Start of the new semester

This week marked the official beginning of the 2010 spring semester.

For my MA in Linguistics, I'm taking a class in Natural Language Processing this semester.  I've wanted  to take this class since I was an undergrad, but always hit administrative red tape trying to take it in the past (i.e., needed a prerequisite, needed to be a Comp Sci major to receive first consideration, needed to be a graduate student...).  Now I'm finally in, and I think I'm going to rock this class.  I've been ready for years.

For the MA, I'm officially only one class and the comprehensive exam away from completion, but I might stick it out for a couple more classes to get a certificate in Human Language Technology.  Why not?

For my MLS, I've got three classes lined up: one that looks at Copyright, one that looks at Database Solutions, and the required theory class on Organization Theories for Administering Information Agencies.  I'm halfway done with this degree, and officially have the money saved to pay for the rest of the program (go me!).  


I'm anxiously debating a big decision in my life; I'm considering going for the PhD.  Normally I never would have done a PhD for 2 reasons: the first is that there are excruciatingly few jobs out there that provide the flexibility to have a job and go to school even part-time, and the second is tuition.  Even though I have definite research goals and interests, I never thought I would have the time or money to pursue anything after my Master's degrees.  However, an opportunity has opened up at my work where they have said they may be able to provide me both the flexibility and tuition reimbursement--it's not a sure thing, but if the offer is open when I get there, how could I pass up that opportunity?


The work is fantastic.  I'm doing work with websites, managing library materials between the office and the library, creating a comprehensive bibliography, and I'm about to start work on an project creating triples for Resource Description Frameworks.  For my library buddies who don't know what those are (it's okay--I have now explained this to my husband, parents, and siblings, all of whom I'm pretty sure think it's cool even if they don't get the total awesomeness of the possibilities), RDF is a sort of metadata model.  It establishes relationships between words to create statements that a computer can understand.  It's about subject-predicate-object relationships, like "A bridge (subject) crosses over (predicate) a river (object)."  It's easy for humans to understand these sorts of concepts, like the inherent idea that bridges cross over things, but the framework allows the computer to understand.  This kind of structure is very relevant to the up and coming semantic web, among other information organization tools and structures.  


Lately I've spent a lot of time thinking back to where I was this time last year.  I was sick as a dog, and missed orientation for my MLS because of it.  I was fed up with the lack of jobs for someone as educated as I was, and with my skill set, and decided I was really done with seeking a job in computational linguistics--there were no jobs to be had anymore because of the economy, and the last job I had was so geared towards the technical aspect that I had started to think of my cube at work like a sort of lonely coffin.  When I first got into my MLS, I thought I was making a decision to leave my tech and linguistic skills behind career-wise; I was ready to take my background somewhere where I could help people, and understand them on a less superficial level.  I still wanted to make sense of chaos and create systems to get people to there search goals faster, like I was doing with computational linguistics, but I wanted to deal with people.  I thought maybe I would have some job prospects designing databases if I ever wanted the money, but really, it was about creating systems for people, and finding things for people, and understanding people.  


Then, when I started into my MLS, every professor I spoke to had an incredibly affirming message for me: I wasn't the first linguist or tech junkie to take an interest in library science.  Yes, my skills and background were welcome and appreciated, and yes, there were jobs with people here!  Then, around March, a job opening came through the grapevine on my school email for a librarian with a background with computer skills.  When I went to the interview, I found out that the interviewer was very interested in my linguistics background, because even though they were a geography discipline looking for a library tech, they were doing research in ontologies.  


I thought I was getting punked--there are jobs for people with programming skills, who majored in linguistics, and who want to go in to library and information science?


But here I am today, happily plugging away at putting references into my bibliography, doing some light library duties, figuring out some interesting problems related to ADA and the web, and about to start into work on RDFs, which is the perfect intersection of linguistics, technology, and information science.  What a change a year can make.


My husband is afraid I'll be in school forever; he's planning to start his own Master's this fall.  People keep asking me how I'm keeping it together doing so much school and so much work every week, but the truth is that I've hit a point where I truly enjoy the things I'm doing.  It doesn't feel like work to me.  I haven't done laundry or chores in almost too long, and I finally got around to buying groceries for the first time in 3 weeks last night, but things are roughly holding together.  

Crash Blossoms and the Garden Path

I found the following article on MSN today; we love to talk about ambiguity and the garden path in my linguistics classes, so I thought I would link it here:

Confusion Caused by Crash Blossoms

Over helping: the Wal-Mart experience

Since starting to investigate the ways that people conduct reference interviews and fill information needs, I've become a little hyper-sensitive to the ways that businesses conduct themselves when interviewing/helping clients.

One such experience involves every time I walk into a Wal-Mart. Every single employee will ask "Can I help you find something? Are you finding everything okay" This is a good thing--but generally after the 5th or 6th time I get asked, it's getting pretty old. I've noticed that some employees will not even stop what they are doing while voicing this offer. They will continue walking right on by you, or stocking, or whatever they happen to be doing. Has anyone else noticed this trend? --It almost seems to me that they know you've been asked a handful of times, and expect the "No, I'm fine, just looking" response.

After mulling this over for a while, I have to wonder what the science and statistics of this scenario are for large corporations. They have to know that the bulk of their employees are paid too little and generally don't stay long enough to warrant a level of training that would make for high-quality interviews every time; in the same breath, libraries seem to handle this just fine, and the pay isn't always great (and is sometimes non-existent). They unmeaningful "can i help you" gets on my nerves after five mumbles in a 10 minute period; I find myself avoiding the large chains because the insincere question drives me mad. After reading about the science that goes into grocery stores in 804, these places must have a motive to make every employee ask, no matter how little actual intention may be behind it.

Does an insincere, unenthusiastic offer of help really help sales? Or does it drive customers (like me) away?

I've had discussions with others in this class about how the reference interview seems so over-done in the literature we read because it seems so intuitive: ask, listen, clarify and confirm, research, dialog, repeat if necessary. But I'm starting to wonder if it isn't as intuitive as I have previously assumed. Of course one needs to stop and make eye contact during an interview, right? I've received a whole new appreciation for the researchers that went after this one after starting to pay attention to some of the interviews that happen in my life on a daily basis. I would love to see more literature, even, on the interview and approachability.

For example, what makes an interviewee want to voice their problem when asked? Is a librarian's approachability created in part by the reputation of the profession? If so, why have other service professions (i.e. sales reps) failed to develop this reputation to such an extent?