Meandering Melbourne Musings

But, as literature-review procedures undergo scientification in the name of professionalization, researchers rarely have at their disposal eclectic literature from fields and disciplines far removed from their own specialties. As a result, they do not even have the opportunity to apply that literature to their current projects…. How has this situation come about?… The art of “general and focused browsing” has all but disappeared (Mann, 2005, p. 63), and with it the notion of serendipitous discovery….Reading books and journals that may not be immediately useful-but may serendipitously prove meaningful at some future date-is far down their list of priorities.

– Juris Dilevko (2007).Guest Editorial: Reading literature and literature reviews. Library & Information Science Research, Volume 29, Issue 4, December, p 451-454.  

OK. Find excuse - er, I mean unearth empirical research - to read widely and across fields. Ignore little voice in head that quibbles about phrases out of context, and since when did an editorial column become the last word in academic rigour? The first word, maybe. Decide to focus on eclectic reading and searching that will deliver the Holy Grail answer to “web 2.0″, regardless of the question. What was the question? Ignore little voice in head that says you can spin anything any way when you use “research” as an excuse. Er, I mean, evidence-based search processes, which could follow the highly scientific sample below:

1. Figure out how to get semi-random results from databases.

2. End up looking at O magazine, you know, Oprah’s publication?

3. Dr Phil McGraw leaps up off the screen and says, READ ME.

4. Who’s gonna argue with a pushy Texan who insists I “Get real”?

5. Discover that Dr Phil comes across a lot better in print than animated on the TV screen. Feel sheepish that a few times I nod: That makes sense. Do that. Yeah. [I mean, this is Dr Phil. Come on!]

6. Find that Dr Phil makes so much sense in O I decide to find out what else I can about him in said database. What else did he write? What have others said about him?

7.  Discover that more is written about Dr Phil, than Dr Phil has written, in this database at least.

8. Am riveted by a Psychotherapy Networker article about him: The 8 Minute Cure: Can watching Dr. Phil Change your life?

9. Can it?

10. Am I real yet?

11. So the most famous psychotherapist in the world is the most famous therapist in the world precisely because he doesn’t do therapy. And therein lies the secret of his phenomenal success. - - Michael Ventura 2005. The 8 Minute Cure: Can watching Dr. Phil Change your Life? Psychotherapy Networker. Washington:Jul/Aug 2005. Vol. 29, Iss. 4

12. E-mail sister and confess with mortification that Dr Phil appeals in print. Praise Psychotherapy Networker article about Dr Phil’s background which shows that although he is qualified as a psychologist, his show is all about the entertainment.

13. Sister e-mails back and suggests I read SHAM: How the self-help movement made America Helpless by Steve Salerno. Try chapter on Dr Phil, she says.

14. Think about this. Sounds good. Think that a local library should have the book. Make mental note to follow through. Retain mental note, but follow through is slow. Little voice says that is because I am reflective and need time to develop concepts-concepts like checking a library catalogue to see if book is there-pay attention to first nice little contemplative voice, and ignore second persistent voice that says to get the show on the road already.

15. Trip over the magazine The Skeptical Inquirer. Magazine has review article on SHAM, plus two other books of similar ilk. Terence Hines, reviewer and professor of psychology at Pace University, notes of Salerno’s book, The acronym SHAM in the tide of Salerno’s book stands for “Self Help and Actualization Movement.” It is most appropriate as he convincingly argues that the whole movement is, just that, a sham. The introductory chapter is an excellent summary of the nonsense in SHAM. I have assigned this introduction to students in my beginning psychology classes, with very good results. They seem genuinely surprised and enlightened, judging from their essays, to learn how dubious SHAM really is.

16. Tell self that need to read review before reading the book to shore up more evidence-based research that suggests the book may appeal.

17. Tell self that review backs up sister’s suggestion too.

18. Tell self that probably did not need to read review if sister has given thumbs up.

19. Am now ready to read book.

20. Check workplace library in tea break. Book is on shelf, there for the legal taking with my trusty library card.

21. Borrow book.

22. Flip through book on tram home. Author gives at least eight examples of other high-fliers in the self-help movement.

23. Wonder how to tie in musings on self-help movements with “web 2.0″ or libraries.

24. Figure out how. Blog about it. Ignore voice that pipes up with “specious argument”. Bet voice doesn’t even know what specious means. Voice pipes up with “spurious argument” and “Tiddlywinks theses”. Tell voice if it doesn’t clam up I will write to Dr Phil for advice. So there.

25. This post brought you to by the eclectic readings of Library & Information Science Research, O: the Oprah Magazine, Psychotherapy Networker, and Skeptical Inquirer, via the Proquest and Science Direct databases, and a good dose of serendipitous connections. Am I ready for my peer review article yet? Am I ready for my close up, Mr DeMille?

The more things change…

1992

Somewhere along this spiral of reasoning, I confronted an irritating truth: For my life to work, I am now going to have to spend as much time managing my relationships with technology as I do with human beings.

 – Michael Schrage 1992. Convenience, Complexity and Choice in High-Tech Gadgetry. Financial, The Washington Post, 28 February, B03.

2008

Is being accessible 24/7 really necessary? A banker friend was telling me about a high-powered colleague. “He went away for three months and didn’t take his BlackBerry and didn’t look at any emails and nothing bad happened. Nothing,” he stressed, looking astonished.

- Ruth Ostrow 2008. Crackberry addicts crave a gadget fix. The Australian, 17 May, 37.

Please note: If you haven’t read any Elizabeth George novels at all, plot spoilers are in this video and post.

Once I went to an author talk by Elizabeth George for the novel where one of the main characters was bumped off by the author. I never knew she had a long term plan to kill someone off. I just picked up her books and enjoyed them. ANYWAY, so there I was in the audience of a book talk and signing, being mildly startled by her American accent since she writes about England mostly, even though I knew she hailed from  the U.S., when an EVIL, EVIL, EVIL, or perhaps just obtuse audience member, gave the tragic plot away! Ripped the venom from the tale!

You could see Elizabeth George trying to deflect, trying to stall, trying to get the audience member to be more circumspect, to no avail. It seemed as if the audience member assumed that just because SHE had read the novel, then why, everyone must have. SIGH. I hadn’t read the book yet! Reviewers in the newspapers had alluded to the death of a main character, but not given the game away. Argh. Now I shall always wonder how greater an impact With No One As Witness would have had on me without that knowledge. Because even with the unwanted information I was pretty damn shocked. But what would it have been like to be without it?

Anyway, the video by Harper127 talks in generalities and about writing craft. Interesting. I haven’t finished reading Careless in Red yet, but fortunately Elizabeth George just gives us a tease and a taste, not a full-blown account.

This is not a newsflash, but the novelist Elizabeth George uses many words I am not familiar with, nor can work out what they may mean from the context. Thanks to George I now know what coruscate means - shiny, sparkly, glittering - she has perhaps used it in all her novels. Excoriate is another favourite of hers. Reading through her latest novel Careless in Red, I am up to page 45, and have already stumbled against two new words that I shall have to haul out the dictionary for. In an essay written by Elizabeth George about killing off a main character she writes of exophthalmic eyes. Um? Means that the eyeballs protrude. Then again, I like to learn new words and concepts. And I have placed a mental tick next to the word excoriate - there it is already. How many pages to go before I find the word coruscate? Hide-and-seek vocabulary - it’s fun.

Used to be that it rained it Melbourne. Used to be that Melbourne was tempestuous, mercurial, sunny and temperate. In one day. At one time. Used to be “four seasons in one day”. Fickle weather. We had down the fine art of layering: throw on a coat, a jumper, a vest, a T-shirt; throw most of them off again; on/off/on/off and so on. Those of us with idiosyncratic office air conditioning still do so.

When I first moved to Melbourne, nigh on twenty years ago, I moved from a hot state where if it rained in the morning it would rain at night; if the sun blazed and baked skin and road in the morn, it would do so all day. I was surprised when I arrived in Melbourne city, in the middle of January, and was splashed with rain. I ducked into a nearby shop, suitcase in hand, and bought a blue and white dotted umbrella. My first Melbournian purchase. I was amazed. Who had ever heard of umbrellas on sale in mid-summer? Not me. Now, many years on, I cannot break myself of the habit of carrying an umbrella everywhere. In an egotistical Murphy’s Law way, I sometimes wonder if I could just leave my black umbrella at home would the drought break?

A few weeks ago I meandered home, being meandering in both thought and physicality. As I strolled down a leafy street I felt some water on my face. What was this strange substance? For a while I wondered if I had been hit by some stray air conditioning droplets, and would this give me legionnaires’ disease? Then I wondered if a kid was squirting me with a water pistol. A kid with pretty rotten aim and a kid with a way low supply of water. Although kid sightings, like panda sightings in suburbia, are rather rare these days. Then a soft drizzle mist happened and I realised it was rain.

Maybe I should start placing my bets with Centrebet. Yep, I can now wager (and maybe make money) on the Australian Rainfall Market, where the odds are on for which Australian and New Zealand cities or states will get the most rain in a month.

– Stephen Luntz 2008. Betting on Rain. Australasian Science, June 1, 14. 

Maybe I should have should have put my money down, because for the past week we have had rain. Hallelujah. Mostly it falls at night and I feel deliciously snug in my home as the wind howls and the rain falls, crashing against my windows and roof. Still, even with now aberrant rainwater, I suspect Melbourne will not win. Drats.

PS. Turns out that the Australian Rainfall Market was special event betting, open in April. In Australia NSW/ACT was the favourite at $1.60, with Victoria smack in the middle at fourth favourite at $16.00.  The favourite New Zealand cities to register the most rain were Wellington, followed by Auckland. Turns out that in Australia even with the favourite prediction NSW/ACT won because, among other factors, it had two weeks of torrential rain.

TV shows like the Law & Order franchise are known for “ripping their stories from the headlines”.

Now plenty of fiction writers use ideas from newspapers and magazines and something that someone said once that resonated with the writer.

This case study has always struck a chord with me, and I sometimes wonder if there is a novel or short story in it if only one has enough knowledge of the medico-legal system.

I stumbled over this case study a few years ago when I was exploring some health databases. The medical librarian in question, Rosalind K. Lett, wrote:

Exposure of a publishing fraud was my main contribution to this malpractice case.

My role, that of expert information professional, was to provide insight into the process of research to substantiate the published works of an author…. This particular case involved treatment resulting in adverse outcomes and multiple complications to a female cancer patient. On accepting this consultation assignment, I was given a 1 in. thick document that was said to be the curriculum vitae of a prominent oncologist. This man owned oncology clinics around the world and proclaimed himself to be the last resort for oncology patients. He professed to have the ability to cure cancer when other doctors could not. His treatment regime was radical, and non-traditional, and, as I soon found out, not supported by research or clinical trials. My job was to take the curriculum vitae of this oncologist, which cited 342 articles (that he claimed to have written), to verify the existence of these articles….This oncologist had a bad habit of incorrectly citing articles and, therefore, an intense search was required to make certain that no legitimate article was missed….They did not exist as published articles but were only manuscripts….When all my research and analysis were completed, it revealed that the defendant only authored 43 legitimate articles out of the 342 cited on his curriculum vitae. Two of the articles that I uncovered were not included on his curriculum vitae, yet were legitimately published oncology articles. This oncologist’s curriculum vitae referenced articles that were near-duplicates of his legitimate articles. The remainder of his works included inaccurate and incomplete references and non-existent fabricated works.

– Rosalind K. Lett (2004). Medical librarian as expert witness: the truth, and nothing but the truth. Reference Services Review, 32, 1, 60-63.  (The bolding is mine.)

Here we have a courtroom drama, with an unusual expert witness, the grief and hope and despair of cancer, and a probable charlatan as a villainous saviour.

Makes you wonder about the written word. Makes you wonder about authority and how we trust in institutions and positions such as oncologists at hospitals (who are much needed, along with other clinicians). Makes you wonder about how we can determine the credibility of experts as a layperson, or a patient, or a friend-of-the-patient.

Maybe I should read Helen Garner’s The Spare Room, which as far as I know has no librarian in it, but it is said to be a story of cancer and grief and possible quacks. Then again, as far as I know with the case study the doctor’s degree was earnt: he just fabricated the extent of the material he published. Yet, that so-called published material no doubt contributed to his status as expert. We used to be shocked when fabulists like journalists Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair were caught. Here we have an oncologist who does not necessarily deal in words as a first defence…yet somehow the lack of verified words was his downfall.

No wonder I want to stick with fiction.

“When times are tough I turn to poetry. John Keats always helps to put things in perspective, while John Donne cheers me up, and John Milton turns my mind to higher things.”

– Marina Lewycka, author of the novels A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, and Two Caravans, interviewed in Psychologies (2008), UK edition, June, p. 45.

Even without getting into bibliotherapy, the power of words fascinates me. As for “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me” - HA!

But poetry as a remedy, as a soothing device, intrigues me. The novelist and advice columnist Bel Mooney writes, “Novels, poetry and plays have always been the bedrock of my life, and all the wisdom of the greatest literature tells us that feelings like yours are a part of the human condition. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.” - February 2008

In another answer to a letter writer’s query, she also writes:

One of my favourite poets, William Blake, died in 1827, but wrote a little poem especially for you. It goes like this:

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise.

In other words, you can destroy something beautiful by clutching at it too tightly, but if you relax and leave it free, it might last forever. Or at least, a very long time.
June 27, 2008

Sometimes it seems that the use of poetry in newspaper advice columns is a particularly British practice. Claire Rayner, is another novelist and one-time agony aunt, along with Denise Robertson. Although the US Cary Tennis of the Since You Asked column in Salon.com often gives advice on literary angst, to the point where some of his non-writer readers begged him to desist, enough already!

I felt responsible. He saw me reading. He concluded my apparent happiness was in some part due to the stories available to distract me, and so he harried me into teaching him how to read.
– Carroll, Paul (2008). Blood Rush. Glimmer Train, Summer, Issue 67, p. 126.

Now a dream catcher is a leathered, feathered and beaded charm that entraps bad dreams in its web. Good dreams, apparently, know how to not get snared in the netting, but the bad dreams don’t, and will perish at first light (Oxford English Dictionary). 

Now, if only a blogcatcher were half as efficient as a dream catcher. Good blogs, bad blogs, indifferent blogs - some were trapped, but I suspect many got nowhere near my net.

I checked out the advanced functions of the Technorati and Google blogcatchers, but I believe that an engine search produces similar results. I focused on social media blogs for librarians, but some of the hits were off-topic.

Again, I am intrigued with Technorati’s popularity rank- the more blogs that are linked to a sole blog, the more “authority” it has. Just because something is popular does not necessarily mean it is authoritative (and vice-versa). However, my use of the word “authority” differs from Technorati’s use.

Do you think John Seely Brown, who ran Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, was pretty spot on with his vision almost 20 years ago of libraries and the collaborative web? Or are we not quite there yet? Check out what he had to say in a 1990 Washington Post article.

Instead of digitized libraries, Brown envisions the community library of 2010 as “a center of design-the design of music, the design of books, the design of film, the design of information,” and he sees these libraries all linked together on high-speed, high-band-width computer networks that enable people to share their ideas. Brown calls these technological webs “collaboratories.”

–Schrage, Michael (1990). Visions of Tomorrow’s Libraries: Computerized Networks to Spread the Word. The Washington Post, 27 April, f03.

Sometimes you get all lucky big time at the public library, with bags bulging with bright books. You stop selection when you can no longer carry them, regardless of the two or three bags you have on you. I love it when this happens. But the thing is, even if fortune shines upon you in the interesting reads department, since you’re at the public library it really doesn’t matter if you choose some duds, because it is more or less free, paid for via your taxes and governmental grants. So you can get experimental. You can pick up books, magazines, CDs, games etc., with a what-the-hell-why-not attitude.

I’ve just read the oddest book. Part of a series, apparently. About 10 or so years ago Choose Your Own Multiple Choice Adventures were big in the children’s departments. Books where the reader was led down multiple choice multiple paths. Choose A and a snake eats the hero. Choose B and the hero eats a snake. Choose C and both the snake and the hero get stomped on and flambéed by a dragon. I always want my author to lead me down the garden path or ravine or wherever, so I was never much impressed by these books. Also, I wasn’t a child 10 years ago either, so that could contribute to the diffident attitude.

Anyway, so there I am in the local library doing my version of a literary lucky dip. In the Young Adult section, where often you can find a good read, I stumbled on a YA romance and thought I would give it a go. As to why I was reading YA romance? Er…I’m an eclectic reader? Ah, it was research! So I took the pink & purple covered book home. Despite its cover proclamation of, “One girl. Three guys. You decide.” I suspected nothing. And what was it? A slightly more sophisticated version of Choose Your Own Adventure. This time it was Choose the Right Guy for the Heroine. Actually, the author wrote different endings for all three prospects. Odd, yet it had its charm. Really, there was only one real choice. And it intrigued in a Sliding Doors, Junior way.

It got me to thinking on authorial authority. And I’m gonna do a post on authority soon, with the so-called participative nature of Web 2.0. Because I’m for all authority. Because some interactive sites, some interactive TV shows, some interactive novels, are not so interactive after all. Have you ever filled in a quiz in a magazine or been polled on the phone, and you think, “My answer doesn’t fit into your boxes. That’s not how I would react.”? Leading questions and so on.

Even when my author leads me off a cliff into Portuguese man-of-war infested waters, the only choice I want to make is to a) read on or b) slam shut the book in disgust.

PS. If you really want to explore the YA series for yourself it is Hook Up or Break Up by Kendall Adams.