Jeffrey Pomerantz

Surely I’m not the only one who’s noticed this?

NPR’s Morning Edition ran a story about Joseph Nga, which is just amazing. He’s from Cameroon, he’s bilingual, he has two Masters degrees already and is working on his third, an MLS. He’s working a total grunt job at LC and he wants to be a director of a research library. Someone give this man a job, please? And pay him well, for heavens sake. Good grief, if only he.. Read More

I love conspiracy theories. I think I like them so much because they’re absolutely the opposite of science; they can never be falsified. Conspiracy theories are compelling to me because they’re self-sustaining and impervious to outside influences; they’re intellectual black holes. Myths Run Wild in Blog Tsunami Debate, from the NY Times On an “authority by community” note, this passage was of particular interest: Online discussion can evolve toward truth,.. Read More

I read this story the other dayand it’s been kicking around in my head since. I can’t decide if I think this is a demonstration of why mainstream media is useless or necessary. Blogs Provide Raw Details From Scene of the Disaster, from the NY Times On the one hand, mainstream media outlets will have what, one or a few correspondents in any given nation? I mean, honestly, how many.. Read More

God, I love my hometown. “Boston is for people who can grasp a mental map,” said Gail Sullivan, a Jamaica Plain architect and planner, talking to City Weekly last April. “It’s not for sissies.” And just because I’ve never included an image in a post yet, here’s the most feared map in Boston: You said it, we heard it, here’s proof, from The Globe (what, like there’s another one?)

So at lunch the other day Paul mentioned The Ice Palace, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and has subsequently shamed me into reading it. As a Northerner who’s married to a Southern woman, it sounded to me like essential reading. (Of course, to a New Englander such as myself Virginia is practically the deep South, but from the more Southern states’ point of view, VA is practically the North.) So I’m.. Read More

A case history of Gollum. I’m not kidding. A precious case from Middle Earth, from BMJ (via BoingBoing) The comments are almost better than the article itself.

Before the first commercial break, Diane calls — I pick up the phone and the first words out of her mouth, before hello even, are: “He doesn’t have an MLS!” Well, his professor did say that he had, what, 22 degrees? I suppose one of them could have been an MLS. But it would have been nice if they had actually acknowledged that being a librarian means that, you know,.. Read More

First it was Indiana Jones: a slightly geeky archaeology professor as hero. Then it was Jet Li as a seriously ass-kicking librarian. Now it’s Noah Wyle, geeky yet ass-kicking librarian. I have to admit to being absurdly excited about this, TNT’s new show The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, premiering this Sunday, conveniently at the end of the semester. There are a few movies out there with librarians as protagonists:.. Read More

Blogging is a strange thing to do. I’m writing something and posting it in a public forum that I don’tr intend or expect anyone else to read. I stated in my first post that this blog was for myself. So why bother doing it? Why bother posting things publicly that I wrote for myself? Why not just keep a journal? Alternatively, why kid myself that I’m writing for myself when.. Read More