he Capitol Region Library Council's annual strife, li ke that of today, it brought libraria ns meeting, held in Hartford on May 29, was a together for resource sharing as a wal' to beat Whither Local typicall y businesslike affair. Yearl y ac ti v ity the fi scal reaper. Most who have been affiliated summati o ns were read by council leaders, notice w ith the council through three and a half Library was given of a book o f library management ideas decades will te ll you that it exceeded every produced by one of th e orga nization's expectation hurled at it along the way. Cooperation? committees, and a round o f accolades, applause CRLC's we bsite provid es a listing, authored Or is it Wither? and anecdo tes wa s provided fo r Dency Sargent, by D ency, of important ac hi evements produced wh o was re tiring afte r 30 years as C RLC's by the council thro ug h the years. Notably, Executive Director. Except for a quickl~ ' many o f CRLC's initia tives beca me statewide /ljl lVillialll U ricchio approved agenda item concerning the council services that are s till valued today b y librar), and the new Connecticut Library Consortium, u sers and li b rary s taff alike . Among th em: a visi tor mi g ht no t have co ncluded from the Connecticard ; the Children's Book Festival, co­ upbeat natu re o f the meeting that CRLC ,vas in sponsored b y the H artford COl/relnt; and the process o f going ou t of business or, mo re ReQues t, which evolved from Project Amoeba. appropriately, "merging" into the new statewide CRLC's shuttle delivery service was o ne of the o rga nization, that tbis was its las t ever annual key fo rbears of Connecticar, and its automated meeting, and that D e ncy would be both the library system, CircCess, was, at th e time of its counc.il's first and also its las t executive director. founding, the largest multi-type, integrated When I joined the CRLC staff in 1981 , it had library system in North America. already been in existence fo r 12 years and was The big events in the council's hi story do flouri shing. Develo ped in a time o f economic not speak to what many consider to be its real COlllinlled 011 page 4 Pattern Recognition by William Gibson (NY Putnam, 2002) William Gibson, who Invented the term 'cyberspace" In There are two developments on which the intricate plot his 1984 science fidion cult novel, Neuromancer, has a new of Pattern Recognition turns. First, what happened to Cayce's book that librarians will love. Pattern Recognition has it all­ father, a security expert with possible ties to the CIA, who mystery, romance, aheroine with amissing father and a New went missing in New York on September 11? Second, what Agey mother whose occupation is trend spotting. And how can is the story behind the anonymous "footage" with which we librarians, who daily fight the digital divide, resist the Cayce, and aWeb-based subculture known as "footageheads;' "Prince of Cyberpunk Fidion;' who Brent Staples, in his May have become obsessed? 11, 2003 NY Times editorial, describes as "envisioning an The footage is a series of short, seemingly related film information-obsessed, information-saturated future where clips that appear at odd intervals on the Internet. The stealing and proteding data are the main preoccupations, and footageheads gather online to watch and track each segment access to information separates the haves from the have­ as it appears, spending hours in cyberspace debating the nots." identity of the footage's possible creator, and whether the The novel opens with 32 year-old "cool hunter" Cayce Pollard film is awork in progress or a completed narrative known on assignment in London for the Blue Ant agency to assess a only to the creator. The segments appear in what seems to new footwear logo. Cayce can identify new trends simply by be a random order, telling no particular story, but offering walking among crowds of people in a street. She knows, on such compelling images that people become hooked on trying lOOKING AT first Sight, whether or not anew logo design will be a hit. Her to figure out how it all fits together. special ability comes with aprice, however, for Cayce is almost As Murphy says, "In these Cinematic segments, Cayce allergic to corporate logos and brands. (Think Tommy Hilfiger, glimpses aworld more real, perhaps, than the adual world Prada, Polo.) They make her feel as though she has been she knows, and wants nothing more than to see the whole poisoned, so Cayce cuts all the labels off her clothing and film. The footage offers Cayce a respite from brand names belongings. and iconographic images in the world of trend forecasting." As Bernadette Murphy writes in her March 4 LA Times At the completion of her assignment in London, Hubertus review, "Cayce Pollard is the cutting edge of contemporary Bigend, Cayce's employer at Blue Ant, retains her on an culture. An uber-cool young urban woman, Cayce is able to unlimited expense account to track down the creator of the recognize hip trends before they take off, thereby allowing her footage. The rest of the book is the story of Cayce 's quest to marketing clients to "commodify" those trends and reap find the elusive creator. Along the way she meets a cast of abundant profits. 'It's about group behavior pattern around a charaders, including a lovelorn Japanese geek, afailed dot­ particular class of objed; Cayce explains. 'I try to recognize a com entrepreneur turned hacker, an evil and dangerous pattern before anyone else does, and then I point acommodifier female competitor, an alcoholic cryptologist, and a at it: " COllliHlled on page 4 CONNECTICUT LIBRARIES· JULY/AUGUST 2003 • PAGE 2 ~~--~- - -- --- ---.