Facebook's Spring Cleaning

Good news for us Facebook lovers: they're cleaning it up in June, organizing all that stuff on our profiles into separate tabs for information, feeds, photos, etc. I for one will be ecstatic to see my profile page be a little less.... yeah. A little less, period. And I won't have to get rid of my iBook account to do it!

Pardon My Hacking Cough

...Actually, it's not that bad. It just feels that bad. But after two days home sick, I'm back at work.

And I'm about to give the first of my 5 (6?) presentations this month, in a little more than an hour, at the North Branch of Denton Public Library. Melody Kelly (my boss's boss), Suzanne Sears (my boss), and I are going to give a three-part talk about censorship of government information, in honor of--you guessed it--Banned Books Week. If you'd like to see my wiki notes, handouts, or lecture text, you can always snag it off my wiki.

I've got my three presentations for San Antonio Public Libraries mostly done (not that you'd know it from my wiki page--for once I've been hand-writing my notes)--save for the screenshots, which of course will require no less than three hours of struggle and some mild cursing at my laptop. The Library 2.0 technologies and the "Keeping Up as a 21-st Century Librarian" talks both came together really easily--it's more the basic tech competencies for librarians that I'm struggling with. I think it's because I have an hour, so I want to do more than say, "this is what you ought to know--now learn it." But then again I only have an hour... and I can't possibly teach the intricacies of ten basic tech competencies in that amount of time. I'll have to find some kind of happy compromise and point them to some great resources to follow-up on their own.

In any case, I am very, very excited about the SAPL event. And my mom's looking forward to attending; I've been telling her than since she can't get Wordperfect 5.0 installed on her computer, and she hates MS Word, she really just ought to use a wiki. It's got the simple, code-revealing mark-up she wants (without really realizing that's what she wants), plus she can access it from any computer without having to save it to a USB drive or floppy or whatnot. And she can have all the old versions backed up... yeah, she's wiki-bound, I tell ya.

Well, I'd better sign off. I need to finish printing those handouts for tonight and down a few cough-drops.

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.

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. ;)

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.

To Amuse You During Your Lunch Break...

Been wondering what libraries are doing in Second Life? Would you like to get a preview before downloading the bloated SL software? Check out the 7-minute intro video over at the FGI blog.

Oh, they've also linked to a great video about copyright and fair use, created using Disney characters' dialogue. Great, great fun.

Putting the "Social" in Social Software

I would be remiss if I didn't give a hearty "Thanks!" to Libraryman for graciously gifting my Pro Flickr Account. Now I'm all afire to borrow our Digital Project Lab's Canon Rebel to take more photos for the 365 Library Days Project!

365 Library Days

Libraryman just invited me to join the 365 Library Days group on Flickr! It's a neat project:

Let's get as many libraries as we can to sign up for a customized, library friendly version of the 365 project. That would mean that if you decide to participate, you would commit to downloading at least 365 pictures from in, around or about the library you work in, for and/or with. Uploading a picture every day for 365 days in this case wouldn't be practical, but committing to 365 images in a year could be done fairly easily. It could also have HUGE value for your library.

This afternoon, I posted 24 photos--primarily that I had taken of our newly-renovated library mall... of course, it hits me now that I haven't paid $25 for the premium Flickr membership that allows you to add more than 200 photos, so that may be a problem in the future... I'd like to add some Denton Reads photos, as well.

As Easy as PB & J

Giving a little plug for PBwiki, the online wiki hosting software that I use for my professional/personal wiki. (Check out the PBwiki tour!)

Attention, educators: all educational PBwikis are now free!

(Update: More Denton Reads photos, coming soon...)

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jig

Things I learned while in Denver:

• the altitude really does affect you
• there's a surprising number of documents librarian baseball fans
• if it's a presentation/discussion about digitization, UNT's name will come up
• regionals have widely varying opinions on digitization and title 44
• John Phillips really is that great

As well as, when attending two conferences in the space of a week:

• stick to bland foods
• you won't get much sleep

I've started typing up my notes in my wiki (including notes for TLA), but they won't be done for a few days. Keep checking back; I'll get them done. I'll also be posting in the near future some observations / thoughts on the conference proceedings; I think it will take typing all my notes to re-digest that material.

So, the emails are just about caught up (in stark contrast to the laundry), the Albino Squirrel Memorial looks great, and I'm about to go photograph the Denton Reads Film Festival at the Movie Tavern. Now, if I could only find the time to finish that book review and my research paper for Rare Books...

Also, a big thanks to my interim department head for reading my blog post and getting LAN to up my RAM! Woohoo--thanks, Mel!

Update: There's a great story about the Albino Squirrel Memorial at the Denton-Record Chronicle website, that includes some photos!

My Mock-ups Are Mocking Me

Imagine my surprise yesterday when I heard NPR's Marketplace deliver a segment about the U.S. Patent Office using wikis. How cool is that? NPR + GovDocs + Library 2.0 = one interested geek.

Marketplace also mentioned Archie McPhee, the company the creates the Librarian action figure. And then mentioned typo squatters. Man, I love NPR.



On the graphic design front.... there must be some kind of cosmic rule that if the image doesn't crash Photoshop, you must not be adequately using the program's innate coolness. Try these mock-ups for the Denton Reads poster on for size:

• Watermarked Logo Background
• Color Halftone Background
• Photo Background
• Gradient Background* my fave
  
• Blueberry-Flavored Gradient Background

And that's about it for today. I've had computer crashes, legal reference questions, web content updates, a webinar, and the usual email detritus. I think that since I got here twelve hours ago... it's just about time to head home.

SirsiDynix Webinar: Mashups

Here are the notes I just took on the presentation this morning, on my wiki:

SirsiDynix Institute:
"Mashups: A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That"
presented by Darlene Fichter (read her blog!)

It was a great presentation on what mashups are, ways to create them, requirements, and how to think more about what to use them for. I just wish we hadn't run out of time!!

On a side note: Today I'm wearing my ThinkGeek "I'm Blogging This" shirt... but it should more appropriately read "I'm Wiki-ing This" today!

My Facebook Badge

The Wonderful World of Wikis / The "How" of Wikis

Yes, folks, the archived version of our presentation is already up!!! You've got many different flavors of access to it:

• streaming audio, text chat, and presentation slides (playback time: 55 minutes)

• native WMA audiorecording (8.4 MB file; playback time of 55 minutes)

• converted MP3 audiorecording (22.2 MB file; playback time of 55 minutes)

• Chad's Powerpoint slides

• My Powerpoint slides

• text chat transcript

My gracious thanks to my talented co-presenter Chad, and to Meredith, Amanda, Tom, and the OPAL folks for this great opportunity!

Return to Reference

I was reminded today by an email from Meredith Farkas herself that the Five Weeks to a Social Library course is coming up quickly!! Soon I'll be trained in how to use OPAL for a live webcast. I'm wanting to use both PowerPoint and some co-browsing in my presentation, so that I can actually show how to create a wiki in real-time. For more information on Five Weeks..., see the course wiki.

It also seems that some interesting developments may be in the works at the UNT-L regarding podcasting... stay posted for more details.

This afternoon started out with a number of email reference questions that had to be dealt with immediately--and our go-to person in the department for these questions is currently out. At first, I was appalled by the usual brain atrophy that results when I leave work for more than a weekend, but in the end, I was proud of my ability to answer the questions quickly and thoroughly. (It's nice to use the Texas Codes Annotated and the Congressional Serial Set!!) With a little help from my Awesome Former Boss on one of them... my thanks for her help!

Comics and Wikis and Federated Search, Oh My!

Daniel was kind enough to link to my last post on my GovDoc Comics project on FGI, for which I am very grateful. If you have comics or links you'd like to call to my attention, you can put them directly in my wiki page on the topic (password to edit is "letmein"), or you can email me or post in the comments. At this point, I'm just gathering information on all the examples I can find, digital and in print--later I'll decide if this will be a research project to publish, or if it will evolve into a digitization project. I'm really tempted to digitize, but a lot of the ones I've been pointed to have already been digitized, so it may just be that I create a guide or finding aid in addition to an article.

In any case, I thank you from the bottom of my geeky heart for your help.

In other news, the Emerging Technologies Group (ETG) meeting this morning revealed that UNT Libraries will, in fact, unveil a library-wide wiki. Rejoice! It should be implemented sometime in January (using MediaWiki), which will be great--the primary decisions left are for the administration to determine if the wiki will be limited to library IP's, available remotely via Novell log-ins, or open to the world. I understand the hesitation to open the wiki, being that it will primarily be for internal use, but it would be so much easier to send things to colleagues if it was open. And being that one of the points of wikis is preserving previous versions, any vandalism could be quickly corrected. However, I'd wager a guess that Novell log-ins will be about as free as we get.

Which reminds me, I'll need to start looking at my "The 'How' of Wikis" presentation soon for Five Weeks to a Social Library, being that I'm set to present March 1st. That's what Christmas break is for, right? All those projects I don't have time for during the regular course of the year.

Also more from the ETG on our federated search progress (not to be confused with our simultaneous interest in faceted search)... Mark in the Digital Projects Unit has been messing around with it for awhile, and seems to be close to making a suggestion--the three in discussion at the moment are Webfeat, Metafind, and Metalib. I'm all for starting small with Webfeat and getting our feet wet enough to make a more informed decision later.

This is the last week here for My Awesome Boss, which I'm simultaneously trying not to think about and also trying to remind myself of, so that I ask all the questions I can and get in some more chat-sessions. We're just embarking on a new digitization venture--a very, very small one, but since our Interim Head has an office on the floor below us, I'll be the primary conduit of information, communication, and such. We've got a department meeting tomorrow that will primarily be about this project, and I'm hoping that the staff asks all their questions then, while the Interm Head is present. There were some concerns about the scope of the project and what additional workload it might cause--and frankly, these are the aspects of such projects that I haven't yet had to deal with, so it's all new to me. I have a feeling that this spring during the search for the new Dept. Head, I'll be learning quite a few such nifty new tasks. Ah, the joy of expanding one's skillset.

Later this week, I have a meeting to edit our Library Assembly's bylaws (organization of librarians and staff that discuss general library issues, such as the incredibly-frustrating construction going on outside the library, and try to make changes), and also a "Denton Reads" meeting (city-wide project inspired by the "Seattle Reads" project). I'm on the Graphics Committee for Denton Reads, so that ought to be a nice diversion from my usual work.

...Speaking of my usual work, I have a bunch of CRS Reports patiently waiting in a folder, and they won't choose subject headings by themselves!

Untitled Randomness

It didn't win, but American Born Chinese was the first graphic novel nominated for a National Book Award! Woohoo! Of course, one step forward, one step back... there have been several recent challenges to graphic novels in libraries.

There's a second "Librarian" adventure/B-movie coming up in December. Yes, I'm a sucker for cheap Indiana Jones imitations--it's as good as I'm getting unless Lucas and Spielberg ever actually start Indy 4. (I'm not holding my breath, or I'd have turned blue about six years ago.)

I know you need some more wiki-goodness: here are some wiki resources from Meredith Farkas, a wiki video course, and best of all, a Homestar Runner wiki. (It makes my geeky little heart so happy!)

Looks like I missed the deadline for America's Next Top Librarian, darn.

Temporary Tattoos--for librarians! Put a little sass on your shushin' arm.

...Finally, some new features in Firefox 2.0. So far, I downloaded it and the only difference I'd noticed was the sheer volume of plug-ins available for it. But auto-spell-check in-browser and a thesaurus sound like great features to me!

Heather at Re:Generations ponders the difficulty in getting and effectively using a library mentor.

I finally found this memoir, Breaking Night, written by Liz Murray, the homeless girl who got herself through high school and into Harvard. I'd been trying to find it for awhile and it's proven surprisingly difficult to find (whereas the TV movie is linked everywhere).

Wild for Wikis!

Well, all of a sudden my spring schedule's turning wiki-tastic. My "The How of Wikis" presentation was just accepted for the Five Weeks to a Social Library course in February. Then an off-hand mention of this sparked a conversation with an art history prof (whom I TA-ed for six years ago), who is now interested in using wikis for a grant project and asked if I'd be interested in acting as their wiki consultant. If the project is funded, I'll be working on that next June.

We've got plane tickets for DC; now it's time to make some hotel reservations (despite my own reservations about the meaning of the phrase "budget hotel" in the DC area).

While visiting my parents in San Antonio this weekend, I went through the house, trying to find as many items for the digital family archive as I could. I came up with quite a list, which my Dad has apparently already been tackling; he called Sunday night to ask what detail shots I wanted of Grandma-the-Great's (GTG) quilts. Those are actually some of the objects I'm most eager to see in the archive; I plan to use the shot of the entire quilt as the "top" picture (they'll be hierarchically-arranged compound objects). Then I had Dad take detail images of individual quilt blocks--specifically, ones that he could identify the fabric's origin--for instance, scraps from his and his siblings' pajamas, and from his mother's aprons. Growing up, I was fascinated that the quilts were tangible bits of family history, not only because they were made by GTG, but because they featured scraps of their daily lives. I want a record of that for future generations, both in image and in text.