One of the attractive things about the internship I’m doing was getting the opportunity to work with a tool specifically designed to facilitate the collection and, to a certain extent, curation of metadata. It seems like that’s increasingly what catalogers are being asked to do when we’re asked/expected to take metadata in a wide variety of formats with widely varying levels of completeness into catalogs or other local databases for discovery and/or resource management purposes. Unfortunately, most of our systems were designed with a vastly differnt paradigm in mind. Certainly, ILS systems are designed to ingest bibliographic records in MARC format created elsewhere, but they operate on the principle that a person is going to sit there and manually compare a physical object, such as a book, to each individual bibliographic record and make adjustments manually to suit local needs.

The system I’m working with during my internship is designed specifically to collect data from multiple sources and combine it into a highly sophisticated database where that data can be analyzed, manipulated and output in very flexible ways. It is also specifically intended to allow people with little to no knowledge of databases or programming to do pretty sophisticated stuff without having to learn much about programming. Though the system is still in a fairly early stage of development, I can see that it has real potential. Over the next couple of months, I’m going to experiment with building some library-oriented applications on this platform to test its relevance to solving the challenges that librarians face with regard to data curation.

Figure skating in Boston isn’t as easy as I hoped it would be, but I’m managing to get some time in on the ice. Part of the difficulty is that most of the ice rinks in the Boston area are seasonal, and they don’t open until October or November. Most of the indoor rinks that are open year-round are difficult to access without a car. The Skating Club of Boston is the only rink I’ve been able to find so far that I can get to reasonably well on public transportation (combination of train and bus). Ironically, it takes me nearly as long to get to the rink here as it does for me to get to Sherwood Ice Arena from Monmouth, even though I live within 10 miles of the rink. At least I don’t have to do the driving.

SCoB is an old, historic rink (Dick Button and Tenley Albright trained there in the 1940 and 1950s), so it is an interesting place to skate. It seems like the glory days are past, but plenty of people, including many aspiring competitive skaters, skate there, and a couple of the most successful coaches in the country right now (Mark Mitchell and Peter Johansson) are on the coaching staff. Ice time is pretty tightly scheduled, even though the rink is devoted almost exclusively to figure skating, rather than hockey.

Partly because it’s a private club with a long history, the rink at SCoB is run a bit differently than rinks in Oregon. There are many rules about who has priority to skate, what kind of skating you can do on what sessions, and the order in which skaters’ music will be played. Members have access to more sessions at lower prices than non-members. A 50-minute public dance session costs me $16.50, nearly double what I pay for an hour of freestyle ice at Sherwood. Members who have contracted for ice time for the entire “club season” (September through June) pay the lowest rates of all, though they don’t get a refund if they miss a session and the rules prohibit resale and most exchanges of contracted ice time. Members also have priority over everybody else if many people want to skate a particular session. They have limits on the number of skaters on sessions, which is nice, but as a walk-on non-member, I have lowest priority, so if it gets crowded (hasn’t happened to me yet), I might not get on the session at all. Most of the sessions are freestyle sessions, and they are restricted to skaters who have passed certain US Figure Skating tests. This means that there are only about 10 sessions (at 50 minutes each) a week on which I’m even eligible to skate.

The first type of session I tried was a Public Session. The rules state that you can’t do dance patterns or moves in the field (the two main types of skills I like to practice) on public sessions, but I figured I’d give it a try to see how strict they were about enforcing the rules. Well, I discovered quickly that the public sessions weren’t going to meet my needs. I kid you not, they had a guy there playing the Wurlitzer live for the entire 2 hour session. They also had a skate guard there to enforce the rules, including asking singles to leave the ice every time the organ player called a “couples” skate (about every 15 minutes). It was somewhat surprising that they didn’t require women to wear skirts … As a one-time, novelty/retro experience, it was fun, but I won’t be going back for that type of session again.

Public dance sessions seem to suit me much better, except for the price. According to the rules, you’re only allowed to do ice dance patterns or dance programs on public dance sessions, but that suits me pretty well since that’s mostly what I do anyway. The fact that that everybody there is working on the same type of thing actually makes it a bit easier to practice, since the other people skating know the patterns and are working on similar things themselves. It makes it easier to share the ice when everybody is working on similar skills. I’ve been able to sneak in some moves in the field work, especially moves that are good warm-ups for dance and/or incorporate dance moves. It seems to be mostly adults and older teenage girls on the public dance sessions, so I fit right into the crowd. I can also have lessons on public dance sessions. I had my first lesson yesterday for about 45 minutes. My coach took a look at my Bronze dances and gave me some refinements to work on. She thinks I might be able to test while I’m here, which would be really great. The ice is warmer/softer here than it is at home. This makes edges and turns feel more comfortable, and I seem to get more speed/power with the same amount of effort.

If winter comes early, I might get to skate on the Frog Pond on Boston Common, which would be really neat.

Nearly done with week 3 of my internship. I’ve gotten more familiar with the application, and I’m now able to work more independently, though I’m not yet doing every step in the process or using every aspect of the system. I think I’m more or less proficient with the entry-level stuff now, though. If you want to check out the end result of some of the work I’ve been doing, take a look at: http://matrix2.itasoftware.com/

Just do a search for flights between the US cities of your choice, then direct your attention to the Events calendar display at the bottom of the screen (you may need to scroll to see it). One of the main things I’ve been working on is using a special back-end application to harvest events data off of various websites to populate this events calendar display. We’re still identifying sites to harvest data from and building up data in the database, so some cities have much better coverage than others at the moment, but you can get the general idea. Given that ITA is headquartered in Cambridge, MA, Boston has better coverage than many cities right now, so that’s one of the best cities to search. Currently, the data gets refreshed about once per week, usually on Friday evening or Monday morning.  Give it a try, especially if you’re planning a trip somewhere and want to check out airfares and activities at the same time. If you have suggestions, feel free to submit them via one of the links on the site. Comments are directed to my team, and I assure you that they will be considered carefully.

As I was warned, the web page tagging and harvested data review process is kind of tedious, but no more so than a lot of the work I do with data in the library catalog or spreadsheets, and the back-end application provides support that is far more sophisticated and vastly superior to that offered by any library system I’ve ever seen. There are significant bugs and usability issues right now, since the application is still in the alpha development stage, but I’m enjoying working with it, and I feel like I will be able to make some meaningful contributions toward its development, which is pretty satisfying.

This trip represents the first time that I’ve ever actually lived in a big city. I’ve had the good fortune to enjoy substantial vacations (staying in private apartments rather than hotels) in cities such as London, England and Moscow, Russia, and I’ve visited Portland, OR frequently throughout my life, but this is the first time I’ve gotten the chance to really settle in and experience the full-fledged urban lifestyle. I’m liking it so far, though I can see that Boston is particularly well-suited to my taste.

Ability to do what you want without a car is the key to urban bliss, IMHO. Boston has excellent public transit, and it is also a very walkable city, especially in the summer. I’ve been walking a lot. I find that I’m starting to connect the dots between subway stations and various point of interest throughout the city. It’s really interesting to feel the map forming in my head. As I wander around, I actively try to notice as much as I possibly can. Yet, I find that more details emerge each time I retrace my steps. It’s like my brain just can’t take in all of the details on the first pass, even when I’m actively looking for specific things.

I don’t have a kitchen or a TV, and I haven’t really missed either so far. Other than some video of Powder and Bo, I haven’t watched any streaming video on my computer, either. It’s nice to be able to spend the time I would normally spend on cooking, housekeeping, and mindless entertainment on exploring the city, reading, and reflecting upon my experience instead. While I get lonely sometimes, I certainly haven’t been bored. Last Saturday, I made the first of what will hopefully be many visits to the Museum of Fine Arts (I bought a membership, so I can get in for free any time), and I’ve been to the Skating Club of Boston twice; the first time just to figure out how to get to the place on the bus, and the second to actually skate a public session (more on that experience later).

Pretty much every day after work, I take a walk through a different portion of Cambridge on my way home. I’ve walked from Kendall Square to Central Square, from Central Square to Harvard Square, and from Harvard Square home to Porter Square on different days. Last Sunday, I walked from Central Square to Cambridgeport to visit the Good News Garage (owned by Click and Clack, the NPR Car Talk guys) . Last night I met up with one of my roommates from college for dinner at Scampo, a trendy new restaurant in the recently opened Liberty Hotel, which is a converted jail house built in the 19th century. Tonight, I walked north from Kendall Square and along Cambridge Avenue in Cambridge to the Lechmere T station and back down to Kendall Square, stopping for dinner at the Cambridgeside Mall food court. When the weather starts getting worse, I plan to go to more shows (theatre, dance, etc.) and lectures.

The internship is going well so far. My main task for the week was completing basic orientation and training. I can’t go into much detail because I’m bound by a non-disclosure agreement, but I think it’s safe to say that the software I’m working with does some pretty impressive stuff and definitely has features that could/should be incorporated into next-generation cataloging systems. Whether any library or library vendor could manage to develop or afford to purchase access to software with this level of sophistication is an open question, unfortunately. I’ve got real tasks to complete on the team schedule in the coming week, so we’ll see how I handle that challenge.

So far, the work environment is good, but quite different. Working in a private corporate setting, there are perks that would be inconceivable in a public sector setting. There is also a high level of focus on specific tasks, and expectations for individual and group performance are high, but not unreasonable. People are friendly and low key, but there is an intensity and focus on quality here that I find really appealing. I am more optimistic than ever that this internship is going to be a really good experience.

Scheduled to start my full-time internship job on Monday, Aug. 17th, I sought to make the most of my last weekend of vacation. I headed into the city from Cambridge on the Red Line T on Saturday afternoon and wandered my way through Beacon Hill over to Faneuil Hall. Listened to a very modern National Park Ranger talk inside the meeting hall, took a few pictures, and then did some browsing and selective shopping in the market. My major purchase was a cool neoprene lunch bag by Built. This was a strategic choice because I planned to dine on the Boston Common, while staking out a good seat for the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company‘s production of Comedy of Errors. My new lunch bag carried the wrap sandwich, drink and dessert I picked up for dinner at Quincy Market food hall very fashionably. I arrived on the Common shortly before 6 pm for the performance at 8. My seat was pretty good except for the rude women in tall chairs who infilled the space right in front of me at about 7:30. I could still mostly see the action if I shifted around behind them, though. The weather was a bit hot, but there was no threat of rain, and it hadn’t rained since Thursday, so the ground was pretty dry. They had a student Jazz combo from the New England Conservatory perform a half-hour set of original music before the show began. I’m not that into contemporary jazz, and this performance didn’t particularly impress me. The music reminded me a lot of Tom Grant, but it was nice to have a bit of entertainment while we waited for the main event to begin.

The play started promptly at 8. The setting was 1930′s Miami, and they opened with a big production number set to Salsa music. They had several other Salsa interludes sprinkled throughout the show. The  production was of somewhat lower quality than that which I enjoyed at OSF a couple of weeks ago, but it was professional and entertaining. The best performance by far was that of Larry Coen as Dromio of Syracuse. He did a really excellent job. I also enjoyed Zofia Gozynska as Luciana, though her recitation of lines was a bit sing-songy at times.

Sunday I slept in and enjoyed a peaceful morning at home in the empty house (my landlords had to go up to Maine to pick up their kids from summer camp). After completing a load of laundry, I headed into Boston to see more of the sites on the Freedom Trail. Not having a lot of time, I decided to skip the USS Constitution and other maritime stuff for now and headed straight to the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. I got my workout for the day climbing the 294 steps to the top of the monument and then wandered around Charlestown for a bit. Headed back to Boston, I stumbled across a nice Moroccan restaurant, Tangierino, displaying its restaurant week menu in the window. It looked good, the price for the 3-course fixed menu was favorable at the restaurant week standard of $33.09 (plus tax and beverages), and I was hungry because I hadn’t eaten a proper meal all day, so I decided to splurge on a fancy dinner to mark the end of my vacation. Good choice. The food and service were excellent. I also discovered a very nice California cabernet, Oberon 2006. Yummy.

While I’m excited about this internship, it’s still work. Vacation is much more fun.

This weekend I moved into my new home for the next three months. I have a large rented room with private bath on the third floor of a large, single family home in Cambridge. Porter Square T stop is about 12 minutes away (walking). I arrived here mid-morning on Friday, met my landlords (a very nice married couple), and started getting settled in. Pictures of the house and my room are posted on Facebook.

After unpacking my suitcase and assessing my needs (e.g. starting a shopping list), I headed out to do a little exploring of the neighborhood. Though I intended to visit Porter Square first, I accidentally headed the wrong direction and ended up in Harvard Square instead. So, I had lunch at a cafe and wandered through the yard past Widener Library before heading back out Massachusetts Ave toward Porter Square. Since I had plenty of time, I went ahead and walked all the way to Porter Square, rather than taking the Red Line train in order to help me get my bearings. I probably won’t do that too often because it’s quite a hike, and there isn’t a whole lot to see or do; mostly just apartment buildings with a few shops and restaurants sprinkled in here and there. There is a good size shopping center at Porter Square, and since this appears to be the closest major shopping area to my house, I decided to explore it pretty thoroughly. There is a Shaw’s grocery store (similar to standard, non-gourmet Safeway or Albertson’s), a nice neighborhood hardware store, a CVS pharmacy, a Pier I Imports, and a few chain restaurants. So, not a ton of stuff, but enough to survive. At least the prices are decent.

While browsing in the hardware store, I overheard a clerk tell another customer that there is a Goodwill store within walking distance in Davis Square (he was recommending Goodwill as a source of cheap dishes), so I walked up to Davis Square to check that out. Sure enough, it was an easy walk, so I picked up some dishes and cutlery at Goodwill where the selection was a bit slim, but the prices were very reasonable. Davis Square also has a bigger selection of shops and restaurants than Porter Square, so I’ll have to go back there again later.

At this point, my bags were starting to get a bit heavy, so I headed back toward home, stopping for some groceries at Shaw’s on my way. I really need to get used to shopping without a car; by the time I finished in Shaw’s, I had way more stuff than I could comfortably carry all the way home. I made it eventually, but boy was that a long walk! I had to take breaks every couple of blocks to rest my arms. At least I got a good workout. I had intended to venture out again to pick up some dinner, but by the time I got home and got all of my purchases situated, it was getting kind of late and I was tired, so I just stayed in and had a PBJ sandwich for dinner. Saved some money there!

Saturday morning, I took it easy and headed out to catch the bus to the Somerville Target store around 10:30. Near the Shaw’s supermarket on Elm St., I picked up the #87 bus heading toward Lechmere. I spent more time waiting for the bus than I actually spent riding, but given the amount of stuff I was carrying when I got done at Target, I needed the ride, and going to Target allowed me to get most of the remaining stuff I needed at cheap prices. I made it home around 1:00 p.m. and got my purchases situated before heading into Boston for more sight-seeing and an evening watching a production of Comedy of Errors staged by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company on an outdoor stage on the Boston Common. More on that later.

On my second day in Boston, I walked most of The Freedom Trail, which is a route that includes many important Boston historical sites related to the American Revolution. Pictures are posted on Facebook. The guidebooks say you can walk the entire trail in a day, but I didn’t find that to be the case. I suppose if you just walked the trail and didn’t take time to actually tour any of the actual sites, you could do it pretty quickly, but what would be the point of that? I started at Boston Common and made it up to Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. I’ll have to go back and see the rest later. I have to go back to see the inside of Faneuil Hall anyway because they were having a citizenship ceremony, so it was closed to the public. That’s ok. It’s nice to have an excuse to go back to the adjacent Quincy Market; I just love the food stalls there.

The Freedom Trail was put together in the early 1950s to make it easier for people to find important historic sites in Boston. The trail itself is just a red painted or brick line that leads you from site to site. It’s a good idea because it’s pretty easy to get lost in the older parts of Boston due to the narrow streets and the fact that the historic buildings and sites are dwarfed by more modern buildings these days. Each of the sites on the trail is individually managed, which is kind of annoying because it means you are constantly being asked to pay small (usually under $10) admission fees if you want to go inside. It would be great if the places on the trail that charge admission would get together to create some sort of a pass that you could just pay for up front. It would be so convenient, even if you didn’t get any kind of discount. But then again, doing something this sensible would run counter to the culture of Revolutionary Boston, where factions seemed to be formed quite frequently. Indeed, several buildings on the trail were built as the result of religious congregations spiltting up over irreconcilable differences.

Still, walking the trail served its intended purpose for me. It got me thinking about the core American values of freedom of speech and expression upon which the country was founded. Revolutionalry Era Americans harbored the save love of debate, controversy, and independence held by many Americans today. For all of the cultural diversity we have, there are some things that are truly American.

The big adventure I’ve been preparing for over the past month has begun! I took a red-eye flight from PDX via Seattle on Tuesday night, arriving into Boston about 6:30 a.m. Eastern time.While working in Cambridge, I’ll be renting a room with private bath in a single family home in Cambridge. Because the family was away until Thursday evening, I stayed at the Charlesmark Hotel in Back Bay my first two nights. I arrived at the hotel around 8:00 a.m., which was way too early for them to have a room ready for me, but they held my luggage for me while I went out for some breakfast and wandered around. I had a bagel and some good tea for breakfast at a little cafe (where I also took advantage of their free Wi-Fi to check my e-mail and my T-Mobile account balance). Then I wandered over to the Esplanade, where I sat and read Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet Story for awhile on a bench along the bank of the Charles River. When the wind started to pick up a bit, and it got a bit chilly, I walked up to Beacon Hill and wandered around. The hotel called me on my cell phone around 10:30 a.m. to let me know my room was ready. Got a little lost (walked south when I needed to go north, but with the help of the T, I made it back to the hotel within abotu 30 minutes. This was very nice because it meant I got a shower and a nap before I headed out for lunch and more sight-seeing in the afternoon.

Refreshed, and with a fully re-charged cell phone battery, I headed out around 2:00 p.m. The Charlesmark is right across the street from the central branch of the Boston Public Library, and I had never been inside the building before, so I headed over there and had lunch in the library’s cafe. I wandered through both the old and new buildings. It was cool to finally see the building inside and out because it is really important from an architectural history perspective, but it was kind of depressing as well. The old “McKim” building is beautiful with lots of marble and frescoes that seem to be well preserved, but the space is still functioning as a working public library more than a museum. This would be fine, except that the library seems old and stale, and largely underutilized, even in the more modern 1970s addition. There is tons of wasted space, but yet not enough stack space. Many books are standing horizontally, with their spines up because there doesn’t appear to be enough shelving to space the shelves so that the books can stand upright. There were a few public access computers in the building, most in the old building in what appeared to be the former “card catalog” room. There were lines and time limits on use enforced by software. The OPAC is Horizon. I didn’t interact with any staff, but they looked pretty surly. Old and tired pretty much sums it up as a public library. Architecturally and historically significant, but not particularly pleasant as either a working or tourist destination.

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon just walking around. I spent some time in Copley Square and photographed the outside of Trinity Church. They charge $6 for tours of the inside, which I will probably be up to paying another day, but I didn’t feel like I would get enough out of the investment today. Walked through the Public Garden and the Common. Walked up and down Beacon Street from the State House down to about Dartmouth Street. Window-shopped along Newbury Street. Walked through Prudential Center Mall, mostly in search of a no-fee ATM, since I’ve been going through my cash pretty quickly. Found out later that there are Credit Union Co-op network ATMs in 7-11 stores, which are all over the place here. Glad I checked online before I knuckled under and used a big bank ATM out of desperation.

In search of some place to eat dinner, I wandered up and down Boylston St., all the way down to Massachusetts Ave. and back. Felt like having something better than generic shopping mall food court food (at Prudential Center mall), but didn’t feel like splurging on something really expensive or in a busy restaurant where I’d feel awkward eating alone. Ended up eating at a Thai restaurant next door to my hotel, which was a little more expensive than I wanted (their prices are much better at lunch), but was quiet and not crowded. The food and service were both good. I even tried some Thai wine. It was okay, nothing special, but at least it was reasonably priced.

Headed back to my room after dinner to catch up with e-mail and transfer the photos I had taken during the day to my computer, so that I could post to Facebook. Also checked up on Powder, Melvil and Kyle on the PowderCam. Saw Kyle come home from work, feed Mel, and take Powder for a walk. He even waved at me. Overall, a pretty good day. I feel somewhat guilty because I haven’t done much in terms of sabbatical research-type work in the past two weeks, but then again, I needed to find housing and otherwise get prepared for my Cambridge trip, and I also needed some downtime this summer, especially since I’m expecting to work pretty hard at this internship for the next three months.

When I originally planned the trip, I assumed that I would be pretty much done with shopping by Sunday, so I booked myself both a matinee and an evening show. Good planning! After breakfast, I just hung around the B&B reading and using the high speed Wi-Fi to catch up with e-mail and blog postings. Around noon, I walked into town to pick up a few essentials (mainly an umbrella, thereby assuring that it would not rain again). I grabbed a tofu sandwich and Honest Tea at the Ashland Food Co-op for lunch before heading to the Bowmer Theatre for the matinee at 2 p.m.

Macbeth
The set and costumes were post-apocalyptic. The stage was ringed in a frontispiece that included very realistic looking human corpses partially submerged in mud. I was sitting in the second row, far stage left, so I got a close-up view … yuck! In fact, the whole production was a bit over the top on the gruesome scale. I think they must have used 5 gallons of stage blood (poor costume assistants!) It felt like watching a horror film at times. I realize that this is a dark play, but I found the grotesque melodrama to be a substantial distraction that prevented me from engaging with the performance. Still, I caught most of the words and now I can at least say that I’ve seen The Scottish Play.

The Music Man
While entertaining, this production was not up to the standard of the OSF straight plays I’ve seen. The performance was about on par with a really good community theater production, but with professional-grade costumes, scenic, and lighting design. Though the interpretation and the performance of the actors was nothing special (Gwendolyn Mulamba as Marian Paroo was positively weak; poor singing and wooden acting), they did some creative and interesting things in the production. The overture, though only an excerpt from the complete score, was played by one of the traveling salesmen on a harmonica, and that really worked. Everything except Harold Hill started out in black and white (or shades of gray) and color was gradually added to costumes and set as the action progressed, apparently as a not-so-subtle (but effective) means of showing the impact that Harold Hill was having on River City. The actor playing Marcellus Washburn was deaf and “spoke” his lines in American Sign Language, punctuated with only a few spoken words and grunts, which was really cool. One of the girls in the dance chorus was also deaf. While she was definitely the weakest of the four girl dancers, it was difficult to tell if this was because she is deaf or because she is a talented high school student, rather than a trained professional. We got Anthony Heald as Mayor Shinn and he was pretty good; it was interesting to see him in a comedic role after seeing him do  serious dramatic parts the previous two evenings. Mayor Shinn and pretty much all of the children’s roles were double cast; it was disappointing that they didn’t announce who was acting in this particular performance. The music was pretty weak. They had about 50% of a pit orchestra, all brass and winds with no strings. The conductor was also playing keyboard.

There were some awkward moments for the audience. In the 4th of July scene, the stage was the podium and they positioned the mayor center stage front, speaking directly to the audience. The actors playing the audience were seated in the front row of the house, where much of the real audience could not see them due to the raking of the house seats. They were still in the black and white phase at this point, so when some actors came marching in carrying American flags to place on the podium, the flags were in black and white, not red, white, and blue. Apparently, they wanted some audience participation at this point. Actors motioned frantically for us all to stand up as the flags were brought on stage, but the audience was just confused and only a few people in the front rows realized what they were supposed to do before it was too late. After intermission, they started the stage action during the Entr’act, played by the pit orchestra. There was all kinds of stuff going on before they even started to bring the house lights down, and many audience members rushed to their seats, apparently afraid that they were late returning from intermission and disrupting the performance. Stage action during the Entr’act is one of my pet peeves; why do directors think it’s better than just letting the music play, giving the audience some time to get settled back into their seats?! Sigh. Despite these nit-picky issues, I enjoyed the performance. It was a satisfying conclusion to my theater vacation.