More ALA-Related Photos

My middle name is "Barbara Gordon."

• more updates to my ALA Annual 2007 set
• more updates to my Libraries Far and Wide set (other libraries I've visited)
• more GODORT photos (including update, reception, Cathy's party)
• photos from my Senate Library tour

I'm taking Monday - Wednesday off next week, and hope to complete my uploads of ALA photos and those from my NDIIPP / CA trip earlier in the month.

2007 Book Cart Drill Team World Championships

I video-ed the first team in the competition (didn't have enough memory space or battery power to do anything but stills for the other three):


More Book Cart Drill Team Links:

• my flickr photos
  
• Lexis-Nexis Blog Post
• American Libraries' Flickr Set

A Few More Photos (GODORT)

Here are some--but not yet all--photos from the GODORT Awards Reception on Sunday. I'll post again when all ALA photos (and thus all GODORT-related, as well) images are up. If you'd like to use any of these images, please simply email me--I'm usually happy to give permission for their use.

Brain-Dead at the Reference Desk

Ah, the joys of returning to work after a long absence and an insomnia-filled night.

I've got lots more content to post about Sunday and Monday at ALA, stories to tell, new Facebook friends to mention, photos to edit/post, and wiki notes to type and link to... but first, I have to get through six days of email.

If you'd cue the "Jaws" music now, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

Oh, and since I put my name/blog link on the ALA wiki for blogging about ALA, and then just linked to all the content on my personal blog instead... I'll probably re-post those original posts here, too. (My apologies to those of you who spend time reading both of my blogs.)

Putting the "Social" in Software

I met Meredith Farkas today--woot!

Like, in person and stuff. It's crazy--you read a person's blog for awhile, you give an online presentation for one of their projects, you become their Facebook friend... and then you meet them in person.

This is just continuing this ALA's theme of everyone now meeting their Facebook/Flickr/insert-social-software-of-choice friends in person. Such fun!

No, I have no photo for you of me with Meredith. I was too geek-shy to ask, dangit.

• For the rest of my day (as well as why I am not, sadly, attending the Facebook party this evening), go here.
• For notes from today's ALA sessions, go here.
• For today's photos (once I upload them), go here.
• And... isn't it great that I'm writing about social software... on my blog... linking to flickr... and my wiki. I [heart] Web 2.0.
  

End of Day Two

Whew--I had a great lunch with Valerie, a lovely tour of the Senate Library, Jesse Silva showed me a fantastic new use for a wiki, and a spectacular dinner with Cathy Hartman & Co. But I'm too tired to edit out the personal parts, so go read about my day and what I learned here.

Update: Photos for the day are here: http://flickr.com/photos/geekyartistlibrarian/tags/20070622/

And I just discovered that I have the incorrect battery charger for this camera. Oh, heck.

I'm at ALA Annual!

Currently, I'm sitting in on the GODORT Legislation I meeting in the Washington Convention Center (WCC)--and I'm taking notes on my wiki. While blogging. Yes, I am so addicted to the internet.

And I just met Jennie Burroughs, who is a recent Flickr-friend of mine, and Kristen Clark, who apparently reads this blog! Wow, it is an interesting time that we live in.

Speaking of flickr, I'm still working on uploading photos from last night; almost done, so I can start on today's next two hundred or so.

I've Arrived in DC

Been here for about four and a half hours now, actually. I've already been uploading a mess of photos from today--but I'm beat, so the rest will have to wait until tomorrow.

Now I'm going to go blog the trip details on my personal blog--I'll report back here tomorrow.

zzzZZZzzz...

Closer to Completion

Check out my new, improved, no-longer-just-my-Portfolio website, aka your Portal to all things Geeky Artist Librarian.

And, um, yeah I still need to add in my previous positions under Experience, etc etc, but I'm just happy that I finally made the portal page I'd dreamed of for the past year.

Now, if I can only get my snazzydecor.com domain to point to it...

Digital Documents to the People (DttP)!

One of UNT's gorgeous digital govdocs is gracing this summer's DttP cover, just in time to brag about it at ALA (heh, heh).



You can also view the original document through UNT's Digital Collections, or browse its record, which I personally find just as gorgeous as the object itself. But then, we all know I'm a sucker for nice formatting of textual information.

As usual, I've got some additional library photos up on Flickr. That 365 Library Days Project sure gives me a great excuse for carrying a camera around. I think these photos will come in handy for outreach and marketing projects later on. I heartily encourage you to join--and surprise yourself!

Further Preparations

Yes, I'll be blogging (and wiki-ing, if that's the appropriate word) ALA Annual later this week. Oh, and most likely I'll be dumping scads of photos on flickr each evening (assuming I'm not totally worn out).

I've been reading the ALA Annual 2007 wiki and getting some more information. I've also been bookmarking restaurants, wifi hotspots, and Google Maps locations in my del.icio.us account. And trying to figure out my ridiculously over-booked schedule with my Google Calendar.

Any readers/colleagues who will be attending, feel free to email me and ask about meeting up.

To read: Conference Tips

Update: here's my 411... those wishing to meet up can email and request my digits. ;)

Scheduling Troubles

Dang, how did I miss that Garrison Keillor is going to be the closing speaker at ALA? And here I'm scheduled to fly out the night before he speaks. Arg!

I am beginning to see the difficulty of scheduling what to do at ALA. It seems almost all of my time will be taken up with GODORT, and then a few must-see sessions of other types (mostly digital collections-related or leadership-related), and then--wait, where's the time for the Exhibits Hall or site-seeing???

Darn it, I still really need that clone of myself. Where, oh where is that Home Cloning Kit?

(I'm Too Busy to Think of an Appropriate Title)

I am glad that the ALA GODORT list-serv snafu appears to be over. Very, very glad.

Anyone got bets on whether H.R. 2545, The "Congressional Research Accessibility Act" is going to pass and make CRS Reports available to the public? I bet the Director of CRS isn't happy about this bill. Val, I know you'll have a bet to place.

So far, I've uploaded about a third of the shots I took at San Jose's Martin Luther King, Jr. Library when we visited on the 2nd of the month. So far, these shots encompass the exterior and 1st through 3rd floors; only five more floors to go! (Also this is my general Flickr set for libraries I've visited, versus my set of photos for the UNT Libraries.)

Since a fellow librarian pal mentioned using my graphic novel reviews (from my personal blog), I thought I'd link to them here as well.

"The Blog People"

My friend Jesse Silva is guest-blogging at FGI this month--hooray!

Thoughts on a Drizzly Morning

I just discovered that NPR's "Selected Shorts" show is available online for free. If you love books, libraries, or librarians, or are just a fan of Audrey Niffenegger's work (The Time Traveler's Wife), check out this episode, which includes a reading of her fantastic short story, "The Night Bookmobile" (you can also read an excerpt here).

While classifying reports for the CRS Reports Archive this morning, I ran across several dealing with broadband service and the FCC. If you live in a rural area like myself and have had frustrations trying to get DSL or other broadband service, you might want to stay current with these issues. I'll be uploading some more current reports next week; you should be able to find them using the same linked search above.

Also, my husband sent me this great article on DRM (Digital Rights Management) and why it won't work. If you're a big geek like us, you'll get a kick out of the references to Star Trek engineers, recurring danger to redshirts, and South Park's Underpants Gnomes model of business. The DRM-adjusted version of this business model is as follows:

• Step 1: Create a DRM system.
• Step 2: ???
• Step 3: Profit!

Heh, heh.

Updating ePortfolio

By the way, in case you've been trying to reach my mural business website, Snazzy Decor (http://www.snazzydecor.com), or my professional ePortfolio, my web server's been down for several months.

However, I'm temporarily porting my ePortfolio over to webspace at UNT (see link). I'm still missing several pages, but will grab them soon. Also, the index and contact pages have updated information, but all other pages are probably 6-12 months out of date. I hope to have this project completed by the end of next week.

Notice that I've changed my design to a more nifty one? That's because I stripped the last remaining formatting out of these files and have fully embraced the glory of CSS.

Oh, and if you don't have an online portfolio? It's a really good idea, IMHO.

The Growing Web

I started working on notes from the NDIIPP Web at Risk meeting last week, but it will probably be a few days before I finish. I've been distracted by training a student to do some metadata quality-assurance for our A to Z Digitization Project (and isn't that a gorgeous collection?). However, the meeting was great, so rest assured I'll report soon.

Related to the NDIIPP meeting, this morning I pulled some CyberCemetery web stats (to help the NDIIPP team predict collection sizes). It's amazing how the earliest websites in the CyberCemetery take up such little space, and what mammoths the websites I'm archiving now are. Currently, the CyberCemetery consists of 45 websites that take up 27 GB; I'm predicting that by fall this year, the CC will have about 55+ websites taking up closer to 45 GB.

Factors that appear to be playing a part in website growth:

• content (number of pages/links)
• design (images, CSS files, and other information used for layout/navigation purposes)
• multimedia (larger amounts of images, audio, video in websites)
• I guess you could even narrow this last point further, and say that multimedia files themselves are growing larger as images/videos become more refined in quality (resolution, number of megapixels).

I hope to have some time this weekend to edit/post photos from last week's trip, and will post images from Oakland and from San Jose's amazing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library as soon as they're up.

Photos @ Your Library

I took a few more photos of our library this morning for the 365 Library Days project, which you can check out at my Flickr account.

While in the Bay Area, I checked out San Jose's spectacular central public library branch (which, incidentally, is also the San Jose State University library), the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library. I'll be posting those images shortly.

Update:
Also, I just got my PBwiki shirt (part of their Presenter's Pack)! Thanks, PBwiki!!! I love the spiffy star-covered box it came in.

I also posted some photos of my office on Flickr... why? Well, because I'm a little silly that way. And because I have to eke the last drop of goodness out of this Canon EOS 20D before I return it to the Digital Lab this evening.

California Girl

I had a simply fantastic time in Oakland with the NDIIPP Web-at-Risk folks, and came out of the meeting not only with a deeper appreciation for the project and more feedback to give, but had one of the most productive, interesting, and companionable lunch hours of my career, exchanging ideas with a great group of (primarily Californian) govdoc librarians.

I'll be reporting about this in more detail later in the week. For now, I'll return to my sole activity of the past few hours: catching up all my email. (Shudder.)

In other news:
I've actually spent an entire week away from NPR... what is this world coming to? (No, really: what's going on in the world? I've been NPR-less, so I don't know!)