The WoW Librarian

Queen of the Free

2011-11-03T15:28:00.009-04:00

Queen of the free e-book, that is. It's true. If there is a free e-book out there, I'm bound to download it.

I'm one of those people who never seems to have enough information. I research until the last possible minute. And that's a problem. Jill Chivers calls it "drinking from the information fire hydrant". She's identified two kinds of information seeker personalities: the data gatherer and the data analyzer. The gatherers rarely have enough information; the analyzers may not have it all, but often suffer from information overload.

Am I a data gatherer or a data analyzer?

Both, it seems. Which leads me to the next problem: counter-research. Have you noticed that data are like fish on dry land? Flopping about, impossible to catch. Were they always like that? Slippery devils. For every bit of data that says "X", there's another bit that says "Y". Coffee is good for you. Ah, no. It's bad for you. Except on the fifth Thursday of the month, when it's good for you in the morning, but not at night. Sean D'Souza suggests setting an egg timer when you start your research-- no more research when that sand runs out. The data no longer applies, anyway.

Sitting in my Chrome downloads there are four e-book/whitepapers, a report, an mp3, a zip file, and a jpg. Yes, I've listened to the mp3 (a Daniel Pink interview on employee engagement); the zip file has been installed; and the jpg has been shared. The report is an index of technology wages-- that's a keeper. And those four e-books are all on some aspect of social media strategy.

It's positively amazing how much information is out there. Much of it is very useful. Some is well-intended. Some may be perfunctory-- e-books and whitepapers must of course be produced for a successful social media strategy.

Don't get me wrong. I've certainly benefited from many-- if not most-- of those e-books and whitepapers. I'll be writing a few myself, and I hope they'll fall into the useful group and people will download them. Nevertheless, I think it's time to weed my free e-book collection.

By the way, here's a HubSpot article on why e-books are better than whitepapers. And yes, I've already downloaded the free guide to e-book creation. I'll read it while I drink my coffee this afternoon.

The Knowledge Economy of World of Warcraft

2011-10-21T14:51:00.001-04:00

Lean Manufacturing and the World of Warcraft

Social Crush Blast

2011-08-18T11:18:00.010-04:00

Social Crush exploded in "Famously Hot" Columbia, SC this week. Hundreds of social media practitioners flocked to the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center in anticipation of upping their social media skills. We were not disappointed.

Tim Moore and Ty Downing brought a host of experts with them, including Michael Brito of Edelman Digital, Silicon Valley; Glen Gilmore, Esq., Gilmore Business Network; Victoria Harres of PR Newswire; Skeeter Harris of Mac Village Pro; Kipp Bodner of HubSpot; and Bostjan Spetic and Tin Dizdarevic of Zemanta.

I'm spending the next few days (ahem... weeks) trying out several of the tools I learned about. I've just installed Zemanta, a content enhancement tool that suggests links, tags, images, and further reading for blog posts. Very nice.

One of the key takeaways from Bostjian and Tin's presentation is: The Web is made for linking.

One might think this statement is self-evident. Based on my experience last week while adding some news releases to a website, I think it's not obvious to most news providers. Perhaps they are still thinking in paper press terms. Just cutting and pasting an article from print into a digital format doesn't work for the web. I found myself searching for links to studies cited and to companies referenced in the articles. Not only is it bad web form, it's one of my pet peeves.

Using Zemanta is a great time saver, doing much (but not all) of the footwork for you. I'll keep tweaking it, but I think this tool is going to stay in my toolbox. Oh-- and it's free.

You can take the girl out of the library...

2011-07-06T12:58:00.006-04:00

For the past several weeks, I've been wondering what to do with this blog. Should I change the name? Start a new one? What?

Why? After working in libraries for the past 13 years, I am now working in the private sector, managing a recruitment and staffing firm's social media program. It's a very good fit: the firm specializes in information technology hiring--something I know a thing or two about, from both sides. Developing the social media strategy is challenging (yea!), and keeping abreast of the changes keeps the challenge fresh. And many of the skills I learned as a systems librarian and innovator are transferable.

In other words, I do not anticipate becoming bored any time soon. (This is a good thing; ask my mother.)

As one might suspect, I've been really delving into the world of branding, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. See my post, Swimming in the sea of social media. I remain impressed by the number of people who are interested in sharing what they know. It's almost overwhelming.

A side note: The title of my last post might have been more accurate if I had called it "Trekking across the social media terrain" - as illustrated by the 2010 Social Networking Map. Note the "Google Information Gathering Outposts". I guess the map will need to be redrawn to include Google+!

So, this week I'm preparing a social media guidelines draft, and reviewing staff profiles on LinkedIn. Here are some useful lists of policies and guidelines:

Social Media Governance - a database of about 176 policies

Only 29% Of Companies Have A Social Media Policy: Is Your Company At Risk?, by Jeff Bullas

Enterprise: List of 40 Social Media Staff Guidelines, by Laurel Papworth

A personal favorite of mine is by SocialVoice. Its simplicity makes it concise, and its tone appeals to our better instincts. Check it out.

So, you can take the girl out of the library, but can you take the librarian out of the girl? That remains to be seen. In the meantime, I'll keep the name of this blog for now. After all, I've spent quite a few years building this brand.

Oh, yeah... Atzilut is level 85! Think I'll work on my worgen now. Play on!

Swimming in the sea of social media

2011-06-05T03:52:00.005-04:00

I've had to stop reading about gaming, anthropology and sociology, while I work on a consulting job. I'm developing a social media campaign and training for a recruitment firm. Our first workshop is this Monday. I'm thoroughly saturated now in social media methodology. There's SO much information out there! The good news is there's such a glut of info that people can't sift through it. Enter Catherine stage right.

It's amazing how social media has developed in business and marketing. Quite fascinating, actually. Facebook can be a huge marketing tool. Check out one of the leaders in Facebook innovation, Mari Smith. She's got a YouTube channel, too. I found her through another Facebook guru, Amy Porterfield, and the Social Media Examiner. They are just two of the people I've been listening to this past week.

Before I landed this consulting gig, I picked up the book, Branding Yourself, by Erik Deckers and Kyle Lacy. Great information!

One of my teachers signed my high school yearbook with the words, "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity"--a quote from H.D. Thoreau's Walden. It's been buzzing around in my mind this past week (at least); I think they are good words to keep in mind as I swim in the sea of social media.

Reading about gaming & World of Warcraft

2011-05-17T10:33:00.000-04:00

I've been doing some interesting reading lately. I'm listening to Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal (@avantgame), and I'm reading My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft, by Bonnie Nardi. Both are fascinating. I could insert a rant here about the differences between listening to a book and reading a book... but I'll desist (for now). I might mention that I listened to Dan Tapscott's book, Wikinomics, last year, and The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman.

I have been playing more in large part to McGonigal's book. Things IRL haven't been golden lately, and oddly enough, I stopped playing WoW. After listening to Reality is Broken, I realized that perhaps not playing was not the best strategy. Interesting. So I made an effort to begin playing more frequently, and I've found it really does make a difference to me. It's at this point that I find I really wish I had a hard copy of McGonigal's book at hand. I'll get back to this in another post.

Nardi's My Life as a Night Elf Priest is also fascinating. One of the more attractive features is that this book is not a collection of essays, but an ethnographic exploration of World of Warcraft. I'm only in chapter 3, so I won't talk about this book any further.

Last year I read Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft® Reader, edited by Corneliussen and Rettberg (@jilltxt). This is a book of essays by people who actually play WoW. I would like to be in their guild!

I promise all of this is building up to something; it's still incubating, but I guarantee some sort of paper will result. In the meantime, Atzilut is level 84, and that's something to enjoy. (Edited and reposted from The WoW Librarian.)

WoW Librarian

Atzilut Dings 84

2011-04-17T02:44:00.003-04:00

W00T!

I've been playing rather sporadically; the last few weeks have seen much more gameplay. My significant other gifted me with Cataclysm in December, and I immediately rolled a worgen, Lunebane. She's level 28 right now. I also picked up a copy of "official strategy guide". If I had realized how different this guide was from the WoW guide, I wouldn't have bothered. At any rate....

I've been doing some interesting reading lately. I'm listening to Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal (@avantgame), and I'm reading My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft, by Bonnie Nardi. Both are fascinating. I could insert a rant here about the differences between listening to a book and reading a book... but I'll desist (for now). I might mention that I listened to Dan Tapscott's book, Wikinomics, last year, and The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman.

I have been playing more in large part to McGonigal's book. Things IRL haven't been golden lately, and oddly enough, I stopped playing WoW. After listening to Reality is Broken, I realized that perhaps not playing was not the best strategy for me. Interesting. So I made an effort to begin playing more frequently, and I've found it really does make a difference to me.

It's at this point that I find I really wish I had a hard copy of McGonigal's book at hand. I'll get back to this in another post.

I promise all of this is building up to something; it's still incubating, but I guarantee some sort of paper will result.

In the meantime, Atzilut is level 84, and that's something to enjoy.

Atzilut hits 80!

2010-07-12T01:12:00.000-04:00

Yes! I have a level 80 night elf druid! Just moments before I earned the 1500 Completed Quests achievement. I leveled when I turned in The Broken Front quest. I am so very happy. <do happy dance> <-- Gee, I ought to be able to write some code there... Signing off... May the stars guide and watch over you!

WoW Librarian

New website platform

2010-06-30T17:12:00.000-04:00

After a bit of deliberation, I've decided to move my website (wowlibrarian.com) to a new platform. It's been in Joomla! for a while; now it's in WordPress. I've often used my website to test Joomla! updates and plugins; my website at times suffered for this. (Yeah, that's a "duh" statement.) I learned about an online sandbox for testing software packages at LITA last year. Now if I can find my notes...I'll be testing from there instead. I've just downloaded a WordPress plugin called CrossPress. This plugin should allow me to "post once, publish many". I guess we'll see in a minute. If you read this on wowlibrarian.blogspot.com, you'll know it worked. Atzilut is at level 78.5! I've been playing more regularly lately, and it's done wonders for me. Looks like I'll get to 80 before Cataclysm is released.

WoW Librarian

A Digital Native's Demands

2010-02-22T12:41:00.000-05:00

A Digital Native's Demands

Once upon a time...

2010-02-21T02:49:00.006-05:00

Once upon a time, I worked for a business management consulting firm in Boston, and I learned at lot. A great deal. I truly had some embarrassing times; I was, after all, a newly graduated philosophy major. Nevertheless, I learned a great deal about private industries and how they worked. It was quite enlightening, but I was not truly ready to be enlightened. I had children instead.

Now, no one can really say having children is not enlightening. It is. New lessons in humility. In hubris. In despair. At any rate, I had three beautiful, smart, talented children.

I worked at several jobs. During college, I had worked in bars, as a waitress, for a cobbler, made candy, worked a shrimp boat... there were some other jobs in there. I also worked in the print shop, on the college's literary art magazine. During my childbearing years, I worked for a newspaper, first in classified ads, and eventually as the feature editor. I worked at a bookstore; I volunteered at my children's media center; I sold craft kits; I edited a book; I did many, many things.

And then I went to graduate school. The first day after class, I was walking to the bookstore to purchase my text, and I had an intense experience. I KNEW I was doing the right thing. I just knew it. To this day, I remember walking to that bookstore, and suddenly, I felt like I was in a snowglobe... Everything coalesced, and I was certain-- more certain than I had ever been-- that I was doing the right thing. I was in the right place at the right time.

During grad school, we had a speaker from the SC State Library. Now, it had not taken long for me to realize there were job paths I really wasn't interested in. And there were places I felt I really wanted to be. Did I want to be in public services? Ah, no. I didn't know what "public services" really meant, but I was pretty certain that, if it was like retail, it was not the place for me. I felt this should be a very secret thing... I mean, after, wasn't a librarian supposed to want to work with the public? What if "they" found out, and kicked me out of library school for not wanting to work with the public? This was a disturbing thought for me. Seriously.

As it was, this was an amazing time to be in library school. Oh, sure, for some people it was a nightmare. It was the early nineties, and the Internet-- the World Wide Web-- was brand new. I started grad school after the Internet began, when we were still learning how to use Archie, and gopher, and Veronica. And then there was Netscape.

OMG!! The dreams I had as a kid were suddenly becoming true. Information was just about at my fingertips. Literally.

We had a visitor from the SC State Library, who told us what a state library was; and how no two state libraries were really the same. And she told us what the state library did in SC. I knew right then, I wanted to work for the SC State Library.

When I graduated and finished my advanced certificate, I was a little concerned. Time to start work. Those student loans would be coming due soon. I applied for two jobs: one was with OCLC, and the second wasn't even an MLIS position, but it was in a library-- the SC State Library. As it was, I was interviewed and offered the position of Automation Librarian at the State Library.

Talk about a dream come true. You see, as an employee of the state library, I would be acting as a consultant to the state's public libraries. Wow. I knew what a consultant was... remember, I had worked for a business management consulting firm way back when.

Let's talk a little about family history. I am the granddaughter of a USAF Lieutenant Colonel. He graduated from Clemson as a civil engineer, at a time when Clemson had many ROTC students. My grandfather later joined the Army Air Force, which eventually became the USAF. He finished his career as a civil servant, still in the same position. His last duty post was at Cape Kennedy.

I am the daughter of a USAF air policeman. He was the first to predict that I would become a librarian. I wasn't even a teenager at the time. He was proud of my abilities.

Suffice it to say, I have a strong leaning toward civil service.

This used to be a good thing.

It's not now.

Now, I wake up every morning wondering if I'm going to have a job by the end of the day....

(to be continued)

I Resolve

2010-01-10T02:24:00.004-05:00

Happy 2010!

I've been thinking a lot about this post, and about posting in general. I noticed I have a few drafts stuck away; I doubt I'll go back and finish them, but then one never knows. I've spent the past couple of months clearing backlogs and preparing for new things.

Before I go further... Atzilut is now level 75. Still a long way to go til 80, but my pace has picked up.

I thought for a change I would take some time to think about some changes and some goals, not just in observance of the "new year". A few years ago, my job description changed, resulting in a strong focus on innovation, or research and development. Immediately after, other changes occurred, and I assumed additional duties. The focus on innovation was stifled by the immediacy of those other duties.
In December, I was relieved of those additional responsibilities. I spent the month tying up loose ends, and thinking about new directions for the division.

I thought about tasks I had neglected: Professional reading. Writing. Getting my hands under the hood. The most infuriating thing is those actions are exactly what prepare the ground for innovation! Not to have the time to pursue those occupations was the most difficult part of the past 18 months.

I resolve not to hoard Computers in Libraries, Library Technology Reports and Online.
I resolve to resume reading professional literature both print and online.
I resolve to write more, with Twitter, on my blog, and in the good old fashioned journal.
I resolve to meet monthly with my division.
I resolve to network.
I resolve to focus on technology competencies and training for staff.

I think that's enough. A quick Google search for definitions of "resolution" indicate that a statement identifying the resolution is not enough; a resolution involves analysis and a game plan.

I've set up RSS feeds to alert me when the aforementioned journals are available online; this should prompt me not to hoard them. (BTW, I put myself last on the routing list already, noting that I would collect them.)

The Innovation and Technology division met for the first time last week. In the course of discussion, we discovered we had some action items... it was most exciting. I have to say this is a great team.

And thus ends my first blog post of the year.

Open Source Software in Libraries

2009-09-18T11:07:00.001-04:00

Very good, balanced discussion of OSS in libraries.

Open Source Software in Libraries

View more presentations from Sukhdev Singh.

Socialnomics

2009-08-20T17:26:00.002-04:00

OK, I understand we can make statistics say anything, but this is so much fun!

Level 71 At Last!

2009-08-08T03:26:00.003-04:00

Haven't had a chance to play much in eons, but finally got back to it a bit these past few weeks. Tonight (this morning?) Atzilut finally leveled. Atzi was in Valiance, picking up Grand Master training for skinning, herbalism and first aid. Also picked up the Writhing Longstaff. Well, off to bed. May the stars guide you...

Sending Out an SMS - Joe Murphy

2009-07-30T16:43:00.006-04:00

Considers the ability to send a text message a "core competency" for librarians today.
Twitter: @libraryfuture
Tweetable: text messaging is the focus of mobile communication and info exchange. It is the most important addition to library services of our time. The role of SMS in our lives is growing. Alerts by SMS include weather, air lines, 911, politics, ordering pizza, emergency alerts and more.
More popular that phone calls. Expectation experiential gap.
Contact point, information service, portal.
Text messaging coupons... great application, but the technology isn't there yet.
Social networking: some do it better than others. Facebook isn't even quite there... you can get a message that someone wants to be your friend, but you can't friend them without going to the Facebook application.
Joe engages with ~400 text messages per day for personal communication, news, current awareness and searching.
SMS is now used for so much more than communication; it is also a major way that we engage with info. Journals, higher ed,
SMS transforms the phones in our pockets to discovery devices thru mobile answer and searching devices.
Through Mobile search services such as Google SMS, ChaCha & KGB we search the web and get answers from real people in real time.
Every librarian should have a smart phone... The workstation of the future.
Never believe a librarian who tells you that Web 2.0 is free.
Thru the mobile use of social networking sites, esp twitter and Facebook, we use SMS for seeking info from social circle.
We also use SMS increasingly for knowledge management: tracking and sharing info and resources with SMS alerts.
Libraries can stay relevant in this evolving mobile landscape by offering answer and info services via text messaging.
Joe uses ChaCha and KGB to answer his information needs.
Choosing a technology for SMS reference can be tricky but is THE major concern affecting all aspects of the service.
The major considerations for evaluating SMS ref technologies: cost, staff workflows, meeting patron expectations, flexibility of tool.
Options for tech for SMS reference: SMS/IM mashups, direct with cell phones, web based, SMS/Email conversion software
Using a cell phone is best, gives mobility, no expectation gap, least steps for staff, flexible for future services. Helps bridge the gap between traditional services and virtual services. He recommends the iPhone, but in the next year things will be happening. Security issues: securing the phone, security for the patron.
Does the popularity of twitter make it a viable option for mobile ref or is the patron needing a twitter account too high a barrier?
Get the SMS ref phone # into patron's phones and foster the connection between that contact and their needed info.
We need a carefully planned management structure for SMS ref because it's a major service shift with unique considerations.
Staffing concerns
Mobile literacy: librarians need an emerging skill set for engaging info services thru mobile devises.
joeydigits on flickr - Social Networking Competencies for Librarians
Yale University Science Libraries. @ylescilib blazed the trail...
Tips to start an SMS re program: explore tehs, plan for management, train/play, test, launch. Contact @libraryfuture for assistance.
SMS can expand all ref services and is the keystone to mobile virtual reference.
We can get a good sense of what to expect for the future of SMS ref by keeping a finger on the pulse of SMS and mobile...
Consortia/Collaborations will be important for SMS
The slides will be on flickr www.flickr.com/joeydigits
www.facebook.com/joemurphy3

This was a very exciting session. Lots on interactivity. Lots of good things to consider as we shake up our customer service areas.

Public Library Panel on Text Messaging

2009-07-30T15:49:00.005-04:00

Orange County Library System: Gregg Gronlund ("Information . Imagination . Inspiration" on the bottom of his slides)

Tapping into the public trend; excellent customer service; innovation
Questline = their call center. Started in Sept. 1994. Separated their walk-in from the call-in traffic, so that reference librarians could focus on walk-in traffic. Reference librarians still answer reference questions. Average 15,000 calls per month. Stafing: 3 fulltime librarians and 11 full time reference assistants, manager and asst. manager. Also cross trained reference staff.
Tools:
Phone and headset. Email. Questline database. Library Catalog. Text messaging. Millennium circ. Instant service.
OLIVE (OCLS Interacrive Virtual Experience)- Video conferencing
Service determined by 1) service requsted and 2)cardholder status
Offers full service through Questline.

Text messaging through upside wireless www.upsidewireless.com. Has a microsoft office plug-in which converts a text message to an email, and vv. Has an autoresponse feature for some keywords. Zip code will get them the 3 closest branches. Gamer will get them the next gaming event at the library. Also alerts for due dates and computer classes.

Innovations @ OCLS

Use an Excel spreadsheet with codes for scheduling staff.
Training
Guidelines:
150 characters or less
answers should come from a reliable accepted source
When possible answers should include the source in the reposnse
Response time should be 30 minutes or less
Try to be thorough; the patron may not followup with other questions.
Tiny URLs don't tell people where they are going, so it's important to tell people what site you're sending them to.

Advertised a Business Text Messaging Night and a Sports Text Messaging Night. Increased the number of texts received that month.

They post a message about standard text messaging rates apply. If you're under 18, must have parent or guardian permission to text.

One format does not get priority over the other. Call center people take them as they come, but focus on finishing one before moving on to another.

Put an Ask a Question icon on every page that gave people a choice between chat or email. Increased usage from 85 a month to over 300 a month.

Good session.

A Quick Review of EBook Devices

2009-07-30T13:35:00.002-04:00

Read an EBook week.

The Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville has a guide to ebook devices, that includes youtube videos, etc.

4.5 million netbooks sold each quarter. light, better battery life. being used as ebook readers.

Nintendo DS is being used in Japanese.

Augmented reality... Second time today I've heard this.
I'm loving these AR popup books!!

7 textbook companies have now moved to ebook format (CourseSmart)

Augmented reality coming to iPhone with iPhone OS 3.1

Cataloging Notices to Cellphone

2009-07-30T12:59:00.003-04:00

I've missed a great deal of this one... :( I hope it's going to be online somewhere. The audience asked a lot of questions during the session-- very engaged.

http://delicious.com/tgreenwalt/handheld

Shoutbomb is granted tunnel access to Millennium, as a self-check user. Hold, courtesy and overdue reports are generated, and then automatically processed using a TCL script. The reports are then sent to shoutbomb using SFTP. Shout bomb resolves the report against a list of signed-up patrons (barcodes). Records are stored for 5 days, and then deleted, to ensure patron privacy.
Patrons text a message to the library to signup for this service.

Training staff to send text message to a phone. For example, to Verizon user, the text goes to [number]@vtext.com. Other providers are listed at SMS411.net.

Shoutbomb@gmail.com for more info.

Next step: text message reference. Issues include staff training, recognizing a SMS as it comes in and the 140-character limit. Goals: seamlessness; patron experience; staff workflow; SMS to IM gateway.

tripod.brynmawr.edu; trilogy.brnmawr.edu/trico/sys/sms.html

Web signup at DCPL..

www.snaptell.com; www.kooaba.com
QR codes
Augmented reality (AR). Snappr

http://www.theanalogdivide.com/ is Toby Greenwalt's blog.

Notes on the Handheld Librarian Online Conference

2009-07-30T11:35:00.007-04:00

Gerry McKiernan's keynote on "Current Mobile Trends in Libraries". Much of the information can be found on his blog, mobile-libraries.blogspot.com

Digital Collections on DukeMobile iPhone app (YouTube)
Facebook EBook Readers in Libraries
Kindle app for iPhone can access Kindle content without having a Kindle. 240,000 Kindle books are avilable for the iPhone or iPod Touch.
WikiMods: wikipedia for mobile phones
Epocrates RX free prescription drug reference
Blackboard Learn for iPhone
Epocrates MobileCME
guides from U of Iowa on pdas

Is the Kindle the future of ILL? Re-Kindling Interlibrary Lon: Amazon's Kindle...
At BYU, Kindle Program on Hold (Library Journal)

Twitter Journals = Journals that Tweet SciTechMed Journals
Twitter for Libraries / Sarah Milstein
Libraries that Twitter
Twittering Libraries Wiki: Prominent Uses in Libraries.
More and more library vendors using twitter
OCLS YouTube on their mobile OPAC
Farkas has info on mobile interaces on the best practices wiki

Reference services: mediated phone reference services for the cellphone user
Skype on iPhone
SMS Library Reference Service Options / Beth Stahr

Text a Librarian http://www.textalibrarian.com/

Mobile Apps for Virtual Learning Environments
Barnes and Noble eBooks
Interactive Mobile Tutorials

Alan Kay (see wikipedia) conceived the Dynabook concept which defined the basics of the laptop computer.

First Ever Evergreen Conference

2009-05-23T18:06:00.002-04:00

Six of us traveled down to Athens, GA, for the first ever Evergreen Conference. About 150 people from as far away as Armenia made the trek. Many people were checking things out, asking lots of really great questions, gathering facts, before deciding whether to enter the forest.

Truth be told, my mind was all over the place. We go live on May 28th, and I was thinking about data, data, data. However, I was doing a lot of listening, and asking copious questions as well.

We arrived in time for lunch at DocSuey's, a noodle restaurant. From there we headed over to the conference center to register and attend two afternoon pre-sessions. This time we skipped the hackfest; we'll save that for next year. LaBon and I attended the SysAdmin Survival Skills, and Laura and Rob went to the Documentation and DocBook demo.

LaBon said he enjoyed the sysadmin survival skills. I enjoyed the last 45 minutes. To me, it was like a high level engineering design class; I just wanted to learn to how to tune up my car and keep it running efficiently. I can't seem to find a happy medium with the sysadmin training I've had so far. Of course there is a solution for that: it does involve more work for me, though. Well, what else is new. I just luv a challenge.

Laura and Rob, on the other hand, said they enjoyed their session. I believe it... I heard laughter coming from their room. I'm just a curmudgeon.

The vendors hosted a very nice reception. Thank you! SC had a great showing. There were at least 21 South Carolinians there. About seven of us ended up at the Globe, a decent tavern, for dinner and a few. Later another large group came in, including Bob Molyneux, aka Dr. Data. Good conversation all around...

'Ware dissing the website goddess!

2009-03-15T12:32:00.003-04:00

If there is a website goddess, I must have indeed dissed her bigtime! The story...

March 4th I received an email about one of the websites; it just wouldn't load. So I went in to take a look... Still don't know what the problem was. The database looks good. Of course, server tech support was NO help. I'm so spoiled, and don't like having to use a hosted server, although there are distinct advantages. Tech support: reload Joomla! I smile sweetly, (ok, I didn't), muttered a long string of epitaphs, (colourful ones), and started looking at how to migrate to Joomla! 1.5. Might as well. No time like the present.

So, I needed to test it on something. Note to self: in spare time, set up a test server. I decided to test it on my personal, and seriously neglected, website. Of course the migration went well. Sigh of relief. Don't go looking... I haven't reloaded my templates yet.

Time to try it on the downed site. Ha. Migration did not go well. No. Not at all. Why should it? Obviously I haven't placated the goddess appropriately. Grumph. But I'm not totally dejected; I still have the content.

As I have no time during the week to work on this, I wait and think about the changes I'd like to make to the site. No time like the present. Plan, plan plan...

On my birthday, no less, to add injury to insult, my DH brings me the phone, with such a message... I'M SO SORRY! I HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD BACKUP! What? What??!!?

Yes, gentle readers. On another server, a different website. Gone. LOL, maniacal shrieking. (Not quite. I did in fact have an excellent backup.)

What have I done to receive such negative attention from the goddess?? Could it be the fact that I have purchased patterns and fabric for new SCA garb? Fabric and patterns still in the bag? It must be.

So website number 3 is restored. 20 minutes, natch. The rest should go so well...

If someone can tell me how to appease the website goddess, I'd be forever grateful. In the meantime... I no longer have to wonder when I should migrate to Joomla! 1.5. And I can make the changes I've been thinking about.

I think the whole thing has to do with the lack of time to devote to playing WoW. Maybe I should quit sleeping...

Why I Luv Web 2.0

2008-12-07T03:02:00.007-05:00

As I was demonstrating Google Books to my dearly beloved late last night, I told him just how much I luv this era. All the things I dreamt of as a kid are right here, right within my reach... I was showing him the full text books available now that support our hobbies. By extension, I am also able to add to our library's offerings...

Okay, let me back up. I'm learning about heraldry for my persona in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). I've been using World Cat and Delicious to bookmark the necessary resources for onomastics and blazonry. So, as I was wandering around, I decided to put some items on my Amazon wishlist... and that led to, I wonder if these are available through Google Books? Sure enough, some of those prized resources are available to me through GB. Then I noticed that wonderful link: add to my library. One click and they were added to my Google Library.

And because I am a curious workaholic, I decided to type into Google Books those magic words, "south carolina". To backfill, we are digitizing our state documents collection; and we have this marvelous and sorely underused collection of books published prior to that magical year 1923. However, we don't have (and don't have the money for) a digitizer with a book cradle. (I know... time to write a grant or something.) I did a search in our catalog for items published in the 19th century. Then I did a search in Google Books for "south carolina", full view. Don't you know that many of our "rare" items have already been digitized by Google?? Quite frankly, I find that pretty exciting! We will now be adding an 856 field in our MARC records. Less for us to digitize... and more immediate access for our patrons. (Our cataloger is going to love me on Monday. LOL.)

I just luv this time (provided our elected officials don't FUBAR). I went into the sacred art (philosophy) -- naively, I might add -- because I was in luv with the art of wondering and of knowledge. I continued, some years later and no less naively, into library science, for the very same reason. I know we can't make people wise (not quite that naive), but I also feel we can provide the tools people need to discover knowledge, and hence to develop wisdom.

I still have the days when Socrates is buttonholing me, hounding me even, asking me exactly what is wisdom? what is the common good? ... and all those other questions he and Moses are so fond of asking....

Today, I can say. leave me alone, you old cherubed cheeked geek, and you bright horned prophet.... Just stop and look at how far we've come...

And yet, how far we have to go. Isn't it beyond thrilling??

Can they ever intersect? ...

I still think they can....

New eee pc 1000

2008-11-02T13:30:00.003-05:00

I was somewhat disappointed with the Asus eee pc 901-- mostly the issue with the shift key. And the keyboard was very small, although I was getting used to it. However, it really ticked me off that no sooner did I get the 901, the 1000 came out. As fate would have it, I was actually able to get the new 1000, because the 901 found a home with one of my sons. They are very happy together.... At least he doesn't have to feed it.

In the meantime, the 1000 still has the same shift key issue (issue in my book, at any rate). To ensure that I would not be bored, when I bought this one, I opted to get the Linux OS (Xandros). LOL. This can be very humbling... So, after struggling for an hour with the wireless, I finally made it onto the Internet. Next step... upgrading Firefox to version 3. While I was struggling with this, Joshua called in to inquire about voicemails about the wireless. He asked the most asinine question: have you read the manual? I mean, what kind of fun is involved with reading the manual... Have you ever actually looked at the manual that comes with a new PC? Really...

However, he did point me to the Eee PC user forums, which in turn pointed me to a wiki [Tweaking for] Absolute Beginners. So that's where I am now: back in Noobville-- what an adventure!

I'm going to go check my mail on WoW, see who's online, chill, and then come back to tweaking my new eee.

Participation and Power

2008-10-26T23:28:00.002-04:00

Combining Community Features with Existing Metadata in NextGen Public Interfaces
Kelly M. Vickery, University of Kentucky; Dinah Sanders, Innovative Interfaces

Encore is an Innovative development. Uses community tags to flesh out marc records.
Example one item that deals with DRM does not have any subject headings indicating DRM; community tags did describe the item with DRM. so they went back to the item record and added a subject heading for DRM. Encore 2.0. patron is authenticated, which also adds a level of policing... gets very few trash tags.

Though administration module, can view recent tags and approve them. Can build a thesaurus of tags which are also whitelisted. Also whitelist at record level... A page for patrons so you can track who is actually tagging. Can block patrons or patron type.

Rapid, iterative developmnet and the partnership approach. Large group of development partners. 100 libraries are currently involved, and about 3 dozen development partners.

U of Ky. is the latest partner. Integrating Encore with Voyager.
Had looked at Aquabrowser, Endeca, Primo.

Another case of datadump to III. Marc/serial holdings; item information; item circulation status; location/collection; patron records. Kentucky made the decision not to include circ status as it was 24 hours behind. In order for tagging to work, need to have LDAP communicating with Encore. (LDAP for patron authentication)

academic tags: groupings for courses
syllabus readings
impromptu course project reading lists
course reserve lists
collaborate tagging for group projects

animal names: bovine - cow; equine - horse
tagging can help institute new terminology or changing terminology (plutoid for dwarf planet)

public library examples of tagging: shared tags
bookclubs can tag their reading lists and meeting times
informal vocabulary, disambiguation. acts like a see-also reference
emerging vocabulary: gitmo, podcasting - fills gap between common usage and inclusion in LCSH.
encore 3 will include reviews and ratings
Pre-coordination vs. iterative "berry-picking"
Patrons are significantly less familiar with index searching compared to keyword searching. Only 4% of searches at U of Glasgow used the subject search.

2/3 encore users reported using the tag cloud, prior to the addition of community tags.

Collection development => conversation development => collaboration development

I was disappointed that this session was about a proprietary system, but I did learn quite a bit. Vickery's presentation provided much food for thought.

Website Redesign: perspectives from the field

2008-10-26T23:26:00.005-04:00

Ohio: creating the team. (Ohio State, Black and Shelby.)
150 people with ftp access to server. In developing the team, they recruited for specific skills and competencies. Used a leadership tool to help develop the list of competencies. They used Bruce Tuckman's model of team building. All web developers in the same office. Weekly meeting. Wrote a mission statement as a team. Technical standards: developed a set of standards, including security (#1); user centered design; maintainability; data preservation. Also worked on staging environment version control. Made a commitment to a standardized platform. Used LAMP, hosted on university hosted machines. Use OSS packages whenever possible. Perform regular software updates. Applications need to be longstanding (10 years); therefore needs solid documentation. Secure password repository. Committed to a toolbox mentality for users.

A Merged Website: triumphs and compromises. (Amelia Brunskill, Dickenson College.)
Usability testing: used Camtasia to capture users use.Students participated in these tests. Documentation is an issue.
Communications: LIS blog created in Drupal. Minutes and timelines posted. Liaison to units. Usability reports were posted. Users were a neutral party. Most content was at the unit's discretion. Pages were consistent across all units/sites. Internal technical blog created for suggestions, updates, etc. Editorial team built from all units that meet quarterly. Soft rollout. Sites ran in tandem. Hard rollout in July. Impressive amount of lack of negative feedback. All units had ownership.

Website Redesign: perspectives from the field. (Robin Leech, Oklahoma State University Libraries.)
Usability testing. Teams were created, each of 5 people. Needed to stay within the university's style sheets. The entire team read Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think. Had a one day workshop led by Beth Thomsett-Scott. Aligned mission with the library strategic goals. Reviewed log files. Wanted to look at the bottom 1/3 and bottom 1/2. Staff surveys. Developed an Excel timeline. All staff at library could get to the timeline. They used Morae (Techsmith) to do recorded task testing. Continued to use Survey Monkey as the site developed. Card sorts. Students were used in beta testing, and later another group of students were recruited for additional testing.

Edward M. Corrado,Binghamton University, (but he was at the college of new jersey when they redesigned their site.)
Collected lots of data; looked a two years worth of logs. They were also tasked with redesigning the opac at the same time. Lots of usability studies. Looked at a lot of peer academic websites, but focused on sites that were known to do good usability studies. Developed 32 revisions. Started with the home page and then a few top level pages. One problem was that everyone thought a revision was the final version... Confusion with pig latin text, etc. Ultimately, the website was a success, due to the team, the university webmaster, the usability studies, etc. The one thing that was a problem was no mission statement for the library-- it was a big hurdle. This actually helps when you get conflicting user feedback... are you focused on the library mission? Communication is a big key. About 7 people on the committee. Need to make sure that at the last revision, people understand that this is going up... Also did usability studies a few months after the launch and tweaked the website based on results.

Question: Are there best practices emerging from the usability studies that can benefit other sites? The panelists mentioned 2 tools: www.rosenfeldmedia.com and John Kupersmith's Webspace.

Putting the Library Website in Their Hands

2008-10-26T23:23:00.001-04:00

The Advantages and Challenges of a Homegrown Content Management System
Rachel Vacek, University of Houston Libraries

Virtual searches; new books from the catalog. Uses libraryfind for federated search.

Advantages: rapid prototyping; know the system intimateely; can add upgrades quickly; modular; miccroformats. Always looks fresh with rss feeds.

Disadvantages: for infrequent users, rapid prototyping can be a problem. Documentation is hard to keep current. Web developers are constantly working on it. Backend works with Firefox, not IE. Built with coldfusion, which costs $$$. Lots of flexibility means sometimes librarians go off in unexpected directions.

Future plans:
-api with worldcat and book jackets
-search engine with metadata
-new layout engine
-add other media
-create platform for user contributed content and personalization
-integrate with digital library and other library systems
-try to make it open source by summer 2009.

Third-party applications: Uses flickr to find creative commons images. libraryfind. wordpress. librarything. serialssolutions. digitool (ex libris), archon, worldcat.

For more info: www.librarywebchic.com Karen Coombs; www.rachelvacek.com Rachel Vacek

Five Minute Madness

2008-10-26T23:14:00.004-04:00

This session consisted of a series of 5-minute presentations of projects. The time limit forced the participants to distill each project to its essence. Great session; I was able to glean a few kernals I might have missed had these been full-length sessions.

Incorporating ICT into a New Vision for Caribbean Libraries. Delivers library and information support for education for the libraries in West Indies. Grace traveled around the West Indies to study how technology is being used... She found that libraries were eager for dialogue. UWI Initiative. MEDCARIB and CARDIN. Already have good videoconferencing in place. Vision: increased use for OSS. Can LITA help? Visit the West Indies during the winter...

Using Delicious to Select Medical Resources.
Sakai. Wanted to include more multimedia in LMS. Host Defense/most significant aspect. Recipient choses own point of entry bundles. Decided to use Delicious... easy to share. Faceting with tags. 2 other modules have been added. emerging workflow: split searching and organization. Recipient involvement varies. Known issues... sharing passwords is bad. for:username is too limited-- Tags are stripped when sending Urls. Faceting is flawed.

Help system based on Solr.
Discovery tool for digital collection. Service oriented architecture. OSS. XML/HTTP. Users need to search help. Nontechie staff members needed to update, add and delete pages easily. Using tools to support tools. They developed schema and webforms for editing pages. User can search using keywords. Solr doc returns as xml, which is converted to html.

RFID self checkout user interface redesign. Started in June 2008. 6 steps in all. Problems: busy interface; text cues small and lots of it; distracting animations; patrons walked away without printing reciepts, which hung their record. After... larger clear text. Only 3 steps. No animations. Voice prompts. Clear and concise. 10% increase in adult self check... 30% in children's self check.

Endeca project at triangle research libraries network. Catalog allows search across combined collections (11 million). Circ updated every 30 minutes. Cataloging updated daily. Facets. Syndetics. RSS. Indexing on nightly basis. Indexes tables of contents. Integrated Google book search. Interfaces with Illiad. Future: search and relevance rank tuning, adding new indexes, shopping cart, nonMarc data. [syndetics can provide xml for indexing TOC]

Handheld Project Scope. PennState. iPhone lust. Wrote a grant for using iphones in academic settings. Libraries using them for roving reference. Testing done by IT and librarians. 6 use cases developed. 3 roving reference; faculty liaison activity. how different products display on handhelds. Mapped use
cases to requirements. Mapped requirements to mobile devices. Tested with 4 devices. Found holes in their wireless, but no clear winner among devices.

Unmanned technology projects. Big plans, big user expectations. Consortial pressure, but limited staff. There was a lack of coordination, resulting in frustration for the small staff. The solution was a library technology work group, made up of key players in key projects. Mixed group of techies and nontechies. Meets monthly. Uses a wiki to set up timeline. There is a page for every project. Meeting minutes are posted, and what's new. All stafff can read that wiki. These seemingly minor changes work great and had unforseen positives. They've created another wiki specificly for documentation; training will happen at a mini-conference.

Texting at the reference desk. Implementing an sms reference for mobile patrons. Single service desk. SMS is a growing communications medium. Phone number can be added to contacts more easily. Upside wireless. Pros: local phone number; integrated with reference email; familiar technology. The service is somewhat expensive. Started with a soft rollout in late spring to be followed with a harder rollout in the fall. They've seen a huge spike in usage in the fall. [On the road? Have a question? SMS the library] New model: AIM hack.

www.digitalpast.org Ten years and growing. Cooperative project for local history digitization. Uses oclc contentDM platform. (Time.)

Questions from the floor.

Sleepless in Cincinnati

2008-10-19T01:17:00.002-04:00

I should not be allowed to touch a computer after 10 pm (but just try to stop me...)! So, instead of sleeping so that I can be up bright, early and packed (ok, packed), I decide to figure out how to use LibX. Such a geek. The plugin is installed, it works, there's more to do, BUT: to sleep, perchance to dream....

Libraryman's agenda

2008-10-18T17:47:00.001-04:00

Libraryman's agenda
Originally uploaded by WoW Librarian

Michael Porter used a Star Trek-based template for his presentation.

Libraryman Michael Porter - LITA Keynote

2008-10-18T09:05:00.003-04:00

Hi-Fi-Sci-Fi-Library: Technology, Convergence, Content, Community, Ubiquity and Library
Michael "Libraryman" Porter, WebJunction

320 attendees. Librarians from all over the US, Canada, Switzerland, other European counties, Ghana, several African countries. And they've arranged for late checkout for tomorrow! What great forum organizers.

Technology, community & training. Presentation is powerpoint and video clips. Michael does NOT stand still, and he talks fast. As a matter of fact, frenetic would be a good word to describe him. LOL.

A basic Star Trek vocabulary is useful.

Fidelity implies a truthful connection to the source.

Some of the technologies Michael will be speaking about don't exist yet...

Content + Community = Libraries

Access Granted: LCARS - Library Computer Access and Retrieval System
PADD He showed a hack of an iphone with a PADD display.

Environmnetal Scan... decreased costs, increased computing power. Software. Increased energy efficiency and battery life.

New methods of content creation. Playing well with others.

Content Provision: Competition Abounds.

Technology enhanced performance - pedometers that upload info to your computer.
[I have GOT to get an iRobot for my floors...]
Chumby.... based on OSS.
Google Phone Android is a software package. The phone will be developed by the Open Handset Alliance, which is made up of 30 plus companies.
Pandora = opensource portable gaming device. BUG = It's a base that takes plugins that emulates other hardware.
iPhone projector.
Livescribe Pulse Smartpen.

What is our interface right now for our library communities?

Now for the videos...
Rickroller
The Time Machine at the NYPL
Star Trek IV and human computer interaction. Scotty tries to interact with a 20th century computer... But what about Dragon Naturally Speaking speech recognition software? Michael's mother uses it, and he plans to use it to write a large part of his book.

Scientists, intellectuals and writers envision androids such as Data(STNG) and the Doctor (STV) aspiring to be human. That the beauty of librarianship... we are human and we hold the keys to knowledge. We are still the pinnacle of what other humans need. The community and the library will still be there if we learn how to work with the technology.

Futurama...brain spawn attack defeated thanks to the books at the local library...
I, Robot..."ban the internet to keep the libraries open"
Futurama... getting physical things from the internet (download Lucy Lui)
How William Shatner Changed the World - documentary nominated for an Emmy...
Minority Report - human computer interaction.
Zardoz - (how did I miss this one?)

Making sure libraries stick around is going to take some strong action on our part. Futurama metaphor-- the actual person in power isn't who we think it is...

Concluded with the "hi-fi sci-fi library"

3 quick plugs: create a webjunction professional profile
world cat api... hackathon at NYPL to work on this

Portals to Learning

2008-10-18T00:17:00.004-04:00

Nicholas Schiller and ?? discussed what we can learn about teaching from studying the structure of video games. Nicholas presented "theory", and ?? discussed her adventures in WOW and how the principles she picked up there can be applied to BI.

From their powerpoint:
Games are complex information systems. They must teach players to evaluate information and make informmed choices. Games that don't do this successfully fail to sell.

Lessons from WOW:
Collaboration and Apprenticeship:
Principle: You're never alone
Application: team exercises, self-selection, identifying critical skills as a group.

Deemphasizing Authority Distinction/Emphasizing Peer Knowledge:
Reputation in wow is based on a player's skills and knowledge.
Principle: No single authority; peer to peer; 32 seconds later...
32 seconds is the average length of time it takes to get a response from someone in WoW
Application: Not LMS-like; wiki; knowledgebases

Parsing Out Learning/Using the Level Concept
Principle: Scaffolding; not tempted to skip; you only see the part of the world you've mastered. [I disagree with what she says here. You see where you have EXPLORED, not what you've mastered. I think this is an important distinction.]
Cool.
Application: Focus on process; no right answer. She developed a teaching strategy where she focuses on 3 key things, not moving forward until students have mastered those.

Socializing/Community
Principle: "The real takeaway from a good swordfight session in World of Warcraft is its masterful community building" (econtent). Players build the resources, they are the resources; they belong to the community.
Application: Collaboration as a communtiy building tool. Core kids hang together.

Intrinsic Motivation and Rewards:
Players choose to play the game. Activities are rewarded.
Students have choices too. Students are used to choosing. Choice can be workked into a classroom curriculum. Choice of partners; choice of "quests".

Persistence in Failure
When you fail in WOW, you know what to do. When you fail in the classroom, do they know what to do? Building expertise and community allows them to understand that keeping at it will result in success.

Nic: Other gaming examples: Portal
Gating: the problem: button mashing ==> problem solving by random input.
Game designer solution: Gating. Mandatory pause in the acgtion that requires demonstration of select application.
Classroom application: Design research assignments to require identifycation and reflection on research process. Annotated bibliographies (show your work!)

Valve's corporate culture is Playtest, playtest, playtest. (Eric Wolpaw on playtest/assessment.)

Gee's book: Why doesn't Lara Croft obey Prof. Van Crey?
Telling and doing. Which approach is the surer path to student learning? Learning from how game design teach players. Application: discovery based learning. Player who eventually ignores the professor's tutorial and begins exploring for themselves finds easter eggs...

New ideas as she has leveled up:
Need for a community of scholars; ie those with greater experiences. Experienced librarians vs. reference assistants. The jargon gets confusing again at each level.

Gaming literacy = information literacy
(?) Bloom's Taxonomy-- finishing on a fairly high level when they're playing game... need to translate/apply the game playing strategies to learning...

-30-

Great session! I don't think xxx followed through on her development. She focused on the guild experience to the exclusion of the solo experience. The important distinction here is that whether the student is working with classmates or is studying alone, they have access to the same set of resources, and needs to be just as familiar with the available resources at any time.

Gating was a new term for me... but i believe I recognize the process. Playing Zelda Twilight Princess is no fun for me... I get so frustrated when I can't get past certain areas. There's no way to stop following that thread, and change pace for a while; you have to complete that step the way the game designers determine... and I don't really learn that way. In WoW, if I can't do soemthing, I can focus on a different quest for a while, complete it, and then return to the problem.

Civil Rights Digital Library

2008-10-17T23:52:00.002-04:00

Civil Rights Digital Library, Toby Graham Digital Library of Georgia

Video archive: 30 hours historical newsfilm
Learning objects component: provide instructional support
CRDL portal: draws together related content for a seamless virtual library

They developed Voci, written in Java and a Postgres database. The software is now available through SourceForge.net. CRDL was in development for two years.

Has relevance weighting for metadata elements. Browse is a canned search. Voci is not good at proofreading, global updates for metadata. They use another home grown product, "Ultimate" to handle that workflow. Voci doesn't hold digital objects. It's a tool for collecting and managing metadata from other aggregators.

Sustainability: after the grant ended, the programmer was hired full-time, as was the video editor. The metadata librarian was hired half-time. Partners are still adding material. News stations gifted the newsreel archives to the university, and signed over copyright as well.

-30-

This is an impressive project. Two years from start to finish... starting from scratch, even. I definitely want to look more closely at Voci. South Carolina is poorly represented in the CRDL... I wonder who's working on that? I did mention to Graham SCETV's Civil Rights Road Show... it would be a solid addition to the pedagogic section of the DL.

Spaulding on Social Cataloging (Keynote)

2008-10-17T23:26:00.004-04:00

Sitting in the Hall of Mirrors. Wondderful art deco design!

Tim Spaulding: What is "social cataloging" and where is it going?

Prototype theory... emergent...
LibraryThing is now larger than LOC.
good reads, shelfari, visual booksshelf. citeulike... YouTube bookreviews.. bibliocommons

Social cataloging explores social-ization; explores digitization; has no physical space; not commercial.

Have you read World War Z?

Philosophy of reviews in LibraryThing... finding out what people think about the books in your library.

Implicit social catalog: social cataloging can rehumanize the library catalog.

Another book: Everything is Miscellaneous.

Explicit...frbr

Spaulding suggests that we shouldn't be focusing on games in libraries-- the most important thing in the library is the catalog, and we're not doing it well.

Check out LibraryThing's facebook app.

Social Cataloging is:
about the catalog
about what you can do right now
about passion -- raw bookloving passion (use for political funding)
about giving, not taking

-30-

Although I'm adding books to my LibraryThing, I haven't really had time to play with it lately. It was very exciting to see its evolution. Spaulding made some excellent points about libraries and their catalogs. I think it's fascinating to see how the "common people" tag their books. Is it good to have a shared taxonomy? Yes, I think so. We don't need to be so quick to throw away LCSH. There is a world of enrichment that folksonomies can bring to the catalog, and we would be wise to include it.

Peer book reviews also add value to the user experience. How much trust can we put in the typical professional review? Do professionals really say bad things about books? I know I look at peer reviews in LibraryThing and in Amazon.

Spaulding encouraged us to look at the LibraryThing widgets and api's. In SC, Richland County Public Library has integrated LibraryThing for Libraries into their Horizon OPAC. It truly adds value to that OPAC.

At LITA

2008-10-16T23:37:00.005-04:00

I've made it to LITA, finally! I attended the lita forum when it was in Raleigh, NC, quite a few years ago, and haven't been able to make it back until now.

I've brought my new toy with me, an EEE PC, but the keyboard is giving me problems. However, practice makes perfect... Actually, I bought this one, and THEN, the 1000 came out. My son has fallen in love with this one, so he's getting an early birthday present, and I'm going with a slightly larger 1000. Also going with the linux version.

I'll be blogging the sessions, of course, and posting them here.

Had tea today at Churchill's Tea Room and Shop-- very nice. Brings back wonderful childhood memories.

Then I attended the reception at The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. The library was great-- they've just finished renovating their space, increasing greatly the amount of space. The highlight for me was a tour of their digitization project. They are creating a Virtual Library of their out of copyright items, city directories, and other manuscripts. Most recently, they've been digitizing handwritten ships logs. Fantastic operation. It's given me much food for thought-- I never made it to the food and wine, though.

In WoW news, Cresenc has been transferred to the Aerie Peak server, but no one has been on who can bring her into the guild. The latest patch is something else.... I have to redo Atzilut's talent tree... clicked one too many times and now need one more talent point to get Starfall. Sheesh. I think my new toon will take up the Inscription profession. Looks like fun!

New Guild, New Server

2008-10-12T01:51:00.003-04:00

If all goes well, Cresenc will be moving to the Aerie Peak server to become a member of the Libraries and Librarians Guild. Discovered this guild last week, started by Michael Porter, Libraryman and immediately logged in and rolled a new toon, Cresaluna. After looking at the stats of the other guildies, I decided to move Cresenc from Zul'jin to Aerie Peak. She's on a level with most of the other guildies.

And of course, what did I roll for Cresaluna? I think I'm in a rut. I try to break out, but I just can't seem to manage it. Wonder what this says about me? I need to try at least another class. Stretch my wings. Whatever. I should probably roll a rogue. Hmmm. Any ideas?

So how did I find the new guild? Facebook, of course! Check out the WoW Librarians group on Facebook.

Book Lists and Omnibuses

2008-09-28T14:15:00.005-04:00

I truly admire people who have tracked every book they've read over the years. I wish I had done so! Last week I bought R.A. Salvatore's omnibus, The Cleric Quintet. I hunkered down, ready to quietly escape, only to experience deja vu as the plot and characters rolled out on the viewscreen of my mind. How frustrating. After some mulling and stewing, I finally remembered the chain of events... of not being able to find one or more of the volumes, and finally giving up. I actually own the 4th volume, after borrowing the others.

The most aggravating psychological thing is, I truly dislike re-reading a book by accident! Now, up until a decade ago, I read Scott's Ivanhoe every two years since first reading it at age 10. And I could sit down today and read it again, with pleasure... as long as it was intentional. So, pooh. I can't seem to convince my mind to shut up and let me enjoy the Cleric Quintet, which, now that I've renewed my acquaintance with it, is a most enjoyable read.

However, I have just located a copy of Salvatore's Icewind Dale Trilogy omnibus, and I know I haven't read that one (those three?).

I love the omnibus collections now. I find an omnibus to be a book of a reasonable length-- I can't finish one in a day or two, which is always a plus with me. And I don't have to go searching for the next one in the series-- i.e., including waiting for mail...

And here's a plug for LibraryThing (and other such collectors) and the mobile web: I can at least look up what I've cataloged so far to see what I own by the author while I'm wandering the shelves in quest of another good read. Off and on I've tried to keep lists of my reading... annotated bibliographies and such grandiose schemes... I suppose I should just stick with a straight list, instead.

So now I'm off to buy the Icewind Dale Trilogy...

Last week it was the moon...

2008-08-03T16:28:00.003-04:00

At work, we are experimenting with the open source ILS, Evergreen. Several systems in the state are playing with it-- some very seriously.

Yesterday I was browsing through my incredibly high stack of professional reading. ERMS, federated (enterprise) searching, all the Web 2.0 stuff-- it's easy to see project creep approaching.

So, as I think about Evergreen, I also am thinking about all our other automation needs. We need an ERMS. We need federated searching. We need a new OPAC... but one that includes Web/Library 2.0 tools. Not to muddy the issue, we also need state-wide authentication for our citizens, so they can more easily use what we provide them.

We also need money and/or time and/or people who already know python and java... and money. Quite frankly, I want to invest in people and not software (or vendors). The tools are out there; it's just investing in the mindware so we can manipulate the tools.

Ultimately, I need to know that I can integrate an open source ERMS, federated searching, a faceted OPAC with Web 2.0 features, for starters, with Evergreen.

This is all new. Last week, I just asked for the moon. Still waiting...

2008-07-09T23:57:00.002-04:00

see Obama pictures

ROTFLOL! I absolutely LUV this.... with all due respect to my rabbi. :-)

2008-07-09T23:54:00.001-04:00

more cat pictures

Atzilut hits 70!

2008-07-06T01:53:00.001-04:00

Atzilut hits 70!
Originally uploaded by WoW Librarian

W00t! 33 days, 7 hours, 56 minutes and 15 seconds, or thereabouts... but who's counting. I don't quite know what to do with myself. I had just turned in "Imbuing the Headpiece" when I leveled. Now to hone my skills and up my gear in preparation for Wrath of the Lich King... and level 80.

Of course, I could also level Cresenc to 70 (she's cooling her heels at 50), or work with Tzel, my Draenei Shaman, who's down there at 21...

Atzliut - 69

2008-06-22T18:29:00.001-04:00

Atzliut - 69
Originally uploaded by WoW Librarian

W00T! Finally! I haven't had any time to play (let alone post), but today it finally happened. OK. Time to get back to business -- WoW business, that is. May the stars guide you.

libraryman hits 70 & blip.tvs it

2008-05-08T11:24:00.000-04:00

#888355 Here I was hoping to report on my anticipated level 70 in March... haven't been able to play since January, and my sanity is teetering... Need to get back into the saddle and charge forth; I have less than two levels to go. In the meantime, beaucoup GRATZ to libraryman. Check out the video.

500th Book on LibraryThing

2007-12-09T14:37:00.001-05:00

I just added book number 500 to my LibraryThing account! The book was Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz' A Guide to Jewish Prayer.

A Blue Sky Conversation: Snippets & Thoughts

2007-11-02T11:47:00.000-04:00

Helene Blowers and Michael Casey

A session of reflecting...
Annette Webb: Interesting Snippets
"Online, things can live forever, getting discovered by new audiences years after they originally launched." PSFK, Nov. 2006.
"60% of brides are creating personalised web pages related to their weddings." Jan. 19, 07 Conde Nast via Red Herring. We can engage people in celebrating and planning major events.
"Consumers are beginning in a very real sense to won our brands and participate in their creation... We need to learn to begin to let go." AG Lafley, CEO and Chairman of P&G, Oct. 06 Let our users use our library brand in an amazing way.
"Most people over 30 have a bit of difficulty grasping the concept of why you'd want a digital version of yourself online." NY Times, Dec. 10, 2006. Virtual worlds... They are them whether they are here in RL or online?
"We talked about having our 5-year-class reunion... Most people I asked weren't interested because they used sites like MySpace to stay in touch with anyone they really wanted to keep up with."
"Second Life deserves credit as a world of hypotheticals and thought experiments... a petri dish for innovations that may help people in real life" The Economist, Sept. 28, 06 PLCMC teens built a machine to pay their fees in SL... Linden $ get transferred to an avatar librarian...
"The Internet is just the world passing notes in a classroom" - Jon Stewart Is it? It's broadcasting...
"The generation that grew up on video games is blurring the lines between games and real life" Pierre Omidyar, eBay Chairman, May 2006 We don't talk enough about gaming for adults, dealing with health and memory issues. Learning is an addiction we feed in libraries, and games really feed into that.
"One of the most important things you learn from the Internet is that there is no "them" out there. It's just an awful lot of "us"... Douglas Adams, Aug. 29, 99
"They key is to produce something that both pulls people together and gives them something to do... I don't have to control the conversation to benefit from their interest. Henry Jenkins, author of "Convergence Culture", and Comparative Media Studies program director at MIT. Google Open Social Aspect... APIs for social networking; you can now move from one social network to another without recreating your presence.. Reduces the silos creating by social networks.
"Blogs are not necessarily important individually, but in aggregate they are massively powerful. The "blogosphere" pulls together what millions of talented people around the world are discovering and thinking.. " Ross Dawson, Jan. 17, 07
"Groups fo friends crave connectedness and they achieve it by swapping photos, music, and video clips, immersing themselves is a shared chronicle of daily life. Business Week, Dec. 4, 06

Lots more slides... find more at Book: www.lulu.com/content.
Flickr... check out librarybytes.com or librarycrunch.com for links to these slides.

20-25% of searches done on Google search day are NEW. Wikipedia now accounts for a staggering one out of every 200 page views.
ERic Schmidt, Google... anarchy, Google

LIS Professionals for 2020

2007-11-02T09:06:00.000-04:00

Dr. Samantha Hastings:
Hot new technologies
Iris scanning
ThinSight: prototype that allows you to feel what's on the screen, 3-D. applications for blind and children.
Holograms
Robots as librarians. Already a reality in a French library
Replicators?
Universal communicators. You don't have to be tied to any physical location to get what you need.
Quantum computers. process 1TB in <30 sec. Implicatons for tagging.
3-D images projected from a computer. Changes the way we store information.
Nanotechnology. Buckyball. Multi-sided carbon piece that bounces. Imprint whole libraries on a Buckyball and send it wherever we choose.

Dr. Jinmook Kim:
Past, Present, Future
"If you want a future, darling, why don't you get a past?" (Cole Porter)
20th Century. 19050-70: working with automation
1967 MARC
*1981 IBM PC
*Online catalogs
*1991 WWW
Client /server systems
1995 National digital library program
2000 MARC21, Dublin Core

1. Efficiency of internal operation
2. Access to local library services 80s
3. Access to resources outside the library 90s
4. Interoperability of information systems 21st century
5. ?

Trends
Advances in tech: Storage devices (nanotech). Ubiquitous computing. Web2.0...
Managing dynamic content in various formats: text, audio, video, image. Personalized, customized information
From ownership to access: e.g. types of media, file formats
Interoperability: new metadata standards for digital content(e.g. Dublin Core, MARC21, MARCXML). Protocols for data exchange (OAI, OAI-PMH)
Interactivity & personalization/customiziation: Web2.0

Interactive, collaborative portable IR systems
? Would people read, listen or view info from computer screens, instead of paper or traditional audio or video playing devices?

Shawn Carraway
Patrons in 2020 in Wireless Comm...
Who are they now? Millenials. Born between 85 and 95. For them, there have always been home computers; an Internet; wireless yet always connected. Library catalogs have always been automated, databases, the best centers for computer tech and access to good software.
Beloit College Mindset List
Who will they be in 2020
They won't need a computer -- everything will be connected. Location aware mobile devices will be ubiquitous. Everything will be personalized and everything will be mixed. Richard McManus at Read/Write Web. This age group is not "passive"; watching TV is passive. Like interactivity
What will they want from us?
A fast "everything, anywhere" search. Transparent access to that information. (Copyright will be a big issue in the next 10 years.) AI searching - whatever is happening around you, the library is there-- articles, information, book recommendations. Integration of resources into existing search engines. scholar.google.com
Shawn doesn't use books in class; requires them to use online

Dr. Jeff Naidoo
The Right Brain of Librarianship Creative Connections and Innovation. (Techno feely)
A Whole New Mind, by Dan Pink
Right Brain vs Left Brain. Two different hemispheres; two different ways of thinking.

How Dominant is your Right Brain? (I appear to be right brained)
Automation. John Henry. Computers can nearly beat Gasparion (chess player sp?). Will Lawyers survive?
Our left brain has made us rich. Our lives are shaped by abundance. The information age has produced abundance, but has also changed aesthetics, etc. The conceptual age is built on the right brain. High concept, high touch. The ability to detect patterns and opportunities to come up with inventions the world didn't know it was missing. Tocu the capacity to empathize to understand the subtleties of human interaction to find joy in one's self to elicit in others. To stretch beyond what we know.

Librarianship in 2020... We have to move from a traditional left-brain approach to one that is more right-brained oriented. We need to employ more creativity to keep us relevant and meet the needs of a "web-raised" user population. Libraries need to demonstrate we can offer value enhanced services.

Random, creative, intuitive, etc... (University of Rochester - used students to design library space)
Innovation and Creativity Tips:
Get Rid of the Fear of Failure.
Listen Outside of Libraries
Cross the Generations
Follow Well
Seek Experiences
Blog Both Ways (learn and teach at the same time)
Try Something new Every Day
Lead and Share
Don't just criticize
Stay Positive
Un-Learn
Listen
Have a Vision
Work for the customer in. Really put the customer first.

And what about our attitudes?
Our communities will demand that we stay relevant. If we don't provide it, someone else will.
Preparation, intuition, play, radiate, vision, disparity, question, flow, flexibility, patterns, values, trust, belief in yourself
Dr. Sam: No one assumed that libraries are challenged or will go away.
What about the library mission to preserve the past? How does this affect that mission, or does it?
DanceDance Revolution: West VA just adopted it as a solution for obesity in the schools.
Dr. Jimnook: Libraries will continue to provide content. Good content. Validated, authenticated content

Slides from this presentation will be available on the USC-SLIS website.

?Software that allows the use of multiple mice on one PC for collaborative working?

Branching out in Library Automation: Evergreen

2007-11-01T14:30:00.000-04:00

PINES: Public Information Network for Electronic Services. Largest state east of the Mississippi. Single cluster of servers with a single system. Single patron database and union catalog; the same library card can be used throughout the system. PINES began as a response to Y2K. Metro areas have hesitated to join PINES for fear they would have nothing left on the shelves. However, this has proved not to be the case; borrowing and lending tend to reflect the library's community base.

How is PINES unique?
Users may request materials delivered from any PINES library t local library at no charge. New books protected from intra-PINES loans for 6 months. In FY07, more than 480,000 loans compared to 6000 in FY00. Libraries agree to a common set of policies; common fine structures. Fines and fees can be paid at any PINES library. Overdues processed centrally. Policies are determined by an executive committee, made up of 9 representatives-- all size library.

Benefits for users:
One easy to use interface. Local library identity maintained in large consortium. Users have dramatically increased access to statewide combined library collections. Users have the same experience regardless of the library.

Benefits for libraries:
PINES is centrally administered. Significant ILS costs paid by the state. Regional training, convenient to member libraries and staffs. Centralized helpdesk and support. Centralized overdues processing. Cataloging uses OCLC.

Outsources delivery to a courier service.

Cost benefit of PINES:
Estimate to install stand-alone ILS in all 47 PINES libraries: $15M
Annual maintenance: $5M
PINES annual operations: $1.6M (about $1 per patron). Includes courier service, overdues outsourcing, maintenance, helpdesk, (not telecommunications, which is supplied by the state)

Crossroads for PINES
Initial 5-year software contract for PINES ended June 2005
2003-04: comprehensive survey of the library automation marketplace. Is the software driving the policy/procedure or vv? Felt there was not an ILS that was really capable of providing the services PINES required.

Technical staff felt they could write software that would do exactly what the libraries wanted. Hundreds of librarians in focus groups around the state:
Enterprise class relational database; scalable and compliant with standards; ease of use for customers; flexible and reliable; data security; stats and reports to correspond to annal reporting requirements

Evergreen
ILS developed in a fully open source environment
Software development began in June 2004, with 4 developers.
All PINES libraries migrated to Evergreen software on 9/5/06. All libraries migrated at the same time.
Evergreen debuted with online catalog, circulation, cataloging and reports.

Evergreen features:
Search capabilities similar to commercials. Live circ data in OPAC. Google-like spell checking and search suggestions. Enhanced content. Scalable. Secure. Customers can manage their own accounts. Works with screen readers like Jaws. Virtual book bags that can be created, managed, shared by user, including RSS feed for updating.
Local flexibility to define authorizations by login. Surveys provide flexibility to collect information locally or PINES wide. Surveys can be used by local libraries. Use of buckets (virtual containers) to allow batch changes. Simplified merging of bibliographic records.
OPAC view in the staff client. Use of tabs for ease of transition between tasks. Ability to search any field in the patron record. Truly randomized holds which work in a tiered structure.

Core Technologies
Database: Postgresql
Language: C++ and Perl
Server: Apache
Jabber (IM client which moves the request through the system)

Have moved server farms to a datacenter (the same one Google uses for their East coast servers) Cost of server farm, firewalls, etc. $300,000

Design
Cost-effective (Linux)
Reliable - designed to run in a clustered environment
Flexible - staff client is cross platform to include Linux, Windows, Mac

Where do we go from here?
Develop a children's web-based catalog
Complete Spanish translation for the OPAC
French/Canadian version completed
More self-service options, including online bill pay
Enhanced links with GALILEO (state-wide database portal)
Migration of 5 library systems waiting to become PINES members
Wok with partners on protocols to share information with other automation systems (Open NCIP)
Partnership with U.Rochester - eXtensible catalog project
Develop Acquisitions/Serials
Enhance social networking aspects of the catalog (user tagging, ratings, reviews, etc.)
Partnerships with libraries worldwide
Cooperative projects with university system libraries
Evergreen software foundation?

Evergreen Wiki - updated continually

British Columbia goes live on Evergreen next week.

Demo: http://www.gapines.org/
Has a basic HTML version for screenreaders, phones, etc.
Shelfbrowser: browse shelves virtually
Can select font size; can be set through patron's account
Patrons wanted to have one set of buttons--- can use the browser buttons to navigate the catalog

Support is not available from Georgia for outside implementations. However, third party vendors have taken on that role. Customers have access to a helpdesk or beeper service 24/7.

PLCMC 2.0

2007-11-01T10:33:00.000-04:00

Integrating Technology with Customer Focused Library Services

Charles Brown, Director, PLCMC

3rd largest public library in the US. $40M annual operating budget.

Expanding Minds: Early Literacy 2.0. iPod+Story Hour. Youth libraries each have iPods, loaded with 150 hours of music geared for children
GetSetK.org - parent checklists for readiness for kindergarten. Getting Ready to Read; Health & Wellness.
BookHive: your guide to children's literature and books. ages 3-12 bookhive.org
Guys Read! www.libraryloft.org/guysRead.asp for middle school boys. NBA kickoff. Community professionals work with guys to encourage reading
Summer reading: Wee Read, birth - pre-schoolers. Involved the whole family in reading
Teen Summer eading: YouNeverKnow - rising 6-12 graders
24 locations; 5 in african american populations
Freedom Regional Library: media center for high school and public library. includes 21 staff adn 2 technology centers

Imaginon partnered with children's theatre of charlotte to create this.
Library Loft is the teen area at Imaginon. 12-18. Parents and younger kids are not allowed to enter. Teen read week: 1100 teens participated. Podcasts created by adn for teens. has an iTunes music store. Studio i @ Imaginon created the media for the teen reading program.

Story Place: intereactive digital library for children. storyplace.org

Empowering Individuals. Nearly 1000 public access computers. More than 1,029,000 in-library computer users in FY05. Access to Adaptive Technologies in the Virtual Vilage. Free computer classes, basic to advanced.
Trip to the Mouse Clinic. Exposes adult users to computer related opportunties.

Learning 2.0. plcmclearning.blogspot.com
Everyone on the staff were involved, from cleaning staff to professional staff.
Learning 2.0 for patrons: Ermeging technology. ebay for beginners; making money with craigslist, etc.

Adaptive Technology @ VV (Virtual Village) Most popular area of the main library.

Academic Spport: Live Homework Help - free with library card; connects students with online tutors; ThinkCOLLEGE; Summer Reading Progam

Instant Message Reference Service: Ask a Librarian

Enriching the Community

Gaming Zone: thegamingzone.wordpress.com

Games + Learning Lab GL(squared) Video game play testers wanted.

Online Book Clubs: has been able to get authors involved as well. www.plcmc.org/services/onlinebookclub.asp

Africn American Album: http://www.cmstory.org/

PLCMC has their own printing press...

Novello festival of reading. Ishmael Beah Streamed via live feed to Teen Second Life.

www.oclc.org/reports/pdfs/sharing.pdf: sharing privacy and trust in our networked world

Dinosaur conversations: are 2.0 technologies relevant to libraries? It's reality. Fosters and encourages staff to explore emerging technologies

2007 SCLA Annual Conference

2007-10-31T13:37:00.000-04:00

I'm blogging the SC Library Association's 2007 Annual Conference. The theme this year is Library 2.0: Taking South Carolina's Libraries to the People. 6th Recipient of the Diversity in Librarianship Scholarship is Annie Young Patrick. Two-time ALA Spectrum Scholar. Currently enrolled at USC's SLIS. In her statement, she said that if not for her hometown librarian and his guidance, she would still be back in her hometown.

David Goble, State Librarian, recorded an introduction to the speaker, as he couldn't be here. Keeping in spirit with the theme, the introduction has been posted to YouTube.

Keith Michael Fiels, ALA Executive Director (he's a Red Sox fan!) is the opening keynote speaker. Yes, he's a librarian, altho if you ask him, he'll say no, he's a chippendale, and ALA needed someone who looked good in a suit. Plug for ALA membership: for .30 a day, you can be his boss. Was the state librarian in MA for 10 years.

Six great challenges:
1. Can we really do anything about library funding? Fiels says we can, through (a) advocacy: libraries and citizens working together to achieve goals. New advocacy office has been established at ALA to help local advocates to meet local advocacy goals, by providing resources and support. Advocacy Institutes before each confeence to reach out to trustees, friends, etc., with a focus on practical courses, training, and so on. ALA's I Love Libraries website. (b) Tracking funding. We need to get a much better sense about what is really happening in a timely manner, rather than 2 years out. Workig iwth Gates Foundation, with a grant. (c) We need to make plans, and have those plans in place. Your vision will drive funding growth. (d) Assert our role in education, go head to head with educators and politicians. Libraries are the other half of the educational system. (e) Studies show that children in schools with libraries do a grade level better than those without. Also the impact of public and academic libraries. We need to get the work out.
2. What can we do to improve library services? Continue to attract the best and brightest to library schools. One of the problems is that we need people people... libraries are not just about books anymore. (b) Continue to have more opportunities for continuing education, to keep skill levels at peak. How to defend a budget is not taught at library sschool, but it's a needed skill. (c) We need to train more people. Of 15000, about 8000 are run by people without masters degrees. We need to provide these people with training. Working on a Library Technical Assistant certification for smaller public libraries, and later academic libraries. However, in schools, they do need a master degreed librarian. (d) Resource sharing is critical for libraries. (e) Recognize outstanding service, and acknowledge poor service. Need a national standard to measure this. How can we constructively bring pressure to bear where communities have inadequate library services?
3. How can we improve library salaries? We have to articulate the issue. We need to get the data needed to make the case, comparing our salaries with those in comparable careers. We need to provide this to the local libraries. This can be won at the local level. ALA is creating packets to assist libraries with arguing their cases. In amny instances our jobs are in line with high tech industry...
4. What are the things we can do to make a difference in our societies and our world? We need to serve ALL people. We can lead the way in diversity; we need to reflect our communities. We need to undertake new initiatives to work with library shools and employers. We need to support the 5th Amendment rights of the American people. A significant amount of library use involves research on sensitive issues, and we need to protect their right to do so. Copyright: we need to keep information free. Access to government info is critical. (e) We can lead the world. Globalization is beginning to catch up with us, and is continuing to intensify. We need to be bringing a vision of American librarianship out to the world. We take our library access for granted, whereas other nations don't have any kind of access. We also have a lot to learn from the rest of the world-- in Europe and other places, libraries are ahead of us.
5. What is the impact of the internet going to be on the Libraries we have today? Communication and information are changing rapidly. The collection is rapidly changing... adn now includes user contributed content, e-books, etc. New services: blogs, emails, rss feeds, Facebook, Flickr, etc. My Library pages for patrons. E-Govt will have an enormous impact. So how does this stuff get deployed? Community wikis, homework help wikis, reading club blogs, etc. How are we bringing the libraries out? E-government is making changes.... Fema forms could only be filled out on computers, and people need access to computers. Just the tip of the iceberg. Gaming: wide variety of issues.. Bringing teens in. Also as a way to do bibliographic instruction through games. Second Life. It's unclear at this point the impact of virtual realities. Our users are there, and we have to figure out what constitutes our meaningful presence, and how to deploy our resources. Digital divide still exists. The number of households with internet access has leveled off. Libraries have to fill the gap. The information safety net, where people who don't have access to technology will be able to get to it. Gates Foundation says libraries are at capacity, in bandwidth, physical space, number of computers. Most importantly, people are still at the heart of it all. We need librarians to update, respond, organize, to make these 2.0 resources actually viable.
6. Can libraries even survive? Given the forces against us (those who hate what libraries represent, officials who want to do away with taxes, mangement gurus who say we don't need libraries) we can't let go of the fact that they are not right. People still come to libraries for things computers can't provide-- social. A Library is an institution where a community creates a set of resources share among the community. It's been a perpetual motion machine, since the beginning with Ben Franklin.
In fact, our future is very bright. [Anecdote re: The Cary Library (Lexington, MA).] Things have never been easy, and we lose sight of that. It is a great and important trust. "Library visitors" would visit to determine what kinds of services were being provided. Caution: we can't take it for granted. We must be advocates. We didn't make the lbiraries, it was the community, and they trust us to preserve and enhance...
##

Struggles in SL... & a few triumphs, too

2007-10-27T01:36:00.000-04:00

I've been spending lots of time in Second Life this month, preparing the virtual SC State Library for show and tell. This is work, folks! The push was on, and I needed to learn how to build prims and add scripts. The building process exercised a totally different part of my brain-- I just don't think in shapes, normally.

The experience has been a virtual rollercoaster of emotions. I spent time in sheer frustration, followed by amazement when I actually managed to produce an object, back to frustration with scripts, and elation when I realized I had learned a new skill.

I'm still a total noob. I have to think hard to send a friendship offer, or find a group. So things aren't coming all that easily yet. Fortunately, I've been working with another librarian who is more than willing to teach and share what he's learned. If nothing else, I've gained a new friend.

And when Nov. 1 is over, I will be devoting huge amounts of time to WOW... I want to learn how to fly at level 68!

Library Makes Award to Preserve Creative America

2007-10-20T22:18:00.000-04:00

The Library of Congress will be preserving Second Life as part of its Digital Preservation Program:

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Interactive media are highly complex and at high risk for loss as technologies rapidly become obsolete. The Preserving Virtual Worlds project will explore methods for preserving digital games and interactive fiction. Major activities will include developing basic standards for metadata and content representation and conducting a series of archiving case studies for early video games, electronic literature and Second Life, an interactive multiplayer game. Second Life content participants include Life to the Second Power, Democracy Island and the International Spaceflight Museum. Partners: University of Maryland, Stanford University, Rochester Institute of Technology and Linden Lab.

Level65

2007-09-01T03:49:00.001-04:00

Level65
Originally uploaded by WoW Librarian

At last, Atzilut has made it to level 65. It's been a long haul; however, tonight, with the help of some dedicated guild members, she made it. In addition, Atzilut can now wear her first complete set of armor, made by Koden. And she obtained the Moonkin Headress... She was able to level in Burning Fortress, with the help of 3 guildies and an LFG.

Next.. leveling up the First Aid...

I really thought Cresenc (50) would catch up quickly, but having so little time to play does make a difference.

I have purposely made more time to play lately; life has been more challenging than usual, so I felt this was a necessity. At any rate, it's been fun!! And I won't deny that leveling is the most enticing challenge.

Table top gaming; graffiti blogs

2007-08-19T10:12:00.000-04:00

Table top gaming should not be neglected as libraries move more toward incorporating gaming. Many bookstores already know this! Pokemon Days at our local Books-A-Million are packed with kids & PARENTS. How cool is that?? Our local Barnes & Noble encourages chess. And what about those restaurants that have those wooden peg games? The family interactions that occur around those games are priceless.

What is it about those kinds of games that literally engage people, that draw them in as active observers and participants? What kind of cerebral/neural impulses are firing? What would happen if the library environment is furtile with creative potential, welcoming discovery?

Many moons ago, I used to frequent a seafood restaurant near Folly Beach, SC, that encouraged customers to doodle and leave graffiti in spiral bound notebooks provided by the owners. There were stacks of notebooks filled with "Kilroy was here" type doodles, thousands of visitor comments, philosophical treatises, poetry, limericks, incredible art. Maybe we need "graffiti blogs" for our patrons? What would they say about our libraries and their services?

Wrath of the Lich King

2007-08-17T17:35:00.000-04:00

MUST
REACH
LEVEL
70....
gasp

second life

2007-08-12T02:27:00.001-04:00

Wonderfully astute! Parallel worlds merge in this delightful youtube.

jill/txt » World of Warcraft

2007-08-12T01:39:00.000-04:00

jill/txt » World of Warcraft I'm waiting for the publication of this anthology by MIT Press. Edited by two researchers from the University of Bergen, this is a scholarly work on various in-world and real-world aspects of World of Warcraft.

My New, Almost Screaming, Machine

2007-08-09T00:14:00.000-04:00

Yesterday my youngest and I brought up my new improved desktop PC. Still tweaking the configuration, but I am jamming! Spent time on Second Life, and SL did not crash it: that's the ultimate test. I ran around IF in WoW with no lag. Soooo happy. I even "splurged" on an inexpensive but 2kewl box-- had to, b/c my cooler wouldn't fit in the old Gateway case. LOL.

I had inherited my youngest's Gateway, purchased in April 2001. Over the years, he replaced the power supply, upped the memory, replaced the cd drive, and generally grumped that the graphics card wouldn't handle Half-Life's graphics. (BTW, I have a very clear recollection of arguing the quality of the graphics card in the Gateway store... I wanted a better one.) When we purchased his laptop for college, he donated his old PC to me.

We kept the DemonBlue480 power supply, the cd/dvd drive, and the hard disk. We bought a NZXT Apollo case, ASUS A8V-XE chipset, ASUS Arctic Square CPU cooler, an AMD 64 bit 2.2G dual core processor, a gig of ram, and a HIS 1650Pro graphics card. Could it be tighter? Well, yeah... but it's a far cry from that Gateway SELECT 1000 CS. Next? A new monitor... he's loaned me his Samsung SyncMaster 226BW widescreen LCD panel until he goes back to college. I'm ruined now; have to save up for my own.

How science fiction inspires high tech, blend an iPhone, worst customer service letter ever

2007-07-13T09:44:00.000-04:00

How science fiction inspires high tech, blend an iPhone, worst customer service letter ever: "How science fiction inspires high tech"

I've always believed SciFi authors are today's prophets... Here's another list to pique discussion.

Did You Know 2.0

2007-07-01T00:17:00.001-04:00

Are our libraries preparing to serve the next generation? Will our technology be able to meet their needs? Will we be able to support their personal devices? Hmmm. We need to begin planning now. How do we plan for something 15 years out?

CIL2007: Sessions I Attended

2007-04-20T17:03:00.000-04:00

I gave up on onsite blogging of the conference, although I did take copious notes. There were problems with the network, and connectivity was patchy. Here's a list of the sessions I attended (and I attended all three keynotes):

Monday

Library 2.0: Building Communities, Connections & Strateties, by Ken Roberts, Chief Librarian, Hamilton

Pimp Your Firefox, by Jessamyn West

Mashups, Remixing Info, & Making Data Browsable, by Derek Willis and Karen Huffman

Millenials and the Library, by Marshall Breeding

Using Google & SEs to Expose Digital Collections, by Marshall Breeding

Social Bookmarking & Folksonomies, by Ellyssa Kroski & Robert Cagna

Tuesday

Presented Rhumba with Joomla

Dynamic Instructional Content: Library 2.0 on a Budget, by Chad Boeninger

Search Tools Using Controlled Vocabularies, by Herd, Koeneman, Doszkocs

Podcasting Possibilites for Library Instruction, by Rachael Clemons

Gaming and Learning, by Shu Liu and Tammy Allgood

Dine-Around with Second Lifers

InfoTubey Awards

Wednesday

The New Library Automation Landscape, by Marshall Breeding

Catalogs/OPACs for the Future, by Roy Tennant and Tim Spaulding

Building Libraries in Virtual Worlds, by Bell, Gullett, Czarnecki & Peters

Repository Essentials: From Soup to Nuts, by Roy Tennant

Production to Portal: Info Delivery Channels, by Marjorie M.K. Hlava

For just about every session I went to, there was another one I couldn't attend. But, so it goes, at any conference. Things are going to keep filtering through, so I'll be coming back to talk about different things in the next week. I'm also heading off for E-Rate Camp next week...

Learning and Gaming Earmarked Tuesday's Sessions

2007-04-18T00:30:00.000-04:00

Another full day... Chad Boeninger, author of The Biz Wiki, talked about using free and open source tools to develop and maintain library instruction programs. He uses wikis and blogs in place of handouts. He can quickly add answers to students' questions, keeping the material fresh and up-to-date. PHPESP is an alternative to SurveyMonkey. He uses polls during class to encourage participation: Meebo widget is one example, and the WordPress poll is another. He demonstrated CamStudio, a free screen recording software that I've been playing with lately. All in all, a good session!

Quite by accident I ended up in "Search Tools Using Controlled Vocabularies". I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation by Tamas Doszkocs from NLM. He demonstrated how the latest search engines use a combination of controlled vocabulary and natural language to produce "intelligent" queries. The PolyMeta Smart Search is really too cool. He also pointed to the NCSU Endeca search engine.

I also dropped in on "Podcasting Possibilities for Library Instruction". The presenter, Rachael Clemons, said it takes her around 15 hours to create a 6 minute podcast. Chad Boeninger also uses podcasting for library instruction; he said between September and January, one library tour podcast was downloaded over 700 times. That's a pretty good return on the time used to create one.

My last session of the day was "Gaming and Learning". Shi Liu presented the theoretical side of learning objects. The poor Internet connectivity impeded her presentation, as it did ours earlier. Tammy Allgood discussed the creation of two different library instruction games. The first was a board game that has been refined through four versions. They are currently working with version 1.0 of an online game, called "Quarantined: Axl Wise and the Information Outbreak". I wish there had been more time for this session. Again the internet connection prevented our seeing a demo of the game.

Timing is a major issue-- some sessions seem to fit quite well into the timeframe; others clearly do not. For example, the "Gaming and Learning" session should have been two different sessions. Squeezing them both into one period was a disservice to both the presenters and their material.

I ended the evening with dinner at the Urban Thai with about 18 Second Lifers, and then caught the InfoTubey awards.

Tao sets up for our session

2007-04-18T00:18:00.001-04:00

Tao sets up for our session
Originally uploaded by WoW Librarian.

Look for the slides from our session on the Joomla in Libraries site. I ran into several people afterward who attended our session... it seems we did "okay". Thanks very much to all who attended. And thank you to Stephen Cohen (librarystuff.net) and Ellyssa Kroski for moderating the session. Stephen visited the State Library's new site the first week it was up, and registered for an account. He also blogged about the site... It was great to finally meet him.

CIL2007 Day 2

2007-04-17T09:03:00.000-04:00

The conference opened today on a somber note, as the attendees observed a moment of silence in memory of the victims of the tragic and horrendous event at Virginia Tech yesterday.

Today's keynote speaker could not attend-- I was truly looking forward to her presentation on Gaming and Learning. However, Andy Carvin from NPR is presenting Using Social Media for Community Engagement.

CIL 2007

2007-04-16T15:46:00.000-04:00

I'm at my first Computers in Libraries conference. We blew in on an intense wind... gales between 45 and 60 mph... and the energy there is manifesting at CIL as well. Tao, SCSL's web administrator and I are here to talk about using Joomla! as a content management system in libraries.

Today, I've seen another CMS, Django, in use at the Washington Post. It uses Python as its language, and runs on open source databases, etc. Its tagline is, "The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines". An example: chicagocrime.org.

Marshall Breeding is of course doing exciting things. One of Vanderbilt's projects has been providing the best access to their collections of television videos, which date back to 1968. He's developed an OpenWeb strategy that maximizes html content for Googlebots by using XML. He has used several Google tools to accomplish this, including Google Webmaster and Google Analytics.

I've also learned about some neat new extensions for Firefox, presented by Jessamyn West (librarian.net).

I anticipate having a mushy brain by the end of the conference.

Friends, friendsters, and top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites

2007-04-13T17:35:00.000-04:00

Friends, friendsters, and top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites

Very interesting article on friends and friendships, and how social networking structures are shaping these concepts. The author also has a blog, apophenia.

Living Books

2007-04-02T02:01:00.000-04:00

I love to read what other people think about books... not titles, but books as objects. In Lebbon's Dawn, there's a wonderful passage about books:

All her life, she had known that books were living things, not just a convergence of concept and and ink, intellect and paper. They did not breathe or think, but they grew and gave a sense of potential so much larger than whatever was written on their pages. ...no one there to read them. Its pages would be closed and the spaces between the leaves dark and inscrutable, but the words were still there, telling their truths and hinting at so much more. ... Her own interaction with a book would change it, and someone else reading it would alter it again. ... Like a person, only a book could ever really know itself. (pp. 16-17)

Isn't that rich? Isn't it true?

I read Lebbon's Dusk last year and was so taken with it. The book is very dark; his worldbuilding is incredible. I was *there* in every scene. Dawn is of course the sequel. So far, it's every bit as good.

But most of all, one of the main characters is... a librarian!

Shabbat and the City » Shabbat and the City in Second Life?

2007-01-25T23:17:00.000-05:00

Shabbat and the City » Shabbat and the City in Second Life?

Well, I could say, Now I've seen everything! I'm sure, however, we've only just begun with the SL world.

Stardust@Home - About Finding Stardust

2007-01-21T00:21:00.000-05:00

http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/about.php

So, around Jan. 1, I was just hanging around, looking at this and that, reading about what's new in technology, and lo, and behold, here's spinoff from SETI. Of course, nothing else would do, but I would have to check this Stardust thing out.

So I signed up for the tutorial, and spent the next hour or so looking for stardust trails.

This could be fun, except I'm a little bit of a perfectionist, and I hate getting things wrong (although I should be used to getting things wrong by now.... ).

So the gist of this is, I use a virtual telescope to examine photos for tiny grains of intersteller dust. It's not like I don't have anything to do with my time, you see. And here's something to consider... SETI uses your cpu power when you're not using.

Here's the real question... Does Stardust use my brainpower when I'm not using it??

Does my "heart" good...

2007-01-04T23:57:00.000-05:00

Just came in from a meeting, walked into the den where the tv was blasting, and caught a few minutes of Heart on CMT.
I tell ya, it really does my heart good to see those rawking ladies up there belting out Barracuda... 'Cause you see, they're a few years older than me, and yet, their energy is totally unabated. I'm beginning to believe that age is the greatest illusion...

BrainMeld - Bridging The Gap Between Gaming and Education

2006-12-12T10:28:00.000-05:00

BrainMeld - Bridging The Gap Between Gaming and Education

Here's a relatively new community that is experimenting with gaming in the classroom. Some very interesting things are being done with high quality games. Remember Edith Hamilton's Mythology? For some reason, my daughter hated it. My kids used the same book I had in high school.

One teacher is tackling this headon, using "The Age of Mythology" game in her 9th grade English class. Her teaching guide is available on the BrainMeld website, as are others. The students are engaged, and they begin to learn not just the mythology, but the logos of the time-- how the structure of society changed as their perceptions of the gods evolved.

This gaming and education is a fascinating concept....

Wireless Libraries: Wireless Libraries Blog Nominated

2006-11-30T09:30:00.000-05:00

Wireless Libraries: Wireless Libraries Blog Nominated

Congratulations to Bill Drew! Bill's blog and his discussion list, LibWireless, are both great sources of information and assistance. If you use wireless anywhere in your library or bookmobile, this is the resource for you. Bill is even available through IM... and he's responsive.

Another FCC abuse

2006-11-30T07:53:00.000-05:00

One of the services you support when you pay your monthly phone bill is the TTY service for the hearing disabled. A news report appearing on the Nov. 29 "Today Show" has exposed a terrible abuse of this much needed service (see the video).

This service for the deaf and hearing disabled is poorly regulated. Because it uses the Internet, anyone can type in a message. And the operators who receive those messages must, by law, repeat every word as it is written, to the indicated party. Lastly, it is against the law to retain records of any of these messages. Privacy issues.

Watch the video....

As a librarian who works with E-Rate, and deals with privacy issues, filtering, etc., etc., (you librarians know exactly what I'm saying), I am amazed at the absence of accountability by the FCC for the abuses of this service. And I pity the officials who will be getting phone calls.... Ha. No, I don't!

2006-11-22T04:53:00.000-05:00

Tasmin Archer - Sleeping Satellite

During a visit to Second Life, I was turned on to this song... This was my first succesful trip, and I met John Galland, with whom I had a wonderful conversation. Our conversation lasted several hours. I hope you enjoy this song/video... and be sure to listen closely to the words of the first verse... Here are the lyrics:
blame you for the moonlit sky
and the dream that died
with the eagles flight
blame you for the moonlit nights
when i wonder why
are the seas still dry?
don't blame this sleeping satellite
did we squander the chance
in the rush of the race
the reason we chase is lost in romance
and still we dry
to justify the waste
for a taste of man's greatest adventure
have we got what it takes to advance?
did we peak too soon?
if the world is so great
then why does it scream under a blue moon
we wonder why
the earth's sacrificed
for the price of it's greatest adventure
and when we shoot for stars
what a giant step
have we got what it takes
to carry the weight of this concept
or pass it by like a shot in the dark
miss the mark with a sense of adventure

I found them at this site:
http://www.lyricsdownload.com/tasmin-archer-sleeping-satellite-lyrics.html

2006-10-19T18:06:00.000-04:00

The Great Kodo - With Vocals!

I've just become a fan of Oxhorn! Wonderful video that moons about the glorious Kodo beast.

I want a gaming librarian… « McMaster University Library

2006-10-10T18:22:00.000-04:00

I want a gaming librarian… « McMaster University Library

I wonder how close I am to my "gaming librarian" degree? What will it take? Many more hours in WoW? (Gee... like I really need an excuse! "I'm working on a new degree, kids. Leave me alone.")

This is really an interesting tangent in the field... OT as some might think. But more and more there are thinkers who feel the game-like interface will improve learning on several different levels. (No pun intended.)

Thom Gillespie is teaching a gaming theory class: Interactive Storytelling and Game Design. "This course is about human-media interaction: interactive storytelling, computer game design and more. While many of the tools used in this class are technical this is not a technical course. The essence of this course is the most human of all, storytelling... Interactive digital storytelling is just the most recent upgrade so to speak."

Suprglu!

2006-10-04T18:06:00.000-04:00

Jenny Levine talked about Suprglu at SCSL's Tech Express Institute, and I haven't had time to give it a try until now. It grabs all the feeds you tell it to, and compiles them by date. All your blog posts, del.icio.us bookmarks, Flickr photos... and more. It also creates a tag cloud for you.

The FAQWE reminds us that "all those bits and pieces of you are readily available for world consumption". Look at all the "social networking" playgrounds out there... 43 Things, 43 Places, Digg, Last.FM (I can't seem to get to that site) are just a smattering of offerings.

WOOT!!

2006-09-10T01:10:00.000-04:00

WOOT!!
Originally uploaded by WoW Librarian.

Level 60! At last! Who would have believed it? So Atzilut's now level 60. Next is Cresenc; just waiting for Blizzard to finish the transfer from Tib's account to mine. She's level 45 right now.

In the meantime, I need to work on my tier gear... And I need to get back into battlegrounds as well. Do some PVP. We're just getting started here!

Second Life Avatar

2006-08-14T13:44:00.000-04:00

I finally had time to take a look at Second Life this weekend, after leveling to 57 in WoW, of course. It was a brief visit. I created my avatar, Cresenc Luna, and visited the library. I took a survey, left a note on the bulletin board, and then, Second Life crashed. I will visit again, though. I'm looking forward to attending some events.

Why would anyone want to explore something like Second Life? Let's narrow that... Why would a librarian want to visit Second Life? One more time... Why would I want to visit Second Life? I think the human/computer interface is fascinating. IRL (in real life), I find people's reactions to new technologies... well, fascinating. Some very bright and gifted people react with absolute horror when faced with different technology applications. Other people literally embrace it. I think the gap will be smaller with the next generations; interfacing with a computer will be second nature.

So back to Second Life. During my visit to the library, I explored some files-- as in drawers in cabinets containing paper. Many of these were teaching guides on humanities and science projects. It was a familiar experience-- as familiar as pulling open a file drawer at my physical desk (a little neater, perhaps). I would think this would provide a level of comfort for many people. So, this virtual reality isn't on the level of the simulator in Crichton's novel, Disclosure. The immediacy isn't there, of course.

I can easily imagine a virtual library, with virtual librarians and other patrons, all browsing for information, having conversations, and sharing an experience, all from the comfort of your home, or airport, or wherever. Or maybe I just read too much sci fi.

Visit Second Life... for the very best reason: it's just plain challenging and fun.

WOOT!! Level 56

2006-08-05T13:21:00.000-04:00

Yes! Level 56, level 56! I haven't been able to play for about two weeks, and only needed 1 and a bit bars to get to 56. It's been on my mind. Last night, after eating way too much Indian food, I settled into my chair and started taking out rock stalkers and stonelashers, amping up the xp. And then, WOMP. <-- sound effect

Now I have to admit I wasn't all that enamoured of the new skills. Guess they're saving the best for Level 60. It looks to be a quiet weekend, so I'm planning on spending some time pursuing my "hobby". (And looking at Wordpress, XAMPP, etc.)

By the way, WoW just put up an official site on MySpace. They only have 23043 friends so far!

Michael Stephens (www.tametheweb.com)

2006-08-04T12:53:00.000-04:00

Michael Stephens (www.tametheweb.com)
Originally uploaded by WoW Librarian.

Michael was one of the guest speakers at the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County's (NC) "Technology Summit on Library 2.0". He and Michael Casey (LibraryCrunch) of Georgia's Guinnett County Public Library addressed Library 2.0.

ImaginOn was a great venue-- a must visit if you're ever in the area. Special thanks to Helene Blowers for putting on a great show!

We can hardly wait for Michael Stephens (and Jenny Levine and Stephen Abram) to come to SC for the State Library's Technology Institute in September!

My First Podcast

2006-08-03T00:22:00.000-04:00

Wow! Created my first podcast today, using of course, all open-source tools. Probably not going to be a dedicated podcaster... seeing as keeping up with blogging is enough of a challenge some days. Creating the podcast was relatively easy. Of course there are some excellent tutorials online... check out my Del.icio.us for some of them. The real reason for working with podcasting is to explore the outreach opportunities for public libraries. This clip took me about an hour to record and edit, including the background sounds.

At the Core: Professionalism

2006-07-17T12:55:00.000-04:00

At the Core: Professionalism

Looking for a career as a librarian? Or just wondering why we do what we do? Check out this site at http://www.cla.ca/infonation/ This one was produced by Canada.

The American Library Association has also produced a site focussed on Library Careers: http://www.ala.org/ala/hrdr/librarycareerssite/home.htm

Libraries, teens and YouTube

2006-07-14T12:46:00.001-04:00

Mecklenburg County Soul Calibur II Tournament

Wow! Now this is what I'm talking about. What a wonderful way to promote a library program for teens. Go ahead and check out their website as well: http://www.libraryloft.org/. An excellent site.

WSJ.com - Social Networking for Bookworms

2006-07-06T14:04:00.000-04:00

WSJ.com - Social Networking for Bookworms

I was checking out my LibraryThing to see exactly which books I owned by Mercedes Lackey, and stopped to peek at the LibraryThing blog. It seems in June two articles ran about LibraryThing, and as a result, the server was barraged with hits. How wonderful! Personally, LibraryThing is a dream come true for me; I'm thrilled for creator Tim Spaulding, and just wish I'd had the skills to do it first!

South Carolina Information Technology

2006-07-03T09:53:00.000-04:00

South Carolina Information Technology

On Friday, I presented a session on blogging to our library staff. The session was one in a series of "Tech Express" introductions to various Web 2.0/Library 2.0 technology trends.

During the class, our network administrator created this page. The fruits of our labor....

During the session, another librarian blogger, Curtis Rogers, took a photo, uploaded it to his Flickr site and blogged it to his blog. The class was able to see how nearly "instantaneous" the web is these days...

Tech Express was conceived and produced by Kathy Sheppard in our Library Development Services department. The one-hour sessions are designed to introduce our staff to trends that are being used by libraries around the country. Last week, they learned about Flickr; in the coming weeks, they'll be introduced to social networking software, like MySpace; podcasting; LibraryThing; and more.

This week, Robby posted a blog; last week, two members of our Talking Book Services uploaded and tagged photos to our Flickr site. It's great to see people experimenting with technology!

WoW Librarian

2006-06-28T23:15:00.000-04:00

WoW Librarian
Originally uploaded by catbuck99.

Librarian trading cards... just another wave for us zany librarians, who are changing the way libraries and their keepers, the information gurus, the book geeks, interface with those unsuspecting seekers of knowledge...

Take a look at the Flickr group, and visit the blog that may have started it all.

Level 53

2006-06-23T15:23:00.000-04:00

Last weekend Atzilut made Level 53... just moving right along. One of the things I love about WOW is the books... Yes, on all the maps, everywhere you go in Azeroth there are books. And libraries. Even in the inns, books rest on night stands.

Level 49

2006-05-23T00:19:00.000-04:00

After 14 days, and 14 hours, Atzilut has achieved level 49. This is very exciting. The push is on more than ever to get to level 60... and then to start another avatar! I haven't been able to decide which one to do. However, there's still time to wonder. Atzilut has the moonkin form now, but I haven't explored it very much yet. I respec'ed her to be all balance. At 60 though, she'll be spec'ed for restore, as a healer.

In the meantime, I've discovered some podcasts about World of Warcraft. TavernCast is one, and here's another. I'm looking at "social tools" applications for libraries, and podcasting has some interesting possibilities. In the meantime, I just want to get a podcast off the Internet and onto my Zen Micro!

2006-01-22T01:59:00.000-05:00

World of Warcraft

Last summer I joined the mysterious and exciting world of MMORPG ... I became a night elf druid, Cresenc. I rarely play Cresenc anymore, as she was created on my son's account. It soon became evident that my son and I needed our own accounts-- so Atzilut was created. Atzilut is another night elf druid.

I've learned a lot about myself during the past seven months. By December, Cresenc was level 45. Atzilut was created in November; today, she is level 34. I didn't expect to level so quickly, and I never suspected the skills I was learning (and retaining!).

I don't get to play Cresenc very often, and I miss that. She's my first-- and very special to me. Maybe one day WOW will let us transfer characters from one account to another. In the meantime, Atzilut is coming along fine. We've already purchased our mount, a riding striped nightsaber, although we can't ride it until level 40. (Cresenc has a striped frostsaber.)

You'll probably read more about Atzilut and Cresenc in the months to come. In the meantime, if you're ever on Zul'jin server, look us up. Be warned... I don't duel, unless it's for the altruistic purpose of providing comic relief... LOLROTF!

2005-05-29T17:58:00.000-04:00

I watched this film recently. Can we create our days? Do we? I wonder.
What the Bleep Do We Know!?� - The Movie

2004-09-09T00:15:00.000-04:00

Tom Mauser's Petition to Renew the Assault Weapons Ban

2004-05-05T23:48:00.001-04:00

Site for the day: What's being read in Jewish book clubs: http://www.jewishlibraries.org/ajlweb/newsresources_files/booklists.htm

2004-05-05T23:48:00.000-04:00

It's a new thing!

The WoW Librarian

Queen of the Free

The Knowledge Economy of World of Warcraft

Social Crush Blast

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You can take the girl out of the library...

Swimming in the sea of social media

Reading about gaming & World of Warcraft

Atzilut Dings 84

Atzilut hits 80!

New website platform

A Digital Native's Demands

Once upon a time...

I Resolve

Open Source Software in Libraries

Socialnomics

Level 71 At Last!

Sending Out an SMS - Joe Murphy

Public Library Panel on Text Messaging

A Quick Review of EBook Devices

Cataloging Notices to Cellphone

Notes on the Handheld Librarian Online Conference

First Ever Evergreen Conference

'Ware dissing the website goddess!

Why I Luv Web 2.0

New eee pc 1000

Participation and Power

Website Redesign: perspectives from the field

Putting the Library Website in Their Hands

Five Minute Madness

Sleepless in Cincinnati

Libraryman's agenda

Libraryman Michael Porter - LITA Keynote

Portals to Learning

Civil Rights Digital Library

Spaulding on Social Cataloging (Keynote)

At LITA

New Guild, New Server

Book Lists and Omnibuses

Last week it was the moon...

Atzilut hits 70!

Atzliut - 69

libraryman hits 70 & blip.tvs it

500th Book on LibraryThing

A Blue Sky Conversation: Snippets & Thoughts

LIS Professionals for 2020

Branching out in Library Automation: Evergreen

PLCMC 2.0

2007 SCLA Annual Conference

Struggles in SL... & a few triumphs, too

Library Makes Award to Preserve Creative America

Level65

Table top gaming; graffiti blogs

Wrath of the Lich King

second life

jill/txt » World of Warcraft

My New, Almost Screaming, Machine

How science fiction inspires high tech, blend an iPhone, worst customer service letter ever

Did You Know 2.0

CIL2007: Sessions I Attended

Learning and Gaming Earmarked Tuesday's Sessions

Tao sets up for our session

CIL2007 Day 2

CIL 2007

Friends, friendsters, and top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites

Living Books

Shabbat and the City » Shabbat and the City in Second Life?

Stardust@Home - About Finding Stardust

Does my "heart" good...

BrainMeld - Bridging The Gap Between Gaming and Education

Wireless Libraries: Wireless Libraries Blog Nominated

Another FCC abuse

I want a gaming librarian… « McMaster University Library

Suprglu!

WOOT!!

Second Life Avatar

WOOT!! Level 56

Michael Stephens (www.tametheweb.com)

My First Podcast

At the Core: Professionalism