books books books

[rivendellrose]

Dear Seattle Library System: Why does your search interface suddenly suck? We didn't always have this problem. How is it that you now think, when I search by author name, that it is somehow acceptable to return keyword type responses mixed in with the list of author responses? If I search for an author, I - gasp! - only want the things that author has written. Stop being stupid. How hard can it possibly be to list the actual author responses first?

PS: I am deeply unamused by your decision that a video recording of a Depeche Mode concert is an acceptable response to my author search for Richard Dawkins.

If you'd accepted my offer of a first initial, rather than only giving me three really stupid responses to that query, we wouldn't be having this problem. Not funny, library. Not funny at all.

...*Puts hold on desired book. Wanders off, grumbling about how she misses the university's online catalogue, which actually made sense.*



Finished re-reading "Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy," now reading both "Why Gods Persist" (horribly dull writing style, but interesting content) and Diana Gabaldon's "Outlander" (decently well-written for historical romance). Almost done with "The Ancestor's Tale."

Comments

[beam-oflight.livejournal.com]

Bah! these stupid people who can't build a working serch interface. Send them a snipy email or something!

I hate it when books are dull, but you really want to read them because they have interesting concepts or character or something. It's such a struggle, like your dragging yourself through with your fingernails.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it's meant to be "helpful," but if you know what you're doing with searching a catalogue, it's a pain in the butt.

The idea of this one is really interesting, but... bleh. I'm spoiled on good writers for my non-fiction. This one's just too boring for words. And he keeps saying "rites de passage." Like using the English phrase isn't academic enough for him. Pleeeeease, it's the difference of "of" versus "de." At that point, just use the freaking English. There's no difference in meaning. :P

[beam-oflight.livejournal.com]

I hate acedemic writers, they always seem very dry and longwinded to read, though maybe I'm just reading teh wrong stuff!

What an idiot, he sounds like he needs to get his head out of his arse!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I know you're into the hard sciences... try either Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins. Dawkins has a bit of a bad rep for being a "militant atheist," but he's a brilliant writer and scientist (he's a biologist) and, from what I can tell from his books, a genuinely nice guy who just happens to not be willing to keep his mouth shut about thinking religion does bad things in the world. And Sagan is just plain lovely, particularly if you like astronomy. They both make academic writing interesting and fun.

If you've got specific pet subjects, I might be able to come up with other examples... I'm kind of on a non-fiction kick with my reading the last few years, so I've run into a lot of fun stuff.

...Oh, and Bill Bryson! Read his "Short History of Nearly Everything" if you want your mind completely blown by science in a very very fun way. He's not a scientist at all, just a really good researcher who's endlessly curious and a fantastic writer.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

If I search for an author, I - gasp! - only want the things that author has written

What??? That's pure insanity!!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. I mean, jeez, what am I thinking? *Headdesk*

[ryunohi.livejournal.com]

That's because you remember the old UW search system. They changed it right before I graduated. If you fiddle, you can get back to the old one, but the current uses Webcat or something like that, was suddenly very unpredictable itself, and I found was really only useful in finding if a library in a different state had a book I wanted (plus it gave me the distance to that library, in case I wanted to drive back to Ohio to pick it up).

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

That's right, I remember digging into the system about a year ago and discovering that it wasn't working right anymore. I liked it better when you had to search specifically for outside libraries, rather than shutting off that function.

(I really will get you that list of addresses for the museums, I just haven't had time to transcribe it yet! There's a ton of them in all the prefectures... what's close to you? Maybe I can thin the list a bit...)

[ryunohi.livejournal.com]

No worries. I've been meaning to write back for days as well. I don't know if you watch Masterpiece Theater ever, but they're on a Jane Austen kick and the first movie they did, Persuasion, featured Giles as the dad. Interestingly enough, he was listed as Anthony Head only - his serious acting name? I'm at least a month behind, so you may already know this, but just in case you didn't, you should check it out. He is hysterical.

Let's see, a list of prefectures. I'm in Miyagi. Other prefectures close to me: Iwate, Fukushima, Yamagata. I also will be down in Tokyo in March, so Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, or Saitama will work.

And on the last Dr. Who note, when talking about the cracktastic dubbing, I would just like you to picture David Tennant's over-expressive features paired with a Japanese dub. It's beyond hilarious.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I heard about that! Not in time to have someone record it for me, sadly, so now I'll be digging for it some other way. On the name thing, that man seems to vary his name purely at random - I've seen him credited on different stuff as Anthony Stewart Head, Anthony Head, Tony Head, and possibly one other that I'm not thinking of. I think he just likes the variety.

Hmmmmm, I'll check the list for any of those. I don't remember at the moment where all they were...

Ohhhhh, dear. So, they've got him with one of the higher-pitched (tenor or so?) male voices, though, right? Not one of the deep growly ones? ...Either way, I think it would break my brain. And I can't imagine how they translate some of his little verbal idiosyncrasies...

Dubbing always scares me. If a film or series was performed in another language, I'd rather just watch it with subtitles. Otherwise, it seems like things just don't come through right...