New Orleans in 30 CDs

Photo courtesy of Brenda Anderson (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

I’ve been tapped to present at the 2011 ALA Annual Conference as a part of the “Why Transliteracy?” panel and I’m excited by the opportunity. As to the conference itself, I’ve never been to Annual, so I don’t have any sage words of advice or survival strategies. I can’t recommend any sessions or events, though there are some interesting suggestions from HackLibSchool, Bobbi Newman, and others. If you want the skinny, it’s best to head over to Ink and Vellum for a bit, then come back. You know, I also can’t recommend what to pack, though I’ve been told that you should wear sensible walking shoes during the day and stash those cute espadrille slingbacks in your oversized summer tote for later (do they have a size 12?). In fact, outside of my presentation, the only preparations I’m making involve the music I’ll be bringing…

I’ll be leaving around 5:30a.m. on Friday, and it’s about eight hours to the Big Easy. Given that I’ll be going from the pre-dawn fog of Northern Alabama hill country to the blistered blacktop of Mississippi to the sweltering back-alleys of the Big Easy, I’ll need a range of musical offerings to keep me going. Here’s the catch: I’ll be driving a university car and I don’t know if I’ll be able to connect my iPod. This is strange because, now that we expect to have our entire music library in our pocket at all times, we don’t usually have to choose which albums to take on a trip. So, just to be safe, I’ve pulled out the old 30 CD Case Logic visor and now I have to revisit the lost art of crafting the road trip playlist.

Here, in a strange order that makes sense perhaps only to me, are the 30 CDs I’ll have by my side. It’s a mix of classic driving albums, Louisiana voodoo, recent purchases, summery weirdness, and more. Links go to YouTube.

• JOMF – WOW/The Magick Fire Music – “Bone Saw“
• Grateful Dead – 10/12/1968, Avalon Ballroom – “St. Stephen / The Eleven“
• Lou Reed – Street Hassle – “Street Hassle“
• Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest – “Southern Point“
• Tubeway Army – Replicas – “Are Friends Electric?“
• Panda Bear – Tomboy – “You Can Count on Me“

• Battles – Gloss Drop – “Ice Cream“
• Herocop – Tukwila Mockingbird – “Joanna Newsong“
• Radiohead – King of Limbs – “Bloom“
• The Joy Formidable – The Big Roar – “Whirring“
• El Guincho – Pop Negro – “Bombay“
• Dungen – Skit i Allt – “Skit i Allt“

• Deerhunter – Microcastle – “Saved by Old Times” 
• Television – The Blow Up – “Little Johnny Jewel“
• Modern Lovers – Modern Lovers – “Roadrunner“
• Pavement – Brighten the Corners (Nicene Creedence Edition) – “Passat Dream“
• The Stooges – Fun House – “Down on the Street“
• Dylan Group – Ur-Klang Search – “Towers of Dub“

• Neil Young – Everybody Knows This is Nowhere – “Down by The River“
• Big Star – Radio City – “O My Soul“
• Rodriguez – Cold Fact – “Sugar Man“
• J.J. Cale – Troubadour – “Let Me Do It to You“
• John Lee Hooker – Endless Boogie – “Standin’ at the Crossroads” 
• Trees – The Garden of Jane Delawney – “Lady Margaret“

• Dr. John – Gris Gris – “Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya“
• Manu Chao – Próxima Estación: Esperanza – “Merry Blues“
• Tom Waits – Rain Dogs – “Singapore“
• Shuggie Otis – Inspiration Informtion – “Inspiration Information“
• Fela Kuti – Confusion & No Gentleman – “Confusion“
• The Meters – Look-Ka Py Py – “Look-Ka Py Py“

Obviously this is more than enough for 16 hours of driving, but it’s nice to have options. Speaking of options…

I’m always looking for more music and I don’t know who reads this blog, but perhaps you could chime in with your ALA playlist. Whether you’re driving, flying, or whatever, what music will you have at the conference? Can you recommend music for librarians?

One last thing, if you’re a music-lover, be sure to check out Euclid Records at 3401 Chartres St. in Bywater (about 1.5 miles east of Jackson Square)

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Tornadoes and transliteracy: LOEX 2011

I regret not posting anything here in a while, but I was busy working on my presentation for LOEX in Fort Worth. Oh, and it was the end of the semester library rush. Oh, and tornadoes knocked our power out for five days. Anyway…LOEX.

I started writing about transliteracy last November, and little did I know how controversial the topic would become in the ensuing months. There’s no need to rehash the details of that silly, internet feud between librarians, but it was clear as I entered the standing-room only presentation room that there was a lot of lingering doubt and skepticism about transliteracy. I even polled the room, “How many of you think ‘transliteracy’ is just a meaningless buzzword with no substance behind it?” Almost half the audience raised their hands.

I raised my hand, too.

You see, ‘transliteracy’ is a buzzword and every day I see the term applied to increasingly irrelevant and unrelated topics. I won’t quote directly, but there are a lot of people slapping the label “transliteracy” on their posts just because they are talking about technology or social media or the future of libraries. It’s like, “I just bought a Kindle! #transliteracy!” or “The future of libraries is uncertain! #transliteracy!” It’s a lot of hand-waving, wishy-washy, meaningless drivel with little to no substance behind it. It’s “Library 2.0” all over again.

Then again, in the Library 2.0 era, there were a lot of librarians who really did want to look into the practical applications of social media in librarianship. Similarly, there are a lot of librarians who are interested in whether and, if so, how the concept of transliteracy might be applied. These librarians look to the research into transliteracy and see how it might inform librarianship. I like to think I fall into this latter category, though I can’t say for sure. I just try to keep in mind that transliteracy is a concept being discussed quite independently of libraries and that most of the substantive research is not library-oriented. Transliteracy is a theory being actively discussed in the social sciences, humanities, education, and other fields. Rather than throw the term around as meaningless jargon, some of us are keeping just to the research and letting that guide us. I don’t see what’s so controversial about that.

So, as I told my audience, yes, ‘transliteracy’ is frequently used as just a cool-sounding buzzword with nothing substantive behind it. But, it is also frequently used as a legitimate area of inquiry into how new communications media are affecting traditional notions of literacy. For my part, I don’t care one bit about this vague ability to “read and write across a range of platforms, tools, and media.” But, I do care about the ability to research across a range of platforms, tools, and media, and if transliteracy lets me get at that, then I’m all in favor of studying transliteracy. If another term already exists to cover the same territory, then I’ll use that instead. I don’t care about words, I only care about the concepts.

Anyway, I’ve posted a brief summary of the presentation (and the slides) over at Libraries and Transliteracy, so check it out if you feel inclined. I’ll let you decide where I fall between buzzword and substance.

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