LibrarianInBlack

The LiB almost goes down in flames

Two nights ago there was a large fire on San Rafael Hill, the hill that my husband and I live on.  The fire destroyed almost 50 acres of open space--trees, brush, and grasslands--but no homes.  While about 50 homes two hundred years further up the hill were evacuated, our home was not, though we were ready to hose down the house and/or bolt with our emergency evacuation supplies.  We could see and smell the dense billowing smoke, and heard the fire engines and helicopters buzzing the hillside and dropping fire retardant all night long.  There was quite a bit of ash on the ground and cars the next morning and there were still fire engines rolling around today, going back up to check the grounds presumably.  If you're south of San Rafael, you can see the damaged hillside with blackened ground going about halfway down with a sharp line dividing the living hillside from the dead hillside.

ABC News has video coverage available, and the San Francisco Chronicle captured the best photographs, including the one to the left.  We live about two blocks up from that mission tower you see in the foreground.  And yes, that would put us  in that blacked out area, two blocks closer to the fire.

Strategies for IT management in non-profits

Karen Schneider had an article published recently in the IT Manager's Journal: "Strategies for IT management in non-profits."  I had agreed to contribute some information to the article, but the big dummy that I am, I got my answers in too late.  Notwithstanding my own stupidity, the article is a great list of strategies, challenges, and issues that face IT managers of non-profits in a number of sectors, not just libraries.  The really interesting thing is just how alike we all are...

Historical American Newspapers Digitized

The Chronicling America Website now offers over 300,000 digitized newspaper pages, from 1900-1910.  This site shows the early results of a 20-year project started by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), which is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.  The project aims to digitize America's newspapers for educational purposes, and they're off to a great start.  Add this site to your list of homework help and history sites...it's a winner!

found via beSpacific

laws for bloggers to know

If you offer a blog either for your library or one that you write for yourself (for whatever reason), then you need to read, or at least skim, the 12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know.  There are some excellent comments after the main post, as well, that are worth reading.  Topics covered include copyright of borrowed information and deep linking, paid posts, domain names, stolen content, and more.  Having been the victim of stolen content myself more than once, it's nice to know what protects me if for no other reason than I can now write an official-sounding threat letter to the offenders.

Social Networking in Plain English

The folks at CommonCraft are up to it again.  They now offer a lovely short video on Social Networking in Plain English.  This is in addition to the RSS in Plain English and Wikis in Plain English videos that garnered such hot praise (and for good reason).  If you're teaching other staff about these issues, the videos will help a lot.  Trust me :)

Is Anyone Paying Attention to IM Security? Yes...a librarian :)

An article on IT Business Edge, Paying Attention to IM Security? cites several resources on IM security, including a post I did a while back.  While some of the points the author makes are ones I disagree with, he does link to a few articles that you might find interesting if you're dealing with IM security issues with your IT department...especially if they won't even let you use IM internally as a communication tool.  Worth looking at.

However, I also want to say that I really, really, really do not like how IT Business Edge chooses to link to outside resources.  The link to my blog post from within their article takes you to an "IT Business Edge summary," which summarizes my post and then has a link to read the post over on my blog.  However, that link (to my FREE blog which has always been FREE) takes you to a page asking you to subscribe to their publication so you can get access.  There is a small link that leads to my site, for free, but apparently you always see this "subscribe!" page unless you're a member of their site.  Again: that's  a link providing access to my FREE blog. 

That is total crap.  And I told them so through their "Contact Us" link, asking them to either provide a free link to my site or remove my content from their article.  We'll see if they reply.

Dropping RSS Feeds: Why do we feel so badly about it?

Dropping RSS feeds (e.g. subscribing for a while, and then unsubscribing) somehow feels like I'm insulting the author(s), being untrue, being mean.  I don't like to do it.  Am I weird?

About a  year ago, I weeded my feeds from 400 down to around 250.  I'm close to 500 now...time for another spring cleaning.  It was great to see How to Drop an RSS Feed Like a Bad Habit on the ZenHabits blog.  The article includes a discussion of why you should or shouldn't keep feeds, and then some useful strategies for weeding through the immense pile of information you have before you.  I can't wait to put some of these into practice1

Spoilers

If you are a theater nut, or like messing with your friends' heads, then you should wear the Spoilt Threadless Tee.  For $15 or $17 (girly tees are more expensive--why is that?) you can get a lovely t-shirt that includes spoilers for a dozen or so movies, like "Dil is actually a man."  Muah ha ha ha ha ha ha.

via Boing Boing

Improve ALA Wiki

OK.  For all of you (err, we) naysayers about ALA's mistakes, what they should be doing differently, etc. -- we now have a place to vent: the Improve ALA Wiki.  It was created by a librarian, not by ALA staff.  There are several categories in which you can post, so have at it.  You know the ALA folks are watching.

eBooks not known and not liked

Library Journal's Academic Newswire released the following story earlier this month: "Ebooks Gain at Libraries, but Lack of Awareness Remains an Issue."  It focuses on eBooks in academic settings, but could be of interest to all libraries.  They discuss a survey by eBrary that found that 88% of libraries subscribed to eBooks of some sort.  But....here's our problem:

Only six percent of respondents said ebook usage was excellent, compared to 22 percent who said usage was poor.

Right.  I don't think it's just lack of awareness, which clearly has an impact too.  I think it's a lack of good interfaces, the behemoth of digital rights management which makes downloading books a total pain.  If you had to fiddle, download licenses, update programs, install some software--all just to get a book on your PDA...would you come back?  And yes, I know...the first time is worse because you're updating and installing stuff which you won't have to do in that quantity again.  But that doesn't matter.  If the first time is bad, the second time isn't coming.  People won't come back...and clearly, this survey shows that they don't.

What can we do?  We need to get good information out about our eBooks to our entire communities.  We need to lobby for an end to DRM.  We need to lobby for better interfaces and processes from the eBooks vendors.  We need to assess whether the use of these resources really warrants their presence.  Everything in libraries is about the most bang you can get for your buck.  eBooks aren't any different.

Customize Office 2007 a big

Do you hate Office 2007's new look?  Does it drive you crazy?  Take you longer to do things?  Me too.

But have no fear, some relief is here.  Check out Ribbon Customizer, a tool that lets you customize the top-of-the-window interface for Office 2007 products like Word and Excel.  You can add or remove tabs, change groupings, and so on.  It's $29.99, and worth every darn penny. 

I personally believe that Microsoft made a big mistake with Office 2007, and will end up losing customers to Mac products or Open Office as a result.  Innovation is good, but don't innovate for the sake of innovating....

Laptops get all skinny

Is your laptop too bulky?  Never fear!  Intel has just announced the thinnest laptop ever!  The laptop is so cool that it even has a code name: Intel Mobile Metro.  It's .7 inches thick (!!!) and has a lot of desirable features, like a cool looking purse thing. 

Do want.

found via Popgadget

Search more than one search engine or you're missing a lot

A recent report from Dogpile (a great metasearch engine) found that the overlap in search engine results is decreasing...and it wasn't that high to begin with.  Search Engine Land has a great write-up of the report.  Here are some highlights:

• In 2007, "only 0.6 percent first page search results were the same" across the four top search engines. 
• Maybe you're thinking--that's not fair!  you can't expect a lot of overlap between four different engines!  How about two?  Well, it's better, but still only 8.9% overlap in the first page's results between two engines. 
• Overall, this works out to 88.3% of total results being unique to one engine.

The average searcher is not going to have any idea about this--and probably doesn't care.  But we, as library folk, should care.  It means we should be using metasearch engines.  Or we should be using more than one engine at a time.  We should try to educate our users about this.  We should try to make it clear that if you're looking for research, for comprehensive answers, one engine ain't gonna do it for ya.

How to get free e-Learning

There is a nice list of library-related online learning providers on the Library 2.0 Ning social network site.  Some are free, others cost bundles.  If you're looking for free training for your staff (or yourself!), this would be a good place to start!

When ‘Digital Natives’ Go to the Library

An article in Inside Higher Ed by Scott Jaschik, "When 'Digital Natives' Go to the Library," discusses the ALA Annual Conference and a specific session on how the college library can better relate to digital native students.  OCLC's George Needham is quoted extensively as he was giving the presentation.  I actually think his suggestions apply to any library, not just the academic library, as the article implies. 

One thing that's been bothering me for a long time: digital natives are digital natives are digital natives--it doesn't matter what type of library they walk in to.  The fact is, they're walking in to yours and if you don't have what they want and present it in the way that they want, they will walk out.  I suggest reading the article for some suggestions on how to keep them in. :)  You can find other suggestions throughout this blog's history, as digital natives and the services that serve them best play a big role in what I write about.

READ t-shirts for Yahoo! Avatars

There are beautiful READ t-shirts available for Yahoo! avatars (see the left for Miss Sarah's non-black READ shirt).  If you have a Yahoo! account (e.g. for Flickr!), then you have an avatar (or can, at any rate).  You can build it to your specs--hair, eyes, clothing, accessories, etc.  You can also wear special promotional or cause-oriented items, like a READ t-shirt put out by ALA. 

1. To get yours, log in to Yahoo!

2. Then go to http://avatars.yahoo.com/ and select the tab marked "extras"

3. Click on "issues and causes"

4. The first t-shirt choice up right now is the "READ" t-shirt; click on it and you're good to go

Google Public Policy Blog

Google has apparently had a Public Policy Blog for some time now, but just made it public for access outside the company.  You can read more in this post about the blog being made available to we on the outside.  A lot of good (and hard) questions are being asked of Google in the comments section, but so far no response from the author, Andrew McLaughlin, Google's Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs.  Granted, it's only been a few days, but in Google-time that's 8 years.

LibGuides

LibGuides is on the tongues of many people.  I spent a lot of time reading posts, content from the LibGuides site itself, and its demo.  It was a little confusing for a while.  But here's what I figured out.

• It's a product that you can buy (for some reason I had thought it was free and open source--silly me).
• It's a product that lets you create subject guides, then embed the content from those guides with little windows wherever you like (on any webpage, including social software sites).
• It seems to be geared toward academic and perhaps school libraries
• Links (to databases, the catalog, eJournals, etc.), guides, videos, audio, RSS feeds, polls, and documents
• You can tag the guides, and users can find them that way or through subject browsing
• Users can rate the guides
• Librarian guide creators get their own profiles showing info about you and if you're on IM using MSN/Yahoo/AOL
• You can also integrate Meebo or Plugoo windows into LibGuides if you want to
• You can create academic department or course-specific guides
• You get detailed stats on each guide
• Guides can be public or private
• Multiple people can collaborate on any guide
• It can be integrated into Blackboard
• You can install a shortcut into your web browser so that whenever you find a link or site you want to add to a guide you can do so with a few clicks

You can view a demo site here to see what it looks like yourself.

LibGuides seems a lot like a swanky-looking wiki with a lot of open source features pulled all together in one place.  All in all, I think this would be a really useful product for an academic library, especially for a library where the staff plan on creating new subject guide content regularly.   

We are creating subject guides in our library right now for our new website...and looking at this product, I am tempted to jump on it.  However, because it's not free, and what we're doing right now is free, I don't feel tempted enough to change gears completely to use this new system.

Has Google Lost Its Way?

Librarian in Tie-Dye David Dodd passed this article on to me: "Has Google Lost Its Way" by Christopher Kenton on his blog, Marketonomy.  Kenton is a marketing technology writer and often writes about issues that librarians care about (or should care about). 

This piece addresses search engines, advertising, and the harvesting of personal data in order to "better serve you" (read: "better market to you").  He questions the objectivity of search results and asks who Google is really serving:

It's really a question of who Google chooses to elevate as its true customer. From my position, it looks like they're leaning toward the advertisers as their customers, and the search user as the raw materials for their business.

It's really not just Google though, but any website offering lists of information (subject guide sites, book recommendations, etc.).  Where does objectivity end and ad revenue begin?  Good food for thought.

Libraries using VOIP

This started with a blog post about PLCMC's VOIP use, and bled over onto the Library Success Wiki with a VOIP entry there.  But here is a list of the known libraries using VOIP.  If your library isn't on here, leave a comment and I'll continue to add libraries.  Put yourself over on Library Success too.

Libraries using VOIP

1. Allen County Public Library
2. Dayton Metro Library
3. Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library
4. Georgia State University Libraries
5. Gold Coast City Council Libraries (Queensland, Australia)
6. Hennepin County Library
7. Houston Public Library
8. Kansas City Public Library
9. Kewaskum Public Library
10. Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design
11. Missouri River Regional Library
12. Orange County Library System (FL)
13. Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg County
14. Renato Fucini" Public Library in Empoli (Tuscany-Italy) (on Skype)
15. Rowan Public Library
16. St. Joseph County Public Library
17. Santa Clara County Library
18. Savannah College of Art and Design Library
19. Spokane County Library District

Andrew Keen hearts Michael Gorman, or, We're all monkeys

Disclaimer: I have not yet read Andrew Keen's recently released book, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture.  It has caused a whirlwind of fury and media coverage, including in the biblioblogosphere, due to Keen's ultimate premise: that the democratized internet is robbing intelligent professionals of their copyrighted life's work. 

As I read several reviews and commentaries on Keen's work (a good one to tap is this one from Reuter's), I was struck immediately by how much Keen would absolutely adore Michael Gorman, and vice versa.  They both believe that digital information is all highly suspect, and that smart, degreed, professorial types are losing their ability do be the "top of the world" experts automatically. They've quoted each other, but I wonder if they've met.  They should.

Some of the quotes from Keen's book to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:

• "Millions and millions of exuberant monkeys ... are creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity."
• Bloggers are a "pajama army"
• The web is full of "user-generated nonsense"

Keen said in a recent talk in Berkeley that his book "is not designed to be particularly fair or balanced."  He is also a casualty of the dot-com bust.  That makes me take his "expert" opinion with a grain of salt.

Does that sound familiar?  Perhaps ring a Gorman-esque bell?

Keen's book is sensationalist, and for a reason.  Sensation sells books.  Sensation makes people write articles about your book (as I'm guilty of doing myself right now).  I believe Mr. Keen hit a hot button with the public and is preying upon their fears.  "Oh my god, the internet is the end of civilization.  I hate that thing...my kids spend too much time on it.  Besides, it's nothing but porn and people's diaries, right?  Oh yes, I like that Mr. Keen."

I will agree that the web is full of junk.  Who wouldn't?  But you know what?  So are the shelves of any bookstore or library.  The bulk of what humanity produces is junk.  Just because it's published/printed doesn't make it not-junk.  But there are a few lovely jewels out there, things we try to seek for ourselves, and the finding of which librarians make their life's work.  The web is hard to sift through sometimes.  However, the beauty of the web is that professionals do emerge on top, they do become more easily found, top of the search engines, listed in subject guides, linked to by countless individuals, and so on.  People value, recommend, and highlight those works that are the best to them.  That is how the diamonds rise toward the top of the heap (and I'm not just talking about search engine results here) and regular folks can find them more easily than they can find the junk.  That's not to say there isn't still a bit of sifting going on...there is...but a lot of the junk gets self-filtered out because regular folks find it, disregard it, don't link to it, don't click on it, don't want to look at it. 

There very well may be an "endless digital forest of mediocrity," but there has been a path blazed through it for a while now, long since Mr. Keen's dot-com went *boom*, with signposts for the good sights to see along the way. 

I'm happy to be a part of the cult of the amateur.  I believe my presence in this monkey-driven forest has helped a lot of people find information, use information, and grow.  I know that other bloggers and amateurs have helped me do the same countless times.  To disregard the importance of that exchange, belittle its value to humanity, is close-minded and elitist. 

There may be more to Keen's book than what I'm reading about in the media (there likely is), but from what I'm seeing so far, I am not wholly impressed.  It is good to know your enemy, though, so it may be worthwhile reading for that alone.  If anyone has read the book, and can offer additional information or commentary, please feel free to do so below.

survey about ALA costs

Rick Roche is doing a survey (really short) about who pays for ALA attendance by librarians.  If you're attending, please stop by and fill out his survey.

Second Annual Pimp My Bookcart Contest

Unshelved is hosting another Pimp My Bookcart Contest, this time sponsored by Highsmith.  Enter between now and October 31st.  Make a snazzy book cart, capture it digitally, and then send it in!  I think I will enjoy the submissions this year even more than last year's!

Schmooze to your heart's content

Via Stephen Abram (a while ago), this Guy Kawasaki post lists a dozen tips on schmoozing (in the "how to work a realm" way).  I found them valuable, as this is a skill I have yet to obtain.  Something useful for those conference functions where you know no one (hint for ALA goers).   

Lifehacker tackles books

From Lifehacker today, "13 book hacks for the library crowd," with book-oriented widgets and applications, some of which connect with users' library accounts (like Library Elf).  Interesting.

Social software is dead, long live social software

PC Magazine sure knows how to grab your attention with a headline: "MySpace, Second Life, and Twitter Are Doomed."  Beyond the headline, though, I found the article to be rather lacking.  It's quite a bit of yapping and inflammatory questioning and judging.  Thus, no link love from the LiB to the article.  You can find it however easily enough I'm sure if you so desire.  What's more interesting to me is that the author of this article, not lengthy by any means, fails to cite statistics or even anecdotal evidence through quotes to back up the points made.  It's just a bunch of "blah blah blah"ing, with no real point.  This publication could do better.

Top Technology Trends

I'm a couple of years into my time on the LITA Top Technology Trends committee.  I like it a lot.  It forces me to stop and think a bit, process, all that information I've been absorbing over the months.  I've just posted my trends for the upcoming ALA conference  I don't claim to have anything revolutionary, but take a gander if you wish.

King link love from a tech guru

Congrats to David Lee King (boy, I'm writing about this man a lot lately) for having his "Are you Blogging This" video recommended in Tim O'Reilly's blog.  Link love to library folk from the popular kids (aka Tim) always makes me smile, so kudos to David!

found via The Distant Librarian

VOIP at libraries

The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg County switched to VOIP earlier this month, and that made me wonder...how many libraries are using VOIP?  If you don't know what VOIP is, read the entry in Wikipedia--it does a good job explaining the basics.  Anyway, since it's not a really sexy technology, one that hits our users directly, it hasn't been a hot topic at conferences and in publications.  But it does save the library money, potentially, and unifies voice and internet systems.  I haven't been able to find a good list of VOIPing libraries.  Perhaps I could start one here.

So, who is using VOIP at the library besides PLCMC?  Leave a comment here!

Spock will help you find people

Spock means one thing to some people and something else to others.  To me, he's a pointy-eared Vulcan who made me proud to be a nerd.  To others, SPOCK is a band.  But now the name Spock has been commandeered by a search engine.  Spock is a people search engine that is in closed beta, and claims to have over 100,000,000 people listed.  You can read more on their about page.  You may want to keep an eye on this, though, as a potential resource for people-related reference questions.

found via Phil Bradley's Weblog

P.S. I'm also learning that if you say "Spock" a lot of times, it starts to sound weird.

Wikis in Plain English

This has been posted about to death, but being late to the game, I figure better late than never.  So, if you haven't seen the Wikis in Plain English video yet, go do so.  It's from Common Craft, the same people who did RSS in Plain English, which I just used today in a library staff class about Library 2.0.  Whoopee!

Libraries and Google

The Library Philosophy and Practice eJournal has published a whole issue dedicated to libraries and Google (why not libraries and search engines?).  Anyway, there are some interesting articles on topics like Google and cataloging, Google and library website design, and Google and reference interviews...so go check it out!

Microsoft Popfly

Microsoft recently introduced Popfly, a way for you to mash-up content into little blocks you can put on your own website.  It is right now only open to a select few people who got onto Microsoft's good list, but you can sign up on the waiting list if you want to be next in line. 

I've been reading a lot about this for some time now, trying to find good uses for it, but mostly just wasting time :/  Here's the description from the Popfly website, though, in case your brain is as interested as mine was at first:

Popfly is the fun, easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, Web pages, and applications. Popfly consists of two parts:

1. Popfly Creator is a set of online visual tools for building Web pages and mashups.
2. Popfly Space is an online community of creators where you can host, share, rate, comment and even remix creations from other Popfly users.

I just love it when companies describe their own product as "fun."  "Easy" is also a word to watch out for (it almost always means the opposite, though I'm not saying that will be the case here--it could be really great!).   Popfly is also very, very Microsoft heavy.  You have to have a Live ID, you have to install more Microsoft software, etc., etc.  I'm also puzzled about how Popfly  = a duck logo.  Meh.

Talking is different than writing: the effects of voice-recognition software on writing

Talking is different than writing.  Plain and simple. 

I have been using the online tool Jott, which allows you to phone in up to 30 seconds of spoken words and then Jott transcribes it into text.  You can send Jotts to other people (who receive both audio files and the transcribed text) or just to yourself.  It's a great time-saver when you have lots of short emails to send or other short blurbs to write and also have a lot of time when you are somewhere computer-less (read: in a car commuting 90 minutes each way). 

I've been using Jott for emails, blog posts, and reminders for myself for some time now.  I found that how I talk is a lot difference than how I write.  Not only the tone, but the content, the word choice... everything is different when I am speaking instead of writing.   Content is a lot more superficial, a lot less coherent, less formal, and a lot less structured...so it ends up being a little bit rambley and miscellaneous (kind of like this post, which was written with Jott).

I think that as voice recognition software takes off, becomes commonplace, and accurate, we will need to think about this overall issue of speaking vs. writing.  Here are things I've been thinking about in relation to the subject:

• Am I actually performing and speaking as well I would be if I were writing?
• Am I spending a lot of time correcting mistakes the software made?
• Am I saving time and pretty soon producing the same quality of material?
• Or am I am saving time and producing junk?
• Am I even saving time at all?

I think these are important questions that need to be considered when considering using tools like this that are supposed to enhance productivity. I think that tools like Jott, and voice recognition software in general, have huge power as tools, but I think it really needs to be something that people think about while using.  Assuming that tools like this enhance productivity is a big assumption so early in the game.

Accepting vendor perks -or- How unbiased are you?

Walt Crawford recently wrote to me about my Gorman blog post, asking if I really believed that "once someone has held an elective office, they should be bound for the rest of their lives by the same boundaries that would apply while they're in office?"  We replied back and forth, rather lengthily, and what came out of my responses formed up nicely into a post that I thought I’d share.

Objectivity and Being in the Public Eye

I believe that the values that one holds as a professional librarian, and also as a writer, depend greatly on objectivity and the ability to keep an even eye on things around us.  Having risen to the greatest height, some would argue, within our profession, I believe Michael Gorman should have that kind of objectivity and professionalism down pat.  But apparently not. 

If I quit librarianship today I wouldn't blog/write/etc. for a for-profit company that is selling something, particularly something within our field.  Why?

1. I have professional values that require objectivity and
2. Others in the field know my name, and trust me to give good advice.

I can't stop being LiB, just as Gorman can't stop being ALA President or the AACR2 guy.  He is remembered for that, and therefore others trust him and his opinion.  To violate that by being a shill for a company is just plain crap.  I don't believe in it.  I won't ever do it, even if I'm broke.  There is a certain level of trust that exists once you're in the public eye, and to ignore it, to pretend it's not there, does a disservice to yourself and to your readers/followers/cheerleaders.

Objectivity and Accepting Vendor $ or the Equivalent

I wouldn't eat a lunch provided by a vendor, or take a gift, or anything else.  I've never accepted anything from a vendor other than the cheap swag offered at conferences.  I do think that accepting anything--money for writing, a lunch in hopes that you'll buy their product, etc.--clouds your judgment.  If you become friends, even "pretend smiley-face ha-ha-ha" friends, with a vendor--your mind is likely to want to deal with that person ( e.g. buy that person's product) over a competitor's (who you don't know).  I'd like to believe that we all could keep our objectivity, above all of that schmooze, but I don't think it's possible. 

Writing for a publication usually is for something peer-reviewed at some level.  You submit something to them in the hopes they'll publish it.  If they choose to, you get some dough (maybe).  It's different to write for a professional publication (online or in print) than it is to write for the company itself, which is what it is when you're writing for their company blog (as Gorman is doing).  If you worked for the company, go ahead.  But if you don't, one has to ask--what are you getting out of it?  Most likely money.

I guess it's this--with publications, authors are the ones starting the association.  We submit materials, they choose whether or not to use it, and we get something out of it in the end (maybe).   When it's the other way around, the company initiating the association, that's when it gets fuzzy.  So...

• "If you give us quality material we can use in this professional publication, we might publish it and will give you $500."

            vs.

• "Here's $500.  Write something for our company's publication."

I think that #2 invites bias...invites ass-kissing...invites jeopardizing one's integrity.  Theoretically, that could happen with #1 too, but I think it's a lot less likely--because if this publication doesn't like what you've written, you have a lot of other ones to choose from.

I guess that's my line: if you're doing it for a company (directly) and for money or some other reward, or otherwise gaining some kind of benefit from association with that company, then I do believe you lose your objectivity.  Maybe that's a high standard, but it's mine and I'm sticking to it.

WorldCat has personalized lists

WorldCat.org has launched additional functionality: personalized lists.  This is a feature we get requests for all the time here at our public library, and one that our ILS vendor should be providing us with.  If you'd like to learn more, see this information page about lists on WorldCat.

It would be nice if features like this could be created open source and distributed in a way that other vendors/companies/creators could grab the code and customize it for their own system (API, anyone?).  As OCLC is a member organization, and all of its members rely on outside ILSes, I believe that looking at something like this would benefit all of us.  But, not being a proficient code-monkey, perhaps it just doesn't work that way.  For those of you who are code-inclined, do you think that what OCLC created could possibly be of use to ILSes?

 

Update: Paul Pival notes that the personalized lists don't offer RSS feeds.  Good point.  Seems kind of basic, and I'm embarrassed that I missed their absence.  This would be a nice addition.

found via It's All Good

Gaming in the Library article

This is old news at this point, but if you haven't read this article yet, please do: "Dewey Decimals and Dance Dance Revolution" in Escapist Magazine.  Eli Neiburger and Jenny Levine are quoted (yay librarians)!  I think the article does a good job of highlighting what the library world is doing in the world of gaming, as well as pointing out the reasons for it--that our customers game and need us to provide resources to help them explore this form of entertainment.  If you're arguing for gaming in your library (whether it's circulating games, having game nights, etc.) then this article could help you make your case.

Michael Gorman has a song

David Lee King sings.  Sings Gormangate quotes.  Quotes about scholarship, blogs, and digital media.  You have to listen for yourself (read along with the printed lyrics).  Not only is King funny as all get out, he's smart.  Thank you David, for lending a bit of humor to this piffle that is Gormangate Part Bazillion.

LITA Social Software Showcase resources

Some very useful resources are emerging over on the LITA Social Software Showcase wiki.  Check these two Twitter resource pages out.

• Welcome to the Twitterverse (David Free)
• Twitter Part 2: "the fluff" (David Lee King)

Watch the main page for more, especially if you're not going to ALA to see some of these presentations in person.

Culture of Fear

If your library is facing a culture of fear about anything (but perhaps teens?), then this is one for you: "Practitioners of Panic and the Culture of Fear" by Michael Casey.  If you're afraid to have computers that support gaming, teen programming, or after school hours, then you're probably working in a library where you don't want teens there. 

Think about it: haven't you heard: "Oh my gosh...we don't want to have a DDR night--that would bring so many teens into the library, and we don't have a big enough teen collection, and we can't have game nights every week and they'll want them and we don't do much teen programming at all.  We don't want to cause all that work or build up false hopes, so let's not have the DDR night." 

What's really being said is: "By starting to serve this traditionally unserved group, we'll be opening a floodgate of need and exposing user needs that will require us to serve them, and support their needs." 

Do you still have the same reaction to the first, sugar-coated, version?  Yeah.  That's what I thought.

Substitute teacher prosecuted for porn pop-ups, then gets new trial

A substitute teacher was taken to court for a series of unfortunate events during which time children were unwittingly exposed to some pop-up pornography ads.  She was using the teacher's computer to email her husband, left the room to use the little girl's room, returned and found the kids gathered around the one computer looking at pornography pop-ups, which she couldn't stop because she wasn't computer-proficient.

Why did this happen at all?  Because the school didn't have appropriate adware and popup protection on their computers.  Plus, they didn't adequately train their substitute on school computer usage and policies, apparently.  But, it wasn't the school that was sued--it was the teacher.  Fortunately, the teacher has received a new trial, and I have faith that reason will prevail this time around.

This makes me think that any librarian or other library staff member who is helping or merely in close proximity to children using computers better be very, very careful.  Or hope for a more rational justice system.

ALA has a videoblog

ALA is now officially videoblogging at their new site: AL Focus.  Their first video is a funny look at some of the acronyms that ALA is comprised of.  I laughed and smiled enough to make this Friday evening a bit more fun.  You can find out more about the videoblogging effort from the ALA goddess herself, Jenny Levine.

Google ranked worst on privacy policy

Google has come dead last in a Privacy International study of technology company privacy policies, behind Yahoo!, AOL, Microsoft, Facebook, and 15 other big name tech companies.  Google is, of course, contesting the study. 

What's scary to me is that so many of us, me included, continue to use Google's various services, even though we know it's harvesting and giving away our information, including to the government.  The attraction is that Google is the behemoth.  It has a search engine, maps, shopping, email, calendar, online office software, photos, document hosting, blog software...the list goes on.  A one-stop-shop is always more attractive than 10 different stops.  We're lazy by nature, aren't we?

My new article on DRM

I was asked a while back to write an article for School Library Journal about Digital Rights Management.  At the time this was not a real are of expertise for me, but I was happy to take the opportunity to learn a little bit more than I knew.  I got an email that it was published while I was away on vacation. 

Check it out: "Imagine No Restrictions: Digital Rights Management" in School Library Journal, 06.01.07.  The death of DRM is being called out (and for) in many technology publications; I'm glad I was able to throw in a bit for the library science world.

One thing I really like about SLJ's website is that each article has a spot for comments--so while this is a traditionally published article, you can yell at me and tell me I'm a moron: just like on my own blog :)

No Sarah at ALA - why's that, you ask?

Yours truly will not be attending ALA this year.  Here's why:

• no money with which to go ($1000+, on the low end)
• no time off from work to go
• no desire to attend ALA's conferences
• no desire to speak at ALA's conferences

That last one deserves a wee bit more explanation.  First off, I refuse to pay for the privilege of speaking anywhere any more.  Much has been written about this by myself and others, so I won't go into the nitty gritty of how it works and why it doesn't make sense.  My refusal, however, does not stem from a belief that I am "cool enough" that I can discriminate, as others have insinuated in the past about those of us balking at ALA and other associations' practices re: speakers.  I have made a conscious decision that I feel that it is wrong to me to charge someone for the privilege of providing the very content that makes your conference exist in the first place.  I wouldn't do it to someone else, and I don't want someone doing it to me.  Can you imagine charging a musician for the privilege of playing at a library event, claiming "exposure" as justification?  Feh. 

Second, ALA is still unfortunately one of those conferences where I feel I will gain very little that will help me in my day to day work life.  While ALA and its counterparts (PLA, ACRL, etc.) seem to be getting better in that they're now offering a much overdue good selection of technology programs (due in no small part to Jenny Levine, I'm sure), these programs are not aimed at the techies.  There are a few of my good friends and professional colleagues speaking at ALA, and their sessions will be great.  But...ALA's (and other conferences, like state associations) "technology" programs are largely by the techies but for everybody else--not by the techies for the techies.  Either that or the session falls into one of the other hated categories: the "un-invested talking heads": sessions with three people from the same college who did a tech-related experiment/survey/test so that they could publish a paper and/or speak at a conference to get a few tenure brownie points.  Those sessions end up being very little about what the attendees can get out of it, and more about the speakers going through the motions.  Neither of these types of sessions help me do my job better, and so far, that's all ALA, PLA, and even LITA have been able to offer me.

And I am unfortunately left saying what I've said time and time again--this is why library technology staff all over the U.S. don't go to ALA and its spawned conferences or their local state association conferences.  Instead, if we have to choose, which we often do because of budget and time reasons, we choose to go to Internet Librarian and Computers in Libraries.  Our paid associations need to wake up and realize that a very large, and growing, segment of its membership works in the technology side of librarianship.  Let me correct myself slightly there; I should have said "potential membership," since many techies don't belong to ALA and state associations any more. 

Sessions by techies for techies need to be offered, and that means specifically soliciting for them, since most of us have pretty much given up on getting sessions of that type approved.  And don't cry "no one will come" because that's just bunk.  Hold a tech session of just about any kind, even the talking heads variety, and see attendance skyrocket.  Even if it's a higher-end technology topic, like open source, implementing Drupal in your library, etc., you will still see higher attendance than you do for some of the other more long-standing librarianship subjects.  Try it.  You'll see that it will work.

Also, ALA and other conferences that charge speakers registration fees, even just for the day, need to wake up and realize that the privilege just ain't worth it any more to many of us who could be some of your best speakers.  Times are a'changing, and this model is really self-destructive to the organization in the alienation it causes and the lost chances for good talks.

I must admit that this post got away from me and turned in to a bit more than a negative RSVP.  Hopefully this post will staunch the flow of LiB/ALA inquiries coming in, and just maybe it will be one more drop in the bucket that helps to change the way ALA considers the technology librarians in the U.S. and its member speakers as well.

Ask.com ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

A week ago the librarian's best bet for a single search engine, Ask.com, made some significant changes to its search engine.  You can read about the changes on the BBC News site, which gives a good summary.  You can also read the Ask.com Blog post on the new search, which they're calling Ask3D, for the three dimensions of searching: "query expression, investigating results, and digging deeply into content."  Give it a try...especially if you haven't used Ask.com yet.  It's worth switching over to different search engines from time to time, for a week or so at a stretch, to really give them a try. 

We shouldn't, especially as librarians, become complacent with the same old tools--or the same tool (singular).  Our toolkits are a big part of what we bring to the table for our users, and if you only have one tool, even if you do think it's a fully functioning swiss army knife, I guarantee that you're bound to find out differently sooner or later.

1932 San Quentin Prison Scrapbook

Boing Boing recently posted about a great scrapbook from San Quentin circa 1932 being available on eBay (the auction's over now, though).   It's one of those lovely examples of how magical historical items sometimes turn up in the strangest places.  eBay has, though, become a hotbed for antique and rare books and other print materials, ephemera, etc.  If you're interested in that kind of thing (and a lot of us are, at least in a closeted way), then take a look at eBay from time to time.  It is, after all, the one place in the world where you are pretty much guaranteed to find anything you are looking for.

Point/Counterpoint in the Biblioblogosphere

Two pieces came up in my "list of things I want to let others know about" today.  Oddly enough, these two pieces, both by very different Michaels, were right next to each other on the list, and they couldn't be more different.

Michael Stephens writes for ALA TechSource: "The Blog People Are Alive and Well," a retrospective on and reply to Michael Gorman's Blog People article of yesterday. And a quote from that piece:

"Now, it seems the Blog People are a force to be reckoned with.  Include those folks armed with cell phone cameras, video devices, and access to the the Web -- welcome to Convergence Culture."

Michael Gorman writes for the Britannica Blog: "Web 2.0: The Sleep of Reason," Parts one and two.  And a quote from that piece:

"Digital Maoism is an unholy brew made up of the digital utopianism that hailed the Internet as the second coming of Haight-Ashbury—everyone’s tripping and it’s all free; pop sociology derived from misreading books such as James Surowiecki’s 2004 The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations; a desire to avoid individual responsibility; anti-intellectualism—the common disdain for pointy headed professors; and the corporatist “team” mentality that infests much modern management theory."

Wow.

Perhaps it's the juxtaposition of the two articles, I'm not sure...  But please excuse me while I go wretch into the toilet.  Pardon me. 

*ahem*

If you read the entire text of both of his posts (hee hee, Gorman is posting), you will see that Gorman is either A) willfully writing incorrect information about how the internet, social software, and other "Web 2.0 things" work, or B) he simply doesn't understand how these things work, which would be a scary thought indeed.  Does that mean he isn't a pointy-headed professor that we should trust?  I think so.  So do most of the commenters on his posts. 

The elitism that he spouts, and that's what it is, basically says that the average person cannot be trusted to have any kind of intelligence or expertise unless he or she (most likely he) is degreed, probably multiple times, in that particular field.  That's crap.  I have a degree in English Literature, but being out of the field for a few years has left me completely without any authority or ability to claim authority on topics within that field.  But, according to Gorman's reasoning, I should be able to beat out someone who has decided to make a study of particular texts or authors as a hobby, a study, or a life's work--outside of the traditional post-secondary educational structure. How's that for some food for thought?

Additionally, what a sad statement to me that a former ALA President is blogging for a publishing company and including references (and alluding to a future full post on) the way that Wikipedia, the main competitor in the open market of this company's chief product, Encyclopedia Britannica, is total crap.  Anyone else think that is a bit odd?  A bit like one dating company dissing another in a television commercial?  A bit juvenile?  A bit questionable?  A bit unethical?  A bit "conflict of interest"-ish?

Reed Elsevier stops funding arms trade fairs

Hi all.  I'm just now returning from a week-long vacation, so I will ask for some patience as I catch up with what happened in the week I was gone, plus all the new news and resources that have trickled in since then. 

For our first story, Reed Elsevier has decided to stop funding and organizing arms trade fairs, something I had reported on previously and disdainfully.  This is good...simply the right thing to do, a bit too late, but better late than never.  It goes to show that a bit of bad press, especially in the national media, will generally air any company's dirty laundry so thoroughly that it's fresh and clean when it comes back inside the corporate house.

Effecting change in ALA

The esteemed Karen Schneider has said it better than I ever could in a beautiful lengthy post discussing ALA's current status: what they are doing right, what they are doing wrong, and just how much responsibility lies with the membership itself.  If you'd like to see her suggestions (which are right-on from my point of view), or just see her suggestions on how to effect change of any kind in ALA, take a look at her post.