My wife has to do a presentation on Brahms’ second piano concerto. We were both in the music library yesterday looking up books for her research, and we were using the standard online catalog search. I soon realized that while it could turn up the plethora of books on Brahms in general, it wasn’t so good at finding other books that might mention that particular work but not be about Brahms specifically. I had never used Google’s book search before and I thought this was a perfect time to give it a spin. Google instantly turned up hundreds of books, and although many were musical scores of the piece or otherwise not what I needed, there were many that turned up that the normal catalog search didn’t find. I searched for those titles among the IU stacks, and thus increased the amount of material in which to research from.
But there was one thing that bothered me about the experience. Google has digitized thousands upon thousands of books and this is what makes it’s search so much better than the standard IU search. Even if it is just mentioning the B minor concerto in passing, you can see that sentence out of the entire book within seconds. What you can’t do is read the entire book. I understand that if Google were to offer all of these books for free, the publisher’s lawyers would be rubbing their hands in glee. And I’m not arguing that Google should be giving away all of these books freely either. It’s just that in the case of some of these more obscure academic books, some can be difficult to obtain. IU has a fantastic collection of these books to be sure, but even with this massive collection many are checked out or on reserve. There are a finite amount of these books and access to them can be limited even in a large academic environment. So when I find a useful book on Google books search, and I see that the entire book is already in a digital format (meaning there are an infinite number of copies), but I can’t view that copy and I can’t find a hard copy, I get pissed off. I need to read the information that is contained within a book that is completely available in a digital format. But because the publishers seem to want to follow the arcane way of the music and movie industries, I can’t click a button, pay some money, and have that digital copy for myself instantly. I instead have to hope that the book is still in print to purchase, or track it down in another library and request it via an inter library loan. Last time I checked, this way of doing things was efficient before we invented something called the internet.
This type of thing makes me wonder how the library will survive in this next century. They are in the business of giving people free access to intellectual property. When they buy physical products and loan them out, it is easy to see how the owner gets compensated and the public gets access. But when this property goes digital, how do you find a way to give free access to the public in such a way that the content owners don’t get lawsuit happy? After all, if you have one copy of a book online you can give out unlimited copies of it. Do you restrict access to those in your geographic area? Do you slap tons of copy protection all over it? Do you even bother at all, and do like Google where you can only see a few pages of the entire work? I don’t think I really know where I’m going here as it seems I’ve lost the exact point of my rant. But I suppose I could say this: the world is going digital. Will we lock everything down with copy protection and artificial scarcity, will we unlock everything so that things are freely available to all, or we will find a happy middle ground that satisfies both parties? It just seems such a shame to have the potential to have access to so much knowledge but not be able to reach it because a few people (who control 99% of the content) don’t know how to change their outdated business model.
I finally get back home from work after leaving around 10:30 this morning. I get home at 11:30pm. 13 hours of work total, and around $200 to show for it. So that’s, what, actually only $15/hour. Which is really not that great compared to what I have gotten in the past. It didn’t help that Anwar needed me to stay and help set up for dinner between the lunch and dinner shift. Take down the bigger tables, set up many more smaller ones for all the couples that will come in later. But Valentine’s is an extremely busy day in the restaurant business, so since this type of day only comes around once in a great while I shouldn’t complain so much. There are many people in many worse, even terrible, jobs around the world who would love a chance to take home $200 in one day, even if it is a 13 hour day. Hell, I bet there are many objects in my apartment that were manufactured by people working those types of hours in terrible conditions for slave wages. Pennies a day. I’ve got it good and I should remind myself of that.
I can’t believe last semester I was worried about getting assignments done, lesson plans prepared, and projects finished. Now my worries are which table needs more bread, which wants the lentil soup, and why table 13 only tipped me 10% despite having received great service. I can’t wait to get back to school. But for now I’ll listen to my incredibly compressed, totally predictable, but easy to digest progressive trance channel. Down some beer, turn off my brain, and relax. Then go to bed, get up, and do it all again tomorrow. Work. Sleep. Repeat
My dream was quite a bit longer than I remember. But before the very last, very vivid, part I just remember tiny blips. Something about being in the IU music building at some strange practice rooms. Telling somebody that I knew where Neriki’s office was. And some other random visual flashes that I can’t translate into words.
This is what I do remember: I am lying down on some cot in a very dark stone room. Although you would not know from looking around this stone room (which is lit by torches), I somehow know that it is part of an imposing building owned and run by the church. I don’t know why I am lying in this dungeon like room, only that I am starting to feel frightened by lying here in the cold, dark room. Suddenly, I see a figure disappear around a corner. Although it may make no sense, this is terrifying to me. I am gripped with fear, and try to call out for help. My voice doesn’t work. Becoming even more frightened, I struggle and concentrate as hard as I can to force my voice to work so I can cry out for help. I am really terrified now, and began squirming around on my cot all the while trying to call out for help.
I feel a hand shaking me, and I am pulled from my nightmare by my wife who says I was crying out softly, although she couldn’t understand what I was trying to say. I lie there for a little while with a feeling of utter fear still pulsing within me. I get up, go get a glass of tea. When I go back to bed, I flip though the channels on TV to distract my mind. Watching nothing interesting for 10 minutes, I click it off, close my eyes, and go back to sleep. This time without dreaming at all.
Yesterday was my best day ever waiting tables. Went home at the end of the day with $210. Not too shabby for 9 hours of work. Or at least not too shabby for someone who isn’t quite as far in life as to have a nice, stable full time job. For now I suppose I can satiate myself with $23/hour. Now if I could just get that many people to come into the restaurant every day, at that rate I could make a little over $50k/year. Of course I would have to work 6 days a week all year long with no vacation or extra days off to pull that off. Waiting tables is decent money for students or those waiting to get into a better line of work. It’s hell if you’re stuck there with no good prospects of a better career.
Also, if anyone knows of any tricks on how to get my cats to shut up in the morning I am all ears. We have taken to locking them both in our bedroom at night because otherwise they chase each other around and eventually end up in a more serious fight complete with those lovely cat screams. They can’t do that if they’re in our little bedroom, but it is still amazing the amount of noise two cats can make at 4am. Especially when one wants to get a nice full night’s rest. Nothing quite as enjoyable as getting up at 6:30am, defeated. Walking to the kitchen to feed the victorious cats, who promptly go find a nice cozy place to snooze after having successfully obtained and enjoyed their breakfast. I think today will be a great day for a little snooze in between shifts. If the cats don’t wake me up to try to get an early dinner.