"Self-plagiarism is style"

Just spotted that Tim is busy working on something that I dabbled with last February:

www.colourphon.co.uk

I'm actually in the midst of revisiting my code, as I want to automate a way of locating visually similar images from the "1000 Frames of Hitchcock" project, e.g.:

Anyway, today seemed like a good opportunity to return to Ed Vielmetti's original question about sorting books into the colour of a rainbow…

I think Superpatron Ed might have let the cat out of the bag already, but Google should be making an annoucement about Google Book Search tomorrow that might be of interest to libraries… can you guess what it might be?

The Guardian article about celebrity liar and all round Walter Mitty type Robert Irvine made for some chucklesome reading at lunch time today.

Not surprisingly, the "about me" page on his web site is now "Under Construction". Fortunately, good ol' Google still has the cached version from a few weeks ago…

Curiously, his "about" page fails to make any mention of his Knighthood and the castle in Scotland which the Queen gave him :-D

I'm also intrigued by the disclaimer on his home page which reads "The site is not affiliated with Robert.com".

So, to save any confusion, I'd like to take the opportunity to say that this site is not affiliated with Dave.com, Davey.com, DP.com, or WaveyDavey.co.uk. However, I would like you all to start referring to me as "Sir Dave of Huddersfield".

Sitting in the Short Loan collection in the main library at the University of Huddersfield, it doesn't really stand out as been any different to the other DVDs near it, but our copy of "City of God" is officially the most borrowed item from our entire collection (which is nearly 400,000 items) in the last 3 years.

It's not quite as popular as it once was (the number of loans in 2007 was about half of the 2005 figure), but it's now been borrowed 157 times since it first arrived here in 2004.

The most borrowed book was one of the copies of "Research methods for business students", which has now been borrowed 118 times since it was first placed on our shelves.

Anyway, if you were thinking of rushing here to borrow "City of God", sorry — it's out on loan at the moment :-)

(if you were wondering, then "yes, that's a Google Chart")

I'm always wary of doing bulk changes to the bibliographic records via SQL, so I tend to be fairly cautious.

Anyway, we'd got nearly 100,000 bib records that need rejiggering (ISBN in the wrong field), so I knocked up a Perl script to do the deed. After it had changed a few hundred records, I connected to the database and ran the following SQL…

set rowcount 10
select * from bib where tag = "011"

The last thing I want to do is pull back everything with a 011 tag, so the "set rowcount" ensures only the first 10 results are returned. The output looks good, so I decide to check the size of the transaction log…

sp_dbspace

We use Sybase and that command shows the size of the main LMS database and the transaction log. The transaction log size looks fine and I minimise the window. However, my subconscious shouts out "something's wrong!", so I maximise the SQL window and look at the output again…

name: horizon
data MB: 5500.00
used MB: 54.68
percent: 0.99%
log MB: 300.00
log used MB: 88.40
log pct: 29.47%

My eyes automatically jump to the end of the output: "So, the transaction log is 29.47% full… that's nothing to worry about…"

My eyes then wander up and my brain takes about 2 seconds to spot what's really wrong — our entire LMS database is just 54.68MB!!! "That can't be right… it should be at least 4,800MB!!!"

The colour drains from my face as the possibility that one of the SQL commands in my Perl script has nuked our entire database enters my mind. I sit motionless in my chair waiting for the inevitable phone call from a member of staff: "Dave… is there something wrong with Horizon?"

Then, in the space of about 30 seconds, I go through all seven stages of grief…

1) shock ("I can't believe this has happened")
2) denial ("maybe someone else did it?")
3) bargaining ("I wonder if I can bribe someone else to take the blame?")
4) guilt ("OMG — IT'S ALL MY FAULT!!!")
5) anger ("damn it — this didn't happen when I ran the script on the test database!")
6) depression ("this won't sound good when I apply for a new job and they asked me why I was fired from my previous job")
7) acceptance and hope ("the time is right for a major career change")

…so, can anyone guess what happened next?

Here's a recent statement from SirsiDynix…

“The Horizon 7.4.1 and HIP 3.09/4.13 releases are clear evidence that SirsiDynix remains committed to the Horizon platform,” said Gary Rautenstrauch, SirsiDynix CEO. “While SirsiDynix Symphony is our flagship platform for the future, SirsiDynix will continue to upgrade the Horizon platform for the next four to six years. “This commitment to our worldwide customer base is important to us, and we will keep it,” said Rautenstrauch.
(original PDF dated 11/Jan/2008)

…and here's one that's just been sent to all UK customers…

You may be aware that there has been a recent announcement about the general availability of Horizon 7.4.1 and HIP 3.09. SirsiDynix International has seriously considered the option of taking this release and including the various localizations into it. However, at this time we have decided that we cannot commit to the amount of work necessary on an International basis.

Clearly the commitment to the non-US customer base is important to the company, but just not that important.

Come on SirsiDynix, please try and do something to prove Scribe wasn't right!

…in particular, the Google cache of web pages that it's trawled.

Although Woolworths have removed the "Lolita Midsleeper Combi" from their web site, you can still find the product via the Google Cache…

(BBC News: Woolworths withdraws 'Lolita' bed)

I can't decide what amazes me more — that a company would name a product for young girls "Lolita", or that Woolworths don't seem to employ anyone who was aware of the single definition of the word!

Anyway, I'm sure I can hear Nabokov giggling quietly in his grave :-D

It's on days like this that I'm glad we no longer live in Armitage Bridge, but halfway up a hill which looks down on Armitage Bridge.

The BBC web site has this photo of Armitage Bridge…

After spending several minutes wondering if the Armitage Bridge that I knew (which is mostly traditional old stone houses) had been washed clean away and replaced by a row of newer looking red brick houses, I noticed that the file name of the image mentions Doncaster (which is at least 50 miles away).

The local newspaper has this video, although be warned that the narrator sounds like she using a megaphone.

Quite a few local roads have been closed and the area at the south of the University campus (Aspley & Bradley Mills) is still subject to a severe Flood Warning from the Environment Agency.

…are to be had at librariandressup.com!

Many thanks to Amy — whose current Facebook status is "face of an angel and the mouth of a sailor" — for the link (possibly via Phil Bradley?)

Marshall Breeding has published the results of the "Perceptions 2007: An International Survey of Library Automation" and I doubt they'll make comfortable reading at SirsiDynix HQ (unless Scribe has got it right!)…

The products of SirsiDynix, Unicorn and Horizon, received low satisfaction scores from libraries responding to the survey. Unicorn, the company’s flagship ILS performed somewhat better than Horizon. 14% of libraries running Unicorn and about half of those with Horizon indicate interest in migrating to another system — not surprising considering SirsiDynix's position not to develop that system into the future. Horizon libraries scored high interest in open source ILS alternatives. The comments provided by libraries running Horizon voiced an extremely high level of frustration with SirsiDynix as a company and its decision to discontinue Horizon. Many indicated distrust toward the company. The comments from libraries running Unicorn, the system which SirsiDynix selected as the basis for its flagship Symphony ILS, also ran strongly negative — some because of issues with the software some because of concerns with the company.

Voyager, Horizon, and Aleph 500 sites are the most likely to consider moving to Open Source (such as Koha or Evergreen).

If Open Source isn't of interest, then the satisfaction levels amongst Polaris customers makes that a very attractive system to move to.