually do anything, or at least nothing that I'd consider analysis. I'm still waiting to be enlightened on that.

I wonder if this invitation is a result of one of those bits of cosmic irony, or if one of the conference organisers has been reading my blog.

Books

I love that bug-eyed look students get when they come in asking for data on something and I go away then come back with an armful of books. In this case, musty, dusty, thick books. Sorry kids, but no, not everything is online.

Not that I don't wish that Statistics Canada would digitize its back publications. But I take my entertainment where I find it.

Committee

And commit me before I ever commit myself to serving on another one of those.

A few months ago I was selected to be a member of a University committee that would be overseeing the purchase of a particular computer product. This puzzled me, as while I have a reasonably computer-oriented background for a librarian, anything I ever knew about products of this type is many years out of date and was pretty minimal to start with.

I soon found that I wasn't picked to serve on this committee out of any idea that I might have useful knowledge to contribute. I was added because our administration likes the Library to have a "voice" in as many University decisions as possible, and so got a spot for a librarian reserved on the committee. (Non-librarian library staff - the people in the systems department who might know something about technical products - apparently don't qualify as "voices".) And the first person who was asked suggested me as a replacement.

But that was okay, because none of the other people on the committee were selected for their knowledge either, apart from a representative from one of the technology vendors who was there to advise us. As far as I can tell, the other committee members were also each chosen to represent a University department. Apart from the committee chair, who had some sort of managerial responsibility in the University's technology department and apparently fulfilled this responsibility unhampered by the slightest taint of computer knowledge.

Fortunately, one of those departments was I.T. Now, the library usually has a Mutually Assured Avoidance policy with I.T., because we're afraid they'll screw up our systems and they've learned that we're more trouble than we're worth. But we both quickly found ourselves ignoring that, because it was such a relief to have someone else there who spoke the language.

Yep. About a dozen people on a computer system selection committee, only two people who had a vague idea what the system actually did. Plus a vendor.

Now, I'm totally in favour of non-tech types having input into software purchasing decisions, especially if they're going to be stuck using the thing. In fact I think it's essential - users are really the only ones who can say whether the system works for them, if the interface is easy to learn and use, if the functionality is there for what they need it to do. But that's it.

We were each given a worksheet with a vast list of possible system features and options organized into various categories, and told to check off the ones we thought our system should have. This was to be fed into an online database of such systems which would then spit back the best system for us. So people like X from accounts who will be doing data entry and Y who's a secretary and might be asked to learn the system someday started merrily checking off different virtual memory management options, setup and configuration features...

I questioned this way of doing things, so the committee chair kindly explained to me that we had to follow a procedure that was impartial. When his superiors asked him why the committee had made the decision it had, he needed to have something to point to. He needed to follow the standard procedure.

At first, this left me with the belief that he cared more about following procedures and covering his rear than about actually selecting a product that would do what the university wanted it to. Later, I came to a somewhat kinder view of him. I think that he somehow believed that following the standard impartial decision process would lead invariably to the right outcome, that stopping and asking if the process made sense for this particular decision, carried out by this particular committee, was both dangerous and unnecessary.

I left several areas of my worksheet blank, as I didn't feel qualified to comment on some requirements. It turned out not to matter much, because the group's combined final worksheet had the delightful result of eliminating every possible system from consideration, much to our chair's dismay.

At that point, when he was at his weakest, I attacked, being completely not up to sitting through any more of this. With I.T. guy, I improvised a more flexible procedure that gave us more scope to argue with the rest of the group when necessary. And we did so, for the next three months... but I'm not up to even trying to describe that part.

Budget Crunch

The library's going through a budget crunch this year (along with everyone else) and among other things, I've been told I have to cut a rather large percentage from my serials budget.

Problem: my budget only has 5 serials left. Most computer science stuff is available online in some form or other, and our database coverage is pretty good. And a year ago, when we weren't in crunch condition, I conscientiously went through my journal list item by item, and cancelled everything that we were getting in some other form. Leaving myself with absolutely zero wiggle room this year, and I'm pretty sure every item on that list is the favoured stepchild of some faculty member or other, or they wouldn't have lasted this long.

Not many sensible ways I can see to decide which to drop. I could do it by Volume (keep the favourite of the faculty member who yells the loudest) or, as a colleague suggested, alphabetically. Being a computer science type possibly I should come up with something fancier - a fibbonacci sequence algorithm? Not that anyone would notice... there's only five of them. For several months after I was first given the computer science funds I didn't even notice that I had a serials budget.

In a way it might have been smarter to cut less last year. That's a side effect of how our budgets are allocated: the base amount is what was spent last fiscal year, with increases or cuts made on top of that. Another side effect is that we have an odd practice of spending as quickly as possible - having invoices sent so we can pay them months ahead of time - all so the money will be spent before that all important fiscal year-end date. I wonder how much the University loses in interest because of that.

Software Paradigm

Last month I took a one-day class on a qualitative data analysis software package, NVivo. Qualitative data has long been something of a problem for me as a person who is expected to deal with data. I've played with the software, gone through the tutorials, and even helped a student with file import problems, but none of that got me past this basic question: what, exactly, does qualitative analysis software do?

The answer came to me during this class. It doesn't do anything.

Let me unpack that a little.

With statistical software, the quantitative stuff like SAS, SPSS and Stata I'm familiar with, there are all sorts of tools for editing and manipulating and looking at your data, but the point of all this data manipulating is to get it into shape so you can use the software to run a statistical procedure or two. At that point you're done: you inspect your results and go write them up. (At least in theory. My husband the former grad student discovered that one can spend years trying to perfect a model.) But the point of the exercise, the whole reason the software exists, is to run that model. All the other functionality is subservient to that.

With qualitative software, there are likewise all sorts of functions for editing and manipulating and looking at data, many of which I'd noticed previously and some of which I'd even figured out how to use. My problem was that I couldn't figure out what the point of it was: I'm manipulating the data to get it into shape so that I can use the software to do what, exactly?

But the software doesn't do anything - there is no final step, no reason for editing and manipulating the data. Or rather, editing and manipulating the data is the whole point, at least as far as the software is concerned. The final step, making sense of the data, test ing theories and drawing conclusions, has to take place in the qualitative researcher's own head. It's a curious and initially somewhat worrisome concept.

The hardest question, when you're in an academic library:

Where do I find something fun to read?

Sunday on the reference desk, the library gave to me...

5 children running
4 printing problems
3 books not shelved right
2 APA citation questions
And one guy who wanted to go to Halifax.

Patron: "How far away is Halifax?"
Me: Attempt to describe Halifax's location.
Patron: "Isn't it in Ontario?"
Me: Patron apparently has not heard of Nova Scotia. Pull out map, locate Windsor, locate Halifax. Quick web check confirms that there is no Halifax in Ontario.
Patron: "Is it farther than Quebec?"
Me: Indicate Quebec on map, use map scale to estimate distance.
Patron: "Oh...." *sad look* wanders away.

I wonder what that was about.

Architecture

My husband and I have a theory that Windsor has an unwritten but widely adhered to civic law that states that no building or other architectural endeavor may be made more attractive than it absolutely has to be in order to function. This may explain the why the new, much-promoted medical building on campus has its rather nice open atrium design with a living "green wall" offset by the building's exterior being encrusted in what appears to be plates of pre-rusted brown metal.