Home From The Metadata War.

Good heavens, I enjoyed sleeping in my own bed last night. You see, I only just got back from the Academic Institute down on the campus of Cal State Northridge, which was the official start of the quarter for this term’s library school studies. And, boy, are my arms tired.

I must confess, I found the entire weekend to be quite an intimidating thing indeed. You see, the thing I already realized when I decided to go to library school was that I had two weaknesses – I am a fundamentally disorganized, quite illogical person. And I have a near-pathological inability to subsume jargon. Well! It appears that this is going to be the quarter for me, then!

On the one hand, I must write an eloquent, informed mid-term report on the scintillating topic of “metadata harvesting” – and how do you do that, by the way? Pick the stuff off the trees? Or is it something that you must find at the bottom of the roots of the metadata bushes, like a potato or carrot?

Meanwhile, on the other hand, I must construct my own database system, with workable search engine, out of, one fears, spit, scotch tape, and string. Long time friends of mine are aware of how clearly I think, so this will most certainly be a terrific challenge. It will look like a Rube Goldberg machine!

I made the mistake of pitching the idea of a poetry database to the professor, who quickly approved it, thus locking me into a project that will probably be quite beyond my reach, particularly if I decide to organize my poems on the level of meter or actual word choice. I might just have to stick to books of limericks, or maybe two line epigrams. We’ll see. On the other hand, I am going to construct the database for my poetry-loving stepfather to test – he’s going to be my Sample User. So that will be very entertaining. High Domain Range Knowledge, Low Information Skills Knowledge, if you know what I mean. (Baby just made his first library jargon joke!)

Because I don’t drive and because the class sessions took place at the ungodly crack of 8 ayem, I set myself up in the hotel that the college had recommended for the weekend. It was a pleasant hotel, and I certainly enjoyed my delicious early morning Hotel Breakfast Buffet with the other students who were staying there and with the genial TAs, but I am only too happy to be home in my delightful bed. The lectures were ferociously intense, and after a point, I felt like I was the cat in that cartoon – you know, the one in which there’s a cat and an angry owner. In this cartoon, the first caption reads, “what the owner says”, and the speech bubble says, ‘cat, don’t scratch the furniture!’” And then, the second caption reads, “what the cat hears”, and the second bubble says ‘blah blah blah blah’.” Well that’s how I feel.

The professor was saying, “In the second column, we have unique validation control and single validation control and entity access recall and collocation of interoperability.” And, of course, by 2 PM on Sunday, I was hearing “blooble blooble blooby boo, gooble gooble goobly goo.” At the end of each day, the class of 50 something or so students staggered out of the library building and down the walk, ashen faced and bug-eyed, like actors playing zombies in an amateur, improvised college production of DAWN OF THE DEAD. Still, I have to confess, I ultimately had a great time. Nothing wrong with meeting 50 fascinating new people and learning new stuff! And nothing makes you feel younger than being in school again. I am extremely motivated to make all this work, I promise you.