October 31, 2001 - Fantasy Fest!

Many people think fantasy and science fiction are the same. They're not.

"Fantasy" takes place in a world where certain, often basic, things are just impossible. Take the Harry Potter series. The author doesn't spend a lot of time trying to work out sort-of-sensible explanations for why magic works. It's a given, part of the background. Spells work, ghosts inhabit Hogwart's halls, and brooms fly. On with the story!

Sometimes an author starts out as a fantasy writer, then changes. Take Anne McCaffrey's popular Dragonrider of Pern series. It began as fantasy: a young woman rode a dragon. The tale fit right in with the stereotypical swords-and-sorcery, faintly medievalist universe.

But over time, McCaffrey started exploring the physics of dragon flight. At some point, when a phenomena or worldview can be plausibly extrapolated from today's scientific knowledge, you're not talking fantasy anymore. You're talking science fiction.

And that's good. I admit it. I'm a science fiction fan. In that realm, I've read some pretty wacky stuff, but no matter where it leads me, it always begins with the same thing: the real world. Some dogged part of my imagination has to know that you can get there from here.

I have to say that on occasion, that makes science fiction far more frightening than fantasy could ever be. Check out the "Handmaid's Tale," by Margaret Atwood, for instance.

This bias toward reality is precisely the reason my wife, Suzanne, refuses to watch horror movies of the mad slasher type. Why? Because there really are insane people who will try to kill you. After the last horror movie she saw (about 15 years ago), Suzanne went out and bought nightlights for all our bedrooms. For months afterward, she also checked under the bed each night before committing herself to sleep.

By contrast, the most terrifying movie I ever saw was the first "Alien" movie, when the alien wrapped herself around John Hurt's throat and laid an egg in his chest.

That didn't bother Suzanne. Aliens? Fantasy.

But in my view, the alien adhered to certain strict, predictable, all too possible rules. I've never met one, but I COULD. Sure, a mad slasher might poke a long knife up through my mattress some night, but he's not going to lay an egg in my chest.

My point, though, is that you'll soon have the opportunity to learn about the differences between fantasy and science fiction from people far more qualified than I am. On Friday, November 2, from 6 to 10 p.m., the library will sponsor Fantasy Fest! The location: the old Safeway at 100 South Wilcox Street, Castle Rock, future site of our new Philip S. Miller Library.

The event begins with a keynote speech by Colorado author Connie Willis. Willis bears the distinction of having won more literary awards -- both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards, science fiction's highest accolades -- than anyone in history. In addition to being an accomplished, moving, and often very humorous writer, she is one of the most erudite, witty, and engaging speakers I've ever heard. I recommend her highly.

But that's not all. We'll have other authors, including Hilari Bell and Wick Downing. You can see Harry Potter collectibles, and demonstrations of fantasy role playing games. You can thrill to exciting stories by nationally renowned local storyteller, John Stansfield. We'll have live owls!

All attendees are encouraged to wear costumes, and to stop by the Costume Judge. At 9:30 p.m. precisely, a winner will be announced.

Did I mention the free food?

In short, this event, however fantastic, is not a fantasy. It is real. I hope you can join us.

October 30, 2002 - Board Accountability

Public employees, as I described last week, are accountable through annual evaluations, and the general oversight of their supervisors.

Elected officials are accountable to the voters. If they prove to be unresponsive, or incompetent, they get voted out of office.

But what about appointed officials? For many members of public boards, there are few performance guidelines, and virtually no way to hold members -- or the body as a whole -- up to those guidelines even if they did exist.

The Trustees of the Douglas Public Library District decided to tackle this issue head on. On Sept. 21, 2002, they got together with the Trustees of the Arapahoe Library District for a joint retreat. Here was the agenda:

* Review and agree upon trustee job descriptions for officers (President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer) and general trustee responsibilities.

* Assess self and board performance over the past year.

* Discuss jointly what we do well (and should be maintained), and what needs improvement.

* Select 3-5 goals for the coming year.

The job descriptions came from various Library Trustee training workbooks around the country. We augmented them with a host of data from not-for-profit board websites. It turns out (surprise!) that most board position requirements are remarkably similar.

For instance, consider this responsibility of the board president: "Plans and presides over board meetings. The president is responsible for advance, written agenda; plans and conducts meetings to assure productive sessions which steadily move the board toward its internal goals and objectives as well as the library goals and objectives. The president's knowledge of, and commitment to, parliamentary procedures, plus an understanding of group dynamics, can make the difference between a meeting which keeps the discussion focused on the major action issues to be considered, or a rambling, semi-social session."

I submit that this applies to any board president.

The self-assessment was private. Trustees were given time to fill out a one page form, then were permitted to hang onto it. We did the form ourselves, and I intend to post it on our website for others to use.

Next, they filled out another form we designed, this time to assess the performance of their Board. This made some statements that, again, apply to all Boards, for instance: The board pays more attention to ends than to means, i.e. To what will be done not to how it will be done. Trustees then rated those statements as to yes, no, NA or don't need, or Need to do.

The joint discussion that followed was fascinating. There were some things that the Arapahoe Board did that my Board wanted to adopt. Some of the things we did, they found interesting. Each of us got to see the ways that our library governance was similar, and the ways it differed.

Then we broke into two small groups and worked up our list of goals for the year. Here are two of ours: to conduct a Board evaluation annually, and to require at least one continuing education event per Board member per year.

I've learned through this process what I suspected all along. Accountability can be imposed from the outside, or from the inside. It works best if it starts within the organization, by people who have thought about what their jobs are, and trust each other to give honest feedback.

I'm very impressed with the Trustees of both libraries. And I wouldn't be surprised to find out that what we have begun here spreads to other library boards. That would be a good thing.

October 9, 2002 - Irony in DPL #1 Rating

October 2, 2002, was a day rich in irony.

On the one hand, according to the Denver Post, the Denver Public Library was, once again, awarded first place in the Hennen's American Public Library Ratings. Hennen, a Wisconsin librarian, used 2000 data to rate public libraries in 15 categories, including circulation, staffing, materials and funding levels.

The index has a theoretical minimum of 1 and a maximum of 1,000. Denver's score was 893. Hurray for DPL, which has now won the "top rating" twice in a row.

Each library is compared to its own "class" -- which is determined by the number of people it serves. Comparing the STATES, Colorado comes in number 7 for the quality of its public libraries.

I'm not surprised. There are many excellent libraries in the state. As noted in the Rocky Mountain News, "The tiny Silverton Public Library, 250 miles west of Pueblo, is 10th among 1,003 libraries nationwide serving 1,000 or fewer people. Its score was 807." Also scoring very well were East Routt, Arapahoe Library District, La Junta, Lafayette, Louisville, Hinsdale, and even, I'm pleased to report, the Douglas Public Library District (with a score of 752).

But that was 2000. This year, library news is a little different. Elsewhere in the Post, also on Oct. 2, was the news that the Denver Public Library, which had already laid off 14 people when Gov. Bill Owens cut state support for libraries (including over $2.5 million for DPL) may have to slash yet another $410,000 from next year's budget.

What does that mean to the Douglas Public Library District patron?

Well, some of our patrons have already seen one result. With fewer people to support the requests of other libraries, the wait for our Interlibrary Loan requests is lengthening. DPL, the state's largest collection, simply can't handle the volume it used to. We used to get between 100-130 items a month. Now we average about 11 a month.

Nor can DPL answer as many reference questions when local librarians don't have the resources.

Nor will DPL be able to buy as many books as it used to. A major statewide resource is being whittled away.

Nor will DPL be able to be open as many hours as it now is.

Finally, DPL will have to think long and hard about whether or not it wishes to continue to serve, for free, an estimated 100,000 library patrons from the metro area who use their services on a walk-in basis. Consider: over 20 percent of the people who check out DPL materials do not reside in Denver.

It happens that I have a Denver library card, as well, and I use it. I recognize the extraordinary resource that is a well-staffed, well-stocked library.

But that brings me to another irony. Denver Councilwoman Kathleen MacKenzie said she prefers the library not reduce hours. Why?

"People need access to the Internet and the libraries are one place they can find that," she said.

I use the Internet, too. But the Internet at it's best is a small subset of what any library does. DPL's greatness to date has more to do with its people, and its materials, than it does its number of Internet terminals.

In my judgment, the Denver Public Library deserved its rating as one of America's best libraries. With fewer people, older books, and fewer patrons, it's going to find it tough to win next year.

October 2, 2002 - More About Linux

Last week I made what some might have found a surprising statement: "By and by, Windows users still might want to move to Linux." This was even though Windows users might then be using Open Office as a free alternative to Microsoft Office.
Why did I say that?

Because Windows software is inherently less secure than Linux (a free Unix clone).

All computer operating systems have security holes. "Vulnerabilities" are constantly being found and exploited by malicious hackers. That's true for Linux as well as Windows.

But Windows has two problems: the first is its intrinsic design. Consider this statement (from ComputerWeekly) by Brian Valentine, senior vice-president in charge of Microsoft's Windows development. Speaking at a Microsoft Windows Server.net developer conference in Seattle, Sept. 6, he said, "Our products aren't engineered for security." Linux, designed as a multi-user system from the beginning, is.

The second problem with Windows is the usual response of Microsoft to reports of security issues. Consider this excerpt from eweek, September 13, 2002: "Officials at Microsoft are busy investigating the extent of a problem that was reported by several media outlets Friday about multiple versions of Microsoft Word containing a vulnerability that could allow hackers to steal files. An Associated Press version of the story ended up on at least two major Web sites Friday, saying that Microsoft does intend to deliver a fix for the problem, but that the problem is the worst for users of Word 97, and that Microsoft will not deliver a fix for users of Word 97." Roughly 32% of America's business users still use Word 97.

Microsoft's answer to the problem: upgrade. Then wait.

Microsoft does, of course, have to tackle the same issues any business does. It isn't commercially feasible to maintain every product you create. Microsoft is out to make money, after all, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But the issues speaks to another advantage of Open Source software.

There are now hundreds of thousands of Linux programmers, very smart people, who typically solve security problems within hours after they are reported. Why? Because they want the glory of the job well done. They want, and they receive, the respect of their peers.

Microsoft, which employs some very smart people also, just doesn't have as many of them, and they're occupied with other things, for pay. Security breaches, when they're fixed at all, can and have taken months.

I'm also impressed by another Linux performance issue: uptime. Linux keeps track internally of how long it's been running. There are many, many Linux boxes that haven't so much as hiccuped in years of operation. That's remarkable.

Cost, security, stability. Three good reasons to think about a change.

On the other hand, it probably doesn't make sense for you or anyone else to toss out your current hardware and software set-up if you've already paid for it, it does what you want it to do, and you're satisfied that you're at little risk. At least, it doesn't make sense until there are other reasons to think about an upgrade.

And that's exactly the library's interest: financial planning. Based on my research and testing, here's what I've decided: our future purchases will, to the greatest extent possible, be based on open source, rather than proprietary operating systems and software.

Other businesses and not-for-profit agencies might want to consider that course, too.

September 25, 2002 - Linux

Three weeks ago, I mentioned that I was going to trying to move from my Macintosh operating system (9.2) to something called Linux, a clone of the Unix operating system. I mentioned two reasons for this attempt: first, Linux is free (if you download it from the Internet) or cheap (a typical CD-ROM installation costs about $30).

Second, Linux now runs a variety of office applications -- spreadsheets, word processors, browsers, email, and the like. They, too, are free.

But I won't lie. The past 21 days have been tough. Very tough. Linux is NOT easy to set up. If you're not computer literate, or more stubborn than is good for you, take my advice: get somebody experienced to do it for you.

On the other hand, once you do get it set up, it isn't any harder to use than anything else. That is, the stuff you do on the computer (answer email, compose various documents, etc.) is the same. The way you do that is pretty much the same, too. One graphical word processor is much like another.

Three things were actually better. The first was Internet browsing. Web pages, on the same speed connection I was using before, displayed at least three times faster.

The second was the ease of sharing documents. One of my personality quirks is that I ran a Microsoft-free zone on my Macintosh -- no Microsoft products at all. But I was alone; the rest of the library ran both Windows and Microsoft Office. Why not? Thanks to Microsoft marketing muscle, Office document formats are now international standards.

For me, that meant that every time somebody sent me a document (which happens fairly often), I had to go through a translation process. Sometimes, that translation process didn't work very well.

Under Linux and Open Office, that's changed. Now when I get email with an attachment, I click on it and it opens. I'm still a Microsoft-free zone, but now I work with other people's files, no matter how heavily formatted or marked up -- and they work with mine -- seamlessly.

The third thing was that the computer just won't crash. I've done some incredibly stupid things to it. Sometimes I can kill an application (not often, but I've done it). But then all I have to do is start it up again. Not the computer, just the program.

What does all this mean?

The reason I'm doing all this experimentation is not just to explore new technologies (although it's worked pretty well for that). I'm looking to save the library some money. I've found a way to do that. Take my advice, and you'll save money, too.

Here it is: download the program (from www.openoffice.org) or buy the Open Office CD (information at the same site).

Before you object that you don't use Linux, ponder this: Open Office also runs on Windows. If you're willing to fiddle with the Mac's new Darwin system, you can run it under OS X, too.

Bottom line: even if you're a Windows user, you can save the cost of Microsoft Office on every computer in your shop (or at your home). The programs look the same, act the same, and work the same. You can copy it onto as many computers as you like, and it's perfectly legal.

This one step can buy you a whole year or more of working with very powerful software on your computer, making your own files, and confidently exchanging them with others.

Nonetheless, bye and bye, Windows users still might want to move to Linux. Next week, I'll tell you why. You won't like it.

September 18, 2002 - Poison Oak

On Labor Day weekend, I took my 8 year old son to Salida. It's a lovely town.

We went to the enormous covered pool (fed by local hot springs). We played catch in the park. We drove up a dirt spiral drive to the top of Salida's famous "S" Mountain. We strolled through the historic downtown and declaimed from the stage of a riverside park.

And we took a walk along the Arkansas River.

The river was lovely. Alternately swift and lazy, it winded beneath an azure sky. We had a wonderful time hurling enormous boulders into the current, and skipping stones in the calm spots.

Dressed in shorts and sandals, we jumped along the rocks and the sand until we found ourselves facing nothing but water.

So we backtracked a little. Then we bushwhacked through a swatch of willowy bushes back up to the bank.

That's when I saw it.

At first, it was just a flash at the corner of my eye ... something shaped a little different. It swished against my waistline and left thigh.

From a distance, I took a closer look. It was like an oak tree, but very small. Not a scrub oak. A sort of three-leafed oakish bush, trimmed in yellow.

God, I thought, I hope that's not a poison oak. But then I thought, heck, I've never had an allergic reaction to a plant.

So Perry and I went on. We met some local celebrities for lunch and had a swell time.

All afternoon, we plunged back into the big hot springs.

But that night, I had little red dots all over my belly. By next morning, I had a sort of gash to the right of my navel.

That day, we drove back to Castle Rock. I had vague little itches, which I scratched absentmindedly. My thigh. My forehead. My knee. My ankle. But we enjoyed listening to our library tapes (recommended: Daniel Pinkwater's hilarious "Borgel").

When I woke up the next day, oh my.

When I say "oh my," I mean that for the next 10 days I have had five angry red wounds that "wept" and "suppurated." I'm not sure which of those words is the grosser. But neither is gross enough.

These wounds oozed a clear but (when mopped up with a paper towel) yellowish liquid. A scant 24 hours after I got home, I looked like a burn victim.

I tried to struggle along with my life, but it involved not only my dutiful and daily washings (of pants, pillow cases, pj's and socks), but the discovery that no matter what I did, I could guarantee myself no more than 4 hours of relief.

The best: hot baths. Really hot. I mean hot so hot you actually scream when you get into them. I sprinkled some kind of oatmeal concoction into it, which helped.

I also enjoyed the pinetar poison ivy soap, which is exquisitely and maddeningly close to sandpaper.

Then a variety of creams. I tried several: calamine (good!), benadryl (good), and (at the advice of a local pharmacist) a cortisone cream (very, very bad).

Here's why, as a doctor I later ran across took pains to tell me: cortisone stops inflammation. But inflammation is how the poison works itself out. Since it can't go out, it goes ... sideways. In other words, it spreads. Up along your thighs. Both of them. Higher and higher ...

I got that straightened out (JUST in time). But for the past week or so, I look like I'm doing a bad Gorbachev imitation (the huge red splotch on my ever-higher forehead). Every night, I wake up five or six times with my fingernails lurching toward my abused skin.

I admit it. There were times when my iron discipline has faltered. And I have SCRATCHED.

Why am I telling you this? Well, mainly because I've been remarkably goodnatured about the ordeal so far, and I'VE HAD IT. Sleeping in socks in claustrophobic. I'm cranky. I can't sleep.

And I've reached an important conclusion that I feel a strong need to share. Here it is.

Nature is dangerous. Really. So is exercise. From now on, I plan to just lay around in air-conditioned buildings and not do anything riskier to my skin than read.

I recommend you do the same.

September 11, 2002 - Spellbinders Storytelling

Today is a day of remembrance. Today is a day when we tell stories, and try to understand the meaning of events both large and small.

The story of 9/11 is well known now, a defining memory for all who witnessed it, like the assassination of JFK, or the moon walk.

The meaning of the events of Sept. 11 is still clouded, however, in part because the story isn't finished.

According to the provocative writings of William Strauss and Neil Howe ("Generations," and "The Fourth Turning: an American Prophecy (What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with History)," there are moments of secular crisis when the whole national character changes, realigning almost overnight to a new configuration of focus and effort. Pearl Harbor was one example of that.

I thought 9/11 would be another one. For various reasons, it wasn't. There is, I think, a deeper sense of national identity. I know that in the past year I have thought long and hard about what it means to be an American, and discovered in myself a surprising depth of patriotism.

But according to Strauss and Howe, the generational line-up isn't quite right yet for truly unified action. We're still caught in the culture wars, the partisanship, the squabbling among ourselves.

That may be a good thing. Once before in American history a configuration of generational types very much like what we have today went to war. But we fought each other. And the Civil War, while it preserved the Union, was also a period of great tragedy, with an aftermath quite different from that of World War II.


But back to storytelling. I'm pleased to announce a collaborative effort of the Douglas County School District and the Douglas Public Library District. We're forming a chapter of Spellbinders.

What's that? Spellbinders are volunteer storytellers. The idea of the program is to identify seniors (ages 55 or older) who want to learn how to tell stories to children.

To teach some of the skills of storytelling, humankind's oldest art form, volunteers will attend an eight-hour workshop this fall, right here in Douglas County. The teacher is the library's own Priscilla Queen, a storyteller of some renown, and a certified Spellbinder trainer.

The training will focus on techniques, practice exercises, and resources for folk tales and fairy tales. Priscilla will also help participants learn how to turn their own life stories into "tellable" tales.

After the training, we'll send out our Spellbinders to school rooms, libraries, and other settings where we can bring together two generations who have a lot to give each other.

For more information, or to request a Spellbinders volunteer application, call Debby Novotny, coordinator for School/Community Partnerships for Douglas County School District, at 303-814-5272.

Why? Storytelling is not only a way to build community, it's a way to make a difference in young people's lives by discovering how many great stories are inside you to tell.