PDFs and the New Way

There are days I would love to have all of my readings and “papers” in an entirely electronic format. Surely it's time to leave actual paper to purely enjoyable pursuits? I should be able to download a journal article into a reader of some sort, highlight it and annotate it just like I would with a paper copy. I should be able to copy-and-paste the quotes I want to keep into my citation manager (can we adapt one to work on eReaders, please?), attach the whole file for later use and then use the citation manager to shuffle through the journal articles in order to find the one I was looking for.

Is that too much to ask for?

I have double-ups of everything because I can't highlight PDFs and I can't copy-and-paste print. Then you get the occasional PDF where you can't highlight OR copy-and-paste the text because it's either a scanned document (little better than a snapshot of the original) or it's been locked so the copy function is disabled. What, on God's good, green earth, is the point of that? What am I going to do with your precious document that would make you think copying a sentence is something that must be disabled? I'm talking to you, ELT Journal. If I can save a copy of the PDF, I've already copied the entire text. Just thought I'd point that out. Having to physically re-type every quote I want to use for no good reason whatsoever achieves nothing except my personal annoyance.

It's bad enough when, in this day and age, you still get databases and eJournals which don't have a 'download citation' feature. Hello! It's the Twenty-First Century! Offering journal articles without downloadable citation files is like offering scones without jam. It makes you seem uncultured or miserly.

We're almost there, people. The technology already exists, but hasn't been put together yet. Come on: an eReader that can allow me to do the same things with electronic Journal articles that I can do with the paper copies, a citation manager that works on eReaders, and databases and journals that understand what people actually do with their texts and offer the right kind of files to play with. Then we can all sit down for a nice Devonshire tea with scones and jam.

Also, I want an iLiad, but someone at iRex needs to realise that I can buy two computers for the same price as one iLiad, which isn't good. Kind of hard to justify that, even if the whole eReader-meets-jotting-paper thing is a little bit brilliant.

Shorter

It's 20:30 on a Friday night, and I'm at work. I'm so bored that I'm actually glad when someone asks me to print something for them. I've almost completely run out of "I could be bothered staying up", and I'm mildly convinced my arms are shorter than they were a couple of days ago.

Either that, or the computer screens have moved further away. At this point, either could be possible, for all I care.

The way it works

Phase 1: We've discovered this wonderful new thing that well let you do the old things in new and exciting ways. You can abandon the current way you do things which are bogged down in a structure that doesn't allow new innovations and creativities. Your hands will no longer be tied, and you will be able to experiment until you find the Right Fit, rather than forcing everything into a Stifling Mould.

Phase 2: You can include These Things, which would make your New and Improved Thing so much more Vibrant and Interesting.

Phase 3: You should do These Things, to make your New and Improved Thing look Exciting and Individual

Phase 4: Okay, actually all of the New and Improved Things must do These Things, to make sure we are fully utilising them

Phase 5: And your New and Improved Thing should also include the same things that were on the other fellow's New and Improved Thing, or people won't be getting the same level of service.

Phase 6: Also, stop doing those things that everyone else isn't doing

Phase 7: And make sure the things you are doing are in exactly the same order as the things on everyone else's New and Improved Thing. No, this isn't a New Stifling Mould, it's a branded image.

Phase 8: Why aren't your New and Improved Things bursting with creativity and attracting admiring throngs? You must be doing it wrong. Let's try something else.

The Story of the Little Mole

Like most people who have read the book, I find The Story of the Little Mole who knew it was None of his Business, by Werner Holzwarth and Wolf Erlbruch, utterly hilarious.

Yes, okay, it's a "poo book", and I know many librarians are totally over poo books, but this is a good one. A classic, you could say. And so very informative, in a scatological way. One could actually identify dung in the "wild" (if one lived on a farm in Europe) from reading this book.

Turns out the book is equally hilarious in German. I went looking for German children's books the other day to get some reading practise, and when I noticed this book was available I simply had to buy it.

Vom kleinen Maulwurf, der wissen wollte, wer ihm auf den Kopf gemacht hat is perfect for a reading activity at the "slightly past complete beginner" level. You can get the 'gist' without quite knowing all the words for an initial read through, and then you can go back over it with a dictionary to see if you guessed correctly, or pick up on the details you missed.

Details which are somehow worth knowing, even if they aren't. Who doesn't need the word Pferdapfel in their vocabulary?

Anyway, I found myself a tad confused. One of the other books I bought was a German translation of Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram (also really good for reading at a beginners German level), and it clearly mentioned on the verso that it was a translation. Vom Kleinen Maulwurf doesn't, which made me suspect it was originally written in German. I wanted to read the verso of the English version to see if I could find more information, but WE DON'T HAVE IT!

I am shocked. Absolutely and thoroughly shocked to find myself sitting in a library which does not have a copy of The Story of the Little Mole who knew it was None of his Business. Even more shocking - the other local libraries only had one copy between them, and that copy is missing. I must make sure we buy copies in multiple languages.

Anyway, I finally thought to google the original publisher of the book, and confirmed that the German version is, in fact, the original. However, at no point did any of the libraries I consulted (including the Libraries Australia public catalogue) mention that the English version was a translation. Neither did any of the bookshops I tried originally - although I did discover that there's an alternative English title: The Story of the Little Mole Who Went in Search of Whodunit - which is closer to the German title, but not as witty. No idea if it's the same translation or not, there's no mention of a translator. Or that it's a translation.

For some reason, Amazon.co.uk is trying to sell both versions of the book together. That must be disappointing to whoever wanted two different books.

Even the wikipedia entry neglected to mention that it was a German original. We'll have to fix that...

Anyway, I was a bit put out that I couldn't find this information in Trove, or in the first five libraries I clicked on. I would have thought the fact that a book was the English translation would be fairly basic information to put in a catalogue record. No doubt many of these libraries had it in the "full" record - but not in the one that was available to the general public. Every now and then I like to pretend I'm not a librarian and use the catalogue like a normal person. It's always interesting to note how much libraries like to keep their patrons in the dark.

The fifth library I tried actually included the words "English translation" in the record, but made no reference to the original version, or the translator. The sixth included the German title in the record, but didn't bother mentioning why. What is wrong with you people?

It shouldn't be this complicated to find out if an insanely popular children's book was originally written in German. Only Mr God knows why the libraries of Australia and booksellers of the greater English speaking world think such information is not worth mentioning.

Das habe ich nicht verstanden

The other morning I caught the last five or so minutes of a show called "Yo Gabba Gabba" whilst eating my breakfast.

I gotta say, that show is seriously weird. I can't help thinking I would have appreciated it better if I was stoned. I spent those last five minutes (and the next ten or so minutes afterwards) saying "What?" a lot.

Then, I had a strange repeat experience later in the day - only this time I was reading Widdowson's 1979 book on applied linguistics - specifically the chapter on authenticity in texts supplied to language learners. This is one of those works which are referred to by every man and his dog, so I thought I should read it. I couldn't understand it. Bits were making sense, the rest of it may as well have been recited by people dressed as robots and hopping on one foot.

I found myself saying "What?" a lot.

What is it with applied linguistic theorists? They say something perfectly reasonable, and then "explain it" by saying something that seems barely coherent. It's as though the spend all day studying how people communicate, and then decide to see just how much they can mess with it.

Murder Must Socialise

I maintain that, somewhere, out there, there exists a copy of a half-finished manuscript by Agatha Christie. In this manuscript, Miss Marple has been invited by the daughter of an old friend to a house party in a small English country town.

Very shortly after arriving, Miss Marple wanders into the library to discover a dead body lying on the floor - stabbed and strangled! She replies in a way entirely natural and expected under the given circumstances:

"Oh, crap! Not another one!"

If I was one of those "amateur detective" characters that keep stumbling across murderers and dead bodies in book after book, I'd start getting a complex. I wouldn't accept invitations to parties, after a while.

Bulletproof tights

This is something worth listening to, if you have the time:

http://www.rte.ie/podcasts/2010/pc/pod-v-080410-28m14s-tts.mp3

'Tis a programme from an Irish radio station (weblike) discussing the image of librarians and the stereotypes a lot of people just can't let go.