There are a lot of job titles for librarians - just have a look @ the job title generator. Recently, I read an interesting one: "knowledge sources management". I don't know if I should really like it. If the majority of non-librarians reacts to the word "librarian" with an epitheton not really ornans like "boring", "old-fashioned", "not interesting", and if this majority says "hey, knowledge sources management sounds cool", well, then let's do something for our image. Sounds comprehensible. But: I'm proud of being a LIBRARIAN and nothing else, and if those people with a horizon as high as a carpet don't know that librarians are at least as cool as knowledge sources managers, they can't be helped. Of course, this sounds arrogant. So, concluding, I don't know if I should really like it or not.

How to recognize LIS students doing their cataloguing courses: They come in and ask for a numbered monographic series and a multi-volume monograph.

At the moment, I'm doing my evening duty in the library, with, as usual, approximately no, null, nought, zero, nil users coming around. So I'll use the time to rant and moan about my two exams next Wednesday. Both lectures at Vienna University were interesting and exciting, but there's a lot to read and learn. Of course I could have started earlier, but hey, it's me!
Of all the books I had to read this term, I especially liked the following ones: "Kassandra" (Christa Wolf, narrative), "Heldenplatz" (Thomas Bernhard, drama), the short novels of Karl Emil Franzos, as well as his novel "Pojaz" dealing with Judaism in the eastern parts of the Austrian-hungarian monarchy, and "Lotti, die Uhrmacherin" (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, novel). The absolutely lowest point for me was "Kalldewey Farce" by the German dramatist Botho Strauß.

The Austrian library conference ("Bibliothekartag", cfp) takes place in Linz in September. I once wrote a seminar paper about librarians as characters in english children books, and we collect fiction with librarians as characters in the library I work in. So I'd like to give a talk about librarians in literature at the Bibliothekartag.

I have an eGovernment bibliography on my website (with emphasis on Austria), which I updated and expanded today. The listed literature is subdivided according to topics, for example eVoting, electronic administration, eDemocracy & participation. I just added the two groups "governmentality" and "government libraries".
Besides, an article from my colleague Fritz Betz and me (mainly from him, I admit) was published these days. The article is called "Electronic governmentality in Austria: 'Governance work' between self-bureaucratisation and central surveillance" and was published in the collected edition "e-Democracy: Technology, Law and Politics" edited by Alexander Prosser and Robert Krimmer.

On Wednesday, I experienced a somewhat peculiar encounter: In the library for German language and literature studies in Vienna, there was a dead mouse. Probably she's in mouse heaven now, watching "Tom & Jerry" or reading "Of mice and men". At first, I thought the waitress must have put something in my morning coffee and I'm hallucinating. But the librarian confirmed that poison baits were spread out in the library.
I would have suggested a library cat instead. There really is a "library cats map" which lists over five-hundred "Total Known Library Cats"!

Last month, I mentioned Tori Amos' new album "Tales of a librarian". Meanwhile, I had the opportunity to see and hear it. It's really nice - the songs are classified in DDC classes. You can read an article about it here and listen to excerpts here.

Today I'd like to talk about two CDs I recently bought. The first one is "Sex & Drugs & Jesus Christ" by Christian Death. It contains one of my favourite songs, "Incendiary lover" (sung by Gitane Demone), which is here quite "overcooled" when compared with the erotic, "hot" version on the compilation "Gothic Rock", but not less delightful. I like also the song "Tragedy" very much.
The second one is "Ziggy Stardust" by David Bowie. My favourites: "Five years" and "Starman", the latter offering a hopeful message for SF fans & alien believers like me: There's a starman waiting in the sky...

Maybe you ask yourselves: why does Monika write this weblog in English? Well, first of all, I really like the language - from "I will not be sworn, but love may transform me to an oyster" and "She walks in beauty like the night" to "Do not go gentle into that good night" and Tony Blair. Yes, I admit it, I like the way Tony Blair speaks English. Maybe not the content, but definitely the way. Second, it's some training of expressing oneself in another language.