New Year 2011

A new year and a new decade (the "twenty teens"?) has begun and with it the temptation to make new resolutions about keeping up this blog. Since new year resolutions almost always merely become an embarrassment, I will refrain. The original purpose of this blog was to give friends in the US a way to follow the adventure of my move to Berlin. Berlin is still delightful, but hardly qualifies as an adventure after four years. Certainly there are adventures I could tell about my work life and social life, but too much of what would be really interesting is or should be confidential and in the relatively small world of the university, even pseudonyms would be easy to decode.

I have thought about shifting the topic to research. Presentations of the pre-publication version of my latest Library Hi Tech column on "Archiving in the Networked World" has generated a pleasing amount of interest. The abstract is below:

Purpose: The purpose is to investigate: 1) how many journal titles are both in LOCKSS and in Portico? 2) what is the relationship of small publishers to LOCKSS/CLOCKSS and Portico? 2) what is the relationship of large publishers to LOCKSS/CLOCKSS and Portico?
Methodology: The article describes describes how data from Portico, LOCKSS, and CLOCKSS was cleaned and analyzed using Perl programs to discover duplications.
Findings: The findings show a significant overlap among the archiving systems. It also shows that Portico has no bias against small publishers and that large publishers are as willing to choose the LOCKSS software as to choose Portico. LOCKSS does, however, archive many more small and arguably endangered publishers and may be the only economically viable choice for them.
Implications: The push for greater transparency has made more and more data available. Both LOCKSS and Portico deserve commendation for providing the detailed lists of titles and publishers on which this article was based. Such data gives the library community an opportunity to build decisions about the long term digital future on firm and verifiable ground.

To be fair to Emerald (the publisher), blog readers with an interest in this topic will have to wait a few months for the official publication.

I have also thought about emphasizing the only hobby that I really actively pursue these days, which is cooking. A while ago I took this photo of some English scones that I had baked.

Scones for breakfast.

The recipe for scones is simple:

• 50 grams sugar
• 150 grams whole wheat flour
• 200 grams white flour
• 1 packet baking powder
• 1 egg
• about 250 grams milk
• 1 large teaspoon honey
• some butter cut into the flour (as few as 10 grams is ok)
• nuts and dried fruit to taste (about 50 grams is what I use)
• 40 grams of sesame seeds
  

Heat the oven to 200 C (for a convection oven) and butter a baking sheet.

Mix all ingredients except the sesame seeds. The mix will seem to dry until the last minute when all the pockets of moisture in the mix are evenly spread. (It may be possible to use some tool for this, but I prefer to work the mix with my hands.) Scone batter that is too wet will result in scones that are soggy on the inside.

Work the batter into a ball of dough and then roll it in the sesame seeds until they have coated the outside. Then pat (or roll) the dough into a wheel about 2 - 2.5 cm thick and cut it with broad-blade knife. Mostly I cut it into half, then each half into thirds, and each third in half again. The slices will look small, but they grow and scones are dense.

Bake for 15 - 17 minutes (depending on the oven). They can be served immediately, or cooled, frozen, and reheated later. They are fairly robust.

I eat scones mainly with butter and honey. They are especially good with honey and creme fraiche. Joan likes them with preserves.

Another possibility for the blog is to show pictures from walks that we take in Berlin. This would be true to the original theme, but mostly I take interesting walks only on holidays. Below are photos from yesterday's walk to the Lietzensee. The tall building was one that Joan looked at online when we were thinking about possible apartments.

Apartment building on the Lietzensee.

The Lietzensee covered in snow.

This seems like enough blogging for now. With luck there will be more later in the year.