Surprisingly, White House found to be lacking formal records management system

I hate to admit, I'm not a real big reader of the news these days. I love the act of drinking tea and reading the paper in the morning, let's face it though, it just doesn't fit into the sleep deprived schedule of your average graduate student. But I do get sucked into various virtual newsrooms periodically in an attempt to keep myself somewhat informed of the world outside my head.

And despite my reclusive tendencies, I know we've landed in strange times when gay.com is reporting on the email archival practices of the white house:

White House missing up to 225 days of e-mail
published Wednesday, August 20, 2008

http://www.gay.com/news/article.html?2008/08/20/4

At a hearing on Capitol Hill in February, the White House told Congress it was trying to determine how many e-mails were missing. An earlier analysis from 2005 estimated the number of days of missing e-mails at 473 over a period of 20 months.

"We will continue to work with members of Congress and the National Archives and will communicate the results of our accounting effort at an appropriate time," White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has said the White House's failure to properly archive e-mails violated the Presidential Records Act. The top lawyer for the National Archives has expressed disappointment the White House did not have a formal records management system in place. (Pete Yost, AP)

An Apology to Hytemlia

Over many years of living in cramped cities, I have inadvertently found myself becoming a disciple of Asphaltia, goddess of parking. I am not an ardent believer, but rather I find myself offering up incense and incentives while circling blocks and blocks of cars seperated only by slim margins of driveways and fire hydrants. Being that I gave up my car earlier this summer, I find myself wondering if I will miss her benevolent presence in my life, or if she will instead confer her benevolence on my thin skull whilst I pedal my way betwixt impatient drivers.

But I fear I must also offer up an apology to Bitonia, goddess of code and Hytemlia, goddess of the internet. For I have created indescretions against them. Forgive me, Bitonia. Forgive me, Hytemlia. I am complicit in using software that creates mauled and ugly code through the use of a buggy WYSIWYG HTML editor. I promise that I understand the weakness of my ways. Please understand, I shall to atone by creating a beautifully simple and yet effective hand coded informational page, marked up in validated XHTML, and laid out like a haiku declaring my dedication to your wisdom.

The Simplicity of Basics

I make a habit of trying to explore different libraries in different corners of the country. Many libraries seem in a struggle for identity, caught between being archives of history, warehouses of books, educational institutions, public spaces, study areas, social anchor points, and purveyors of print culture and reading.

These things all sound so similar, but the tension between them is clearly in our discussions of 'library as place' and whether the 'library without walls' is ever going to replace the brick and mortar edifice of my youth. It's also in the tension between food policies and the coffeeshops, as well as the struggle to serve youth in the same space as the elderly, poor, and homeless.

Yesterday I was sitting in the periodicals section of the Penrose Library at the University of Denver (Colorado). Sitting there, completing an online training for managing federal records, my eyes kept wandering to the brightly colored magazines surrounding me. My fingers were itching to touch the glossy cover of the news magazine from Africa, but then, looking around, I realized that every third magazine interested me enough to want to pick it up: Ms., Bitch, Natural History, Der Spiegel, Popular Mechanics, and so on. I think I heard a soft slurping sound as I stood up and was thoroughly sucked in by the collection.

I don't remember the last time I was in a browsing collection that was so simple and yet effective. Comfy chairs + visually engaging materials + display shelves = drawing in readers. In my four hours there, I did manage to complete my online training, but I also learned about the issues of air quality in Peking surrounding the Olympic games, as well as how Obama's trip last month to Berlin was organized.

And yet, despite the struggles that many colleges and universities are having with basic literacy, the libraries that I have been to lack the encouragement to read for pleasure and background understanding of larger issues. Sure, we're all too busy these days to take time out to read the paper. And sure, our budgets are being maimed by the lack of fiscal support for the public sector. But somehow, when the chair and the shelves are both at my fingertips, it seems a lot less daunting to squeeze it in, like a furtive cigarette between my classes and work.

In an educational institution, sometimes service doesn't mean just giving the patrons what they need for their classes, but rather giving them the room to grow beyond their current understanding of the materials.