the latest dictionary and today's who's-who

When I am asked how my Co-Op term at Lynn Valley went, I will tell them it was wild, not wild like National Geographic, but wild like going to work every day with a bunch of rock stars.

I'm no good at goodbyes, so I'll let invisible cat do the talking.

ty
tyvm lvstaff

ttya sum teim ok?

<3
-kt

PS: Laurie, this is for you.

play on and on and on

Brain science has never been so fun!

Stuart Brown on the importance of play in its many forms.



Absolutely fascinating stuff. Stay, at least, for the segment on the polar bear.

:-(

not your momma's go ask alice

While reviewing some of my considerably smarter and probably more interesting predecessor's resource guides for the new website, I happened upon this extremely potent link to Columbia University's medical-reference Q&A service Go Ask Alice!. (Not in any way affiliated to the 1971 'non-fiction' publication of the same name.)

It's a great service, manned by a tireless crew that includes medical information professionals from Columbia University, their affiliates, and interdimensional cosmic entites from a universe where compassion reigns supreme. But what elevates it from great to awesome is this particular Q&A exchange:

Dear Alice,

Know any good pick-up lines?

To which came Alice's profound response:

Dear Reader,

How 'bout we call them conversation starters? This more general term may take away negative associations that some have with being "picked up," i.e., the only reason you're saying hello to them is so that you can say goodbye an hour or two later after you've had an orgasm. If starting a conversation is your goal, you might enter into a chat, hoping simply to make a new friend or contact who could take off some of the pressure. And, since conversation starters can be used in both social and professional situations, your question and this answer can apply to more like you who've come to a site like this...

Thanks, Alice. You've made me feel bad about myself for thinking that, if I were to have received a similar question on Askaway, I would've thrown out this script:



Here's the link to the question and Alice's response in its entirety. Here's my favorite part:

It might help to watch or imagine how Brad Pitt might do it with Julia Roberts, but acting like a sex symbol could win you laughs and disdain, and no Academy Awards.

#24 is a good number

Wow. I think I finished. Or did I? Man, counting is hard. And that's why I went into library school.

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
The image generators were a lot of fun. Overdrive was neat too, I don't think it gets nearly enough press.

How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
Wow. That sounds like a question SLAIS would ask. Um. It's definitely broadened my knowledge of a lot of Web 2.0 resources I might never have given a second glance at. And it was extremely rewarding to be able to tell my friends, "I get to watch YouTube at work", which is more often than not suffixed with expressive, gloating hand gestures that may or may not have been 'ghetto' in origin.

Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
Librarians are funny people. But then, I sort of knew that already, coming in. Oh, also, they love this parchment background. I do too. I would eat my lunch off of my computer screen if they'd let me. Also, Librarians on Facebook? I need to send away to NASA to calculate the awesome of that.

What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
Hrm. I thought the audio components on the various steps were a little redundant. Plus, when it gets outdated (maybe some of it already is?), I bet it's going to be a pain to replace. I wound up skipping a lot of them; the textual information and hyperlinks were more than enough to get me up to speed.

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?
I would do many things for a free mp3 player. Watching YouTube videos at work is one of those things.

#22 revisited

I've added Penny Arcade's RSS feed to my Google Reader thingy.

They continue to dress and impress.

#23 - overdrive

Books in audio are cool. Downloadable audio books are great too. This is Digital Rights Management that makes sense. Sort of. Judging from how many requests I get some days for Playaway batteries, I'd say they're pretty darn popular! (Or come packed with really cruddy batteries.)

Lacking any real portable audio device other than the songs in my head, I've never listened to one. But I remember the day when a fellow SLAIS-er brought in a Playaway for a show and tell. It looked like the sweetest thing since overpriced Nintendo DS decals.

I've downloaded Sabriel from Overdrive, but I didn't really want to bother the Systems folks for something so trivial as requesting permission to install something as trivial as the Overdrive player. So ironically I would've had more time to read the book (see lacking portable audio device above).

And yes, I am gunning for that mp3 player. Gimmeh!

word 2007: further adventures

(Or, further evidence that Word 2007 was put together by usability geniuses.)

So I'm typing up a report, right, and this report has tables. I had several existing tables I wanted to add new rows to. Here's what I did.

Right click -> Insert -> Insert Rows Above.

Super! It did what I wanted it to do, mission accomplished, row added, didn't give it a second thought.

I come to another table, and found that I wanted to add more rows. I thought, 'no bigee', right-clicked, and...

Wait, where's the Insert Rows option?


Desperately I hunted around for it, like a blind boy who's lost his seeing-eye dog in a crowded pet store. After the initial panic wore off and logic clicked in, I figured, 'hey, noob, it's probably up in the Insert tab'. Of course it would be, I told myself. Like the old File, Edit, View, etc options on the menu bars of yore, surely everything that I could possibly want to Insert into a document should be there. Right?

Microsoft says, 'nein'.

"I'm sorry, fleshbag, we are unable to insert your rows at this time. Would you like to insert a calendar instead? We support calendars in many different formats, including pagan and Aztec solar charts. If none of these options are to your liking, we suggest thumping your chest with your fists and grunting, or partaking in some other activity that might amuse your inferior simian faculties."

Turns out, the Insert Rows function ONLY appears if your cursor is located at the END of a word, prior to right clicking.


Caption provided by Invisible Cat [who] Is Invisible.

Why? I've stopped asking why a long time ago. Now I just stare at the screen. And hope that one of the architects of this lumbering hate-machine feels the sting of my disapproval.

And then dies.

#22 - "she has 1d20 hips"

Unfortunately, the podcast I wanted to put up here seems like it's only available for subscription via iTunes. However, it is also available as a downloadable audio file; grab it from here.

It's a D&D campaign starring the authors of two very popular webcomics from Penny Arcade and PVP... and Wil Wheaton. Yes, Wil Wheaton. Little Wesley Crusher's all grown up, donned a suit of platemail, and decided to go out and fight some goblins.

This is geekdom on so many different levels!

#21 - you-u-u-auatube!

Long have I waited for this day. Put on your headphones, ladies and gents.



And here is an extended version.


Did you know that this particular internet meme has actually skyrocketed the original members to international stardom? Here's a snippet from their wiki article that's particularly silly:

'Caramelldansen is known in Japan as "Uma uma dance" (ウマウマダンス), because of the song chorus misheard lyrics (soramimi) of "u-u-ua-ua", ウッーウッーウマウマ (u- u- umauma, "uma" is suggested to mean "yummy", "nice" or "horse" in Japanese). Also part of the misheard lyrics "Dansa med oss, klappa era händer" ("Dance with us, clap your hands") make reference to "Barusamiko-su Yappa irahen de" ("There isn't any Balsamic vinegar after all" in the Kansai dialect) so the song has a different interpretation in Japanese than the original Swedish lyrics.'

Over the past couple weeks, I was so enthralled by this mind-numbingly bopsy tune that I think I was humming it in my sleep. How's that for creepy?

As for library applications, I would love to see more librarians upload their slice of wacky pie to YouTube. Have you folks ever seen SJCPL's awesome library music video? It had librarians doing wacky things, to the tune of Madonna's Ray of Light.

Well, I just found out mere seconds ago that it has been pulled from YouTube, due to some revised copyright clause. Crikey!

However, I'm certain that people are still uploading Madonna's Ray of Light in its entire pirated glory.

I'm just sayin'.

#15 - sand! in a box! how novel

I've also made it to the NVDPL sandbox wiki! But it seems that several others have made it before me. Run! The fat one's got a red felt marker and he knows how to use it!

#14 - wiki

Back in SLAIS, we used wikis extensively on group projects that involved more than 2 members (which was, nearly every group project). It was a great way to author chunks of an assignment, post it, and then see what everyone else was up to in almost-real-time.

The Princeton BookLover's wiki is wonderfully laid out. And prizes for book reviewers? Hot dawg. Libraries can pretty much craft their own websites out of wiki's, but other off the cuff ideas include be an online book club discussion thingy. It wouldn't work, necessarily, for content that needed to be approved before publication, like book reviews or community event postings.

Hey, maybe one day we might even consider committee meetings via wiki eh? Eh?

Yeah, the painful optimism hat's coming off now.

"like... like 'sorceress'"

I <3 Penny Arcade. Click on the pic to see it full sized.



My vote is for librarymans!

#8 redux - word.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's woken up in the middle of the night, cold with sweat and agonizing over the profound cosmic question of, "What would Optimus Prime do if he was a librarian (and a bus)?"

Behold! The answer to the universe!



With special thanks to ruletheworld, wikipedia, the 80's, and the 2006 winner of Unshelved comic's Pimp My Bookcart contest.

#13 - librarian 2.0 does not compute

"This librarian does not create policies and procedures that impede users’ access to the library. This librarian tells users how resources and funds will be expended. Decisions and plans are discussed in open forums and comments are answered. This makes the library transparent."
- Michael Stephens, OCLC
* Wishful thinking!

''This librarian uses Instant Messaging to meet users in their space online, builds Weblogs and wikis as resources to further the mission of the library, and mashes up content via API (Application Program Interface) to build useful Web sites.'
- Michael Stephens
* I like this, but I fear it's only because if I don't, I might lose all semblance of my librarian geek street cred. Let's face it, the vast majority of internet users in our library, at least, are tweeny-boppers. Are they going to want to spend their precious afterschool YouTube time checking out a library blog? Even in a more adult audience, really--who's going to want to check out a library wiki when they could be Tweeting?

I'm completely in agreement that libraries are quickly mutating into this trendy, ever-evolving organism, but I suspect that nobody but librarians know that! With all the dramatic measures that many public library systems have undergone these days, it may be only a matter of time before this public opinion changes on a wide scale, but it's going to be a huge matter of time yet. We're going up against centuries-old associations with scowling librarians 'ssshhhhing' with upraised forefingers here, and that's not going to get undone by a couple weekend Guitar Hero sessions. It's working, Library 2.0 is working, but it's going to take some time yet for much of the public to 'catch on'. The author needs to rein in his inner geek a little bit here.

"We need to focus our efforts not on teaching research skills but on eliminating the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need, so they can spend as little time as possible wrestling with lousy search interfaces and as much time as possible actually reading and learning."
- Rick Anderson OCLC
* Agree. I'd go so far as to lump the Dewey Decimal system as a 'lousy search interface' but, oops, I may have said too much.

#12 - social networking

Is! :)

* Fun!
* A wonderful waste of time.
* Straightforward and cryptic at the same time.
* A great way to get connected, and stay connected.
* Kinda creepy. The friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-someone-you-don't-know-very-well-really-but-you-just-added-them-to-be-polite thing can get out of hand.

Is not! :(
* Unfun.
* An efficient way to spend your evening.
* Terribly uninteresting.
* Not very well-designed for older folks, or people who have trouble reading very teensy tiny fonts.

Apparently, during one of our social network mentoring sessions, our teen mentors graciously pointed out to me that it was rather distasteful to be replying to messages on your own Facebook wall. Oops? I guess I'll just have to deal with being distasteful.

Distasteful, and old.

#11 - technocrati

1. Yeah, all posts bring up webinars, postings/speeches by various people that only peripherally discuss Learning 2.0. Tags are more accurate, bring up posts that discuss Learning 2.0 in great detail. There is no Learning 2.0 in the Blog Directory, but there is a Web 2.0. That showcases all the fancy new doodads that make up Web 2.0, not so much learning resources for them.

2. Not surprisingly, at the time of this posting, the most popular posts were about blogging, popular blogs, and tech-related gadgets. Celebrities and computer intros are also popular searches. Nothing too surprising.

3. I think I'll hold off on technocrati-tagging my blog, although I suspect Blogger is already an automatic pinger. Whatever the case, the internet simply isn't ready for this much awesome.

#10 - delicious!

It's been said that the age of keyword searching will spell the doom of serendipity, the kind of accidental discovery of valuable info-resources that can only happen while 'browsing the stacks'. Del.icio.us takes browsing back in a whole new way; browsing other people's bookmarks seems like a great resource for information-sharing, and it is.

Tags are neat, and at least on the NVDPL's bookmarks, entries are very thoroughly tagged and categorized (not surprising for a bunch of librarians), allowing for quick and accurate-ish searching. I've used the page once or twice during Askaway sessions, and while I didn't find any major resources to field my reference queries (viva la Google), it's not a bad resource for finding related/general interest links.

I'm always for easy access to bookmarks (especially when switching computers or browsers). But no doubt it's a great resource for information sharing. The only problem with it, as always, is that it's quite time-consuming to add to, and to browse.

But now I know I'll be quite prepared to answer the next patron who comes asking about "slimes, just slimes".

#9 - librareh thing

I'm not sure if I like cataloguing this much. BUT I HAS IT.

#8 - positively jejune, darling

I know this isn't an image per se, but this one was stunningly appropriate for this blog.

And over in this corner, ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a winner for a new tagline!

Live from the Kids' Desk

Little Girl (After Being Chased by her Brother): No one can catch me, I'm too fast!
Little Girl's Dad: You're just a little speed demon, aren't you?
Little Girl: NO I'M NOT, I'M A SPEED PRINCESS!

#7 - feeeeed me

For me, Blogline's Search tool wins the best award for user-friendliness and comprehensive searching. Simply click the drop down box, type in your subject keywords and go.

Syndic8 is a powerful tool, but its crowded aesthetics acts as a bit of a deterrence. One of its features I'm especially fond of, however, is that it demarks feeds that encounter loading errors with an exclamation point.

I understand Technocrati's hugely popular, but... I didn't like it. The search results seem presented in a messy and haphazard manner, and unless I've mistaken, there doesn't seem to be a way to filter searches to show ONLY proper RSS feeds, as opposed to blogs with the word "RSS" in them. Add to the fact that you have to click on a link multiple times before it actually brings you to the blog in question... ugh.

#6 - rss? yes pls!

Confession time.

Up until I was asked to throw together some RSS feeds using Yahoo!'s bizarre but powerful Pipes app, I had little idea of what an RSS was. It's always been something shunted into the rearmost recesses of my mind, like a helping of steamed peas scraped to a corner of the dinnerplate.

As it turns out, RSS'es are not very pea-like at all! Well, I guess they are, sort of. Perhaps because of my earlier conceptions, they still strike me as having legumish qualities. But these qualities are acceptable. So it's a little like split-pea soup. Still pea. But comfortably badass.

Yes, it's getting close to lunch, why do you ask?

The irony isn't lost on me that for something that was meant to save time, I sure wasted a lot of it on this exercise. I knew right off the bat which sites I wanted to subscribe to, but as a newcomer to the blogging world, selecting blogs wasn't so easy. Unlike this blog, there are people out there who write genuinely interesting stuff. Stuff that deserves to be read. Repeatedly. And one more time, in chronological order.

:o

#5 - mashups!

Mashups are spiffy, and... er, great time-wasting distractions. The flickr color pickr offers a creative way to browse through flickr photos, or to find one that matches a particular color scheme.

My new favorite though? The trading card maker.

This is one I created for a much overlooked member of the animal kingdom, who desperately deserves its own trading card.

#4 - flickr: EXTREME kite flying

flickr was one of the social networking tools we're working with for a program, and for one of the activities, I asked our mentors-in-training to do a search for "extreme kite flying".

These are the results!

flickr's a great resource; dependable (and free) image hosts are hard to find these days. I haven't really explored a lot of its quirks (and there are many, most of which do not lend themselves to very intuitive interfaces).

The flickr Map feature is a very cool toy to play with, if ornery in its interface (you have to zoom in reeeeal close to a specific location before you can tag a photo). Sadly, as of this posting, there have been no photo entries for picturesque Moosejaw, B.C. :(

#20 - A/S/Laway

I've used Askaway as part of a project on Web 2.0 during my 1st year in SLAIS. I'm sorry if one of you folks had the misfortune of having to deal with me.

Conceptually, it's a great service. But the people who came up with it must've forgotten to account for one of the most pervasive and cosmic laws of the internet. Here, lemme Common Craft it for ya.



The internet's great, but without any pesky social norms to get in the way, people will be tempted to ask questions that they won't otherwise ask another human being face-to-face. Add to the fact that many Askaway users seem to only be half aware of the service's intended function, and you've got...

Well, you've got the internet in all its user-driven glory.

Not too long ago, I sat in with a co-worker during one of her Askaway sessions, and heard a lot about the horror stories. And even bore witness to one!

Is it perfect? Well, no. But I bet it's great fun.

return of the attack of the son of Office II: Officemaggeddon!

Attempts to teach library patrons how to save their documents in the new Word has also proven to be a harrowing exercise, and not the fun kind of harrowing, like I don't know, skydiving, or owning a handful of extremely violent kittens. Observe:

Librarian: "Just click on that button here."
Patron: "Which button? The File button? I don't see it."
Librarian: "No, that button up in the top-left."
Patron: "That button? What do you call that?"
Librarian: "I--er, I think--I don't know. It's the Office Logo, I guess?"
Patron: "My God, what is that thing? It's hideous! I think it's pulsing!"
Librarian: "Don't make sudden movements! It can smell your fear."
Patron: "It's coming straight for us! Nooooo!"

Is it a conspiracy that the functional (if not very pretty) File menu has been replaced with an indescribable, unpronounceable symbol that defies comprehension, sort of like another indescribable, unpronounceable symbol that defies comprehension? I say yes, and that we are all doomed.

#19 - dataz! bases!

Philip's Atlas of the Universe
Today at the children's desk, I fielded a lot of questions about the solar system. I wouldn't recommend Philip's to those kids, but the material there is certainly suitable for Grade 7's to high school ages (it doesn't pull any punches in describing orbital matheminucia, chemical compositions, etc.) seeking more numeric facts about a particular cosmic entity. What's best about this eBook is the browsable table of contents interface.

However, the keyword searching has a few quirks. First, the tiny 'check within this publication' radio button is not checked by default, and can lead to users unwittingly searching the whole Gale database instead of the publication that they clicked on.

As well, Gale's keyword search results does not allow for a sort by Relevance, and defaults to a Sort by Document Title. This could be confusing for first time searchers weaned on Google, as a query for 'Jupiter' brings up 'Asteroids' as its first article. Users will have to be instructed that the first article is not necessarily the most relevant one!

Shakespeare for Students
Another publication hosted on the Gale databases; has all the keyword searching quirks mentioned above.

Now here's something I wish I had when I was going through my BA. Plot synopses of every major play! Act-by-Act summaries of the action! Tons of useful analysis! None of those boring soliloquies to sift through! None of that hoity-toity literary scintillation to get in the way! Also useful are the list of Media Adaptations of each play, highlighted in a purple text box where applicable; great way of pointing lazy readers to audio and DVD renditions of these plays. Sadly, the write-ups are wonderfully concise and approachable reads. And by sadly, I mean that might make them prime candidates for plagarism. Do kids still do that these days? Is it still 'with it'? I don't know anymore.

#18 - Word? ew, no.

Word: Ugh. That sums up my first impressions of MS Word 2007—like Vista, it seemed at first glance like an ill-intentioned attempt to fix that which ain’t broke. (After the second, third and fortieth glances, nothing has changed.) Colorful comments made during the first two minutes of exploring Word included:

“Where is my File menu?”
“Why is everything in tabs now?”
“Ew, they’re ugly!”
“What, I can’t Save As?”
“Why the hell is this over here now?”
"What’s wrong with where it was before?”
“#*$&*%#@$” [abridged].

For me, the proliferation of cryptic buttons laying out all the features of a particular tab (Home, Insert, Page Layout, etc) right in front of you doesn’t seem particularly organized, nor is it strikingly user friendly. And it sure as heck can’t be efficient if I can’t tell what these hieroglyphs mean at a glance (check out the ‘Clear Formatting’ button… an Aa festooned with what looks like a white marshmallow speedbump? What?).

Otherwise, it seems like Word with plenty of new features along with all the old ones. ONLY NOW YOU CAN’T FIND ANY OF THEM.

Outlook: On the other hand, the new Outlook email wrangler seems very nice. I like the horizontal window layout as opposed to the old vertical one. And unlike Word, all your basic necessities for life are easily laid out with both icons and text, and in a fashion that does not take up half the screen, omg. The Find feature is a particularly welcome addition, as is the ability to quickly export your emails or contact list to a folder on your hard drive.

#17 ze outlook calendar

Some neat features on the Outlook calendar, but so far it seems that most folks prefer the direct human-to-human email exchange when setting up meeting times, and I do too. It seems more personable--though most of my meetings have been between myself and one other person. The Outlook setups might indeed be a boon to larger group gatherings. But I can forsee problems that may arise when the person you're trying to schedule a meeting with has not been using Outlook to track his/her other appointments, and their schedule will shows up blank. Which may not necessarily mean 'available'... Hm. Maybe I should update my calendar.

And it is handy to be able to peek and see what meetings are taking place up at the Boardroom, or other spaces.

#16 am i in ur base?

Good reminders about net security. This is interesting enough to teach people in the email basics class! But not uninteresting enough to make this an official blog post. But I will make an exception just this once.

It was good to find out about spear phishing, the form of phishing localized to internal members of a company near you. Good, but depressing. Stupid humans!

After reading through all this, though, it still seems that the best defense against online account predation is a healthy dose of paranoia.

But who will defend us from the ninjas?



PS: Looks like I scored a 9/10 on the Phishing IQ; that's what I get for erring on the side of phishing!

helloes.

Hello. This is a blog. This is where blogging happens. This is my first posting. Hooray! Except that I haven't yet had lunch today. Which means this isn't much of an inaugural blog.

Isn't this fun?