Library and Information Science in Morocco

Conseil définitif

2009-07-03T08:52:00.002+01:00

Today is the last day of official teaching duties at ESI for this year: the conseil définitif where the grades and status of students, and especially the borderline ones, are discussed.

We'll be meeting all morning, going through all the students year by year.

It's also more or less the 10 month anniversary of my departure from Dublin, Ohio. My contract with Fulbright is up on July 6, but I'll be travelling home on the 4th since flights are a little cheaper that day.

I've cleaned out my office and will be handing back the keys after today's meeting. It's come full circle. And what a year it's been.

This blog will be discontinued as of my departure, as my reintegration into American culture isn't nearly as noteworthy as my discovery of the Moroccan one. Thank you, gentle reader, for following along with me over the past 10 months in my exploration of Library and Information Science (and a lot else) in Morocco. Chukrane. Merci.

What is privacy?

2009-06-29T20:45:00.001+01:00

I've been trained in the American educational system and know that according to FERPA it's illegal to give a college student's grade to anyone but that student.

In essence, the U.S. government forbids us to even hint at a grade that a student might have gotten -- gone are the days of posting grades by social security number, as was the case when I started college in the early 1990s.

Privacy, when I was in France 10 years ago, was even looser than that. Student grades (or at least class rank) were a matter of common knowledge. Some professors started returning papers by handing out those that received the best grades. The papers that got the lowest grade were distributed last, which, of course, let the tension mount for the students at the bottom of the pile.

ESI subscribes to that older French notion of privacy -- students all know each others' grades. There's really no option to keep one's grade to oneself. I really wasn't surprised, then, when my grade for the DALF French exam was posted at the Institut Français de Rabat (IFR) on a bulletin board, there, for all the world to see (along with my date of birth, I might add). The DALF is the diplôme approfondi de langue française or the TOEFL for French. It's an official diploma that is in line with EU tests of langauge skills.

And I'm trying to redefine my notion of "private" and "not private" all over again here in Rabat in terms of education. I should be glad that the IFR has taken the option of posting the grades in public -- otherwise I wouldn't be able to prove that I'd passed the exam since diplomas won't be printed for another YEAR. Oh-là-là, back to the problem of paperwork.

Twitter in the news

2009-06-27T13:37:00.003+01:00

I understand that CNN, etc. have been reporting Twitter "tweets" in lieu of journalists' reports about the crackdown in Iran. The French actually had a reporter in-country who was filming and reporting on the sly. That report aired two nights ago on France 2 as part of their Envoyé Spécial program. No mention at all of Twitter. I thought the French weren't on the Twitter bandwagon (the Moroccans certainly aren't from what I can tell).

Then Michael Jackson died, and twenty minutes of the news the following evening was about his career and the reactions of fans. Then, and only then, did France 2 show shot after shot of tweets about his death. They also showed YouTube video tributes from fans that had been posted in the 20 or so hours after his death.

ICTs are big here, and there's an SMS langague for Arabic (spelled using Latin character and Arabic numerals), but I'm not sure how Twitter's doing in Morocco. I guess that will be one thing to watch and see.

The wide world of paperwork

2009-06-24T20:55:00.002+01:00

It was paperwork that got me to Morocco (in the form of a rather long and complex grant application during the summer of 2007) and it's paperwork that will get me home.

In order to receive my "baggage allowance" money from MACECE, I had to submit a final report about my experience. Luckily for me, retooling my symposium paper didn't take much time at all.

I've been working for the past week or so with a former colleague on creating a personal online repository. I was able to post the final Fulbright report and add in some metadata, etc. Having my own (shared) online repository is kind of nice, actually.

The airline ticket's been purchased for a few days now (since last Friday), so all that remains is the make-up exams on Thursday and the final sessions with the professors that will be held next week. Then the paperwork, and the stay in Morocco, will both just be a memory.

Defending a masters thesis at ESI

2009-06-22T20:17:00.003+01:00

Today I was the fourth member of a committee for a student masters thesis defense. It was probably the best day I've had at ESI so far.

The student was brilliant, the thesis was very well written, no one had any major complaints, and the whole thing went off beautifully.

The defense had the following structure:

The members of the committee met briefly to discuss overall impressions. We entered the auditorium together, and the President of the committee (Mouna Benslimane) welcomed us all, and actually, she also went out of her way to welcome me in particular (very nice).

The student presented her work using a PowerPoint.

Then I, as the guest committee member, got to point out all of the things I ddin't like about the paper. It's not easy to go first when you've never seen this kind of thing before. The student had done so well and I had such a poor idea of what was expected of students at this level in Morocco that I only really mentioned cosmetic things about the paper itself. It did take me about 15 minutes, though, to go through all of the problems with the bibliography; those, of course, I do not consider cosmetic.

Then the other three members of the committee or "jury" spoke in turn. It was all very formal and very "thank you Mme the Président of the committee" which is kind of fun. I never tire of pomp and circumstance.

There were probably 40 people in attendance, and after the deliberation and the announcement of the decision ("tres bien" for both the presentation and the thesis itself), we all went and had cookies and coffee and mint tea at a lovely reception in the lobby of the school. We'd started at 2:30 and we finished around 5:00.

A fine afternoon and an enjoyable way to begin my last two weeks in Morocco. Thank you all for such a memorable experience. And of course, congratulations Fatima on a job well done!

As Oprah says ....

2009-06-21T08:55:00.004+01:00

Ever since I lost my Internet connection in May (a brief but painful time for me), I've been learning to enjoy my satellite dish.

During her visit, Kirstin was fond of flipping through the hundreds of channels available in the chambre d'amis -- her favorites were a show with Arab gentlemen hunting with falcons (to a soundtrack of harmonica music) and a cooking show featuring fully veiled women who would flip up their scarves to taste sauces they were making.

It turns out, I have about seven French television stations, and have been enjoying watching the news in the evening, as well as talk shows at night. Last night, fashion icon Karl Langerfield was on On n'est pas couché, which was enjoyable background noise as I worked at the computer.

It's hard not to notice the satellite dishes everywhere in this country. They really are especially prominent on the roofs of the shanty-towns (called "bibonvilles" in French for the fact that the dwellings are made of old oil bins). Everyone watches TV (not just my neighbors, as shown in this photo from my kitchen), and not just the national station M2. Actually, I just noticed that Jodie Foster thriller about an airplane is on M2 tonight.... hmmm.

In any event, it didn't surprise me when Fatima came for a visit recently and starting quoting Dr. Phil to me. Then Oprah. She watches the show in English and reads the Arab-language subtitles. Mr. Obama may be doing all he can to promote peace and understanding between Americans and Muslims, but it turns out that it's the wisdom of Oprah that's really making an impression.

Have I caved and subscribed to her twitter feed yet? No. Will I? Probably.

Recap of guest speakers in my classes at ESI

2009-06-18T10:00:00.003+01:00

Although I mentioned a few of the guest speakers in passing, it only seems right to give credit publicly to ALL of the fabulous librarians who gave of their time and energy to share their talents and their passions with a small group of third year undergrads at ESI in the National, University and Special Libraries class.

First semester, our class met at 8:30 in the morning on Monday. It was impossible to coordinate with speakers in America with the time difference, but we did succeed in bring two very interesting speakers to ESI.
Nozha Ben Saadoun from the BNRM spoke in November about her work in Cataloging. She prepared a great talk, brought examples, and came in on her day off to speak to us.
Eric Childress of OCLC visited us in December. He also presented on his day off (during his vacation!) and even agreed to speak again later that week to a different group of interested students.
We also toured the BNRM as a group, which was very enlightening.

During the second semester, class met at 4:00 on Monday, making it possible to invite Americans to participate via Skype or telephone.
Sarah Wenzel, librarian at the University of Chicago, prepared a great presentation describing her library and her work. And she presented the whole in FRENCH. Her keen sense of humor and charm were not lost on the students, nor was her status in WESS, despite her modesty about her leadership roles.
Ray Schwartz, systems librarian at William Patterson University's library, took the time during his vacation to come and talk to us for an entire class period about data mining and evaluation in university libraries. The new director even came to his talk; we were very honored to have Ray, indeed, and he really got us thinking.
Larry Olszewski, director of the library at OCLC, also prepared a wonderful presentation in FRENCH, introducing the topic of special libraries. Of all the people, literally, in the world to talk to my students about special libraries, can there be someone more qualified than Larry? As qualified, perhaps, but not MORE qualified, and naturally his presentation was flawless.
Caroline Szylowicz of the Proust Archive at UIUC spoke about the special collection that she heads. Caroline is French, so speaking in French was simple, and her passion for her subject came across very clearly. However, the Skype connection was unavailable from UIUC the day of the presentation, so Caroline had to bike home (quite heroically!) with her laptop at the last minute to be able to speak with us at the appointed time.
And, as a surprise "end of semester" speaker, we talked with Diane D’Almeida from BU who was able to give us an overview of libraries in different countries, and to help us wrap our brains around the place of ESI graduates in the wide world of libraries and international librarianship.

Yet again, I have reason to be proud of colleagues in libraries. Librarians are above all professionals who truly believe in what they do and who systematically give back to the profession without asking "what's in it for me?" These folks all gave of their time, energy and talent to speak to 16 students in Morocco whom they'd never met... I may be biased, but I don’t know that folks in other professions who would be so giving of their time and talents in this way.

Elections in Morocco

2009-06-14T16:20:00.003+01:00

This past Friday, local elections were held throughout Morocco. There was a significant amount of hoopla leading up to the elections, with gatherings in the sports hall across the way from my apartment, and indeed, all over town.

Each of the political parties (and there are a LOT) has its own symbol, and the symbols actually seem to have meaning. Of the parties with exceptionally good symbols, I like to consider the disembodied eye, the rearing horse, and the smattering that appear in the photo I've included.

Parties explain in their lit how to vote for their candidates: "put an X over the ____ " with the symbol for the party. Many of the tracts have, what looks to me like "NO" signs over the symbol for the party, but it's just the X that explains how it's done.

Shipping and handling

2009-06-11T10:32:00.005+01:00

Just mailed my first package from the post office to the States -- a small box of books weighing in at 7.5 kilos. In theory, I've got several more to go.

::: Poste Maroc :::

I sent today's box "economy" and paid 554.50 MAD for it, which seemed quite expensive. I've just done the conversion and now know why that seemed so pricey: $75!!

So, if that's roughly a 15 lb. box, at $75 for shipping, that's $5 per lb. I guess it could be worse (like the two-page letter that DHL wanted $125 to send, or the three cards I mailed yesterday that cost $10 in shipping!), but it's still giving me pause to think about unloading anything that's not books or electronics or a gift before I leave, to save myself the money in shipping/transport.

Royal Air Maroc has an interesting baggage policy where "sending" 23 kilos with them in the form of an extra bag is 1500 MAD or $200. In hindsight, I should have held back on the post office shipment, and stuck everything I've got to get back in an additional bag in the hold of the plane.

Next Fulbright .... I'll know.

The collaborative nature of time

2009-06-10T12:19:00.003+01:00

Time is a human construct. We all seem to agree that when the sun is at the highest point in the sky, that is "12" and not "37" or "42" or "boo". There are 60 minutes in an hour and not 79, and 24 hours in a day. None of this is pre-ordained; it is simply agreed upon.

Daylight savings time is another temporal element that is agreed upon. In Morocco, we entered Daylight Savings on Monday, June 1. On the appointed day, my computer's time didn't change. When I look, Microsoft gently tells me that Casablanca is GMT, and that it does not move to a summer hour. Microsoft is wrong, and I've had to tell my computer that I'm in Lisbon in order to have the correct time display.

Today, in the last exam that I'll proctor in Morocco, students wanted to agree that we had started 15 minutes late so that they could continue answering the question for another 15 minutes. I couldn't actually agree to that based on my understanding of the 60-minutes-to-an-hour thing, and since I was the proctor, my take on time held.

Interestingly, there are NO CLOCKS in ANY ESI classroom. None. This explains, in part, why the students want their phones out during the exams -- to read the time. Despite the Director's recent prohibitive memo, phones were still out and white out was still madly being passed around today.

Time may be a collaborative constuct that is considered in different ways in different cultures (see prior blog posts about this), but for the first time in my life, I'm realizing that exams can be too.

While things like visits to the library, study, exams, and scholarship in general are fundamentally SOLO events in Western culture (although I admit this may be changing), the Moroccan culture is not Western. If the culture here is clan-oriented and group-based, why can't the approach to exams be as well?

And why wouldn't it be entirely logical to have a discussion about time with one's neighbor during an exam? Right after borrowing her white-out and handing it off to one's other neighbor?

Checking things off the list

2009-06-07T13:34:00.004+01:00

I've had a mental list of things to do while in Morocco. Some have been work-related, many have been relative to living in a place so very different from other places I've called home.

Getting on a bus was the last thing I *really* wanted to do. Abdelaziz came and met me in Rabat and we took a bus to his new apartment yesterday evening, on the spur of the moment. To my surprise, there were two employees on the bus: the driver and the ticket lady. The ticket lady took our money, the driver drove the bus. It was very efficient, actually. I'm not sure what happens, though, when the busses get so crowded that it's standing room only.

Abdelaziz and his wife greeted me like royalty. They opened their home to me, offering me first a round of sweet Moroccan mint tea, then coffee and goodies. I also got to look at their photo album from their recent wedding -- the photos look like other Moroccan wedding album photos I've seen: very solemn and formal. They remind me of the photos of my grandparents' marriage in 1941. The "serious" wedding photos is a tradition that's all but lost in the New World, I think.

Finally, I was invited into the home of a friend (perhaps the last thing on my list). The new apartment is their pride and joy. Abdelaziz and Mounia only moved in last week, and they've already made a lot of progress toward turning the place in Salé into a home, and I wish them lots of luck with it.

Moroccan music festivals

2009-06-03T14:04:00.007+01:00

Morocco's THE place for music these days... during the last part of May, the Mawazine festival took place in Rabat. For roughly 10 days, stages all over town featured performances by local and internationally known groups: programme. For example, the Morrocan female rap group that one of the Fulbrighters is studying played on May 19th. The concerts were free, although it was also possible to purchase tickets if one wanted to be really close to the stage.

Stevie Wonder performed at the closing Mawazine event on May 23, and my free spot on the lawn was better than some $50 tickets that can be had in American stadiums for similar events. The lights, stage, musicians, and sound were all excellent -- and I enjoyed watching the monitors to get a good view of Stevie and his daughter singing together. Unfortunately, at another concert that night, 11 concert-goers were killed in a stampede.

Fès is currently sponsoring its annual 10-day Sacred Music Festival. The concerts aren't free, but are a huge draw for the city. I know at least two Americans up there as I write this.

I had the good fortune to hear about Stevie Wonder from Fulbrighter Jaci and to hear about the festival in Fès from Fulbrighter Kate. It's nice to be part of a network that's so well-connected and cultured. I should also mention that both Abdelaziz and Jallal knew all about the Rabat festival and graciously shared information about it over coffee.

Final exams and proctoring

2009-06-02T10:01:00.005+01:00

ESI has just started the two-week exam period. Like French schools and universities, they have a very intensive exam period at the middle point in the academic year, and they have an even more demanding schedule at the end of the year. Students have one exam per day for most of the allotted two weeks.

I proctored my first exam yesterday (94 students in the first year), and noticed several differences between what I saw at ESI and what I'd seen in France.

First, students were allowed to have cell phones on their tables during the exams. They were also allowed to share materials (pens, white-out, rulers, etc.). There was a lot of movement during the exam, especially in the back half of the lecture hall.

Things that did NOT happen that I recall from proctoring French exams were the following: proctors didn't seem to move around the room and hover (other than me) -- proctors stayed in the front of the room. None of the students asked to use the rest room (whereas in France, we had a line going).

Lastly, unlike the French university classes in languages and literature that I experienced (both as a student and as a proctor/teaching assistant), there were no oral exams to balance out the writtens.

From my outsider's perspective, the exam structure and application is another case of borrowing from one or two systems, and making the end-product uniquely Moroccan.

In French it's bad luck to wish someone "good luck" -- so I'm wishing all of the ESI students "bon courage" and "bonne continuation" as they prepare for and take this round of exams.

Tolerance, tradition, and going incognito

2009-05-28T21:44:00.011Z

On a given day, I don't tend to draw too much attention in the streets of Rabat. I dress more or less like the Moroccan women my age (long sleeves and sometimes tunics, pants, etc.). There are a lot of Europeans who live in the capital, and they, like me, don't care to be treated like tourists. There's plenty of room for everyone, and in general, everyone's very tolerant of differences.

On the street, folks will automatically speak to me in French. Men greet me with "bonsoir" at just about any hour of the day, and I also often hear "salut" or even "pardon". There's just a lot of French here, even if Morocco isn't fully a Francophone country. And White people are assumed to be French.

Nadia, Eric and I went to the local popular market last weekend to get veggies for Sunday's feast. Nadia did the buying, I watched, and Eric took photos from afar.

Not one person spoke to me in French when I was in my jellabah and headscarf. A few spoke to me in Arabic. And more importantly, no one bat an eye. Of course, I never would have gotten the scarf on properly without Nadia's help. It was her idea that I go incognito in the first place.

It's interesting the reactions that folks have based on preconceived notions about appearance. A woman in a headscarf is modest and laudable in Morocco, whether she has pale skin or dark skin. Frankly, I don't really want to imagine the reaction that I would have received in a mall in the United States in the same attire, as I fear many of my countrymen are a lot less tolerant than the average Moroccan.

LG X110 Netbook, laptops, and ESI

2009-05-28T07:33:00.005Z

Before I left for Morocco, I looked into getting a netbook. The small screens were a little off-putting, but what really killed the deal was the small keyboards that I kept seeing. I got a Sony Viao laptop on sale instead.

While in France over spring break this year, I bought a little LG netbook. I don't exactly think of computers when I think of LG, but I took the plunge mostly because I needed something practical. The price was right ($400) and the size/weight of it is unbeatable. It fits in my purse, but it has a full sized keyboard and a 10 inch screen. I'm blogging on it now from a hotel room in Casablanca, connected to the Internet via my LG modem.

Netbooks are showing up all over the place in Morocco now -- as are pay-as-you-go modems that connect to cell towers. I only noticed the netbooks when I returned in April, and the modems have onlyn been competitively priced since the beginning of 2009. Change is afoot.

My students don't seem to have a set-up like mine quite yet... In fact, ESI students rarely brought laptops to school, hardly ever took notes on them in class if they did have them, and didn't seem to be addicted like American students are.

However, there were definitely lots of students with laptops in the common areas of ESI between classes and during lunch. Perhaps the wifi near the library is a kind of siren song? Maybe by next year it will be accepted for students to start bringing them to class. The whole environment reminds me of classes in the United States about 10 years ago. It just wasn't cool to lug around a laptop (besides, what if it broke?) but today, it's impossible to be in a classroom setting without one.

Maybe netbooks/modems like mine will make it easier for ESI student to take the plunge and have unlimited Internet access at school. I've offered to leave my wireless router with the tech guys so that they can have a stronger wifi signal for next year -- it's the same as the router they've already got installed. For the students' sake, I hope they take me up on it.

We'll miss you, Uncle Jim

2009-05-21T09:10:00.002Z

I got a series of emails yesterday evening about the unexpected death of my mother's brother, Jim. Here I was, on the other side of the Altantic, and I knew about the death right along with the other cousins. It's amazing how family can organize in times of great sorrow.

My mother and her husband are on vacation, however, and no one at home in St. Louis had their cell phone numbers. Strangely enough, yesterday was the day that I finally decided to buy a modem that connects to the Internet through cell phone towers (Wana). It was when I came home yesterday evening and plugged in the modem for the first time that I read the emails about Uncle Jim. I was able to send my mother's cell phone number to her St. Louis-based brother, who in turn contacted her that very day.

Everything this happens for a reason. I can't explain why I got Internet yesterday afternoon, why I didn't wait until today or next week. If I hadn't gotten that modem, I wouldn't have been able to communicate with the family and to pass on my mother's cell number. And I wouldn't know. And so, I'm struck wondering how the family would have handled this without the use of modern ICTs.

Of course, I'm sorry that I can't be there with my family at this very sad time. Uncle Jim was a dear man (who even, I'm delighted to mention, visited me once in Dijon many many years ago), and his death is truly a loss for us all. Uncle Jim, we'll miss you very much.

Guest speakers

2009-05-19T11:55:00.005Z

Throughout the school year, I've tried my best to show the group of third year students that there is a world of libraries outside of Morocco, that this world is not only accessible to them, but that it is interested in them and that it will embrace them.

I'm pleased that almost everyone I approached to present to my students was more than happy to do so, many presenters going to great lengths to perfect their "library French" or to come up with a Morocco-friendly approach to a topic, or both.

Yesterday was the last regular class period, and we had one final guest lecturer -- a former Fulbrighter who had worked at the university library in Ifrane. Diane d'Almeida of Boston University Library spoke eloquently about that experience, spoke about her more recent Fulbright in Jordan, and gave some wonderful professional advice to the students. In no uncertain terms, Diane was an absolute delight. It was obvious that the students were taken with her; the fact that they could see her (and that she could see them) I think was particularly beneficial for all.

Moroccan noise levels and the Mediterranean way

2009-05-14T10:37:00.005Z

Yesterday at the ESI faculty meeting, I finally was able to identify what's different about these Moroccan faculty meetings: it's not that professors disagree vehemently with each other or that attendees arrive late (that happens in the US too); it's not that part of the meeting is in Arabic or that sweet mint tea and almond cookies are served (these elements are less likely to be found in the US, I admit).

It's the volume. Morocco may be an Arabophone country, but its geographical location makes it a Mediterranean one, above all else. Reminded me of the converstaions that one can overhear in Italian where it sounds like all of the parties truly hate each other and are screaming, but in fact they're just "shooting the breeze."

The librarian at the Embassy had me over for dinner earlier this week. Her husband made a point of explaining that the Arabic spoken in Morocco sounds "harsh" to other speakers of Arabic, and that speakers from Egypt, for example, might think that Moroccans are angry. I'll confirm right now that they can sound angry to non-Arabic speakers, too, even when they aren't. The volume though, is what really seals the deal for me.

The cab driver this morning had the radio on so loud that I could hardly think. And two days ago, when a young man unceremoniously made a grab for my bottom in the street, the absolutely blood-curdling scream I let out (followed by me yelling louder than I ever would have thought possible) didn't seem to get anyone's attention.

Perhaps all the folks on the street were all busy talking animatedly to each other or listening to music, or otherwise being Mediterranean. I wonder what would have come of the same scene in Italy, or in Missouri or New Jersey.

Working from Home

2009-05-12T09:26:00.001Z

When Ray came to visit, I moved into the "chambre d'amis" so that he and his wife could have the master bedroom. Despite the low desk and the hassocks, I end up getting a lot of work done in there. And I love the rug. However, the neighbors with whom I share a wifi connection are out of town, and their router is now officially down.
In short, no Internet from home for me, which also means no calls in the evening to the United States, no email, no blogging on Sunday, etc.
As a positive, I get even more done without the online distractions, but I admit that it's not entirely easy to plan ahead for an evening without Internet. I guess I'll get more used to it as time goes by. Until then, I'm hoping like anything that my neighbors are planning a short trip. However, when I saw them before their departure, they had about six suitcases between the two of them.

The photo is one of many excellent shots Ray got during his stay.

Blogué avec le Navigateur Flock

9th Annual ESI Forum

2009-05-07T14:07:00.005Z

Yesterday and today marked the 9th annual Forum at ESI. While teaching yesterday morning, I was stopped mid-sentence and asked to let Cataloging students out so that they could attend the opening.

It was quite the affair, and everyone was dressed so well!

Today's session drew smaller crowds, but has been an incredible success all the same. The forum is organized entirely by students, and the sponsorship they were able to get was impressive.

The flyer for the event details the names of speakers and other events, and is available on the newly redesigned ESI website as a PDF.

Students had the program printed and had notebooks made; they also had a photographer taking orders for yesterday's photos (reminded me of cruise ships, actually).

As a follow-up to recent posts: my name is no longer listed on the "corps enseignant" page of the new Website. Alas, my 15 minutes of fame have passed. Also, as a visiting professor, I am unable to serve on the jury of the masters student, and had to hand back the masters thesis today. It's unfortunate, but better to know now than later.

The BNRM, with Ray

2009-05-04T19:18:00.001Z

P1040970
Originally uploaded by schwartzray

While Ray Schwartz was here, we toured the National Library (the BNRM). We really got the royal treatment. Here's one of Ray's photos of the area where specialists repair old books. These folks are not graduates of ESI, but have been trained extensively in their craft.

Corps enseignant

2009-04-30T15:04:00.003Z

Everyone likes to be part of a winning team. Recent days have been very good to me in that respect. First, at the request of the new director of ESI, my name has been included on the Web page of teachers (the "corps enseignant" page; I'm at the bottom). I'm very pleased.

One of my students in the second year even found my name and sent me an email at my new official ESI email account. She then proceeded to visit me at my office yesterday, and we had a delightful converstation.

Another student also found me recently, to ask that I be one of the readers for her masters thesis. I am, of course, honored to do it and was surprised to see that it's not at all a thin document. It's amusing to be on a committee for a masters student thesis when I myself have never defended a masters thesis -- and my own Rutgers dissertation is still very much a work in progress.

Further, Rutgers's MLIS program has been declared sixth in the nation in 2009, and although I've had nothing to do with the successes that have come this year, I'm still pleased to be able to claim the same academic "home" and am delighted to have taught in their program in the past.

Tomorrow is the European and Moroccan version of Labor Day -- a day off being a fitting way to celebrate new successes in LIS education, after all.

Access to information, access to education

2009-04-26T18:08:00.002Z

In the very recent past, I've been approached twice via email by a
complete stranger who wanted a copy of a scholarly article I'd
written. I really do respect folks for trying to get free access to an
article by contacting the author; it makes sense to try to access
things as one can.

For example, at LIBRES we get a lot of well-intentioned manuscripts
that just don't seem to have consulted the right literature. When this happens,
the project has no foundation. Developing countries have a lot of
opportuntities to request free access to library databases of articles
and other scholarly content, but the libraries in the countries have
to be willing to take the leap and the patrons have to be willing to
go onsight to do their research.

I'm not convinced, for example, that Moroccan libraries have all
subscribed to the plethora of databases that are free to African
libraries. -- Access to information.

The government's doing its best right now to expand access to higher
education here in Morocco. The efforts are commendable. But today as
Nadia and I were making my bed, she explained to me that the other
girls in her family got to go to college, but that she didn't. And
then she started crying. -- Access to education.

I applaud all the efforts in the right direction on these two issues
in Morocco, but quite simply, more has to be done. I haven't been
able to bring myself to tell Nadia that I worked as a cleaning lady at
one point too. Perhaps, really, the only true difference between her
and me is 10 years and our nationalities.

For a number of reasons, both personal and professional, I find that
thought to be fundamentally disturbing.

Professeur avec chaire, higher ed, and reforms

2009-04-20T08:20:00.004Z

I'm intent on recording things in this blog that pertain to the current Moroccan educational system, and since it relies heavily on the old French educational system, things pertaining to past-present-future elements of French higher ed. are also of interest, par extension. While at ENSSIB in March, the professors explained to me the notion of "professeur avec chaire" and I admit to having found it fascinating.

The FORMER French UNIVERSITY system (not the ECOLE system, like we have at ESI) involved a hierarchy that was quite complex. Professors did a PhD, then they did a second PhD (doctorat d'état). This second diploma permitted them to join the upper echelons of the teaching faculty at the university. For each area of specializtion in a university department, there was one professor "avec chaire" (meaning, the boss or the "mandarin") and the others under him/her were all "sans chaire". The only way to move up was to wait for a retirement or a change of post of the one professor "avec chaire."

This system is no longer in effect, and Sarkozy is in the middle of making even more dramatic reforms to higher ed in France. Those in universities are striking daily, and the situation doesn't look good. Mr. Sarkozy wants to Americanize education, increasing competition between professors, changing missions and objectives for universities, and doing away with (in the opinion of some) the arts and humanities.

The reforms in Morocco are not as sweeping, but they are also very real. I attend my first meeting about them this week at ESI, and am interested to learn more about the topics that are on the plate in Moroccan Ecoles during this period of higher ed reform.
'

The fluid concept of time

2009-04-19T11:34:00.003Z

Dave Barry is married to a Spanish-speaking woman -- if I remember correctly, she's Cuban-American. She has a concept of time that differs from his according to a very funny and memorable book of his I read years ago. I wish I could remember the title of it.

Although I first learned in France that time moves differently for different peoples (and for different cultures), I'm discovering that Moroccan time can also move at its own pace.

American colleague Ray Schwartz spoke to ESI students last Monday about his ongoing project of library evaluation through data mining. Class was designated to start at 4:00, and we wanted to set up beforehand. The technican couldn't understand why we'd do such a thing since the students wouldn't be there at 4:00 anyway.

And they weren't.

Nadia arrives at 9:45 on Sunday morning instead of 9:00 (but this is her *day off* so I understand completely!) The symposium dinner started last night at 8:45 pm but was listed as beginning at 8:00 in the invitation. And, well, the panels and speakers at the three-day long symposium mostly started a half hour to an hour later than scheduled.

None of this is to suggest that things run on schedule in the United States or that France and Morocco are the ONLY places in the world where time is more fluid than rigid. However, it's something to keep in mind when scheduling Web talks for class with folks in the United States. Not only do I have to calculate the time difference for next week's talks (by Larry Olszewski of OCLC's Library and Caroline Szylowicz of UIUC's Proust Archive), but I have to figure in the Moroccoan time as well. Let's hope I've calculated correctly.

Fulbright Symposium and Slideshare

2009-04-17T07:39:00.004Z

Yesterday, today and tomorrow is the annual Maghrebi Studies Symposium for Fulbright Grantees in Morocco. I was scheduled to present about a subject of my choice on the first day. Since comparative librarianship has been a budding interest and since I'd been interested in formalizing my thoughts on the topic, I volunteered to talk about LIS education in Morocco.

My 25-minute presentation was well-received. To be complete about creating a record, I posted the slides to Slideshare last night before going to bed. That was nine hours ago, and the presentation's already gotten 9 views. Slideshare considers itself the YouTube of presentations. Hard to believe there's that much traffic on an LIS education presentation that covers a country in the developing world.

Views of Library and Information Science (LIS) Instruction in Morocco

View more presentations from Heather lea Moulaison.

Just goes to show that the Fulbright follks at MACECE are on the right track in organizing this symposium every year. I'm very grateful to them for the opportunity, and was honored to be able to take part.

Choosing the ESI director, a reprise

2009-04-14T07:44:00.002Z

Last week, I met with the new director of ESI, Mr. Lemallem. After our meeting, I understand why the students are so excited about his appointment.

Like most of the professors at ESI, Mr. Lemallem is a polyglot. He's also aware of blogs, because he found this one and read it. In response to my blog posting about the difficulty I had following the process of naming a new ESI director, he explained the following :

For those in the system, the selection process was transparent. Each candidate submitted his vision for ESI, and the top eight candidates spoke at the Ministry that sponsors ESI: the Haut Commissariat au Plan. The original call for applications is in Arabic and is still on the ESI website.

The names of the search committee members were known, and the five members were prominent, competent, and came from different but complementary backgrounds. Once the top three finalists were selected by the committee, the names and files were sent to the King who had the final decision.

Since Mr. Lemallem's arrival, he's had a lot of tough tasks to tackle. The educational reform will require ESI to change the structure of the program in the coming year. With the Bologna Accords in Europe and with Sarkozy's sweeping and unpopular “Americanization” reforms in France, the theme of higher ed. reform is definitely in the air. Educational reforms have also been a priority locally since the new King ascended the throne almost a decade ago.

I'm thrilled with the results of my discussion with the new director at ESI and my new insights. Further, two days after the meeting, I had a brand new ESI email address and should be added to the list of professors on the ESI website shortly. I also hope to get the chance to participate in the ongoing ESI meetings about the reform (the invitation to which will surely be sent to my new email account).

The SCI (formerly SCILS) Rabat section, class of 2009.

2009-04-09T17:09:00.001Z

Jill Campaiola of my doctoral cohort was here for a visit this March. I was delighted to put her up for a few days, and enjoyed exploring some of the medina and the tourist attractions with her. I'm grateful to Jill for sharing her photos, and am really looking forward to her return in July!

Blogué avec le Navigateur Flock

Gen X, social media, and libraries

2009-04-08T12:58:00.004Z

It's interesting being a Gen-Xer and living abroad in 2009. Although I've been using Facebook for about two and a half years professionally, my friends from 5, 10, and even 15 years ago are starting to create accounts and get online in droves. In the past two days, I've reconnected with two friends from my undergraduate days, a friend from the days of my grad work in French, and a librarian that I know through NMRT committee work (and whom I met in person ONCE at a conference five years ago).

Before my recent travels to France, I connected with friends and acquaintances that I haven't seen in years through Facebook and through TripIt's application in LinkedIn. All of these French contacts found me initially.

None of these new online connections would have been possible a year ago simply because Gen Xers and the French weren't yet using social media for networking this way. If I had been abroad in 2007-2008, there wouldn't be this wealth of opportunity to reconnect with friends and colleagues, and to establish contact almost instantly with newfound “connections” like one of the librarians at ENSSIB, with whom I am now “friends” on Facebook after my presentation.

The presentation that I gave at ENSSIB on March 25, 2009 was about social networks and the information literacies that university librarians should possess http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~moulaiso/MoulaisonENSSIB2009 .pdf. These Social Networking Literacies (SNL) will allow the creation of new and innovative library services that capitalize on social media. I was delighted that Terry Weech of UIUC's GSLIS made time at the end of his presentation on libraries and networking to allow me to share ideas about these new competencies with ENSSIB students, librarians, and instructors.

If my own overwhelming list of “friends” on Facebook and LinkedIn are any indication, the time really has come for librarians to capitalize on online social networks. Thanks to Joe Murphy (Yale Science Library and Library Journal “Mover and Shaker”) for being first author on our original presentation as presented at ACRL in mid-March 2009 in Seattle.

Social Networking Literacy Competencies for Librarians

View more presentations from Joe Murphy.

I've gotten nothing but great feedback from librarians who attended his very inspired presentation. And somehow, on SlideShare, it's gotten 4 "favorites"!

My ICT addiction

2009-03-18T16:02:00.003Z

Last night was perhaps the first night I've spent without a cell phone in the past 8 years. I certainly wasn't an early adopter of the things, and I don't use mine regularly at all.

But, when I absolutely couldn't get it to charge yesterday, something had to be done. I took it to my regular guy at the Meditel store (that would be Rachid) and he offered to look into it overnight. In all honesty, I'd been planning to buy a new one. I'm issue of a throw-away society, after all; why repair when you can replace? But Rachid though it could be fixed with minimal effort, so I left it in his capable hands for the night.

I don't think I had any actual physical signs of withdrawl -- no shaking or cold sweats or anything. But without the phone, I did feel somewhat vulnerable, like something big was missing. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are such a huge part of life in the developing world that I really felt lost without it. Besides, I went to quite a deal of trouble to get that formerly T-mobile Motorola phone unlocked when I'd arrived -- I'd had it in mind to use it the whole year or until it was stolen, which ever came first. It was a trusty solider in the fight for finding things to do and staying in touch with folks here in Morocco.

The phone was returned safe and sound (and charged) this morning; I picked it up after Cataloging and promptly started calling and texting, blissful at the reunion with my old friend. Rachid didn't charge me at all for his services -- but I've over-paid several times in the past, so I think it all evens out. After yesterday's episode, I have to admit, though, that I can't imagine what life would be like for me without the Internet.

In short, banish the thought of going Internet-less for a day! The very idea sends shivers down my spine.

Medical care in Rabat

2009-03-15T09:07:00.005Z

The last thing that anyone wants is to be ill while abroad. I've been having some problems with my knee, and finally had a watershed moment last Monday. Without thinking, I went to my favorite pharmacy.

The pharmacist insisted that I see a physician, and sent me to one down the street. Not only was I seen THAT DAY by a man who'd graduated from prestigious medical schools in France, but the 1/2 hour consultation cost me less than the $25 co-pay that I have through my grant program.

I didn't want to wait to order the medications through the grant, so I went back to the pharmacy. Medications for 20 days cost under $20. In short, $45 later, I have complete peace of mind that I'm receiving very good care.

Le coq d'Agdal

2009-03-11T09:14:00.002Z

For most of the winter months, I could hear a rooster in one of the courtyards behind the apartments. He was a very devoted singer as well as a bit of an insomniac. Quite literally, he sang night and day. It always made me think of this precious song by Claude Nougaro about a rooster that's in love with a grandfather clock.

Claude Nougaro - Le Coq et la Pendule
envoyé par Quarouble

Time was probably also against the modern day Moroccan lover (see lyrics), and I can only imagine that the Agdal rooster was likely made into a meal of some kind (see recipe). The Moroccan bird's fate likely involved less wine, though.

I realized that I missed the late-night Don Juan's song only when I started hearing his replacement recently. Fortunately, the new rooster has better sleeping patterns, or is less love-struck.

All about the numbers

2009-03-08T11:03:00.003Z

Within the short space of one week, we've been hit with not one but TWO changes to numbering systems in Morocco.

The post office has decided to create and distribute zip codes (postal codes) to everyone here in Rabat. I first noticed billboards along the roads, requesting folks indicate their post codes for quicker mail service. I didn't know mine (every piece of mail I get is addressed to a different post code, and some pieces don't have a postal code listed at all), and was amused at the idea.

Then, on about Wednesday, a sticker appeared near the mailboxes in my apartment, telling me my postal code. I'm 10090 -- a number no one had used before to send me mail, I'm quite sure.

While the United States were gearing up to change to summer time this weekend, we in Morocco were gearing up to add an additional digit to our phone numbers. I've been used to "phasing in" new things (the Y2K bug fears and changes to years, etc.), but overnight between Friday and Saturday, the phone systems all switched at once. It's now imposible to make calls without adding the new digit. To be honest, on Saturday when my calls didn't go through, I assumed my phone was just broken again.

These changes are no doubt positive ones, and I'm glad to see Morocco moving ahead in this way. I'm also glad that the Fulbright office shared news about the phone number changes, and that the post office was kind enough to advertise the postal codes. I still may not know if I have class tomorrow (I'll assume I do until I hear otherwise, I guess), but at least I know my new phone number.

Through the grapevine

2009-03-05T10:49:00.003Z

ESI students are great. On Tuesday, several indicated in their FaceBook status that they were pleased with the choice of new director for the school.

It's official: Mr Lemallem will be the new director. The announcement came the day of the week when I'm not on campus, so I'm pleased that the students were so actively mentioning it in the social sphere. It's still difficult for me to understand when news breaks at the school -- my Derija isn't exactly improving and folks here are so bi- and tri-lingual that they forget that not all can understand.

Unlike American university searches for Presidents and Heads, nothing about this process was transparent for me, as a teacher from the outside. Suffice it to say, I'm very much hoping to meet the new director at some point before the end of the year. I tend not to be notified about faculty meetings, so this might be more difficult than it would seem.

On a related front, we'll be receiving two days of vacation for the Prophet's birthday next week. Other Muslim countries will celebrate on Monday and Tuesday, but Morocco started the month a day later, and will have the holiday on Tuesday (with our second day off on Wednesday). Students want to make a long weekend of it and not come in on Monday, and no one can really blame them. Instructors are in a very undesirable position, though, of trying to guess whether it's worth having class, or better to reschedule ahead of time. In one of my Monday classes, my students and I opted to reschedule. In the other class, it's still unclear whether we'll have class on Monday, five days from now.

I must say that one of the draws of coming to Morocco was the knowledge that I would be forced to (re-)learn to "go with the flow". It's just not worth developing high blood pressure over what are, to me, last-minute changes, and ones that are not communicated to the instrutors. Returning to the North American way of things, in a few months, is going to require a good deal of reverse culture-shock training, I think. As of right now, though, I'm trying desperately to hang in there and take Moroccan life as it comes. New director, unplanned days off, and all.

Savoir-faire v. savoir

2009-03-01T10:34:00.003Z

I've run into the argument often enough with teaching cataloging: how much savoir-faire or know-how needs to be part of the cataloging curriculum (so that students know how to catalog when they finish) v. how much knowlege needs to be presented, so that students have a broad understanding of the past, present, and future of the field.

Practitioners say that savoir-faire should be taught; academics say theory should be the emphasis. This is roughly the distinction between extended practical training that one would get in a workshop and theoretical approaches one expects to find in a university setting.

LIS in North America is in a strange position. The professional degree for librarians is a university masters, requiring that programs integrate both savoir-faire and savoir into the curriculum. For most professional positions in the US/Canada culture, it's expected that candidates will have university credentials anyway, and that continuing education for acquiring new skills is part of just about any professional field.

Recently, I've been struck by the fact that library school in Morocco emphasizes the kind of training I expect to find in N. American trade schools.

ESI is indeed a "School" and not part of a university. Students are in classes more hours per day than high school students in the United States, and they are told just about everything they need to know by their instructors. Perhaps this is a product of the emphaisis on documentalism in Morocco. But what if librarianship requires more theory, and it's just not part of the program?

The interesting thing would be to understand how the choice of education style impacts the field as a whole, librarianship in particular, in Morocco. Apparently "informatists" don't stay too long in their positions before they move up in the ranks at their place of employment. New graduates are brought in to take their places. The second question, then, would be: How does the coming-and-going of information professionals impact the information landscape in Morocco: if there are few who have a robust understanding of the field and who are in professional positions, then how can the large-scale advocacy of libraries be expected?

l'Institut Culturel Italien and Moroccan archeology

2009-02-24T10:27:00.008Z

The Institut culturel italien in Rabat is similar to the Institut français de Rabat in that it organizes cultural events for members and interested folks in the community. Last evening, the center hosted a lecture called « L'archéologie du Maroc antique » and the event was standing room only. Professor Emanuele Papi from the Univeristy in Sienna talked about the Italo-Moroccan team's excavations of recent years and what had been learned.

My class at ESI ran late (we had to talk about plagiarism and it took a while longer than expected) so I arrived 10 minutes late. I can only assume that the presentation began on time, and I learned a lot during the time I was there.

In the period before the Romans, the Mauritanian period, all trading villages had to be built inland because of the high tides associated with the Atlantic. Settlers would take a river inland for 10 km and set up trading villages in naturally protected areas. The Mediterranean coast to the north was entirely inhospitable, and only from the level of Tangiers down could trading settlements begin.

When the Roman toops arrived, they came in small numbers and with soldiers who had been recruited in Spain, Syria, and Bulgaria. Some of the "Romans" were Berbers who collaborated, and took Latin versions of their Berber names. It is likely that none of the "Romans" in Morocco had ever set foot in Italy, much less in Rome. Volubilis is the most well-known Roman installation, but there are others. One site, called Chellah, is near Salé in Rabat.

In one Moroccan city, Essouria, a center for dying purple dating back to Roman times has been identified. It takes 11,000 mollusks to dye one small shirt purple using these ancient techniques. The liquid pigment is unstable and cannot be transported; the fabric must be transported to the dying center. Dr. Papi's team can be certain of the production of the dye because of the mounds of mollusk shells in the area.

The Romans may have been among the first colonizers of Morocco (followed by the Arabs, the Spanish and the French), but this scholarly presentation was in the language of the most recent colonizers, the French. Dr. Papi did a beautiful job of describing his work in French, to an audience of French speakers, nestled away in a room at the Italian Cultural Center. French may no longer be the international language it once was, but it continues to be the language of scholarly communiation in Morocco. Of course, the audience was largely Western, but that should be the topic of another blog post, I suppose.

Street parking

2009-02-22T08:51:00.003Z

Throughout the city of Rabat, men will help you parallel park, will watch your car (sometimes washing it), and will help you pull out into traffic, all for the small fee of a few dirhams. These men are identifiable by their royal blue lab coats. None of this activity is sanctioned by the government; in fact, when the city installs parking meters, it's still necessary to pay both the attendant and the meter.

These parking attendants are self-organizing. Within the network, they vy for the best streets and get to know the inhabitants. When they go out of town on vacation, they find a replacement. The blue coats are a tradition, not something official.

Around the corner from me, a new attendant appeared last week. He must be about 11 years old. I suppose he has to work -- despite governmental claims to the contrary, the economic crisis is hurting Morocco, especially in terms of tourism. This boy works all day, while American boys are in school learning to read and to reason. I've been giving a lot of thought recently to whether Morocco should being using French or English for international communications. Perhaps in doing so, I've been overlooking a much more serious problem: that of 50% illiteracy within the country.

Cataloging I and II

2009-02-20T13:52:00.005Z

This week I met both of the classes of students that will be in the undergraduate cataloging classes at ESI. They are the first and second year students, and M. Alli is the main instrutor for the classes.

The first years get a taste of cataloging theory at the beginning, and I get two days during that period to discuss the basics of MARC. That's a whole week -- a lot in terms of the time alloted for the class (and I'm very grateful). The rest of the semester is spent studing the cataloging code used in France (AFNOR) and applying it to examples. At the end of the class, I also get several sessions where I'll be able to walk all 90 or so students through the process of marking up their AFNOR records with MARC 21.

The second years dive straight in to using AFNOR for more complex cataloging problems and formats. I get the last three class periods to introduce them to MARC and to walk them though some record creation. We'll use the Koha with Class service through LibLime (thanks to LibLime for hosting us, and for giving a French interface when possible!) It's all very, very exciting!

In all honesty, I expect that Moroccan libraries will not as a whole adopt the use of MARC records ever. Online catalogs are not yet the norm over here, and I hope that XML formats will be the library gold standard by the time that Moroccans are ready to get online en masse; no one will ever need to learn clunky old MARC. The hope is that our preliminary look at MARC cataloging procedures today will serve as a solid point of departure for the librarians in the trenches in the future.

And for once, I'm trying to be Moroccan about my handouts. I'm trying very hard to prepare handouts that are in the style of the other materials used in class ... to encourage reuse next year when I'm gone.

Movies

2009-02-15T15:36:00.006Z

I decided to see a film before leaving Barcelona. About.com lists a few movie theatres in Barcelona that show subtitled films. It's my understanding that Europe's Latin countries are more fond of showing dubbed foreign films, whereas its Anglo-Saxon countries tend to show subtitled ones. Since I don't speak Spanish, a "VO" film (version originale) in English or French with Spanish subtitles was in order.

I finally found that the Casablanca Theatre (the name seemed fitting) was showing a French film that I've been meaning to see for about a year: Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis. The film was THE movie sensation of the year last year in France, and I just kept missing it. As expected, the film was an absolute delight, and the theatre reminded me of the small center-city theatres I used to frequent in France.

In comparison, Morocco doesn't seem to have the same movie theatre culture. Moroccans certainly enjoy films, as evidenced by the roving vendors of pirated DVDs that are on just about every street in Rabat. There are only two movie theatres in Rabat, and the selection of films is limited. The Institut Francais de Rabat sponsors a film each week, which is reasonable. There are more theatres in Casa, however. Apparently, there's a district with theatres that only show pirated films. There, it's possible to see American films before they come out it America, it seems.

I've asked Moroccan friends if they think this disrespect for intellectual property is holding Morocco back, since what is evident in the world of cinema is surely evident in other realms too. The answer is always "no", but I admit to having a hard time knowing what's to be gained, in the very least by permitting theatres to operate that way. In Sidney Poitier's memoires, he mentions sneaking into the theatres as a child since he couldn't afford to pay for a ticket. Perhaps saving Moroccans the humiliation of sneaking around is worth something. It's difficult, however, to see how a laissez-faire attitude toward intellectual property will benefit the country in the long run.

WSDM, Day 3

2009-02-12T12:57:00.001Z

Final day of the WSDM2009 conference: presentations the first day gave a lot of emphasis to translation and multi-lingual content, including the keynote from Google. Apparently Google would like to translate all of the Web, which sounds pretty ambitious. It makes me realize, though, that perhaps I’m on the right track being interested in working with audio files in “critical languages” (i.e. languages not commonly taught in schools in the US). However, there remains little interest in audio, from what I can tell.

A total of 225 participants attended both the conference and workshops, and a total of 12 student grants were awarded (out of 69 applications). I’m proud that I was given one of the student awards, and am even more grateful that I was one of 7 students to receive both free registration and some travel support. I will likely revisit some of the talks, which will be available at videolectures.net. And, wsdm2009 is the Flickr tag in case I want to browse photos of the event.

In some ways, this conference has been good because it let me participate in the workings of an epistemic community that is related, but not identical to the library and information science community. I thought I might get farther in understanding how to make A/V files retrievable on the web, but I really didn’t find out much. I met a lot of different folks interested in various aspects of indexing, so the event was in no way a wash! I leave tonight on the night bus for Madrid, and will fly back to Rabat on EasyJet on Friday afternoon.

WSDM, Day 2

2009-02-11T20:52:00.000Z

This morning focused on data mining. Some papers used transaction logs to study users, which is an approach I’d never really considered. Perhaps this is another difference between computer science and information science. The three evening “late breaking results” sessions all focused on social tagging. One of the papers cited papers that I’m familiar with (finally!). Another paper compared LCSH headings to tags in Library Thing. So, we’ve had one presentation per day so far interested in categorizing books, but neither seemed to have contacted LIS departments.

I admit to being surprised about the extent to which we’re all in silos in academe. The astronomer with whom I had dinner has been working on taxonomies. He commented that, to his surprise, as he was working on the project he realized that librarians have been working on these problems for ages. There’s also a linguist here who’s interested in machine translation, etc. and she’s also interested in some of the things I am and knew of some speech recognition work being done in Europe. In fact, I came here to learn about audio-visual digital libraries, but I’m finding a lot more overlap when it comes to the organization of information aspects.

I admit I’d had high hopes for discussing my project with the people at the Google booth, but I guess digital libraries don’t always speak to everyone. Folks from Google greeted the women of the conference today in a coffee-break session, at a booth staffed by two men. I assume there are women who work at Google; perhaps they were all busy.

WSDM, Day 1

2009-02-10T21:40:00.003Z

Today was the first day of the WSDM conference -- in beautiful Barcelona, Spain. I can't say I've seen much of Barcelona given that I arrived this morning and was in the conference for 12 hours straight. Maybe by Thursday I'll have information on Barcelona. For now, though, I'm thorougly absorbed by what I saw at the conference today.

The early morning was devoted to Google (I had no idea that their method for storing information about Web documents was so similar to the raw MARC record that is used in library systems, tags and all) thanks to the keynote by Jeffrey Dean from Google in a talk that actually made the news. A real treat.

The rest of the morning was devoted to Web retrieval problems, and many seemed like problems that library and information science have been working with for a while. The "Query by Document" (QBD) paper was interested in cross-references on a document-level, and proposed using wikipedia for expansion. A paper on personalization/"group"ization was concerned by the query, the relevance of documents, and the user profile. Again, I'm reminded these aren't concerns exclusive to libraries, and I'm glad that such a gifted community is putting resources into exploring these questions.

No one talked about "ICTs," but one paper mentioned UGC (user generated content). I have a feeling that I speak a related language, but not the same as ACM folks here. For example, in the afternoon, we had two talks on classification, but both used the term, as far as I could tell, interchangeably with categorization. To me, as a cataloger, categorization and classification are NOT one in the same, and I admit to missing out on the finer points of the talks while getting caught up in the classing/categorizing details.

The afternoon papers talking about social tagging mentioned nothing of the socialness of tags... folksonomies were only mentioned in passing at the end of the second of the two papers on the topic, and the affective nature of tags was also only mentioned once. Again, this doesn't matter to retrieval folks, but to library and info. science folks (including knowledge organizagtion folks), it's a big deal.

One of the most interesting papers began by discussing the possibility of using Wikipedia to drive users to books. It turns out that the authors quickly focused instead on getting to Wikipedia articles from books (which seems much more straightforward), with more work in the future for getting to specific info in books. From some of my discussions at lunch, it appears that apparently folks modelling news are also interesting in identflying entities, in a way that doesn't seem dissimilar to the FRBR model. But that the way of getting to the book, especially using the surrogate (instead of the OCR for a full-text scan) remains wildly difficult.

More tomorrow.

DDC in Morocco

2009-02-08T19:59:00.002Z

On the last official day of class with my Cataloging (and Classification) students at ESI, we talked about decimal classification, especially Dewey. DDC has an incredibly strong Western leaning that is often criticized. In Melvil Dewey's system, all knowledge (Western and otherwise) is divided into 10 classes. Each class has 10 sub-classes, and each of these sub-classes also has 10 sub-classes. The numbers can be meaningful beyond that, though, and usually the longer the DDC number, the more detailed the classification.

Of the religion class (the 200s), there is one subclass for religions that are non-Christian (290s). With my cataloging students, we took a look at the section on Islam. The students were pleasantly surprised to see that it's possible to do some number building to make some very "close" or detailed numbers for a variety of Muslim scholars' works. We easily came up with a few very meaningful numbers that had about six digits after the decimal.

The numbers we generated were admittedly long. However, scholars' names were possible to class, and the number-building was adequate. My students were impressed with the system, and frankly, so was I. I know that Jewish communities have created a Jewish decimal classification scheme, and that work is underway to adapt and expand DDC in some Arab-speaking libraries (in Egypt, for one). There decidedly is a need for projects like these, especially when classing a large religious collection.

If an average library from these parts chooses to use straight DDC, it's still going to be able to meet user need to a very admirable and even surprising extent for religion. Well done, DDC editors!

Email at ESI

2009-02-06T16:58:00.003Z

As the second week "off" comes to a close, it occurs to me that I'd really like to send my 16 3rd year students an email about the presentations they'll do the week that classes resume. Unfortunately, I can't. Students don't have email accounts at ESI, making mass communication more than a little difficult.

The last week of January was our winter vacation and we did not meet for classes. The first week of February was our exam prep period; also, no classes. Exams begin next week (on Feb. 9) but I was convinced not to give either of the exams to the classes that I teach alone. Therefore, I am off next week, too. As such, my 3rd years will present their wikis the week of the 16th (although the day that class meets is still unsure), and the masters students will meet with me one last time in February, and then sit their exam toward the end of the month.

With the masters students, there are only 4 in the cohort. They took the initaiative to create an email account to which they all have the password. I can send them information (and ppt slides from class) very easily. But communication with the 3rd years isn't as easy. As a student, I had an email account issued to me when I began UMKC in 1991 (I was an honors student and I had to go though some hoops to request it based on my honors status). That makes ESI about 20 years behind in terms of email communication. Luckily the students are clever enough to open their own accounts and to devise short-term solutions.

Obama's inaugration

2009-01-25T13:12:00.004Z

For the historic inaugration earlier this week, I went with a friend to a Spanish club (looked like a country club) and convinced them to change the channel from the soccer game to the news channel in the bar.

Folks who came in after us were respectful of us and went into the adajcent room to socialize. One man sat down at the neighboring table and watched along with us.

No one asked to change the channel even though we were there for quite a few hours. This was especially nice, because, these were some of the proudest hours I've had in a long, long time and I was glad to celebrate them in public.

Salads

2009-01-20T23:57:00.001Z

A special meal
Originally uploaded by Born2fly

Here's a better view of the salads we ate as the entree.

And I've now successfully posted a photo from Flickr using the Flickr tool!

Nadia's cooking

2009-01-20T23:35:00.005Z

This is the meal that Nadia made during Eric's visit. There was a salad in each of the round salad dishes. She also prepared a chicken for him and French (Moroccan?) fries for both of us. What a feast! It took her all day to make it, and the flavors were outstanding.

Yes, BTW, that is my living room. It's a very typical (and well-executed) "salon marocain" if I must say so myself.

Blogué avec le Navigateur Flock

Flickr

2009-01-20T23:30:00.001Z

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Kudos to Moroccan Peace Corps Volunteers

2009-01-18T09:16:00.005Z

More and more, as I talk to educated people here, it becomes clear that a lot of Moroccans' first expericences with meeting Americans come from meeting Peace Corps Volunteers. It's also remarkable that everyone who tells me about a Peace Corps Volunteer talks about 1) what a great person s/he was and 2) how gifted the person was in languages.

My landlady's husband: "Yes, they just send them into the mountains and they come back in three months speaking fluent Berber. It's amazing."

On a train from Fès: "My buddy (a Peace Corps volunteer) spoke Arabic like I do -- and it was Moroccan Arabic. Not Classical!"

Before I came to Morocco, I met with one of these former miracle workers, Kay Cassell who'd been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco some time ago. We're fortunate to have Kay as a lecturer at Rutgers, and she was a very giving and knowledgable resource person for me. Kay was familiar not only with life in Morocco from a Volunteer's perspective, but also from a librarian's. She was the first to tell me about the founding of ESI and to explain the involvement of UNESCO and of the American library school at Pratt.

It's good that I have knowledge about the founding of ESI, because references to Nasser Sharify, then Dean at Pratt and frequent visitor to Morocco, are not sparse around ESI. I hope to meet Mr. Sharify on one of his trips to Morocco before this year is out. I'd also love to run into some Peace Corps folks, but I don't know how likely that really is, since Agdal isn't one of the remote places where many of these folks seem to like to work.

Indoor temperature and ESI

2009-01-15T09:11:00.005Z

The weather has been consistently cold and rainy since the beginning of the new year. Normally to avoid cold temperatures at home, I'd be tempted to go somewhere: my place of work, office at school, shopping, the car, the gym, a coffee shop, etc.

Here in Morocco, though, none of these are warming options, and folks just keep their coats on indoors and buck up. However, it's been recognized by a few of the ESI instructors that it's simply too cold to work in our offices; my neighbor professor brought a heater from home and blew a fuse last week. I, like the other profs, was without a computer or printer for quite a few days. Now the computer works, but my small wall space-heater is on the blink. At least now I, unlike the students in the lab where I took this photo, can "chatter" online if I want.

The temperature problems are a shame, because I would like to work at school. It would be nice to talk to M. Alli about our Cataloging classes next semester, for example.

In the mean time, at home, I use the two space heaters that I have and I wear gloves that Kirstin brought (I cut off the fingers so that I can type). My favorite way to combat the cold is by taking a bath in my jumbo bathtub. The hot water heater turns off about three times per bath, and the water in the tub is usually cold by the time it warms the porcelain. However, it's by far the warmest things get in my house, and I love it.

In fact, of the things/people I'd like to bring back to the States with me, the bathtub ranks way up there. Maybe Nadia and the pharmacist can carry it onto the plane... and perhaps they can fill it with the delicious Moroccan yogurt that I just love!

The medina in Rabat

2009-01-13T13:46:00.005Z

I've been doing a lot of shopping in the medina in Rabat... a new (used) cell phone, clementine oranges, gifts for friends, etc. The deals are great, but it takes a long time to bargain.

Luckily, the weather's been nice recently and I've been shopping for things like Moroccan spices (pictured here). Now if only Nadia will teach me how to make that rice she made for me last week...

Midyear updates

2009-01-11T16:55:00.006Z

As I think about the upcoming end-of-semester rituals ("mid-year" collaborative pathfinder wikis for third years, final exam for the Masters students, etc.), it only seems right to fill in a few blanks in terms of this blog.

Most of December I was either sick, travelling, or entertaining visitors. Here's Eric pictured with my students after his stellar presentation on OCLC.

Also:

Jallal kindly explained to me that, for the question of how best to care for one's baguette overnight, the answer is simple. Either go to the boulangerie in the morning or freeze the bread overnight. I've tried the bread-freezing trick, and I must say, it works like a charm.

Although there is plenty of concern over the situation in the Middle East, classes have not been interrupted at ESI.

The 2 kilo ball of Edam cheese that I bought when visiting Tangers is almost finished. I gave some to Nadia about a month ago, but ended up eating most of it myself. I really don't care to look at Edam again for a very long time.

Although the subtile spices in Moroccan cooking are good, they're aren't hot (not so much cayenne). I like spicy foods, and finally discovered harissa. Here's a stand selling some in the market at Fès. There's a jarred version at the supermarkets made with cayenne and lemon. It's heavenly.

December was much less cold and rainy than November, but now the cold and rain are back. At least I now have a second space heater.

Visa Electron and Moroccan Banking

2009-01-08T09:35:00.009Z

Yesterday I went to the Air France agency in Rabat to buy plane tickets. I handed over my Société Générale Visa card (a debit card), and was very politely refused by the tri-lingual sales agent. Despite the fact that the bill was in dirhams and my Visa card works at the local grocery store chain, apparently big purchases (?) with companies headquartered outside of Morocco don't work with this system. Alas, it is a Visa Electron card, and we don't have these in the United States.

As I was walking to the local Société Générale, Morocco bank machine, I had plenty of time to reflect on the problem of hard currencies and purchases. Libraries, not unlike their patrons, apparently have a difficult time of making purchases through companies outside of Morocco. My debit card clearly states that it is not for use outside of Morocco, but not even for use inside Morocco?

Already to pay for my Skype line using PayPal, I have to ask folks in the States to log on to my account and to pay for me. PayPal won't allow transactions from computers in this IP range in payment for Skype.

Booking hotel rooms in France for my upcoming spring break trip is going to involve a trip to a travel agent. Remember those? I haven't been to a travel agent since 2000 when I wanted to price shop for good student-rate travel deals. They had nothing of interest, and I've been my own travel agent ever since.

All of this leads me to wonder how Moroccans leave the country at all. They can only buy tickets on the "expensive" airlines since those are the only ones the travel agents contract with. Ditto for the hotels accessible via travel agencies. Moroccans pay the travel agent in dirhams, and pay an additional conversion fee. Once they get to the destination, I have no idea how they go about paying for meals, taxis, etc. Makes me admire all the more Moroccan colleagues at ESI who are involved in international librarianship, IFLA, and international travel. What a burden!

Moroccan demonstrations

2009-01-04T13:11:00.005Z

I left the house today briefly to get a baguette from the neighborhood bakery for lunch and dinner. That will be the only time I leave my apartment until tomorrow. Moroccans were scheduled to demonstrate in downtown Rabat today against the violence in Palestine, and Fulbrighters were encouraged to stay away from the area if possible. Two days ago, before the land raids began, officials were expecting 30,000 demonstrators; I haven't heard if more turned out with the new developments.

Several friends have reiterated that I stay in, and a few more folks have made sure I feel safe. I do feel safe, and really have no reason to stay in other than the million or so papers I have to read for my upcoming quals. Moroccans are very tolerant, and I've never felt endangered or even unwelcome for the color of my skin or my presumed religion or nationality. Different, here, is not bad. How wonderful is that!

And organized and peaceful demonstrations are most certainly the right of any people. I'm not clear, however, whether protests today have the potential to disrupt classes tomorrow (such things can happen in France, for example). I've seen on Facebook that several of my students are very engaged in aid efforts. Stay tuned to find out if classes actually meet tomorrow after all of this.

St. Peter's Cathedral in Rabat and "the holidays"

2009-01-01T21:23:00.008Z

Over the past few months, I've had the honor of seeing some important Muslim holidays through the eyes of Moroccan hosts. This week and last, however, I was able to experience Western holidays through the lens of the Moroccan experience.

I went to Christmas Eve mass at Rabat's Cathédrale St. Pierre. It turns out, I know the priest who said the mass -- he's in my Derija class on Wednesday and Friday and I had no idea that his profession was actually of the cloth. The service itself was in French, largely catering to the sub-Saharan communities that are evident in somewhat small numbers in Rabat. A few French where there, as well as a diplomats in a limo and a television news crew.

I nearly missed the service because the train from Fès was running late. The Casaouis in the train car with me were every bit as concerned as me that I be on time ... they checked their watches right along with me, and were very adamantly hoping that I make it, in'shallah.

On Christmas day, I taught Cataloging and Document Analysis for 4 hours, as part of my usual Thursday routine. One of my students realized it was a Western holiday and brought a chocolate cake for us to share, which was very kind, indeed.

And now, on New Year's Day, Moroccans and I finally converge in terms of our holidays, and I have a day off for New Year's Day. Shopping's been open, but it's a government holiday and the schools are closed. The Muslims also just celebrated their new year's holiday, in accordance with the Muslim calendar, this past Monday. The bombings in Palestine are being acknowledged by religious leaders in the Muslim world, and Moroccans have been instructed to act in solidarity instead of celebrating at this point in time.

Despite concern over the Middle East, today has been very enjoyable. The day was sunny and dry; it felt like spring. Surely the good weather can't last, but one can be tempted to hope.

Visiting the BNRM in Rabat

2008-12-21T12:00:00.006Z

ESI third year students who specialize in « libraries » were treated to a visit at the Bibliotheque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc on Friday of the week. The beautiful new building was inaugrated in October, 2008 and hosted an international conference in November of the year.

Students toured the rest of the facilities, and enjoyed seeing the periodical room (pictured here) and the audio-visual room. Funding for the library building came from donors the world over, and sound equipment in the ampitheater and the AV room came from Japan. France and Germany also were generous donors.

Tours of the AV room were given by a former ESI student, helping students see real-world applications for the studies they were currently doing.

The gazelle

2008-12-12T08:41:00.004Z

Since I've been in Morocco, I keep running into references to gazelles. There are insurance agencies with the word in the name, women have the term as part of their user names online, and there's even gazelle-logo'd brand of chocolate -- a gift I received from Hanan when I went to Casablanca last month.

My neighbor who is a rare books cataloger explained that not only is the gazelle a sacred animal in Islam, but it also is the preferred hide used in Muslim medieval book-making. There are some Korans where each page is gazelle skin from the chest of a different animal -- indeed, these are the most expensive and the most precious of these rare and special books.

Moroccans are very generous, and since I've been here, I've received a lot of gifts besides the chocolate. I've received a beautiful two-volume commented Koran translated into French from a student, I've received trinkets and even socks from Fatima, and Hanan bought me these little tagines where I put spices along with a a main de Fatma from the medina.

I'm very lucky to be surrounded by such generous and warm people, and I'm also glad to have finally found the explanation to the question of the Moroccan gazelle. I'll be visiting the BNRM with my students at the end of next week, and am really looking forward to seeing some of these rare books in the national library\s collection for myself.

Aïd moubarak and the Tangers casting call

2008-12-11T09:43:00.009Z

To celebrate the Feast of the Sacrifice, I went to Tangers. I made sure to be on the train (5 hour trip) on the morning of the feast to avoid certain elements of the festivities.

Apparently everyone LOVES witnessing the slaughter. In the city, it either takes place on the roof or in the basement, or perhaps in a vacant lot, as shown below. Women come of the kitchen, and children gather around for the spectacle.

I arrived in Tangers around 1 pm, to see roving bands of men with bloody white aprons and big knives roaming the streets. They go door to door offering their services. Almost no cars were on the street, making the whole thing even more surreal, like a cross between a Sweeney Todd casting call and a new kind of Halloween tradition that has not been embraced in America.

My plan to avoid most of the killing worked well (after all, I saw Silence of the Lambs, I know I don't want to hear this), but I didn't anticipate how much blood and gore (and the lingering odor of barnyard) would be around into the next day. There was also the troubling question of what to do with unwanted sheep parts, especially the head.

In short, I'm glad to have participated in the limited fashion that I did. But, I admit that as a vegetarian, I'm a little more predisposed to participate in the Feast of the Carrot or the Sacrifice of the String Bean...

Tidying up for the holidays

2008-12-07T11:02:00.005Z

It's Sunday, and I continue to be in awe of Nadia. My friend's friend's cousin is back, and has succeeded in cleaning all of the blankets (in the tub, stomping on them as necessary), the rugs (in the kitchen using a big tub), and the floors all without telling me that the butagaz was out and that she didn't have access to warm water.

Getting the house cleaned up before the holidays (and holiday visitors) seems like a great idea. The high Muslim holiday is upon us in two days, and I can hear the various sheep of my neighbors in the courtyard behind my apartment. After Tuesday, there will be no more baaa's.

I've managed to put a strand of lights around a fir tree-shaped clock and have put presents around it for now. It's getting festive, indeed.

Nadia won't be back next week, but will come the following Sunday to help clean and to cook a little. I hope my concierge and his wife are a little nicer to her next time -- they really gave her the run-around this morning.

The National Documentation Center in Morocco

2008-12-06T16:40:00.006Z

Yesterday, I had the good fortune to visit the fourth (and final!) OCLC member library in Morocco: The Centre National de Documentation (le CND) in Rabat.

The CND is a sister institution to the library school where I teach. It is the documentation center of the country, meaning that, among other things, it collects and makes accessible all grey literature generated in the diffrernt Moroccan ministries.

A number of additional scanning projects are underway. Some pretty high-tech equipment is being used to scan, throughout the CND, thousands of documents per day.

Like the library school (ESI), the CND is attached to the Haut-Commissariat au Plan. It also has a printing facility. One of the print-shop employees posed with a relic of a printing machine --many newer materials are available in the facilities to meet their printing needs.

They also had a server room filled with machines. Fitting with their "Zéro papier" goal, much is going online, and will be stored in-house.

Mr. Solbi was kind enough to show me around, and I am very grateful to him for the comprehensive visit and the good conversation at lunch. Mr. Solbi is a very thoughtful and intelligent man -- he's done a very impressive job at the CND. Single-handedly, he's changing the information landscape in Morocco, and I'm honored to have made his acquaintance.

Humidity in Morocco

2008-12-02T08:42:00.006Z

The French have a trick to keep their baguettes from going stale overnight -- they wrap them in a dishcloth and leave them on the counter. If left out unwrapped bread goes hard; if kept in a plastic bag or in the fridge it goes chewy. The bread-keeps in some American kitchens serve a similar function.

Last night was a cold and rainy night. I wrapped my baguette after dinner, and left it in a bag so that the non-paying (read: crawling) residents, whom I have not seen in weeks, aren't tempted to come back for a late night snack. I hung the bag on a doorknob so that it was open, allowing air to circulate to keep the bread fresh.

This morning, I got the baguette out for breakfast. First of all, the towel was damp, as if it had just come out of the spin cycle of the washing machine. The bread had acted as a giant sponge, soaking in the humidity of the air, and was completely soggy -- as if it had been in standing water. I guess it just doesn't get humid like this in France, where the technique was invented.

On Saturday morning, in the cold of the gym, I noticed that I was steaming during my workout. It felt like being in a cave on a summer hiking trip. While making soup later on, I could see my breath in my kitchen.

And although it's not related to the humidity per se, I've noticed that my students don't take off their coats in class. I'm the only one NOT wearing a coat. As a child, I wasn't allowed to wear one indoors. Time to remember that I'm not in France or in the United States. Next step: figure out how the Moroccans keep their bread from going bad overnight when it rains.

Nadia and my new Sunday routine

2008-11-30T17:34:00.006Z

Today (Sunday) was the first day that Nadia came to help me clean house. Nadia is a lovely young woman, the cousin of a friend of a friend. Nadia works all week and has part time work on Saturday. Sunday is her day off, and it was the only time that she could find free time in her regular schedule to start coming to my apartment to clean. I’d hoped that she could stay for an hour or two (the amount of time that 200 Dh could buy me), and help with the kitchen and bathroom/WC. She ended up staying for four hours, refusing things like drinks and pain au chocolat, and displaying a pretty amazing work ethic. She also didn't ask for more money, and identified work (like cleaning rugs) that she wants to do next time.

Today, not only did she scour the rooms where I really needed help, she also cleaned the huge salon marocain, the TV room, and the dining room. All on her "day off"!

I’m lucky as well, because Nadia is also a very good cook and she’s offered to make fried Moroccan pastries and even chicken for me next time. Ok, the chicken’s not for me (I’m vegetarian), but the pastries quite frankly don’t stand a chance!

I will mention that Nadia came today with another cousin who acted as our interpreter. Next week, though, we’re on our own. Nadia now represents just one more reason I need to stick with my Derija classes. It’s nice to have such good excuses to try learning Moroccan Arabic.

2008-11-26T20:32:00.005Z

After about 30 hours and the equivalent of $46, I've just returned from a lovely trip to the town of Ifrane in the Middle Atlas Mountains of Morocco. While there, I visited Jane (another Fulbrighter) who is teaching at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (AUI) .

I also, of course, visited the university library (the third of the four OCLC member libraries in Morocco on my itinerary).

The trip began Tuesday morning in the rain, and by the time the CTM bus made it into the mountains that afternoon, there was a full-fledged snow storm all around us. The bus was safe (and by this time, warm, although there had been no heat for the first two hours of the journey).

Jane was happy to show me around last evening, and then this morning, I met with the library's director. Mr. Lotfi and I had such a riveting conversation that I never actually got to visit the staff areas or take photos of the building.

I tell myself that those will be among my goals for my NEXT visit to AUI...

Coffee and culture in Rabat

2008-11-23T21:28:00.006Z

The Institute Français de Rabat (IFR) is a great resource in downtown Rabat, and is the local equivalent of the Alliance Française we seem to have in big cities in the

United States

. Not only do they have a series of cultural offerings such as expositions and films, but they also have a lending library and media center.

I checked out a book a few weeks ago, and thought that I was returning it one week late. Whatever the fee would have been, I assumed that it was less than taking a taxi there and back just to return the book.

The book was actually 2 weeks overdue. The fine? I can’t check out another book for the next two weeks!

Luckily, I my excuse to return the book doubled as a reason to have coffee with a friend that I met on the train a few weeks prior (a teacher by trade, who is willing to exchange French lessons for English lessons) so the whole trip wasn’t a complete disappointment. Mostly, Jallall and I sat and talked and drank coffee at their café instead of working, which was fine too. Jallal wanted me to take this photo so that I could include him in my blog, and I’m more than happy to oblige.

And today, Amina and I met at the other IFR location for coffee and a film: Des poupées et des anges. It’s nice to have cultural offerings in French in the heart of Rabat, but it’s especially nice to meet for coffee and conversation with Moroccan friends around the experience, too.

Digital library initiatives

2008-11-22T13:30:00.002Z

The Réseau francophone des bibliothèques numériques nationales (RFBNN) (officially unveiled in late October) and Europeana (online since Thursday) are both drawing a lot of attention in these parts. Or, at least by librarians with the same interests as me.

Europeana is drawing criticism (see blog post from the 19^th) for its content and navigability. As much as I wish I could comment on it myself, I continue to be among those who are shut out. The Web site for Europeana states that it will be back online in mid-December, although it seems that some folks in the United States were able to get on since the announcement.

I did have the chance to look through the RFBNN project – this project is mostly headed up by the Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales de Québec (where I visited this past August for the conference of the Association internationale francophone des bibliothécaires et documentalistes (AIFBD) and I must say, they do impressive work. The RFBNN project seems to be easy enough to use, but some Francophone countries like Morocco don’t have much of any content. Apparently the BnF is going to try digitizing more, but in the mean time, it’s all just a little anticlimactic.

It’s great that so many new initiatives are out there, especially with the news that was released about the Google Books projects and their new library policy. Libraries are wise to take digitization seriously. However, it’s disappointing when projects are only at best half-finished or in such a beta format that they’re unusable at their time of release. A few years back, I learned in Web design class not to post a Web page if there was no content for it (an “under construction” banner wasn’t good enough) – the idea being that users don’t like to be turned away for any reason. I would think that the same is true of a project as huge as a digital library. I for one, at any rate, am very disappointed.

The importance of good neighbors

2008-11-18T21:55:00.006Z

Today I spent about three hours with my neighbor talking about MARC21 (library data mark-up language) and my dissertation ideas. My neighbor works as a cataloger of rare manuscripts at the Moroccan national library (the BNRM) and is a lovely person. She came and talked to my students yesterday on her day off about their experiences with UNIMARC, so when she asked me to stop by today and start teaching her MARC21, it was easy to agree.

At one point, she actually offered to pay me. I politely refused. After all, this is between librarians! She pointed out that, more than that, this is between neighbors.

When Moroccans whom I've just met offer to bargain on my behalf, they fib and say that we are neighbors and have known each other for a long time. It lends credibility to the transaction. Of course, being family is worth more than being neighbors. My landlady likes to tell people that I'm married to her brother. She actually does have a brother, but of course, I'm not married.

Being a member of a professional group isn't how people self-identify here -- the clan is based on its members and its physical location. I'm not used to identifying with a physical location -- I've moved at least once a year (save one year) for the past 17 years. No, I don't identify with location or even with family, per se.

American that I am, I identify with the traits of the individual -- profession (what I've made of myself) and perhaps a certain set of ideals. I come from a "do" culture -- "What do you do?" and in Morocco, the people are part of a "be" culture -- "Where are you from? Are you married?" One of the speakers at the Fulbright orientation spoke brilliantly about the DOers and the BEers; I'm lucky he put me on guard to this, or the subtleties might have escaped me.

I must admit, this is the first place I've lived where I've known and eaten with inhabitants from THREE apartments in my building. There are benefits to having good neighbors, and I've got a box full of cookies that she insisted I take home to prove it.

The Saudi library in Casablanca

2008-11-16T08:47:00.006Z

On Saturday, I went to Casablanca to visit the Bibliothèque de la Fondation du Roi Abdul Aziz, the Saudi king. This research library specializes in humanities and social sciences pertaining to Muslim Arab peoples of the Maghreb countries. Hanan had orchestrated the visit since neither of us had visited the library, but both had heard such good things about their work and were interested in seeing their operation firsthand.

The library itself is a work of art, having recently been expanded, and the staff are both serious and motivated. I remarked a willingness to innovate that is not always present in libraries, and the fruits of their work were evident in the number of dedicated users. Hanan and I arrived 20 minutes after the library opened, and we still had to wait ten minutes, nearly missing our appointment, because of the mob of users waiting to gain entrance.

Our guide was invovled in Tech. Services -- not a librarian by training, he had gone to workshops in France and Egypt and was in charge of all things Dewey-related. The library is an OCLC member library (one of only 4 in Morocco); they maintain their own tri-lingual thesaurus of descriptors, apply an adapted (read: expanded) DDC in their cataloging, and are currently using Horizon as the ILS since Horizon is Arab character-friendly and has an office in Egypt.

I have not yet had a chance to tour operations at the national library in Morocco, but from what I've seen and heard, the Saudi library is in many ways carrying out some of the roles typically associated with a national institution. Innovation, access, bibliography, mission, focus, and professionalism are all abundantly evident in their work. I salute the librarians at the Saudi library. They should be very pleased with their work and with the service they are providing.

Conference: the Bibliothèque nationale du Royaume du Maroc

2008-11-15T23:14:00.007Z

On Thursday and Friday, November 13 and 14, 2008, the Moroccan national library (the Bibliothèque nationale du Royaume du Maroc or BNRM) sponsorsed a colloquium on national libraries entitled

« Les bibliothèques nationales : enjeux et perspectives »

Because the building was recently inaugerated by His Majesty the King of Morocco on October 15, 2008, it was exciting that so many librarians from foreign countries came to participate and to see the new facilities.

Third year students in the "Librarian" option at the Ecole des Sciences de l'Information take a class with me that covers national libraries. We were fortunate to have been invited to attend the second day of the conference. Yet again, students came to the conference instead of going home to their families, even though we'd already had class that week on Monday as usual. Four students from the 2nd year also snuck in (with permission from yours truly). It was a great experience for all concerned, and one that is absolutely unique. One of the third-year ESI students even asked a question of one of the presenters during the question-and-answer session (and the question was a good one!)

Derija, or Moroccan Arabic: مرحب

2008-11-11T00:44:00.003Z

My Arabic course at CCCL meets twice a week (Wednesday and Friday) for 1.5 hours. I've been trying for about a month to learn to both speak and read. It's not easy, and I genuinely wish that I had a lot more time to spend learning the language.

Moroccan Arabic is different from Classical Arabic in the way that Spanish is different from (a derivative of) Latin. When university (or high school, etc.) classes are taught in Arabic in Morocco, they are taught in Classical Arabic. Moroccans can understand Egyptians speaking Egyptian Arabic, for example, but communication isn't easy.

Standard (spoken) Moroccan Arabic is unique, and I have a suspicion that some of the differences have to do with the French Protectorate that lasted until 1956. The Classical Arabic that I learned at Rutgers uses an alphabet with /TH/ and /th/ sounds. The Moroccan alphabet does not have these letters, and coincidently, the French pronunciation system does not produce them either.

All of this leads to the problem of explaining to Moroccans my first name, since neither language that Moroccans know has prepared them for pronouncing it. « Heather » has the /th/ in the middle and the /r/ at the end that poses problems for the French, but that is also unpronounceable in Moroccan Arabic, as it turns out. I've decided, for the second time while in Morocco, to introduce myself as Léa (my middle name). It just leaves more time for having more interesting exchanges, either in very limited Arabic, or in French.

بسلامَ (Goodbye)

Conquering a head-cold

2008-11-06T09:44:00.005Z

With the current rainy and cold weather, I managed to catch a bit of a head cold the other day. I've heard Fulbrighters from cold-weather areas state that they'd never been as cold as they had during winters in

Morocco

. It's as cold outside as it is inside, often, because the houses have to be vented for the Butagaz tanks (to avoid explosions) and because there is no indoor heating system. I understand parts of California are similar, but don't think that it gets quite as humid and cold there....

The things I've learned from this experience are the following:

The pharmacies are like the ones in Europe. All one has to do is go in, and if the symptoms are obvious, the pharmacist will give something to the client immediately. The pharmacist I saw was French. She gave me a powder to take three times a day. I have no idea what it is; she only told me that it's NOT and antibiotic. It's working like a charm.

Warm liquids help. I've been drinking lots of tea, and if there's water from my electric kettle left over, I use it to wash dishes instead of only using cold water from the tap. I've also been drinking juice and making soup. A friend taught me to tie a scarf around my head and ears too. That and neck scarves are helping immensely with keeping me warm.

Space heaters are essential. The heater that I found in the closet of my apartment is doing wonders for staving off the cold in my office. I've got it on one of the small wooden tables that had been in the living room (see photo below). It's right next to my desk and computer so that now my hands are warm enough to type again! It's a huge improvement. Huge.

Election history

2008-11-05T09:18:00.010Z

Last night, the American Embassy hosted the "Nuit des élections" at the TGI Friday's restaurant opposite the Lycée Descartes. I arrived to the restaurant early with a fellow Fulbrighter to have dinner before the event, but discovered that the Embassy had rented the entire restaurant for the entire evening. Police were everywhere, and security for entry was tight.

Guests who arrived closer to the appointed time received buttons. Apparently, the Embassy wanted to be impartial, and handed out buttons at random. See photo for Fulbrighters who had voted for the same candidate, but who received different buttons.

The election has been big news recently here. The Palin prank call was picked up by French network news and televised here. Below is the YouTube version that someone digg'd a few days back (how I found out about it), and that aired on Moroccan TV less than 24 hours later.

This morning felt like the Christmases of my childhood, almost, as I woke up in a chilly apartment and was immediately anxious to run and see ... the results. I'd actually left my computer by my bed so that I wouldn't have to go too far.

Indeed, this is the first time in the past eight years that I've been "proud" in the truest sense of the word to be American. It's difficult to be abroad when one disagrees vehemently with the politics at home. In summer 2001, friends in France told me that GW was unable to explain to French reporters the meaning of Memorial Day during a late-May European tour. That was just a very mild beginning, of course, to my discomfort with the regime that has been in power for the past 8 years.

But today, I got to wake up and hope for change along with the rest of America, and indeed, the world. I'm proud that my country was able to see past race and to elect the better candidate.

And I'm prouder than ever to be an American.

« Summer back » and autumn in Morocco

2008-11-02T08:20:00.002Z

Yesterday night, folks in most of the United States changed their clocks, setting them back one hour to return to Normal Time. We here in Morocco had no such inconvenience. Perhaps your assumption is that Morocco doesn't participate in Daylight Savings. Well, actually it does, it's just that Morocco *already* "fell back" ... in September. We've been at GMT for two full months now, in fact.

Because in Ramadan it's necessary to wait until sundown to eat, and since Ramadan began in September, the Moroccans decided to move their clocks to Normal Time several months early, thereby making the sun set "earlier". F-tour (or "Iftar" -- breakfast) during Ramadan began at 6:45 p.m. instead of 7:45 p.m. under this plan. Apparently the official decision to change the time was made at the last minute, leaving airlines and other time-dependent international operations scrambling to update schedules.

The lack of time change doesn't mean, though, that autumn isn't in the air. It's been cold and rainy for days now, with no end in sight. Some of the major highways in the country have been closed because of flooding. The BBC Rabat weather site says that the average (a.m.) relative humidity in November is 89% ... which makes for a soggy chill that cuts right through a person. Since there's no heat in the houses, it's especially challenging to stay warm at night. It's also a long wait for one's clothes to dry on the line.

And of course, another sign of autumn is the switch to cold-weather clothes. Yesterday I packed up all the warm-weather clothes I'd brought and stored them away for next spring. I then went out and bought a couple of sweaters, partly to celebrate the change in seasons, and partly because I don't have a space heater yet. I guess that'll be my next big purchase!

Moroccan cafés

2008-11-01T09:21:00.007Z

This has been the week of cafés for me. For the first time since I've been here, I ventured out into the world of cafés, both times with foreign women, to sample the delicious strong coffee and marzipan cookies. It seems to be acknowledged in Moroccan society that the cafés are the domain of men, and that women "rule the roost" at home, but as a foreigner in the capital city, I'm able to do cross some boundaries that local women aren't.

That's not to say that in big international cities like Rabat, it's impossible to find women in cafés. That's absolutely not true. If the woman is Moroccan, she's generally with a man, and they're seated indoors. Foreign women are afforded, from what I can tell, many of the same luxuries as the men of

Morocco

, and are able to go to cafés by themselves. Outside of Rabat, though, I don't know that folks would be quite as indulgent with a Western woman's transgression of Moroccan social norms.

Until this point, I haven’t ventured into a café by myself, but other than the occasional trip to Panera to break the monotony, I wouldn’t be likely to go to a café alone in the

U.S.

either. I’m thrilled, however, that this week I had the chance to go out for coffee twice, and am pleased to report that both times it was divine. Good coffee, good food, and good conversation -- what more can one want?

My office at ESI

2008-10-29T22:01:00.004Z

My office at the Ecole des Sciences de l'Information (ESI) is quite a change from the office I had last year when I was TA. This office was actually meant for two professors, but somehow I've managed to get it all to myself. There's a desktop computer, a laser printer (to myself!), several shelves that lock for all my books and files, and my own photo of the King to keep me company during my office hours.

The four boxes of materials I sent over via the Embassy diplomatic pouch arrived in Morocco before I did, although they were a little worse for wear. I managed to pick them up at MACECE in a taxi and transport them to ESI before the start of classes.

Some of the books I brought are pictured below (at least one's already been loaned out to a colleague, actually). The folks at OCLC were kind enough to let me have a set of Dewey 22, but I had to promise to leave it in Morocco. One less thing to carry back? An offer I couldn't refuse....

The meaning of exchange

2008-10-25T10:00:00.005Z

Fulbrights are meant to facilitate exchange between Americans and folks from other cultures. I get to bring bits of Morocco to the United States (or, pictured here, to SCILS at the LIS tea from atop my camel in Tangiers!), and I, just by virtue of being myself, am bringing "American-ness" to Morocco and to the library school here.

Sometimes these elements of exchange work seamlessly. Everyone loves a camel. Moroccans call them something like "Sand Schooners" (yes, I just coined that expression on the spot) and consider them to be almost magical (again, my words) since they can survive under the harsh conditions of the desert. Myself, I don't think I laughed as hard that whole weekend as the 5 minutes I was on the camel, and lots of folks in the States have commented to me in emails, on this blog, and especially on Facebook about the photo. This is a good exchange -- we all like camels. It's nice to have something in common.

I'm currently working through some of the more difficult aspects of exchange as well: the nuts and bolts of lecturing to Moroccan students. My students have a reflex to memorize the notes they take during hours of lectures and to recite them back rotely at the exam. There's no textbook. I can assign outside readings, but it's difficult/impossible to test throughout the year. It's also impossible to know in advance how many times our class will meet, since we don't make up classes missed for religious holidays, and holidays are established the night before the event.

This is one part of the exchange that's less easy for me to navigate. I talked about new internet technologies (Web 2.0) using slides that had worked just fine in France. I gave a similar lecture in March 2007 (a year and a half ago) at the French national library school (ENSSIB). In France, the lecture took 1 hour. Here, we've already spent 4 hours on it, we're still not finished, and apparently there wasn't enough text on my slides to suit some students. I can't blame them for being conditioned to a certain kind of system, but I must say that this is making me think an awful lot about the role of the teacher in higher education.

This is only the first week where I've done a significant amount of lecturing, so it'll come. We'll adapt to each other, certainly. That or I'll bring a camel to school.

After hours « ateliers » for ESI students

2008-10-24T09:12:00.006Z

On Wednesday of this past week, the folks at the University of Michigan's School of Information hosted the John Seely Brown Symposium. Brewster Kahle was the keynote speaker, and his presentation along with the panel presentation that followed were made available on the web via simultaneous webcast. This open approach to diffusing knowledge seemed on par with a lot of the philosophies represented in the symposium.

Since the topics were very close to ones that we were covering in Technologies de l'Information, I suggested to students that we get a room and watch together. Especially since the presentations were in English.

There was some trouble initially negotiating a room, but the students approached the administration at the 11th hour, and Mme Zhiri kindly found a room with an internet connection for us to use from 18:30 to 21:30 (GMT-Casablanca). I brought my laptop, and once we got speakers, everything worked like a dream.

What I really couldn't believe was that roughly 30 students came -- a full third of the class of second years, along with at least one from the third year who'd seen my message on Facebook. These are folks who spend roughly 8 hours per day all week in lectures, and they showed up in the middle of their evening for more, for no credit, and IN ENGLISH.

I continue to be blown away by the students here. Truly. The presentation was great; I don't know how much they understood, but I think it was a good experience overall for all involved. Thanks again to the folks at Michigan for giving us permission to watch and follow along from Africa!

Blogs in class

2008-10-21T15:42:00.007Z

Today we talked about blogs in Technologies de l'information. I took a photo of the class at the beginning of the hour, and posted these photos, as well as a first draft of this post, at the end of class. Everyone seemed to agree that it's an easy process, and about eight students came up after class and asked for me to transfer the photos to their USB keys.

The co-instructor has agreed that students can develop a blog as their end-of-semester assignment, so now's about the time that students exploring this option need to get underway. I've been basing my approach to introducing blogs on a book by Will Richardson called "Blogs, wikis, podcases, and other powerful web tools for classrooms."

Of camels and contraband

2008-10-20T20:29:00.007Z

This past weekend, I took a trip to Tangiers. Not only did I get to ride on a camel on bluffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean (with the requisite goofy tourist-grin on my face), I also got to visit the new port of Tangiers, Tanger-Med that is on the Mediterranean Sea. Tangiers actually is on the point that separates the Atlantic from the Mediterranean, so it was easy to drive from views of one to the other in a matter of minutes.

The photo of me and the two ladies is taken with the currently working Tangers-Med container port in the background. It's brand new and just opened in recent weeks.

Although I keep hearing that the low prices are due to the fact that the sales are of contraband, I got a load of good deals while shopping in Tétouan. Not the least of my shopping feats included the purchase of a 5 lb. ball of Edam cheese, in its red wax wrapper, for $15 (125 dh) . FIVE POUNDS of cheese! I’m going to be eating that same ball of cheese next February at this rate. The photo of the street scene (below) was taken near the souk on the way to Tétouan.

The language of the colonizer

2008-10-16T08:58:00.004Z

Before going to Morocco, everyone assured me that Moroccans speak French -- it is a "francophone" country. Since I've been here, I've discovered that most do, but depending on class and background, some really fall short of the mark.

Example: yesterday I went to the MegaMall to buy work clothes and a winter coat. After trying on about 10 shirts, I gave the clothes back to the young salesgirl in piles -- ones I wanted, ones I didn't want, and ones that I either did or didn't want, depending on the other sizes that they had (this last group I wanted to verify myself).

She promptly wadded the clothes I wanted on top of a display and wandered off. By the time I was ready to check out, she'd put away the brown shirt I wanted. I asked her to get the brown shirt (the "chemise marron") and she went and got a grey dress that hadn't fit.

I run into this a lot -- the French that people speak really isn't passable, but pretending to speak French is the only way for a lot of people to get ahead.

Most folks grin from ear to ear when I tell them that I'm learning Arabic. I guess they've just, as a people, spent so much time trying to learn the language of another people/culture that the idea of someone being interested in their own langauge is somewhat revolutionary.

Dreams of MARC?

2008-10-13T11:13:00.003Z

The course called National, University, and Special Libraries met today, for the second time, at 8:30. It's a great bunch of students -- 16 total, who are in their third years. Until last year, all of the courses they took were in a group, with their 65 other classmates. Now, as third years, they are able to declare which speciality they'd like to pursue: they will either specialize to become librarians who will work in libraries or to become documentalists who will work in archives. There are more jobs for documentalists in corporate offices. Fewer jobs in libraries (fewer libraries) means fewer (but more highly-motivated) students self-selecting for the libraries option.

I'd gotten in touch with the woman teaching the "partner" course for the librarian option: School and Public Libraries. It turns out, we're on the same page in a lot of respects, so today was full speed ahead with introductory content in my class.

The students are very engaged and were asking a ton of questions. I know they all took Cataloging in their first and second years, so to answer one question, I brought up an element that we code in the fixed field of MARC records that are loaded into OCLC. The conversation then turned.

Then a few minutes later, I got another question: "Can we please talk about MARC records in this class?" "I'm sorry, WHAT?" "We only covered manual cataloging in our Cataloging course -- can we talk about MARC here, since you know so much about it?" Heads nodding throughout the room. "We know MARC is great for sharing information between libraries, but we don't know how it works."

I've been teaching MARC for at least 6 years. I've talked about teaching catalgoing at international conferences. The reaction is always the same, across the board: "Ugh." Enthousiam about the mark-up language for bibliographic materials devised by the Library of Congress in the 1960s (and a very un-sexy language, at that) among 3rd year students in Morocco is still blowing me away. "Yes, I'll be happy to talk about MARC -- let's plan to do it when we talk about cooperation and university libraries, since that's a context that's natural for me and we have some time in the syllabus."

As I say, I'm still recovering.

Fridays are for couscous

2008-10-10T18:53:00.006Z

The knocking began around 6:10 pm today. I was busy trying to get my class's wiki in order, and since I wasn't expecting anyone, decided not to answer the door. When the second round of knocking began 15 minutes later, I knew it wasn't just someone trying to sell me something.

My concierge was there, motioning me to lock my door and follow her upstairs. She handed me a lovely plate of couscous and admonished me for not answering the door the first time. The plate had cooled off in the interim.

Today is Friday, the day of the week most sacred to Muslims -- Friday prayers at noon time are similar to the Sunday services that I knew growing up Catholic. Friday is also the traditional day to eat and share couscous. I don't have the heart to tell her that I'm vegetarian and that this otherwise very tempting meal is going to be wasted on me because of the few slivers of meat that were added to flavor the vegetables.

At least I know that she likes chocolate. Guess I'll be out buying chocolate tomorrow and furtively ditching the couscous in the dumpster on the next block over. At least a few of Agdal's many feline residents might be able to make a meal of it.

Is next to godliness

2008-10-07T09:43:00.003Z

The panoply of cleaning products in the country has had my attention since my arrival. Aicha's kitchen boasts a wide variety of soaps, sprays, and solutions to keep the area spic and span.

One of my favorite processes at the moment is dish washing. The dish soap is quite viscous, almost slippery to the touch, and comes in a tub. Aicha cuts it with a little water before using it, and takes advantage of fishing nets instead of sponges or wash clothes to wash things.

A devotee of the scrubby-sponge for quite a while, I can't bring myself to trade in my Scotch brand green sponge for the brand new netting that came with my apartment (pictured below on my washing machine, with new rags just purchased at Marjane and with more dish soap). The slick soap and the netting just aren't a good match for me, as plates and things tend to slip from my hands while being rinsed.

A final note, I only have cold (i.e. not hot) water in the kitchen faucet. The warm summer days of late September are giving over to chillier October ones, especially the evenings, and the temperature of the water coming out of the faucet is cooling off accordingly. My clothes washer has a built-in heater that runs on electricity, so I'll be able to continue to do laundry "normally." But as it gets colder and colder here, I'm wondering if it's going to be more difficult to do dishes without heating some water on the stove first.

My concierge's cookies

2008-10-01T09:51:00.009Z

With Ramadan behind us for another year, my concierge came to give me a plate of cookies in celebration. She and her husband keep the building clean, take out tenants' trash, help (me) get 30-lb Butagaz bottles up to the 4th floor without an elevator, and are all-around good people.

Ma concierge (the wife of the duo) doesn't speak much French, but she just came to the door with this festive plate of cookies and explained that she has all kinds of relatives in the United States. She and her husband feel responsible for me, I'm quite sure, because they like everyone else think I'm in my early 20s. Furthermore, my concierge saw me one day with a Kleenex and thought I was crying. It's just very dusty here; but she won't believe that I'm not sad and lonely. In fact, neither she nor her husband will take a tip from me for helping with the Butagaz tanks.

This generous and amiable couple, however, lives in a one-room closet on the top floor of the building and earns a paltry 200 Dh from each of 8 apartments as their monthly income (1600 Dh = $200). They have no bed and no furniture to speak of. My concierge is very old, and she's completely folded in half at the waist with osteoporosis. She spends most of her time balanced between her two feet and two hands, and simply can't stand upright for long periods of time. Once I offered to help her up the stairs, but I couldn't bend down far enough to be of use. And she, she couldn't be unfolded for long enough to walk up the two remaining flights.

I'm positively at a loss as to how to begin thanking them. Their selfless generosity is really commendable, and is truly an inspiration.

The end of the ninth month

2008-09-29T15:58:00.003Z

With the Muslim ninth month of Ramadan drawing to a close, the excitement is almost palpable. Restaurants and cafes that have been closed since before I arrived are finally opening up. Workman are scrubbing floors, accepting shipments of food, and cleaning in preparation for the post-Ramadan opening in a few short days. The grocery store was selling couscous again (a non-Ramadan food), and it looked like they were trying to move the last of the holiday cookies as a close-out.

This year, the Muslim calendar almost exactly lines up with the Gregorian one. Ramadan will give way to the tenth month of the year on or around October 1. There will be a two-day celebration, and classes will, I am ASSURED, begin in earnest the following week.

Today is Monday and I didn't have any students. Yet again. Tomorrow classes won't meet because there *may* be a holiday on Wednesday. The newly acquired day off tomorrow actually gives me the opportunity to change out the butagaz tank in the kitchen (the one connected to my "Bunsen burners"), which gave up the ghost this morning right before my coffee boiled. At least I had the warm milk to drink.

A day off tomorrow also gives me time to digest some of the specifications about the Muslim calendar that I learned today. For example, in Morocco they don't designate a religious holiday beforehand (Muslims in France do, mind you) -- they wait to see what the moon will do, and then let the leaders decide. In my year-long class, I may have 15 sessions with students during the first semester, but then again, I may have 14. I'll have 13 sessions the second semester, if not less. We don't make up time lost due to religious holidays but I will be able to make up time if I can’t be around for a class.

In short, if my butane tank goes dead this time next month, I'll be able to leave my apartment and get a coffee at any number of cafes in the street down below; they’re all closed right now, of course. But, I’ve seen the signs… and it’s looking good!

Multi-tasking on the job

2008-09-25T21:59:00.004Z

Today was a big day for me, as I managed to submit all of the paperwork for the carte de séjour, get my boxes of teaching materials from the Fulbright office, take the boxes of teaching materials to my ESI office, and get a load of useful appliances and groceries from the Super Walmart-type store on the outskirts of town.

I like to think that I'm a bit of a multi-tasker, but some of the folks I ran into today really took the whole idea to a new level, for better and for worse.

Customer service: I stopped by the post office in center city to mail some letters, took a number, and waited my turn. While I was waiting, customers wandered in, wandered up to the counters without bothering to get a number, talked to the agents, did business, and went away. I sat. Then, when I was actually called, my agent felt obliged to stop and sell stamps to at least three other customers. It was hot and there was no air-conditioning. It was better than being outside, and probably quicker than an American post office (honestly), but there definitely was the notion that "customer service" and "waiting one's turn" have a different meaning in Morocco.

Taxis: The stand this morning (across the street from my house) was full of people, so when a few taxis came up, I resigned myself to wait, letting my neighbors vie for a spot. With one passanger in his cab already, a driver asked where I was going. I told him, he said he'd take me, and I climbed in. Taking more than one passanger isn't rare if the passangers are going in the same direction. The other guy got out before I did. In the past, I'd still been charged full fare, but this cabbie took it easy on me, and reduced my fare by the amount that my co-rider had already paid. That's good multi-tasking, from my point of view, anyway.

The cabbie also regularly took out his newspaper at red lights and read through it as if he were in his own salon marocain at home. I guess when the story's good and when multi-tasking is a way of life, it's just too tempting not to multi-task as much as possible when on the job.

My right-hand man?

2008-09-24T16:23:00.003Z

Since no students showed up yesterday, I was free then to organize a capital day today. Luckily, I've gotten a lot done, too. One of my tasks was getting my office in order. The fellows who have the keys to the supply room are often absent, and I finally caught them today. Laden with things like trash baskets and pens, I needed the security guard's help to get my new treasures up to my second floor office.

I reached for my keys and opened the door. The security guard was aghast. "You know, Madame, that here we prefer to be right-handed, because right-handed people are favored by God. Left-handed people like yourself.... they go the other direction."

I knew that it was very bad manners to reach into a communal dish with one's left hand, and that the left hand is reserved for things that are unclean, but I've also seen women freely using both hands while cooking! Surely, opening a door with one's left hand isn't worse than cooking with both hands... or is it?

The poor security guard -- I don't think he believed me when I explained that I really am right-handed and that I used the least encumbered hand to open the door because my arms were full. From now on, I'm really going to have to pay attention to the messages I send, unconsciously, through the use of my left hand. The last thing I want to do is offend, especially when folks are kind enough to help me!

Butagaz

2008-09-23T09:46:00.004Z

It turns out that my hot-water woes weren't due to an outed pilot light, but instead to an empty butane tank. The plumber was very gracious about the mix-up, explaining that folks have gone as far as replacing the entire water-heater before realizing that the butane tank was empty.

We grabbed the reserve tank out of the kitchen for last night's shower, but that tank is also just about out. The concierge for my building is out now getting me a replacement tank (50 Dh with tip, or about $6.5 dollars).

Luckily my kitchen tank is still going strong for the moment. In fact, the flames have been higher than usual in the past two days and I'm wondering if I've somehow bumped something. My morning beverage of choice is cafe au lait, which I prepare using espresso and warmed whole milk. The photo here doesn't capture the extent of the blue flame as it licks up past the handles and over the tops of the containers. There's at least six inches of blue flame that's not showing in this photo, which is too bad, actually.

After the concierge returns, I'm off to school. We'll see who shows up today

The mystery of the missing students: All about money?

2008-09-22T17:35:00.004Z

As predicted, the students didn't show today for classes. Technically it's only the second years who are supposed to haze the first years, but 1) it must be so much fun to haze the newbies and 2) the format for classes is yielding enough that none of my students decided to make it today. One of the profs suggested that it's because the Moroccan system doesn't force them to pay tuition, so students don't feel invested like they do in the United States, for example.
Class meeting times are modified during Ramadan (we start later in the day, and move up afternoon classes since there's no lunch break to take). Neither the 3rd years scheduled to meet me at 9:00 nor the 2nd years scheduled to meet at 1:00 made it. Out of roughly 100 students on the lists, not one showed up.
My 1:00 class will meet again tomorrow, so I'll try it again then. I don't have any other classes the rest of the week, and the following week is a holiday for all. In short, if we don't go tomorrow, I won't have any chances of meeting any students before October 6.
As a high point to the day, my phone came back on, my landlady called to say hello, and promptly called the plumber when I told her about my water heater. Hassan the plumber is due at my apartment tonight at 7:30 to show me how to light the pilot light (and I'm going to see if he can work on the toilet while he's at it, insh'Allah).

Reality check

2008-09-21T14:46:00.008Z

Today is a rainy and warm Sunday, a perfect time to pull together everything that I'll need for the start of classes tomorrow. Indeed, the students know that they need to be back tomorrow, and the professors are geared up to meet them. However, it's widely acknowledged that the students *may* choose not to show up and that no real learning will take place tomorrow. We won't meet at all the following week for the religous holiday, so the first time I'll distribute the syllabus and begin teaching in earnest will be the week of October 6.

I'm extremely excited about my classes and confess to having high hopes for this semester and the next. The professors that I'll be working with are just as fired up as me, and it looks like we're all ready to try new things. Interestingly, ESI has a dual charge of being a place of teaching and of scholarship, but the positive approach to student learning seems to resonate more closely with the Community College approach that we have in the United States. It's very different indeed from the Research I approach, but the group of students is also different.

The "Schools" in Morocco are of a higher caliber than the universities -- they have entrance exams limiting attendance to the best students, are funded by individual ministries and don't take from the "university" pot of money, and have better resources and facilities all around. I still can't imagine that ESI students hold a candle to the students we have at Rutgers in SCILS, but perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised. I have every intention of pushing them as far as I can this year, and given the suppleness of the semesters here, I expect things will self-adjust as we go.

As for the rest of the reality check: the winds last night blew out the pilot light on my new water heater (in the middle of a bath, actually). In all honesty, the water heater only heats the water going to the tub using the butane tank pictured at left; none of the other faucets in the house can get hot water at all. But, I'm back in a situation of not having bath/shower water. I'd try to call someone, but the screen on my cellphone died this morning, so I can't read my address book. The phone was old (it's the one I bought when I moved to NJ and got unlocked when I came here) so it's not a huge surprise that it chose to die. However, with stores closed today, I don't have much occasion to hope to get any of this fixed until Tuesday at the earliest due to classes all day on Monday.

Moral of the story, despite the stellar school where I'll be teaching, the great digs I landed, and the wealth of people who are ready to help me out, I'm still in what is technically considered a developing country and there are just going to be occasional bumps in the road that reflect this reality. For example, my landlady promises me a new stovetop apparatus next month, but for the moment, I'm using a camping-style stove for my stovetop cooking. The new stovetop will also use butane tanks, but it will likely be its own piece of furniture. Like the water heater, it will be different and new, but basically the same as the current model.

It takes a village

2008-09-18T21:02:00.005Z

To get set up in a Moroccan apartment, I'm convinced that it really does take a village. As of today, I'm finally in, and my hot water is on (I just took a bath) and my landlady has returned to Tangier.
"Villagers" in the mix: The plumber who came to install the new butagaz-powered heating unit (featured to the left); a family friend of the land lady who was on-hand to help. Two cleaning ladies contributed to the good state of the place, and the concierge put us in contact with my landlady. My neighbor, Aicha, was the "agent" who put me in touch with the group, so she earned the "finder's fee" of 1/4 month's rent (go Aicha!). Of course, a friend of mine put me in touch with Aicha (don't know if he gets a "finder's fee" or not). Lastly, my co-instructor for cataloging at l'ESI has helped with everything from taking me grocery shopping to showing me around my neighborhood, to helping me work through the fact that I'm not able to get Internet via cellphone-tower-enabled modem after all.
My new water heater has been lovingly installed right above the toilet. Other photos of my new 4th floor apartment include the "salon marocain" and the tv room. There's also the "chambre d'amis", the dining room, and the kitchen. My room is huge, and there's a balcony overlooking the new national library, among other things. All in all, a fabulous find, and executed in less than a fortnight. If Moroccans are really less efficient than usual during Ramadan, then I'm going to be in for a wild ride once Ramadan is over.

The First Reunion des Professeurs of the year

2008-09-16T14:05:00.005Z

Yesterday (September 15, 2008) was the first official Reunion des profs of the year at the Ecole des Sciences de l'Information (ESI) -- everyone on the permanent teaching staff assembled for a three hour meeting that quite frankly reminded me of every other faculty meeting I'd ever seen. I guess that professors everywhere are the same, and there's a certain amount of comfort in that.

It was particularly pleasant to be welcomed on an individual basis by each and every professor either before and after the meeting. It was also quite an honor to be acknowledged by Dr. Benjelloun, Director of the School, in his opening remarks at the start of the meeting.

There were about 20 professors present for this first official meeting of the year. Twenty professors, howevers is a fraction of the total teaching staff. ESI, like many schools in other countries, depends adjuncts (or vacataires) to teach some of the classes. Most of the meeting was in French. Some of the comments were in Arabic, especially when emotional reactions to the governtment's education reforms were being articulated. The last time the government had similar reforms was in 1996, before that, in 1986. There was glowing talk of changes put through during the last batch of reforms, so change is not admonished by any stretch of the imagination -- instead, the reforms seem to be a good opportunity, one to be used to its fullest advantage both for the future success of the school and for the students.

La Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc

2008-09-12T16:53:00.008Z

Although I have been doing a lot of eating since my arrival, I've also had a chance to find out a little about the library situation in Morocco. The new king, Mohammad VI, is a strong proponent of libraries; these are the institutions that support knowledge, after all. The proof? A new national library has just been constructed in Rabat. The tall tower with blue decorations at the top is visible from this 4th floor apartment building in the Agdal neighborhood.

As it stands, the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco is one of four Moroccan OCLC member libraries whose holdings appear in WorldCat. The other OCLC member libraries are at the Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, at the Ecole des Sciences de l'Information where I'll be teaching in Rabat, and at the Foundation Al-Saoud in Casablanca. The grand opening of the new Rabat library facility is in the near future, and I hope very much to be able to attend.

Ramadan cookies

2008-09-12T12:46:00.005Z

This morning, the cookie factory's been in full production mode. Aicha has promised her famous cookies to both her sister and a friend, and needs to make several kilos by the time the iftar begins this evening at sundown.

Aicha is amazingly adept at cookie-making. I got to try my hand at it, too -- it's never as easy as it looks. Yes, my cookie (held below by Aicha) is by far the fattest and most lumpy, and yes, it took two tries to get the dough rolled out properly. But, due to the high quality of the dough, and the care with which it was cooked (first in oil, then coated in honey and orange flower water), it might just end up tasting alright.

Aicha's kitchen

2008-09-10T18:34:00.007Z

This morning I left l'hotel Majliss for Aicha's house. While waiting to find the perfect apartment, I'm going to be staying with Aicha and her husband. Despite the fact that she's fasting during the day, Aicha made me at least two meals along with two pots of Moroccan mint tea; she also hand-made at least 500 cookies for tonight's iftar at her sister's house.

Aicha is a French professor by profession. She's been able to take early retirement as part of a program that was put into practice a few years ago meant to reduce the number of state employees in higher education.

Aicha's kitchen is a wonderful place -- chirps from the canaries, the far-away sound of traffic from below, and the crackle of frying dough, along with charming conversation, make it the most comfortable place in all of Rabat! It's going to be difficult to be truly motivated to go apartment-hunting in earnest tomorrow. However, now that I've learned a few tricks about cooking in Morocco, I admit to being eager to move into my own apartment and trying some Moroccan cooking of my own.

Orientation, MACECE-style

2008-09-08T22:08:00.012Z

Greetings from Rabat, where this year's cohort of Fulbrighters (scholars and students) were treated to the first day of orientation at MACECE. Our fleet of small blue taxis ("petits taxis" or short-haul taxis in Rabat are a distinctive blue color) rolled up to the stately mansion-cum-headquarters in a swanky suburb of the Moroccan capital city in time for orientation to start at 10:00.

Highlights of the day included presentations by local scholars on topics such as literature, Islam, civil society, and economics of Morocco. The morning included presentations by American Embassy officials, including the Ambassador Thomas Riley!

We ended the first day of orientation with a traditional iftar. The iftar allows those who were fasting during the day to "break fast." There were all kinds of sweet and savory pastries, a tagine of brains, and one of liver. There was the traditional soup along with a Chinese soup. No one left hungry, and all Fulbrighters enjoyed a leisurely back to the hotel Majliss. Looking forward to Day Two of orientation, starting tomorrow morning at 9:30 sharp!