Carolyne's pages of interest

SLA2010 – New Orleans – Day 4 – Tuesday June 15

2010-07-27T00:35:00.001-04:00

Leadership and influence – building capacity for change

Ken Haycock

must promote self and library
everyone is a leader
- getting people to give support to a common goal
learn to articulate strengths
do “strengths finder” exercises
first part of leadership is self awareness
apply what we know – evidence based librarianship
libraries have not key success factors
power of influence
libraries
- referent power
- expertise power – over rated – not high power
trust is critical
reputation
self confidence is key
listening
mentoring is a powerful tool
mentoring is more important for women
trust
- character
- competence
- confidence
- credible
- congruence
yes – 50scientific ways to be successful
social proof – what others are doing
like and respect gets money
find out values and beliefs of those with budget control
ask – what do you want to accomplish and how can I help you to do it
SOPPADA – a method to organize a one page report that gets read
ROTI – return on time invested
developing partnerships with knowledge
key influences
building influence
- using evidence
- connecting agendas
- assessing time
- assessing costs
- leveraging resources
- measuring results

Chemistry Division Corporate Libraries Roundtable

general discussion on challenges facing corporate librarians

Taxonomy

Sponsored by Solo Librarians Division and Taxonomy Division

http://www.accidental-taxonomist.com

taxonomy – index – thesaurus

variety of terms
variety of usages
variety of perspectives
variety of software, systems

I will never use Travelocity again

2010-06-17T15:25:00.001-04:00

Was I ever surprised when I arrived at the New Orleans Airport to go home after the SLA conference. Seems the booking made on travelocity.ca (leaving at 4:05 pm) was changed at some point and I was now supposed to be on a 9:55 am flight.

I had to pay $50 to rebook. Delta agent pleasantly told me I would have had the same price if I had used their web site directly. Also that I need to get the $50 back from Travelocity.

Oh Joy

Oh Bliss

At least there were still seats on the original flight and I am headed home.

SLA2010 – New Orleans – Day 3 – Monday June 14

2010-06-14T21:10:00.000-04:00

Business Research

All US sources
All US everything
Slides online – note to self – look for them

Left and went to another session…

Knowledge continuity and Opportunities – Future of knowledge Managers

Speaker Patrick Lambe, Straits Knowledge

Interstitial library - books that fall through the gaps
KM needs to work in the gaps and help close them
His study is available for purchase
15 roles for Knowledge Managers – many are or should be general management competencies
He has written articles on this
beware success stories- concentrate on daily experiences and patterns
quick wins are temporary
easy wins are not scalable

Embedded Librarianship in the Field

Reese Dano and Gretchen McNeely

not really relevant
too many buzzwords
what does “dimensionality” really mean??
how many times can a speaker say “disparate” and “overarching” in the same talk?

Left and went to exhibit hall …

Success Stories of Solos

Patrick Clapp moderated and organized this session. His speakers all had to cancel out on him, so he asked me if I could talk about my success at negotiating my termination and my new job. So, I did. Calling my part “everything is negotiable” I quickly reviewed

asking Xerox for more than the offered severance package and asking ArcelorMittal Dofasco for more than what was offered when I got my new job there.

And then the rains came down. View from my hotel room.

SLA 2010 – New Orleans - Day 2 – Sunday June 13

2010-06-13T21:23:00.000-04:00

The temperature has gone down a little – only about 101 today. Breakfast buffet in hotel was much better today as there were not 100 teens in the line-up.

Fedex Kinkos

As secretary of the Solo Librarians Division I had to make sure this morning that I had the agenda and minutes printed and available for the group. To this end, I went online to the FedEx Kinkos site as there is a location right in the hotel where the meeting was going to be held. I uploaded the files and found out that they don’t accept Canadian credit cards. After being transferred around on the telephone I found someone who told me how to at least submit the job and then I could go over later and pay. I did this, however, the job was all screwed up and I only got half of it. I will need to do it all over again for the business meeting.

My message to American companies -- the world does not end at your borders. Not by a long shot.

Solo Division Board Meeting

The Solo Librarians Division Board Meeting was at noon today. We had a great discussion on the future planning for conferences and conference sessions. We hope to see a lot more people at the luncheon tomorrow. I think I volunteered to be a speaker on a panel session :0

Exhibits

I spent all afternoon at the exhibit hall. I had not intended to do so, but there were a lot of people to talk to. Swag is pretty good this year.

Keynote

Mary Matalin and James Carville were the keynote speakers. She was very interesting and articulate, he was very funny and very driven to improve New Orleans. I could have listened to them much longer.

Solo Librarians Division No Host Dinner

Nine solo’s went to dinner at “The Gumbo Shop” in the French Quarter.

The food was very good. I had Shrimp Gumbo, Crayfish Ettouffee, Macque Choux Corn, and a Praline Sundae. YUM!!

SLA2010 – New Orleans – Day 1 – Saturday June 12

2010-06-12T23:37:00.000-04:00

Hot Hot Damn Hot

104 F – glasses fog up every time I leave a building!

2011 Philadelphia Planning Session

Four Solo Division participants
Still on track for a Lean Six Sigma session with yours truly organizing it.
SOLO is the host for the Joint Reception in 2011 – must find a local solo to help
Keynote speakers announced - Thomas Friedman (opening), James Kane (closing)
Variety of room layouts planned. Some good, some not so good.
Planning on inviting community leaders and managers to conference for a Forum designed for non-members – interesting concept
Will post SOLO plans when they are clearer

SLA Leadership Summit

2010-01-30T20:52:00.000-05:00

I spent the last few days of January in St. Louis at the SLA Leadership Summit.

Photos over on Facebook.

SLA 2009 – Day 4 – Tuesday

2009-06-16T21:02:00.001-04:00

Early morning – session at 7:30 am

7: 30am -- More With Less: Successful Time Management Practices

11: 30am --Solo Librarians Division Business Meeting Luncheon

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12:30 Interdisciplinary Science and Its Impact on Information Professionals

1: 30pm -- Working Smarter: Creating a Virtual Assistant

5pm -- All Sciences Poster Session and Reception

9 pm -- Information Technology, Leadership and Management, and Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics Divisions Open House: The Embassy Ball

with visits to the exhibits mixed in.

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SLA 2009 -- Day 3 - Monday

2009-06-16T18:36:00.001-04:00

Slept in this morning. First session not until 9 am.

Went to first choice – ROI 2.0 corporate libraries – seemed like a long ad for an ebook vendor. left and went to second choice – Radical Reference – not what I thought at all. Too left wing for me.

Went to third choice – social networking analysis with Jay Liebowitz – this one was a great choice. Mapping of social networks to determine communication channels and interactions to locate bottlenecks and unconnects

At 11 am went to “moving up the ladder when there is no ladder to climb”. Jeanne Miller of UMICH was first speaker. Hildy Dworkin in NY city government was second and Karen Rescik was third. Very interesting and provided some good ideas to try.

Between all sessions I went to the exhibit hall and met people, learned about potential services, etc.

Migraine caused me to miss Canadian Reception and Elsevier Reception. Went to Solo open house and IT open house as they were in my hotel.

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SLA 2009 – Day 2

2009-06-14T21:41:00.001-04:00

Got to sleep in today. Rain was predicted, but the weather has remained beautiful. Sunny and clear.

Had a few things to print and had a bit of problem with the Kinkos systems, but worked it out.

Solo Division Board meeting at noon. Went well. I am secretary and hope to have minutes finished in the next few days.

Went to the exhibits for most of the afternoon. Talked to many vendors and picked up some quality swag.

Skipped the keynote because my head was not good. Stayed in and rested.

Went to SciTech Poster session

Knowledge Management Reception

LMD

and IT receptions.

SLA 2009 Day 1

2009-06-14T10:22:00.001-04:00

5:00 am Woke up in Oakville ON

5:30 AM - Picked up by Airport Limo and whisked off to Toronto Pearson International Airport for a 8:00 am flight (we must be at the airport 2 hours before international flights and no matter what some people think, USA is still an international country)

5:50 AM - Checking in

6:20 AM - Sitting in boarding area waiting

6:25 AM - Drinking a Tim Hortons coffee and enjoying a toasted everything bagel with herb and garlic cream cheese

7:15 AM - Getting US cash from ATM in terminal

8:00 AM - On plane

9:10 AM - In Washington DC

11:15 AM - Checking into Washington Renaissance Hotel Downtown

1:00 PM – Headed for Convention Center. One block away.

Computers down at registration at conference centre. Back up shortly. Computer tells me to go to “badge pickup” – ???? – no signs, no nothing with that on it. What it really means is “Talk to person behind desk to get tickets and bag”.

1:30 PM – sandwich, chips, and Diet Coke (my hotel is all Pepsi, bummer) from upper level conference snack booth ($12) and wading through stuff in conference bag. Put badge together, checked tickets, read programme, etc.

2:00 PM – in 2010 New Orleans Planning Meeting!! Guess who is keynote speaker next year – James Carville and his wife (I guess you US people would know her, but all I know is she is the other party from him and I don’t even know which party he is [yes yes, I could look it up, but it does not really matter that much to me]) I do not follow politics but this is a very interesting choice. Guess Brad Pitt was unavailable :)
Met Hildy Dworkin and Rene Shoemaker, my fellow SOLO exec members.

5:00 PM – in Renaissance bar/restaurant having drinks and dinner with Hildy and Rene.

6 PM – on bus tour of Washington – see photos on Flickr, as I won’t post them all here :) I took this one. It was a very nice day for a tour. Too humid and no water available. Herded all over and meeting the same herds, I mean tour groups, over and over at each landmark. (Note to tour company – water the livestock occasionally)

Met a bunch of very nice ladies on the tour!!

9:30 PM - heading back to hotel, hot and thirsty

The rest of the evening was checking email, finding minutes for Sunday’s board meeting, putting feet up and off to ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ by 11PM. An early night, perhaps the last :)

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Sharing SLA 2009 Personal Conference Planner information

2009-06-01T13:57:00.002-04:00

A tweet on Twitter from Jill Hurst-Wahl about not being able to share SLA Conference Planner information started this chain of thought.

Google calendars are easily shared, posted and updated from exported data from other calendar programmes. I knew last year I exported my conference planner, imported it into Outlook and printed the pages in a more user friendly format.

I knew the same could be done for Google calendar.

Start in your planner. Click the button to “Export to Outlook” and save the file somewhere you can remember. This creates a CSV file.
open Google calendar (http://calendar.google.com)
create a new calendar if you want, or import the items into your existing one. I created a new one called SLA 2009
Click “settings” on the “My calendars” box and choose “import calendar” under “My Calendars”
Browse to the file you saved above, choose which Google calendar to import into and Import.

Under calendar details for this calendar you now have options to share it, post it, etc. Here is mine. You can see I still have a few decisions to make as to which sessions I will be attending. You can update it by exporting from the Planner and importing into Google calendar again and not allowing duplicates.

Enjoy

Purina Walk for Dog Guides

2009-05-15T14:08:00.001-04:00

My family, including our Dog Guide Foster Puppy AJ, will be participating in the Purina Walk for Dog Guides on May 31, 2009 to help raise funds for the training and placement of Dog Guides.

AJ is our second foster puppy.

All Dog Guides are provided to eligible candidates at no cost. Funding for Dog Guide training is 100 per cent obtained from donations and no government funding is received. Dog Guides Canada has already provided their specially trained Dog Guides to more than 1300 men, women and children from ages eight to 88. With your help, more people can experience the mobility, safety and independence a devoted Dog Guide partner brings.

You can help by giving an online gift by credit card by clicking 'Donate Now'.

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My Fundraising Goal

$1,000.00

Raised so far $825.00

Photo management software

2009-05-13T14:40:00.001-04:00

I have been looking for quite some time for ~~good~~ great software that is ~~free~~ low cost, user friendly, downloadable (i.e. not a web based system like flickr, webshots, etc.), has commenting features, and does not need a lot of admin knowledge.

I have read a number of articles, checked out discussion lists and downloaded many trials.

Here is what I have found so far:

Omeka – this looked great. I got all excited. Then our IT people informed me that you need to have running Linux, Apache, PHP5 and MySQL5 and they were not willing. All that is beyond me. If it is not beyond you, this looks like a perfect solution.

“Omeka is a free and open source collections based web-based publishing platform for scholars, librarians, archivists, museum professionals, educators, and cultural enthusiasts. Its “five-minute setup” makes launching an online exhibition as easy as launching a blog. Omeka is designed with non-IT specialists in mind, allowing users to focus on content and interpretation rather than programming. It brings Web 2.0 technologies and approaches to academic and cultural websites to foster user interaction and participation. It makes top-shelf design easy with a simple and flexible templating system. Its robust open-source developer and user communities underwrite Omeka’s stability and sustainability. Until now, scholars and cultural heritage professionals looking to publish collections-based research and online exhibitions required either extensive technical skills or considerable funding for outside vendors. By making standards based, serious online publishing easy, Omeka puts the power and reach of the web in the hands of academics and cultural professionals themselves.”

Gallery – This one also looks good, however it also requires PHP and a web server, etc.

“Gallery is an open source project with the goal to develop and support leading photo sharing web application solutions. The Gallery project develops open source software licensed under the GPL, and is maintained and developed by a community of users and developers. The development is a distributed effort, with collaboration from around the globe. The team is well organized, with weekly meetings, and constant communication. Serving millions worldwide, the Gallery project is the most widely used system of its kind. Gallery is free to download and use. Gallery is also the name of the main product, an online photo album organizer. Gallery gives you an intuitive way to blend photo management seamlessly into your own website whether you're running a small personal site or a large community site.”

Extensis Portfolio – this one is not free, but it is reasonably priced. However it also got some less than rave reviews. I’ll have to try the demo. It is used by a few very well know places.

Canto Cumulus – no pricing on their site.

“Search and find images across your entire organization. Cumulus makes it all available and searchable by subject matter, creator/photographer, campaign, model or any other custom metadata you define— even if the original image source is offline. Cumulus makes it easy to share all your images, or just those you choose. Provide easy self-service access to the latest approved version of every image you want to distribute… in whatever resolution or format your users need.”

Microsoft Expressions Media -- $199

This one got bad reviews, so I did not spend too much time looking at it. Perhaps a demo??

IDimager – at $129 for the professional this one looks very good. It has all the features I was looking for. It has a free 30 day trial so that is next. One feature that I am really lookign forward to is “area tagging” like in FaceBook. You can then tag people in the photo directly so everyone knows who is who. Other features are: Revolutionary search system; Fast image collecting; Versioning and Stacking; Area tagging; Relational labels; Easy metadata management; Archiving; Open architecture; Unicode™ support

“imaging software that is complementary to your digital imaging equipment. Its many features will make it easier to maintain the large number of photo files that you will produce. Some feature examples are: acquire images from a digital camera, browse, organize, catalogue, version control, archive, edit, e-mail, print, find, slide shows, publish images to the Internet... and more.”

Article I found of great value -- Systems for Managing Image Collections http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/stillimages/advice/systems-for-managing-image-collections/

Fake Journals

2009-05-06T10:08:00.001-04:00

via http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/03/merck-and-elsevier-p.html

Merck publishes, basically a marketing document, as a journal. Elsevier does the actual publishing.

What is NOT wrong with this?

Goodbye friends

2009-03-30T11:32:00.001-04:00

Some of my friends have been deleted. If you are one of them, please don’t take it personally. I was running out of time in the day to read it all.

I reduced my Facebook friends list by about half. I also reduced the number of people I am following on Twitter significantly. But the one reduction that will buy me the most time, is cutting my subscriptions on Google Reader by about 65%.

I figure the really important news will be retweeted and reblogged by someone I do follow.

So, farewell old friends…..

Library Society of the World “Shover and Maker Award” winner

2009-03-25T15:57:00.001-04:00

I thank you all for your confidence in me and my abilities. Without you I would never have won this prestigious Library Society of the World “Shover and Maker” award, let alone been nominated for it.

I have been a shover and a maker for many years and am finally rejoicing that someone else has recognized my unique talents. See: http://www.shoversandmakers.net/sm-award-winners-2009 I should be there somewhere.

After a degree in chemical engineering and a masters in library science, I am now in my 22nd year with Xerox. I am located in the postmodern structure at the corner of Winston Churchill and the QEW in Mississauga, ON, CANADA.

This last year, in order to win this award, I completed the following – among other things:

updated internal library web pages
negotiated contracts with a number of big name library suppliers
developed and implemented a system to import all the MARC records for our ebook collection (over 12K titles) into our library catalogue
worked really hard at understanding US/Canada corporate copyright agreements
learned how to build things in Second Life
twittered (tweeted?) like mad
designed/implemented/populated a database of courses and conferences in our area of interest with web interface
supported engineers, chemists, physicists, etc. at two locations in two countries, thousands of miles apart, and kept most of them happy
attended SLA in Seattle
championed a library booth at an internal technical conference
found someone else to handle the interaction with the US government’s iEdison system
got a new laptop with vista and had them uninstall it and install XP
won an internal award for my community work (foster family for Dog Guide puppies)
won $100 gift certificate from SLA for completing the 23-things project (months have gone by and I have not seen the money though)
became webmaster for CFUW Oakville

Twitter - http://twitter.com/carolyne/
Facebook - www.facebook.com/people/Carolyne-Sidey-Darimont/508741970
blog – http://carolyne-stuff.blogspot.com
second life – CarolyneSidey Xerox
Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyne/
Webshots – http://community.webshots.com/user/cdarimont
meebo – _carolyne_
email – carolyne (dot) sidey (at) xerox (dot) com
library (dot) blogger (at) gmail (dot) com

Ada Lovelace Day : Ruth Adams

2009-03-23T13:46:00.000-04:00

Just who is Ada Lovelace you may ask and why am I posting about her.

To honor the birthday of Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer, 1500+ people have signed a pledge to profile a woman in technology on March 24. This is my contribution. Many people are blogging about her and other women of science. Ruth Wilson of the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology emailed to let us know that their guest blogger from today is the great-great-great niece of Ada - Honora Smith, Operational Research and Management Science at the University of Southampton.

Ada Lovelace, according to Wikipedia:

“Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815, London – 27 November 1852, Marylebone, London), born Augusta Ada Byron, was the only legitimate child of George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron. [the famous poet, Lord Byron] She is widely known in modern times simply as Ada Lovelace. She is mainly known for having written a description of Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. She is today appreciated as the "first programmer" since she was writing programs—that is, manipulating symbols according to rules—for a machine that Babbage had not yet built. She also foresaw the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on these capabilities.”

I have chosen the first women from Canada to be granted a patent – Ruth Adams. She was granted a patent in 1855 (before Canada was Canada) for a Reverse Cooking Stove – one of only 490 issued that year.

From List of Canadian patents from the beginning of the Patent Office, June, 1824, to the 31st of August, 1872 (1882)

No. 492-ADAMS, (R.,) of the City of Toronto, in the County of York, for a "Reverse Cooking Stove." Quebec, dated 20th January, 1855.

I found very little about our Mrs Adams. I looked in every reasonable resource on my local library’s database site. None had any information on Ruth Adams. I did find her name misspelled as “Addams.” The best place for information was inventivewomen.com (http://www.inventivewomen.com/library/library_ruthadams_on.shtml) where she has a full page. This is her only invention, but from the language and drawings in the application, they assume she was well education and bold enough to try.

“Ruth wrote, "My invention has the following advantage over other cooking stoves in use... cleanliness, beauty and convenience. Cleanliness, the smoke and ash are so secured that no inconvenience can arise therefrom. Beauty, as even the foot and kettle can be kept bright and clean. Convenient, as it's parts can be used within the whole."”

She was married (Reverend James Adams) and lived in Toronto. Her husband was from Esquesing, Halton Co. (where I currently live – now Oakville, Milton, Georgetown – Esquesing being near Georgetown) She had been widowed by the time she submitted the patent application and there is no mention of children.

21 years

2009-03-23T12:59:00.001-04:00

Today is my anniversary at Xerox.

21 years ago!!

FIS2132H - The Literature of Science and Technology

2009-03-19T09:44:00.001-04:00

Went into Toronto yesterday to speak to the FIS2132H - The Literature of Science and Technology class at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information Studies.

I want to thank Patricia Meindl for inviting me. Patricia is teaching this class and is the Chemistry Librarian for UofT.

Other invited speakers were Kathryn FitzGerald from MaRS and Leila Fernandez, Science Librarian at York University.

They were a very interested class, asking relevant and probing questions. I enjoyed seeing the UofT campus again – some things have changed, much is still the same after 28 years. (28!!! OMG)What is always the same are the BBQ Pork Buns at the Yung Sing bakery on Baldwin St. Delicious

I am a winner!!

2009-03-12T13:34:00.001-04:00

Just received this email:

Thank you for participating in SLA’s 23 Things. I am pleased to inform you that you are the recipient of $100 for completing all 23 Things. The prizes were generously donated by Dialog and Dow Jones.

At the SLA Leadership Summit in Savannah, 23 names were drawn from a hat and the 23 Things winners were announced to resounding applause. In addition to $100, you will also receive a PDF certificate of completion signed by SLA 2008 President Stephen Abram and CEO Janice Lachance to show [to] your management!

Congratulations on completing all 23 Things! Your hard work is an inspiration to our members and your new skills will be a benefit to you and your organization.

Sincerely,

Stacey Bowers

THE 99 THINGS MEME

2008-12-22T22:42:00.000-05:00

THE 99 THINGS MEmE

As seen on Walt's and Stephen's blogs.

Things you’ve already done: bold
Things you want to do: italicize
Things you haven’t done and don’t want to - leave in plain font

1. Started your own blog.
2. Slept under the stars.
3. Played in a band.
4. Visited Hawaii.
5. Watched a meteor shower.
6. Given more than you can afford to charity.
7. Been to Disneyland/world.
8. Climbed a mountain.
9. Held a praying mantis.
10. Sang a solo.
11. Bungee jumped.
12. Visited Paris.
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea.
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch.
15. Adopted a child.
16. Had food poisoning.
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty.
18. Grown your own vegetables.
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France.
20. Slept on an overnight train.
21. Had a pillow fight.
22. Hitch hiked.
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill.
24. Built a snow fort.
25. Held a lamb.
26. Gone skinny dipping.
27. Run a marathon.
28. Ridden a gondola in Venice.
29. Seen a total eclipse.
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset.
31. Hit a home run.
32. Been on a cruise.
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person.
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors.
35. Seen an Amish community.
36. Taught yourself a new language. If computer languages count.
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied.
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person.
39. Gone rock climbing.
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David in person.
41. Sung Karaoke.
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt.
43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant.
44. Visited Africa.
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight.
46. Been transported in an ambulance.
47. Had your portrait painted.
48. Gone deep sea fishing.
49. Seen the Sistine chapel in person.
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling.
52. Kissed in the rain.
53. Played in the mud.
54. Gone to a drive-in theater.
55. Been in a movie.
56. Visited the Great Wall of China.
57. Started a business.
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia.
60. Served at a soup kitchen.
61. Sold Girl Scout cookies.
62. Gone whale watching.
63. Gotten flowers for no reason.
64. Donated blood.
65. Gone sky diving.
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp.
67. Bounced a check.
68. Flown in a helicopter.
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy.
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial.
71. Eaten Caviar.
72. Pieced a quilt.
73. Stood in Times Square.
74. Toured the Everglades.
75. Been fired from a job.
76. Seen the Changing of the Guard in London.
77. Broken a bone.(I had two surgically broken and realigned, does that count)
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle. (motorcycle yes, speeding no)
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person.
80. Published a book.
81. Visited the Vatican.
82. Bought a brand new car.
83. Walked in Jerusalem.
84. Had your picture in the newspaper.
85. Read the entire Bible.
86. Visited the White House.(I drove by, does that count)
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating.
88. Had chickenpox.
89. Saved someone’s life.
90. Sat on a jury.
91. Met someone famous.
92. Joined a book club.
93. Lost a loved one.
94. Had a baby.
95. Seen the Alamo in person.
96. Swum in the Great Salt Lake.
97. Been involved in a law suit.
98. Owned a cell phone.
99. Been stung by a bee.

I did not write this, but I agree completely

2008-12-19T13:14:00.000-05:00

found on Toby Ward's Intranet Blog http://intranetblog.blogware.com

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they're serving rum balls.

2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. Like fine single-malt scotch, it's rare. In fact, it's even rarer than single- malt scotch. You can't find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!

3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.

4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.

5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?

6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.

7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the centre of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you're never going to see them again.

8. Same for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or, if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labour Day?

9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards.

10. One final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Reread tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner.

Remember this motto to live by:

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"

A Casual Conversation with Michael Stephens - A Web conference I attended today.

2008-09-19T14:34:00.001-04:00

http://www.librarylearning.info/events/?eventID=3430

Michael Stephens teaches at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois. Prior to that, he worked in public libraries for 15 years. He is a prolific speaker and blogger. He writes for the ALA TechSource Blog as well as his own Tame the Web blog.

The Casual Conversations series is designed to be up-close and personal from a respectable online distance. While there are many conferences (in-person, online, and in-world) where librarians can hear leaders in the field make formal presentations about interesting projects, there are few opportunities to hear these same leaders discuss informally what they currently are working on, their future plans and goals, the challenges and opportunities facing librarianship, their personal pet peeves, etc.

After I figured out that 1 pm meant Central not Eastern time, it mostly went well. I had to disconnect from our corporate network and go wireless as our firewall blocked the conference application port, but I have workarounds.

The sound was a little troublesome, Tom from OPAL was very quiet, Michael was loud.

Michael is a good speaker, clear, concise, persuasive.

He waffled around my question, but it was a tricky one.

I feel like I am missing out on some things by having an old phone that is not easy to text or browse with.

It was a wide ranging conversation with participants chiming in on all topics. It was nice to be a part of it.

Thanks Tom, Michael, and all the rest.

Scientific Researchers and Web 2.0: Social 'NotWorking'?

2008-09-16T15:22:00.001-04:00

Found on Joanna Scott's blog http://network.nature.com/people/joannascott/blog

TalkScience@bl.uk is a series of events hosted by the British Library, providing opportunities to inform, engage, debate and network with scientists and all those who use scientific information.

Wednesday 24 September 2008

Is Web2.0 all about attitudes or technologies?
What can Web2.0 do for your research?
As a scientist, are there good reasons for getting involved beyond social ‘not working’?
Web3.0: another buzzword or a semantic revolution for science on the web?

Timo Hannay is the Publishing Director of Nature.com. With a background in biosciences research, Timo oversees Nature’s growing portfolio of web-based activities including Nature Network, Connotea, and other initiatives using Web2.0 functionality to connect and involve researchers.

Timo will be speaking live in the British Library and the event will be simultaneously screened on Second Nature. Following Timo’s talk, attendees from both the British Library and Second Nature will have the chance to question Timo and discuss the topics raised.

Speaker: Dr Timo Hannay, Nature Publishing Group

Date: Wednesday 24th September

Time: 18:00 – 20:30 London time, 10:00 – 12:30 PDT.

Location: Second Nature Island

All welcome!

October Puppy Class

2008-09-11T00:06:00.001-04:00

Believe it or not, these are all different puppies. Most of the litter (there were 12 puppies in the litter) were at this class.

They all spent most of the hour sleeping after they got their shots.

C-61 on copyright reform died on the table

2008-09-08T13:31:00.001-04:00

Found when reading "Library Boy" http://micheladrien.blogspot.com/

With yesterday's dissolution of Canada's 39th federal Parliament, many important bills automatically died.
35 bills in fact, according to a tabulation in the Sept. 8, 2008 issue of The Hill Times:

"Of the 35 bills that died, 20 were at second reading in the House, nine were at the committee stage, one was at report stage and two were at third reading. Three were being studied in the Senate, two of which were at second reading and one was at committee."

Among the biggies:

C-10 on film tax credits
C-17 on immigration selection
C-19 on Senate appointments
C-25 on youth criminal justice
C-27 on identity theft
C-51 on food safety
C-61 on copyright reform

SLA 23 things Session 5 - Week 9 Podcasts, Video & Downloadable Audio

2008-09-04T16:16:00.001-04:00

Added Podcast to my spell check dictionary :)

20. Youtube - just gotta love it! Where else can you find:

your friends children learning to kayak

Stu Grimson one timing Reid Simpson, and

Mr Bill

all in the same place.

21. podcasts

A couple of years ago Xerox gave every employee a little MP3 player to listen to corporate messages via podcasts. I never saw anyone using it. It had the smallest memory I had ever seen on a portable device. But they were thinking toward the future.

22. NetLibrary and audio books

I have been using audio books from my local public library for a while. Oakville Public Library is quite the progressive place these days and has been written up for it when they launced their site and catalogue using bibliocommons!! -- http://www.opl.on.ca

Word Search Creator

2008-08-27T14:00:00.001-04:00

here is one created from the words from my tag cloud

SLA 23 things Session 4 - Week 8 Online Applications & Tools

2008-08-21T11:42:00.001-04:00

looked at Mindomo and the other mind mapping tools. I have yet to find a use for these. Perhaps my mind is unmapable :)

Looked at 43 things and remember the milk. If i used my phone for these things they would have more use for me, but i have an old simple phone and an expensive data/text plan, so i don't use it. Someday I will have a blackberry or a treo, but not yet.

I already have home pages and the full acrobat programme, so i did not look at the Personal home pages or PDF converters sections.

Looked at lazybase as i am looking for a good (GOOD) shared database programme. Lazybase is not it. No way to import existing databases, no reporting functions, no mailmerge functions, etc.

Looked at zoho. It looks interesting and usable for someone already willing to use project management software.

I have used google docs and spreadsheets to try to collaborate. Again, i run up against non-techie people who are not willing to learn new technologies.

The sites I visited that struck me as interesting and potential useful to me were:

wufoo - bookmarked this one for future use

Dabble - interesting but not free

my heritage - interesting - free software, free pages. needs more exploration. Definitely bookmarked

Geni - will look into this when I have more time

Technorati Tags: 23things,sla23things

SLA 23 things Session 4 - Week 7 Wiki

2008-08-21T11:21:00.001-04:00

Technorati Tags: 23things,sla23tings,library

I am a wikivangelist. I push wikis wherever I feel they will be the best solution. I even have my CFUW Oakville club using them and believe me they are not the most technological of women :) (sorry ladies, but you really aren't)

I had to push to get wiki software installed at work, but now they are all over the corporation. Our location were early adopters and there was a lot of pushback. Once other departments started seeing what they could do other IT departments installed them and we were off.

Carolyne's Olympic Standings

2008-08-19T15:01:00.001-04:00

Medals / million population of country

	Population	Country	G	S	B	T	Gold/ million	Silver/ million	Bronze/ million	Total/ million
1.	2029000	SLO - Slovenia	1	1	2	4	0.4929	0.4929	0.9857	1.9714
2.	3002000	ARM - Armenia			5	5	0.0000	0.0000	1.6656	1.6656
3.	21394309	AUS - Australia	11	10	12	33	0.5142	0.4674	0.5609	1.5425
4.	2714000	JAM - Jamaica	2	2		4	0.7369	0.7369	0.0000	1.4738
5.	4274800	NZL - New Zealand	2	1	3	6	0.4679	0.2339	0.7018	1.4036
6.	9690000	BLR - Belarus	1	3	7	11	0.1032	0.3096	0.7224	1.1352
7.	5489022	DEN - Denmark	2	1	3	6	0.3644	0.1822	0.5465	1.0931
8.	4778500	NOR - Norway	1	2	2	5	0.2093	0.4185	0.4185	1.0464
9.	11268000	CUB - Cuba	1	5	5	11	0.0887	0.4437	0.4437	0.9762
10.	2629000	MGL - Mongolia	1	1		2	0.3804	0.3804	0.0000	0.7607
11.	1333000	TRI - Trinidad/Tobago		1		1	0.0000	0.7502	0.0000	0.7502
12.	1340600	EST - Estonia		1		1	0.0000	0.7459	0.0000	0.7459
13.	5402273	SVK - Slovakia	3	1		4	0.5553	0.1851	0.0000	0.7404
14.	16445000	NED - Netherlands	3	5	4	12	0.1824	0.3040	0.2432	0.7297
15.	4395000	GEO - Georgia	2		1	3	0.4551	0.0000	0.2275	0.6826
16.	7637300	SUI - Switzerland	2		3	5	0.2619	0.0000	0.3928	0.6547
17.	8467000	AZE - Azerbaijan	1	2	2	5	0.1181	0.2362	0.2362	0.5905
18.	5318105	FIN - Finland	1	1	1	3	0.1880	0.1880	0.1880	0.5641
19.	15422000	KAZ - Kazakhstan	1	3	4	8	0.0648	0.1945	0.2594	0.5187
20.	10043000	HUN - Hungary		4	1	5	0.0000	0.3983	0.0996	0.4979
21.	10403136	CZE - <	2	3		5	0.1922	0.2884	0.0000	0.4806
22.	48224000	KOR - Korea	8	9	6	23	0.1659	0.1866	0.1244	0.4769
23.	60587300	GBR - Great Britain	12	7	8	27	0.1981	0.1155	0.1320	0.4456
24.	4555000	CRO - Croatia		1	1	2	0.0000	0.2195	0.2195	0.4391
25.	64473140	FRA - France	4	11	13	28	0.0620	0.1706	0.2016	0.4343
26.	7640238	BUL - Bulgaria	1	1	1	3	0.1309	0.1309	0.1309	0.3927
27.	5317000	KGZ - Kyrgyzstan		1	1	2	0.0000	0.1881	0.1881	0.3762
28.	21438000	ROU - Romania	4	1	3	8	0.1866	0.0466	0.1399	0.3732
29.	8340924	AUT - Austria		1	2	3	0.0000	0.1199	0.2398	0.3597
30.	46059306	UKR - Ukraine	5	3	8	16	0.1086	0.0651	0.1737	0.3474
31.	9215021	SWE - Sweden		3		3	0.0000	0.3256	0.0000	0.3256
32.	59619290	ITA - Italy	6	6	6	18	0.1006	0.1006	0.1006	0.3019
33.	13349000	ZIM - Zimbabwe	1	3		4	0.0749	0.2247	0.0000	0.2996
34.	3343000	PAN - Panama	1			1	0.2991	0.0000	0.0000	0.2991
35.	3361100	LTU - Lithuania			1	1	0.0000	0.0000	0.2975	0.2975
36.	82191000	GER - Germany	9	7	7	23	0.1095	0.0852	0.0852	0.2798
37.	33350000	CAN - Canada	2	3	4	9	0.0600	0.0900	0.1199	0.2699
38.	11147000	GRE - Greece		1	2	3	0.0000	0.0897	0.1794	0.2691
39.	141888900	RUS - Russian Fed.	8	13	15	36	0.0564	0.0916	0.1057	0.2537
40.	23790000	PRK - DPR Korea	2	1	3	6	0.0841	0.0420	0.1261	0.2522
41.	304900000	USA - United States	22	24	26	72	0.0722	0.0787	0.0853	0.2361
42.	4588600	SIN - Singapore		1		1	0.0000	0.2179	0.0000	0.2179
43.	9858000	SRB - Serbia		1	1	2	0.0000	0.1014	0.1014	0.2029
44.	37538000	KEN - Kenya	2	3	2	7	0.0533	0.0799	0.0533	0.1865
45.	38115967	POL - Poland	3	3	1	7	0.0787	0.0787	0.0262	0.1837
46.	46063000	ESP - Spain	3	3	2	8	0.0651	0.0651	0.0434	0.1737
47.	127690000	JPN - Japan	8	5	7	20	0.0627	0.0392	0.0548	0.1566
48.	6585000	TOG - Togo			1	1	0.0000	0.0000	0.1519	0.1519
49.	6736000	TJK - Tajikistan			1	1	0.0000	0.0000	0.1485	0.1485
50.	27372000	UZB - Uzbekistan		1	2	3	0.0000	0.0365	0.0731	0.1096
51.	10327000	TUN - Tunisia	1			1	0.0968	0.0000	0.0000	0.0968
52.	10623000	POR - Portugal		1		1	0.0000	0.0941	0.0000	0.0941
53.	22900000	TPE - Chinese <>			2	2	0.0000	0.0000	0.0873	0.0873
54.	13341000	ECU - Ecuador		1		1	0.0000	0.0750	0.0000	0.0750
55.	16763470	CHI - Chile		1		1	0.0000	0.0597	0.0000	0.0597
56.	33858000	ALG - Algeria		1	1	2	0.0000	0.0295	0.0295	0.0591
57.	18549000	CMR - Cameroon	1			1	0.0539	0.0000	0.0000	0.0539
58.	1325600000	CHN - China	39	14	14	67	0.0294	0.0106	0.0106	0.0505
59.	44513090	COL - Colombia		1	1	2	0.0000	0.0225	0.0225	0.0449
60.	70586256	TUR - Turkey		2	1	3	0.0000	0.0283	0.0142	0.0425
61.	79221000	ETH - Ethiopia	2	1		3	0.0252	0.0126	0.0000	0.0379
62.	27170000	MAS - Malaysia		1		1	0.0000	0.0368	0.0000	0.0368
63.	31224000	MAR - Morocco			1	1	0.0000	0.0000	0.0320	0.0320
64.	187495000	BRA - Brazil	1		5	6	0.0053	0.0000	0.0267	0.0320
65.	40301927	ARG - Argentina			1	1	0.0000	0.0000	0.0248	0.0248
66.	231627000	INA - Indonesia	1	1	3	5	0.0043	0.0043	0.0130	0.0216
67.	47850700	RSA - South Africa		1		1	0.0000	0.0209	0.0000	0.0209
68.	63038247	THA - Thailand	1			1	0.0159	0.0000	0.0000	0.0159
69.	75212000	EGY - Egypt			1	1	0.0000	0.0000	0.0133	0.0133
70.	87375000	VIE - Vietnam		1		1	0.0000	0.0114	0.0000	0.0114
71.	106682500	MEX - Mexico			1	1	0.0000	0.0000	0.0094	0.0094
72.	1136876600	IND - India	1			1	0.0009	0.0000	0.0000	0.0009

Using up leftover food.

2008-08-17T19:04:00.001-04:00

This is a site from the UK, but the idea of searching for what is left in the fridge to find recipes that use those ingredients appeals to me.

http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com

Librarian Day in the Life meme - day 5 - a do-over

2008-08-11T17:11:00.001-04:00

Since I was home with a migraine on Friday, here is an actual fifth day.

8:15

email
rebooted
read blogs
problems with email, called IT
rebooted again - it is better, but not great
downloaded two XRCC patents
forwarded one patent to inventors
requested book from other library
MSN spam. I have blocked 3 already today
replied to email re being in a distribution list for corporate terminations
replied to annoying email from ARK-Group. No, I don't want your report.
looked up priority patent information and sent results to requester
looked up report pricing and sent to requester
tried NBC streaming Olympic coverage. It is a better picture than CBC, but the CBC interface is simpler to use.
sent email to Science Direct as a firsts step in sorting out an ordering issue.
discussed order with requester
discussed migraines with a visitor
checked "library typo of the day" - calender - except that is a correct spelling in papermaking.
http://www.answers.com/calender&r=67

calender: n. - A machine that smoothes or glazes paper or cloth by pressing it between plates or passing it through rollers v. - Press between rollers or plates so as to smooth, glaze, or thin into sheets.
bathroom break (do you really care?)
updated tag cloud on blog
reviewed requests for this afternoon
did I say my manager is on vacation for two weeks :), then I am on vacation for one week.

lunch

fire alarm in middle of lunch. Got to stand outside in the warm sunny weather for half an hour.
submitted PO for new monitor (20") -- sometime size does matter
posted these day in the life postings to our internal blog site.
once I was on the internal site, I felt the need to make some comments.
checked out the new free covers at library thing. Trying to figure out if we can use this.
updated one of the 5 internal web sites I maintain
handled two reference requests (a citation search and a supplier search)
still getting msn spam
search for internal reports
had 26 laboratory notebooks returned, checked in, labelled
twittered a bit
sent Daniel Lee a message
send Daniel Lee info
going home to watch Olympics

A typo in Library Typo??

2008-08-11T14:26:00.001-04:00

"library typo of the day" - calender

except that is a correct spelling in papermaking

http://www.answers.com/calender&r=67

calender: n. - A machine that smoothes or glazes paper or cloth by pressing it between plates or passing it through rollers v. - Press between rollers or plates so as to smooth, glaze, or thin into sheets.

I added a comment first thing this morning, but it has not been posted yet. Hopefully no one went in and changed all the paper or cloth related calendering references to calendaring.

NEW:

an addition at 2:30 -- I am now an astute reader :)

http://librarytypos.blogspot.com/2008/08/calender-for-calendar.html

Not really, I just work in a library where we have materials on calendering of paper.

A Day in the Life meme - Day 5

2008-08-10T13:11:00.001-04:00

Friday August 8, 2008

migraine

stayed home

checked email and forwarded some

mostly lay around suffering

A Day in the Life meme - Day 4

2008-08-07T15:30:00.001-04:00

Thursday August 7, 2008

8:15 am

email
coffee
reader
coffee
email
checked library typo of the day -- "ligth" -- in our catalogue - found one - fixed it
prepared for budget and journal renewal review meeting with Library Users' Committee
paid Professional Engineer Ontario fees online
welcomed one of our retirees who visits regularly to catch up on his technical reading
updated calendars
arranged with IT to have some minor work done on my laptop over lunch
Library committee meeting went very well

Lunch

1 pm

registered for Sirsi Dynix course by Michael Stephens

Event Title: Taming Technolust: Planning in a Hyperlinked World
Event Date: August 26, 2008
Event Time: 11 a.m. Eastern

confirmed new subscription
looked into acquiring copy of market report
found hard to find article
received confirmation in mail for course and added to calendar
handled mail
forwarded requests to staff
updated training html and cf code
uploaded searches

Technorati Tags: librarydayinthelife,dayinthelife

A Day in the Life meme - Day 3

2008-08-06T17:11:00.001-04:00

Wednesday August 6, 2008

8:10

pick up newspapers
arrive in a caffeine deprived state
drink coffee
read Google reader items
check email for urgent items
since I have the full acrobat programme I do various things for staff -- today cut out 8 pictures from a document and sent to requester - he later asked why I did not do it last night at home because he had waited up for me to send it to him :)
finalized plans for getting lab notebooks scanned
read and/or deleted email from inbox - not much today
filed email - I get over 100 a day and need to spend time every couple of weeks organizing and weeding them - my goal is an empty inbox.
answer question on what kind of paper can go in printer.
phone call from PIRA in the UK (love that accent) asking about a journal renewal
straightened out that renewal on our end and theirs
check email
forwarded PIRA email to assistant for her to handle
phone call from journal vendor. Set appointment for end of month to discuss quote. Invited assistant to participate
wrote a blog post on http://www.canada411.ca
called home

10 am

starting a headache. off to get food and take pills
BLT with cheese - yummy
checked library typo of the day against our catalogue - impared - no matches were found
updated online calendars
continued with paper monster - filled my recycle bin in my office
created an account with Collections Canada for ISBNs (for CFUW cookbook)
filing of paper from paper monster
check email
checked status of ID ordered yesterday
blogged http://www.pandora.com
updated training database with conferences etc.
sent appreciation award nomination for staff member

Lunch

lunch with my peeps (husband, daughter, son). They brought a picnic lunch and we ate outside (note to self - tell facilities that picnic tables need painting)

1 pm

listening to this cool music site http://www.pandora.com Only works on US IP addresses, not Canadian ones so I cannot listen at home.
continued updating training database with conferences etc. - added approx. 25 courses and conference to database. Time consuming.
All staff meeting 3-4.

4 pm

request from corporate library in USA to test remote Z39.50 catalogue access. Still not working. Replied as such.
headache still not gone - more pills
talked to people dropping by as they return from staff meeting - I enjoy it, but it is time consuming.
cleaned up learning/training database display on web page (cold fusion, html, dreamweaver, etc.)
check email
watered plants
set up new account for new employee and sent him a ton of info on what we have, what we can do for him, how we can make things easier,etc.
called Dog Guides of Canada to check a few things on the foster puppy we will be picking up next week. this is our second one. The first one can be seen at flickr casper set

6 pm

soccer practice for kid#2
home paper monster / pay bills / filing
menu planning etc for company coming for the weekend

Technorati Tags: dayinthelife,librarydayinthelife

Pandora

2008-08-06T12:04:00.001-04:00

What is Pandora?

Pandora is a music discovery service designed to help you enjoy music you already know, and to help you discover new music you'll love.

It's powered by the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken, the Music Genome Project: a crazy project started back in early 2000 to capture the complex musical DNA of songs using a large team of highly-trained musicians.

Just tell us one of your favourite songs or artists and we'll launch a streaming station to explore that part of the musical universe.

You can listen to Pandora on the Web, Pandora on the Go, or Pandora in the Home.

I love this concept.

Technorati Tags: pandora,music,musicgenomeproject

Canada411

2008-08-06T09:42:00.001-04:00

I needed to look up a phone number today and was very pleasantly surprised to see that the old standby canada411.ca has upgraded.

The look is cleaner and easier to use.

But best of all, when I found my person, I was offered the option to save, email to a friend and share on Facebook. I chose save and was offered quick links to save in Outlook, Outlook express, lotus notes, lotus organizer and palm desktop. Also options for saving as word or PDF to my desktop. And printing. And add to Facebook, myspace, yahoo notepad, digg, del.i.cio.us, Google bookmarks, ask.com, furl and yahoo my web. You can also send it as an email, a text, or IM.

I don't know why I would post someone's phone and address in Facebook, but some of the other options are quite nice.

I saved to outlook and it was quick and easy.

Another cool addition is that when you chose someone, it shows you a map (using Microsoft virtual earth) to their address and offers to give you directions to get there.

Other features made easier to use: reverse look up; proximity search (find who lives near you, a location, a phone number, etc.);

Now off I go to ~~waste time and~~ add other people to Outlook.

quick and easy.

A Day in the Life meme - Day 2

2008-08-05T17:25:00.001-04:00

Tuesday August 6

8:30 am

Came in early to make up hours to leave early on Friday (my sister is visiting next weekend)
Considered the fact that this is not a typical week what with holiday on Monday and leaving early on Friday, but then, none are
Checked email
requested an invention disclosure document
forwarded a couple of things of interest to various staff (XRCC staff, not library staff) members
started this meme :)
downloaded list of knovel titles we subscribe to
sent email to knovel support requesting MARC records for our titles
fixed typo in library newsletter published last Friday - both the publisher version and the web version
reviewed google reader content and forwarded items of interest to staff
tried to figure out why the first DayInTheLife post is not showing on my blog - gave up - it will show up sometime
refreshed book display
sent updated meeting notice to Library Users' Committee members (meeting is on Thursday) with room number
reviewed notes for lunch meeting (non work related CFUW meeting to organize part of CFUW Oakville 60th anniversary celebrations)
checked today's "typo of the day for librarians" (monthy for monthly) in our catalogue -- no matches were found!!
added a couple of trial blogs to my reader
tried to upload a newsletter to our nano files - problems with the software
rebooted computer and went to get breakfast while it was restarting
after reboot, all is well, files uploaded properly
reconfirmed staff meeting this afternoon - it has been cancelled - gained an hour of my life back.

10 am

chemical abstracts search on XXXXXXX for XXXXXXX :)
set up folder for august searches and added results from above search
sent results to requester with summary and explanation of search methods
merged and corrected library online passwords file
merged and corrected my personal online passwords file

11 am

attended corporate communications meeting online
participated in second life meeting.
the second life meeting consisted of us trying to work out a way of watching the communications meeting in second life together.

LUNCH

added knovel widget to web page
sent erroneous email to entire building instead of one person. Received multiple "humourous" comments from various staff members. Looking for large rock to crawl under
replied to my manager (perhaps I shouldn't have) who felt the need to alert me to a typo in the erroneous email - wtf - ironically he had a typo in his
went for short walk to get a drink -- diet coke people, diet coke :)
made appt for massage on Friday
set up appt for 4 pm to assist someone installing software
pointed another person to corporate library resources
started on "paper monster". It lives in my desk drawer. It is funny how things lose importance the longer they sit in a drawer. Tossing most things into recycle bin.
read email and blog posts
answered cataloguing question

4 pm

filled out credit card dispute form for a library service we cancelled but they billed anyway, printed all email, and mailed to mastercard
tried to install software, but the uninstall would not work
gossip
watched the lightning and wind and rain out the window and wondered when the power would go out
updated database
investigated method for scanning lab notebook - rush

5:30 go home

6:00 eat

6:30 soccer for one child

7:15 CFUW cookbook meeting

http://librarydayinthelife.pbwiki.com/

Technorati Tags: librarydayinthelife,dayinthelife,libraries

A day in the life meme - Day 1

2008-08-05T09:15:00.001-04:00

Monday August 5

Civic Holiday in Canada

XRCC Closed

Checked email from home
forwarded a couple of things of interest to various staff
(XRCC staff, not library staff) members

http://librarydayinthelife.pbwiki.com/

Technorati Tags: librarydayinthelife,dayinthelife,libraries

August 1, 2008 10:56 AM PDT Amazon to acquire rare-book site AbeBooks

2008-08-01T15:56:00.002-04:00

August 1, 2008 10:56 AM PDT
Amazon to acquire rare-book site AbeBooks

Amazon's book selection is about to grow bigger, older, and rarer. The company announced Friday that it will acquire AbeBooks.com, which specializes in out-of-print book sales.

No financial details of the acquisition were given, but Amazon, headquartered in Seattle, expects the deal to close before the end of its fourth quarter.

British-Columbia based AbeBooks, established in 1996, sells more than 110 million titles of used, rare, and out-of-print books listed by thousands of independent sellers around the world. In 2002, the company began to sell some books through Amazon's Marketplace program, which enabled its 13,500 book sellers to list inventory in Amazon.com's catalog.

Following the acquisition by Amazon, AbeBooks will continue to operate as a stand-alone company and will have control over its global Web sites.

I love Abebooks (but I am not sure I would call them a rare book site, more of a used book site). I love that they are Canadian. Now they are not really Canadian. I hope Amazon leaves them alone.

My Firefox Extensions

2008-07-17T16:37:00.002-04:00

In no particular order

colorful tabs
delicious bookmarks
extended copy menu
facebook toolbar
google reader notifier
ie tab
imdb preview
linkedIn companion for firefox
meetimer
read it later
stumble upon
undo closed tabs button
uploadr for flickr
url fixer
zemanta
zotero
twitterfox

Technorati Tags: firefox,add ons,extensions

SLA 23 things Session 3 - Week 6 Play Week

2008-07-17T16:34:00.001-04:00

13 - image generators.

I already posted my created avatar in a previous post.

14. LibraryThing

I had an account on that almost immediately. I also have library thing on my blog (look over there to your left.... now down a little, a little more... there)

15. Rollyo

Now,this is newer. I tried Rollyo when it first came out, did not have much luck and gave up. Off Ii go to try it again...

...

I'm back.

Still not sure how i would use this. I will keep it in mind in case something comes up that it will be useful for.

Technorati Tags: 23things,sla23things

SLA 23 things - session 3 - Week 5 RSS and Newsreaders

2008-07-17T15:34:00.001-04:00

Since I already subscribe to over 125 RSS feeds on Google reader this should be an easy week. I used to use Bloglines, but transferred all to Google when reader came out. I liked it better.

I have a variety of topics I follow. Some are personal, some are professional, some are in the field of research we do at MPOW. I forward items regularly to staff, family, friends, and others.

Part of this weeks challenge is to train someone else to use RSS. I have run 3-4 RSS training courses here at MPOW. I have another one later in the year.

Technorati Tags: SLA23things

my 3d avatar

2008-07-17T14:41:00.000-04:00

New association to fight information overload

2008-07-16T13:32:00.001-04:00

Technorati Tags: information overload,informationOverload,xerox,libraries

I keep going back to these press releases and reading them. I still am a little confused and dismayed and disappointed and annoyed and ... and don't really know how I feel about it.

http://www.pr-inside.com/xerox-joins-iorg-to-combat-information-r704607.htm

"Founded this summer, IORG's mission is to build awareness of the world's greatest challenge to productivity, conduct research, help define best practices, contribute to the creation of solutions and resources, offer guidance and facilitation and help make the business case for fighting information overload. "

Is that not what librarians have been doing for centuries? Fighting information overload?

And now MPOW has joined in the fight.

http://www.iorgforum.org/

Their mission

"We work together to build awareness of the world's greatest challenge to productivity, conduct research, help define best practices, contribute to the creation of solutions, share information and resources, offer guidance and facilitation, and help make the business case for fighting information overload."

So, how do you feel about an organization set up by big business to fight information overload and reduce information pollution?

SLA 23 things - Session 2 - Week 4

2008-07-12T18:11:00.001-04:00

Week 4 - Photos & Images

Photos and images -- cool

I already have a flickr account and a Webshots account. I prefer Webshots for sharing with family, but flickr has cooler tools.

I quite enjoyed the article on how the various sharing sites compare: http://solution.allthingsd.com/20070801/how-the-big-photo-sharing-sites-stack-up/ until I realized how few sites he actually compared. There are plenty he missed including Webshots.

Reflections: Localize your learnings

    * What are some ways that you can use Flickr or other photo-sharing site both professionally and personally?
Professionally I cannot share much beyond conferences and other public meetings. Any internal corporate photos cannot be uploaded to a public site. We have internal locations for photos, but not the coolness of these pages.
    * What was your favourite Flickr capability - blogging, geotagging, exploring, groups, etc.?
Geotagging is coolest.The rest are good.

Mashups

www.flickr.com

What is this?

very interesting and time consuming. Played with a number I had not seen before. Created mosaics, slide shows, etc.

I spent soooo much time on this I don't think I even got one week done today :)

SLA 23 things - Session 1 - Week 1, 2, 3

2008-07-03T14:50:00.002-04:00

Since I have already done a number of the things suggested I know i will be going faster than many.

Week 1 - Introduction

Today I read the introduction to "23 Things".

Nice, well written, interesting.

Week 2 - Blogging

Then I started Week 2 Blogging. Since I already have a few blogs going (CFUW Oakville, Darimont Family Adventures, etc.) I decided to track my progress in this one - Carolyne's Pages of Interest.

Week 2 is an intro to blogging, setting up a blog, monitoring a blog etc. They recommend Bloglines for tracking blogs, however, I much prefer Google reader.

Another thing i noticed that they did not specifically point out is Windows Live Writer. Since installing it, it is my primary blogging tool.

It would also be really nice if there were a link at end of each week to the beginning of the next weeks' material.

Week 3 - Tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati

I already have a del.icio.us account.

I am library.blogger on del.icio.us
Add me to your network

I love that they point to the Common Craft "Social Bookmarking in Plain English".
Too bad they did not link to the "Blogs in Plain English" for week 2.

I am not a huge fan of tagging because anyone can tag anything anything. However, I am a huge fan of defined tags such as SLA2008, and this SLA23things. Controlled vocabulary -- I must be a librarian!!

I would like something like this inside the firewall. For confidentiality reasons, I would not create a list of bookmarks that are work related on an external site.

I also have an account on Technorati. http://www.technorati.com/people/technorati/carolyne

Found this just now -- identi.ca - open source competitition for Twitter. Cool.

Library 2.0

Much of my 2.0 is inside the corporate firewall. Nothing confidential can be let out. So, unless someone with server access loads software for doing things, I am stuck only doing things for me and not for work. Local IT will not load or assist with anything new :( and that is my greatest hurtle.

del.icio.us Tags: sla23things,23things

Technorati Tags: sla23things,23things,http://del.icio.us/tag/SLA23Things

SLA - 23 things

2008-07-02T09:40:00.003-04:00

I have decided to spend part of my summer doing the SLA 23things learning course. While I have already done a number of those 23, I am sure I can still learn a lot from this.

Part of my reason for doing this is that I would like to set up a similar (not 23, but maybe 10) programme here at work. An uphill climb for that :)

So, off to learning land I go.......

My Wordle Cloud

2008-06-23T14:19:00.002-04:00

My Firefox download certificate

2008-06-20T22:07:00.001-04:00

So far I really like it.

SLA 2008 - Social tools and the Enterprise

2008-06-17T19:20:00.001-04:00

Elizabeth Lane Lawley, RIT Lab for Social Computing

Slides to be posted later today.

Flickr is good but not great for corporations. If you only search in Flickr for commercially or creative commons licensed content. These can then be used in presentations and in other materials. This replaces expensive stock photography.

Social Bookmarking - network tool on delicious. You can subscribe to other people's bookmarks. Anyone can subscribe to your bookmarks. Privacy?
Internal bookmarks - IBM - Dogear

Social (collaborative) Documents - Google Docs is one example. Subethaedit for simultaneous editing ( on the mac )

Social nNetworking - facebook -

Office Communicator - extra information from Outlook. Great for seeing who is in a meeting

Twitter - corporate implementation would keep people up to date with each other

Ambient display

Ambient presence - eg. availabot - lets people know if you are online - not for sale - a visual indication
nabaztag - visual indication of information that not all would see, but you do.

Selective Sharing - almost all systems allow you to share in a binary manner (are you a friend, Yes or No). LiveJournal lets you put people in groups and then access is based on group members. People can be in multiple groups.

Smartphones - iPhone will change the way we use mobile devices

Grand Central - links your phones and messages and is available on the web. You give someone your Grand Central number and it then rings any of your phones based on rules or plays a message to them.

Jott - messages, reminders etc. sent to you or anyone (or a list). It transcribes voice into text messages. Post to blog, twitter, to do lists, and it is entirely free. She said this is the one thing to take away from this message.

Productive Play

seriosity (www.seriosity.com) - a way of changing the way people send email. It attaches a value to your email making it not "free". You spend "serios" to send email.

Social Genius - A game to learn faces and people in the company http://rob.faludi.com/itp/matchgame/

http://www.mamamusings.net for slides etc.

SLA Conference - The Lone Ranger is Dead : Successful Collaboration in Libraries

2008-06-17T14:29:00.001-04:00

Speaker: Lizabeth Wilson, Dean of Libraries UW

She is from academic libraries and this is based on her experiences.
partnerships are necessary for economy of scale to get access to resources
working with consortia
worked on the OCLC / RLG merger

This is too high a level for me. No hints on actually doing it, just telling us we need to do it.

Off to another session.

A late short post from Seattle

2008-06-17T03:22:00.001-04:00

In Seattle for the SLA conference. Attended three sessions today. One on Electronic Laboratory Notebooks. Very interesting.

Attended four receptions tonight. Canadian Chapters, Nexis, Thompson, and Elsevier.

Had a great time. Learned a lot today.

At least it is more than minimum wage.

2008-05-23T11:15:00.001-04:00

yep, that is why I went to library school

Billing Clerk/Librarian

Our busy downtown law firm is seeking a billing clerk/librarian to join our team. We are looking for a detail oriented individual who has great organizational skills, a facility with numbers and the ability to work under time pressure. Previous billing experience and PCLaw experience is an asset. This position entails preparing and processing bills on a monthly, or on request, basis. Duties will include billings, assisting the Accounting Manager, maintaining the library filings, and some administrative duties.

http://www.workopolis.com/work.aspx?action=Transfer&View=Content/JobSeeker/JobPostingView&lang=EN&JobId=9913521&OMAlert=Y&theme=work&OldUrl=

Internal Xerox Research and Technology Conference

2008-05-18T22:31:00.001-04:00

Spent three days last week in Webster NY at an internal Xerox Research and Technology conference.

I was part of a group presenting a Second Life project as well as providing information at a Libraries booth for the entire conference.

Why?

Well, it is my opinion that if you are always around people will remember you. If you are out of sight, you are out of mind.

I make a point of offering library services to everyone at every opportunity. The R&T conference is a perfect place, all the researchers in one place.

AbeBooks with a specific Canadian site

2008-04-16T13:02:00.001-04:00

"As a proudly Canadian company, we're happy to let you know about the launch of AbeBooks.ca. We'll regularly feature unique Canadian content and when you search for books we'll list Canadian booksellers first, which saves you time and money! Visit AbeBooks.ca"

I love AbeBooks! We purchase most of our library books through there if at all possible as they are cheaper and often ship faster.

SLA Conference in Seattle

2008-03-31T15:05:00.003-04:00

I was given permission to attend the SLA conference in Seattle in June. I will roll in a trip to visit my library users in Wilsonville OR (just south of Portland) as well.

I am excitedly reviewing the conference planners and course outlines looking for the best and most interesting.

I am sending out email messages looking for colleagues and friends and acquaintances who will also be going so I know whom to call upon for lunch or dinner companionship.

Since I am driving to Portland, I will have a car for the week of the conference. That will make it a little more exciting as we will not be limited to walking distance eateries or shopping.

SLA2008

Arthur C. Clarke 1917-2008

2008-03-18T20:55:00.001-04:00

Arthur C. Clarke has died at the age of 90.

A day in the Life (it is March break, so it was a slow day)

2008-03-10T15:53:00.002-04:00

* Plug in and boot up computer
* Fix settings and monitors
* Review work email for important messages - found 1 for immediate
action
* Review Google reader for interesting information - found 1 for
redistribution/posting
* Call from shipping re boxes returned by CBEC. They have gone out
of business and our shipment was returned. Will think and call him back
later.
* Plug in cell phone to recharge
* Called my manager to tell him I was in (I have a knee brace from
a knee injury on February 23 - hopping around on crutches - been working
from home since)
* Visit from manager
* Automatic patent search found one to download
* Download patent viewing software and save patent
* Start search requested by email - patents first
* Spill coffee on pants
* Continue search with lexis nexis
* Format and edit patent info
* Send to requester - receive back more to search
* Review personal email for messages about a meeting tonight.
o note to self - find out what is going on
o IM from someone else re meeting tonight - she has not
heard anything either
o Email secretary and president asking for minutes and
agenda for tonight's meeting
* Questions from assistant:
o journal subscriptions
o suggest meeting attendee for meeting in New York NY as I
cannot attend
o discussed fate of books/journals in shipping
* Bathroom break
* Lunch at desk
* Call home to make sure children are doing chores and homework
* Print agenda and minutes for tonight's meeting
* Issued new lab notebook to scientist and explained how to use it
in conjunction with e-notebook
* Download and install "automatic wallpaper changer" software.
VISTA version.
* Try to install oracle 10g client. It would not run remotely from
home.
* Modified library submission to newsletter to include e-notebook
instructions and clarifications
* Checked FaceBook - joined new group "Engineering Information
Resources Awareness"
* Set up meetings for later in week
* Email to Powell's re selling of weeded books
* Tested Powell's online book selling system to see how much books
are
* Reviewed incoming paper mail - most mail recycled
* Book ads read for collection development purposes
* Updated training database with info from mail
* Printed some reading material
* Packed up
* Went home early - tired knee

Closing of Operations at the Canadian Book Exchange Centre

2008-03-07T12:29:00.001-05:00

The Government of Canada has introduced a new expenditure management system as part of an ongoing commitment to sound management of government spending. The new system is focused on managing results and on the ongoing assessment of all direct program spending, or strategic review, to ensure efficiency, effectiveness and value for money.

Library and Archives Canada's (LAC) strategic review concluded that the Canadian Book Exchange Centre (CBEC) program was not appropriately aligned with the priorities of Canadians and with core federal responsibilities.

LAC has come to the conclusion that it can no longer financially support the operations of CBEC. Consequently, effective immediately, CBEC will no longer accept publications from the private sector or from government and international organizations for redistribution among libraries. CBEC will shut its doors permanently effective June 30, 2008. For information, please contact: Alison Bullock at 613-992-1752 or email: cbecccel@lac-bac.gc.ca

Book shelves - what do yours look like

2008-03-02T23:34:00.002-05:00

Read a post on "Blog around the clock" - http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/03/how_do_you_shelve_your_books.php -- on how people shelve their books.

We have many many books. When you have two engineers and two librarians rolled up as only two people, there are is a huge number of topics of interest. So here is how they are organized:

1. shelves in both children's rooms with their books
2. shelf in kitchen with cookbooks
3. shelf in kitchen with reference for homework and resolving dinnertime discussions
4. around bed is books in progress -- always more than one
5. shelf in hall is unread books and books for my mother to take home to read
6. shelf in living room with my husbands books -- mostly nonfiction
7. pile in front hall is library books leaving or arriving
8. historical collection -- boxes in basement.

Now you might think the boxes in basement are lost books. Not for us. As each box was packed two moves ago, it was numbered and digitally photographed with the box number visible in each photo. Boxes with more than one layer were photographed multiple times.

We all know that we remember what the book looked like, sometimes better than what it was called. This way, to find a book, all we have to do is scan through the digital photos, find the number of the box, and pull the box.

Easy, efficient, and space saving.

New Ink Jet newsletter -- free for 2008

2008-01-28T09:19:00.001-05:00

Toner Research Services has begun a new technical monthly newsletter that will provide information on just issued U.S. patents, patent applications, meeting announcements, product introductions, and technical developments in the jet ink industry.

For 2008 they are providing the publication free to any worldwide scientist working for a jet ink producer

John Cooper, the publisher, can be contacted at john@tonerandinkinfo.com

Facebook - a couple of things...

2007-12-13T11:12:00.000-05:00

1. noticed today that FaceBook has removed the mandatory "is" in the status. Carolyne is... now says Carolyne...
I can have "Carolyne says" "Carolyne feels" "Carolyne hates" "Carolyne loves"... One more minor annoyance removed. Hooray!

2. An app i found the other day -- Nexus -- http://apps.facebook.com/_nexus_/
It takes your friends and compares their networks, friends, and creates an interesting graphic. Like Friend Wheel only different.

3. There is a limit on the number of email addresses you can add to your account. I have many more than the 5 that they allow.

Blogs in Plain English

2007-12-05T09:55:00.001-05:00

Lee Lefever does it again.

Pet Peeve - part deux

2007-11-30T11:18:00.000-05:00

another position wanting a librarian to run a library, staff supervision, cataloguing, budget, project, develop the library, database management, subject knowledge, current awareness.

Requirements ---- get this -- Grade 12!!!!!

Librarian

One Permanent Position

Location: Edmonton, AB (Rossdale Watermark Building)

Reporting to the Manager of Knowledge Systems, the Librarian administers EPCOR’s Water Services Library and is responsible for ensuring that the Company’s records, including operating data, project information, and externally produced reference material is accurately classified and securely stored. All material is to be accurately catalogued and available for timely retrieval for on-site referencing or loan-out to library clients.

Responsibilities will be diverse, including following:

Collecting and researching information such as industrial standards, codes, policies, and technical information for Engineers, Technologists and Management to ensure that they get the right information for project decision-making;

Developing and managing other library services for Water employees, including a daily current awareness service, consultation services for information-management related actions and ordering information resources such as conference proceedings, journals, standards, and reference books;

Analyzing trends in industrial information management and matching them to the needs of Water staff;

Cataloguing and classification of all print and electronic standards and codes to ensure that both active and inactive records stored in DBText databases are properly and accurately identified and classified according to Library of Congress method;

Administering the Library budget;

Providing guidance and overseeing the work of Library and Records staff; and

Undertaking Library development projects as required.

The successful candidate will have completed Grade 12 and have a minimum of five years of directly related experience and must be eligible for certification with the American Library Association NOTE: see my note below. Proficiency in the principles of knowledge organization, library management and database management related to Library Science is required as well as knowledge of professional industry and engineering standards, codes, regulations, and practices. General knowledge of water treatment, water distribution and water utilities would be an asset. Previous experience with the database DBTextWorks would be an asset. You must have excellent customer responsiveness and communication and organizational skills. You are a team player and also have an ability to work independently with initiative to pursue priorities in a fast paced work environment for multiple individuals. You have demonstrated a high level of attention to detail and accuracy in your work.

NOTE:

http://ala-apa.org/about/certif_alaqa.html -- states "ALA itself cannot be an instrument for certification of librarians at either the entry point or a subsequent stage in professional development because it is a Section 501(c)(3) - educational - organization. The IRS considers certification to be a proper activity for a Section 501(c)(6) - professional - organization."

Reading leve level of this blog

2007-11-15T16:31:00.000-05:00

Ok, what kind of algorithm are they using. This blog rates high school, while my vacation blog is Post Grad level.

Get a Cash Advance

Businesses on Facebook

2007-11-07T13:54:00.000-05:00

I heard on the radio on the way into work this morning that Facebook will allow businesses to have profiles and allow them access to advertising to members.

In the past they have deleted library accounts, but if this news is true, then Libraries should be allowed to have profiles now.

Anyone know any more?

My local public library - Oakville Public Library

2007-11-05T15:43:00.001-05:00

Here is what my local library is doing. They don't get near enough credit.

Grand Opening: New Clearview Neighbourhood Branch!

Please join us!

Saturday, November 10, 2007
11:00am to 1:00pm
1148 Winston Churchill Blvd., Unit E, Oakville (entrance off Sheridan Garden Drive)

Free refreshments and prize draws. Please RSVP by November 5, 2007 to 905-815-2042 ext. 5024. The branch will be open from 1:00 - 5:00pm after the grand opening.

WATT NOT, WASTE NOT: Residents Encouraged to Conserve Energy

A new program launched by the Town of Oakville and Oakville Public Library allows residents to borrow energy meters to test their home appliances for energy usage. Residents can borrow a meter from any of the Town's five libraries and return the meter to any branch free of charge. Meters can be picked up at any Oakville Public Library Branch. Click here to read the full press release.

Adult Book Club Blogs

Want to know what the Oakville Public Library's Book Clubs are reading? Want to keep updated on their discussions? Check out the library's two new Book Club blogs: the Central Branch blog and the White Oaks branch blog. Only subscribers to the blogs will be able to post messages. Click here to visit the Book Club page.

Download Free Audio Books!

Libraries on the Go is a web site brought to you by your library that lets you download free audio books to your computer, PDA and many MP3 players! To learn more and start downloading, visit http://librariesonthego.library.on.ca/

Let's Get Every Child Ready To Read in Oakville!

Learning starts at birth! Research shows that children learn the skills they need to read years before they start school. To ensure every child in Oakville is given the best possible chance to succeed, the Oakville Public Library has adopted the Every Child Ready To Read program developed by the Public Library Association. For more information click here.

Join the Teen Advisory Group!

Are you a secondary school student who needs to fulfill community service hours for high school credit? The Oakville Public Library is looking for several students interested in serving on its Teen Advisory Group (TAG) for the 2007-2008 school year. We meet once monthly at the Central Branch. Help develop the library's teen web site, teen programs and services, and build your resume at the same time!

Interested? Contact Shauna Clinning at sclinning@oakville.ca for de

IL2007 - Session B205 — Developing a Taxonomy

2007-11-04T21:19:00.000-05:00

Session B205 — Developing a Taxonomy
4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Kathryn Breininger & Mary Whittaker, Librarians, The Boeing Company

I'll start of with – this session just blew my mind. All the Work. All the effort. All the people involved. All the cost. All the buy in from all levels. All the time.

There must have been an incredible problem for them to have invested so so very much.

Setting the stage – from Outsell survey – 13 hr / week searching and analyzing information; 2 hr more than 2 years ago

Information overload

People don't know what words to search for

No two people organize the same way

Taxonomy – controlled vocabulary – hierarchical – broader and narrower terms – equivalent terms as well

Word list – synonym ring – taxonomy – thesaurus – ontology

Z39.9 standard for controlled vocabulary

Considerations

- Avoid reinvention an existing taxonomy

- Construction methods

- Dimensions

- Size of taxonomy

- Facets

- Intended use

Process

- Determine requirements

- Identify concepts

- Develop draft taxonomy

- Review with users and audience

- Refine taxonomy

- Apply to content

- Manage and maintain taxonomy

Manual tagging of existing content

- Time and effort – is it worth it

- Time for maintenance

- Version control

Constant analysis of results and search errors

Terms used excessively or rarely need to be examined

When testing – do you get good results – does it match user expectations – user evaluation – expert evaluation – various methods of testing – qualitative testing – measurable or subjective

Engaging People

- strong sponsor

- obtain user buy in

- IT handles software

- subject experts, librarians, owners handle taxonomy

- keep team smallish, manageable

Process for term suggestions

Process for handling comments

Process for communication

Process for appeals

Release schedules

Team charters available at IL2007 site later

Taxonomy implementation drivers

- Search inefficiencies

- Bottom line impacted by inabiligy to find info

- IT pressured to find solution

- Content management systems

- Knowledge management initiatives

Tag content at creation

- Integrate all taxonomies into one

- Owned by those who classify

- Incorporate with search functions

Productivity benefits

- More time for analysis since search was faster

- Less duplication of effort

- Fewer poor decisions due to lack of information

- More focus on info as strategic asset

- More internal knowledge sharing

- Better understanding of terminology

- Structure brings context to terms

- Facilitates browsing

- Standardized access

- Brings fragmented content together

- Reflects scope of business

- Assists in learning the domain

- Supports business goals

Considerations

- It is a cost

- Tagged content must be used

- Technology cost

- Time cost

- Integrate for maximum ROI

- Phased rollout

- Need strong political buy in

- Subject matter experts are important

- Automated tools can get it wrong – human review

Avoid

- Corporate lingo

- Department names

- Undefined acronyms

- Over thinking

- Over engineering

- Unneeded sections

- Proprietary system for taxonomy management

IL2007

IL2007 - Session C106 — Web Design on a Dime: Quick Web Tips for Small Libraries

2007-11-04T20:10:00.001-05:00

Session C106 — Web Design on a Dime: Quick Web Tips for Small Libraries
4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sarah Houghton-Jan, Web Services Manager, San Mateo County Library

Tell management what users want

Ask users what they want

Want services same online and onsite

E-branch – most public face; open 24/7; cheaper services; many free add-ons

Treat an e-branch as a branch

1. Talk with users – IM – Meebo

Put meebo in catalogue – sidebar navigation

Text to email to text

2. Provide classes and events

ODIOGO – text to audio files

Database and catalogue search tutorials

AVIDAMUX – video software

3. Dynamic lists (recommendations)

book recommendations

movie recommendations

allow comments

4. offer tools and mashups

libraryelf

library lookup

libx toolbar

5. pretty up your catalogue

6. increase database visibility

focus on what

separate periodicals from others

links on homepage

do not use the word dataset

free free free

subject guides, path finders

outreach visits

market market market

7. increase book visibility

downloadable is wanted

get everything into your catalogue

free ebook collections

market to specific audiences

8. exploit the blog as a format

don’t call it a blog

allow comments

9. Make RSS your friend

new books

news

McMaster RSS praised

RSS calendar

feed submitter

10. try a wiki

11. flickr – give a face to your library

moo

photoshow

Qoop

Zazzle

12. Use project management tools

gliffy draws good flowcharts

13. firefox addons

link checker

linkif

widefox

14. don’t pay for images

15. pay attention to accessibility
"terms that users understand"

16. Use design tools to save time

copy design

free layouts

css templates

inknoise

17. User other tools

web monkey

survey monkey

18. hosting – stats

19. image generators

20. keep everything current

IL2007

IL2007 - Session C105 — Cool Tools for Library Webmasters

2007-11-04T16:57:00.000-05:00

Session C105 — Cool Tools for Library Webmasters
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Darlene Fichter, University of Saskatchewan Library
Frank Cervone, Assistant University Librarian for Information Technology, Northwestern University

Mostly a list – I did not write down all the features J

Sketchcast
Jing Project
Picnik – IE and firefox plugin; has capture full page
Kerpoff – for fun
Thumbalizer
Visual page rank
IBM unstructured information modeler – reference logs – comments – data mining tool
DiffDaff – compare two directories; compare laptop and network
Logview – www.tucows.com/preview/504173
SDAP Sonar – www.crosschecknet.com
Evolved – www.home.no/evolved; text editor for programming; colours based on language you are coding
Perl express – Perl editor; good features; www.perl-express.com; server commands; database commands; OS

Fun with images

Photoslideshow – flash.dvd-photo-slideshow.com; creates flash slideshow
Flash gallery generator – www.flashgallerygenerator.com/main.aspx

Search Index

Sitemap – www.sitemapbuilder.net; for google indexing
Opensource federated searching – 3 open source
IBM Omnifind Yahoo Ediiton – easy to install; installer to search in minutes: download so will work behind firewall
Google CoopCSE (customized search engine)
Open URl Referrer Toolbar – openly.oclc.org/openurlref ; if you have a resolver it will try to resolve other info; links to your own referrer
Flogblog – apps.facebook.com/flogblog ; integrate blog content in to Facebook page

Freedom

Portable firefox
Asterisk logger – reveal passwords
Undelete
Unstoppable copier
Simple file shredder
KeePass – all passwords saved with master key

IL2007

IL2007 - Session - session C104 — Inspiration for Your Library Redesign

2007-11-04T16:52:00.000-05:00

Session C104 — Inspiration for Your Library Redesign
2:15 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Bennett Ponsford, Digital Services Librarian, & Christina Hoffman Gola, Undergraduate Specialist Librarian, Texas A&M University LibrariesErica Reynolds, Web Content Manager, Johnson County Library

They asked their users:

What are you searching for
What they last looked for
How do they discover new resources
Use for subject guides
What 2.0 features do they want
Survey, forum, discussion groups, focus groups, interviews

What they found:

Very limited interest in tagging
Limited interest in user generated content
Traditional preferences for communication: email and in person
Limited interst in IM
What do you start with when starting a new project?
Google for undergrads
Google scholar for facultywant all systems integrated
single onetime login
subject guides hav interdisciplinary issues
personalization of their site
photos of librarians – Facebook like
Facebook, blog, forums not really used

IL2007

From Monterey to Toronto

2007-10-31T20:11:00.000-04:00

I had to leave Monterey last night (Tuesday October 30) and was at the airport when that earthquake hit. We thought nothing of it since it seemed minor. We were called to board the plane and when we got to the stairs to board, they turned us back. All flights were grounded due to the earthquake.

We only had 1hour in San Francisco to change planes, but that should have been enough. The plane finally left Monterey Airport and we arrived in San Francisco at 10:05 pm. The Toronto flight was scheduled to leave at 10:15 pm.

Don't know if you have been in the San Francisco airport, but from the ground we could see our Air Canada flight a short distance across the tarmac. Inside the terminal, however, it was a 10 mile run :) And run we did.
We get to the gate and are the last ones in line. The friendly staff greeted us with "Hurry up, Hurry up". Very annoying. Like the delay was our fault. Like we caused the earthquake.

Got to Toronto and because of the short time in San Francisco the luggage did not get on our plane. We filled out the claim forms and left. On the way out the custom agent with the strangest glasses i have ever seen (halloween??) wanted to know what we had purchased that was in our lost bags. I could not think i was so tired and started to slowly rhyme off.. t shirts... sweat shirts... a bowl... She interrupts me and asks me to hurry up because i am holding up the line. I look behind us and there is no one.. ZERO.. nada.. behind us. I was tired, but she was just coming on... What's up with that??

Finally made it home. At about 4 pm this afternoon Air Canada phoned to tell us they found 2 of the 3 bags. One of which is the one with all my conference notes, gifts, power cord for laptop, VPN card, shoes, etc. The missing one has much less value things -- socks, underwear, old t shirts, pyjamas, etc.

So, Happy Halloween and Good Night.

IL2007

IL2007 - Session C204 — Librarians as knowledge Managers

2007-10-30T18:41:00.000-04:00

Session C204 — Librarians as knowledge Managers
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Susan Braun, Manager, Research Services, Library & Information Center, The Aerospace Corporation

Corporate memory needed to be saved and retained
Graying of technical staff was a catalyst
Had to get information and knowledge from the people before it was too late
Library was ideally positioned to do this as htye already did archives, reports, author files, etc.
Funded by knowledge management group
Training is a big part
"RSS" type feed from the document management system
Blogging also part of tool
CoP leadership role
4 embedded librarians in CoP
7 reference librarians total

Have a Knowledge Steward Community of Practice
Responsible for institutionalization of proper management of information
Leads training and fostering of tools
Consultants to other groups
Manage folder structure of document management system
Conduct knowledge audits
Recommend best practices
Set permissions on folders
Audit system of accuracy
All knowledge stewards trained by librarians
Lunch and learn sessions
Various levels of classes
Structure based on organizational structure

Next steps:
Corporate taxonomy
Expanded use of Wikis, RSS, blogs
Revising of training materials
More training
More imbedded tutorials
Federated search
New library software integrated

Value of effort
Recognized as key contributors
Recognized as experts in document management
Faster collaboration and knowledge sharing
Contributed to enhancement of corp. role

IL2007 - KEYNOTE & AIIP TECHNOLOGY AWARDS

2007-10-30T18:06:00.003-04:00

KEYNOTE & AIIP TECHNOLOGY AWARDS
Reference 2.0: Ain't What It Used to Be . . . And It Never Will Again
8:45 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. - San Carlos Ballroom
Joe Janes, Associate Dean, iSchool, University of Washington
This guy was hilarious. Self deprecating humour. Good, upbeat talk on reference librarianship today. He writes the “Internet Librarian” column for American Libraries but has never been to an Internet Librarian conference before!!
I did not take notes, I just listened and enjoyed.
He talked about how younger people are browsing instead of really reading, channel surfing instead of watching. He talked about how we are good at deep diving for information. That we need to find the people who want the information and provide it and not to worry about the ones who don't want it. To answer quick IM questions by just getting them to the next step, not trying to do an indepth reference interview. To be in the places that they are.

I will have to read all the other blog posts to find out what I missed J

IL2007

IL2007 - Session B201 — Deploying Enterprise Social Software

2007-10-30T18:06:00.001-04:00

Session B201 — Deploying Enterprise Social Software
10:30 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.
Christian Gray, Safari Books Online, cgray@safarijv.com

Rob Cross www.robcross.org/sna.htm

Valdis Krebs www.orgnet.com

Karen Hoffman national geographic society
Managing the intranet improving relationships, wiki, blogs, rss, global users, improve communications, productivity
She is now in charge of web

MPK20 – Second Life For The Enterprise
Team meetings
Personal space
Sharing applications

An aerospace company
Stealth sandbox, skunkworks
internal iGoogle page, aiaa, get abstract, IEEE, APQC, library spotlight, iii: output RSS feed nightly – new books feed and monographs and serials
10 active wiki (four are internal to library only)

William hayes biogenldec
2 librarians, 5000 employees
implementing many technologies

Getting started
Reading, research, talk to others, personal use, experience, sandbox, proof of concept, pilot

Why does it matter
content ms, hr ms, information ms, integrated library software, enterprise resource programs, km, collaborative software
Sanofi Aventis www.tacit.com – pilot programme

Business reasons for network analysis
he showed many many www.tomoye.com

Companies:; awareness; select minds; visible path (for employees inside the enterprise); connectbeam;

Conferences; enterprise 2.0 and others

Social networks research report -- www.wildbit.com designing for consumers; attracting new members

Gartner report G00150106

Things to read
the virtual handshake / Teten and Allen
net work / Patti Anklam
the starfish and the spider / Brafman and Beckstrom
we are smarter than me /

Resources
SLA KM division
Rick Hoag Honeywell eng div – econtent.typepad.com

Summary
Users add value and you are we
if you don't use it how can you ever deploy it
you have a very important role to play
get on the bus or get run over

OCLC study released last week

IL2007

IL2007 - Session B202 — Next-Gen Corporate Library Web Site

2007-10-30T18:04:00.000-04:00

Session B202 — Next-Gen Corporate Library Web Site
11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
Cindy Sullivan, VP, & Megan Kelley, Library, Fidelity Investments

How I wish I had their management commitment and funding. They have created a great site and service for all staff. Federated searching across internal and external systems.

Goals

Assist research efforts
Deliver gateway to authoritive sources
Provide high value content
Enabler for research
Connect communities of practice through collaboration initiatives
Centre of learning

Redesign of Website

EBooks
Federated search
Bring resource to forefront
Single sign on
More dynamically generated content

Hot topics

This is a tag cloud of terms people are searching
Top 15 terms over a rolling 30 day period
Keeps others up on what is current
Library staff us for collection development

Lessons learned

Standardize on authentication method for databases
Do a pilot with federated search – sign nda
Leverage enterprise agreements with publishers
Ensure support from senior management
Appropriate resources assigned to project – people – money
User interface most important

Future plans

Integrate library sources with training and development
More multi media
Internal applications – employee directory – part of federated search

IL2007

IL2007 - Sessions D203 — The Second Life Smorgasbord: Opportunities for All Types of Libraries in a Virtual Environment

2007-10-30T18:02:00.000-04:00

Sessions D203 — The Second Life Smorgasbord: Opportunities for All Types of Libraries in a Virtual Environment
1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
MODERATORS:
Kitty Pope, Executive Director, Allliance Library System &
Barbara Galick, Executive Director, Bradley Unviersity
PANELISTS:
Rosemary Arneson, Director of Carmichael Library, University of Montevallo
Kate Fitz, Public Services Librarian, Sacramento County Public Law Library
Michael Sauers, Technology Innovation Librarian, Nebraska Library Commission
Elisabeth Marrapodi Jacobsen, Library Director, Trinitas Hospital Library
Micki McIntyre, UMDNJ HealthyNJ Librarian, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

Disaster management in Second life
- what if you delete your building?
- zombie attack?
You have to think of many different types of disasters in a virtual world

??why have walls anyway if everyone can fly??
Who are you keeping out?

Why?

Networking
Learning new tools
Learning new ideas
Emerging technologies

Lawsport

In Bell Library Towers 5th floor
They have signs on floor so people know where they are
They have no walls
Note cards iwht information
Notecards are also on website
Banned book display
She has created a SL law directory
Has anyone created a SL library directory??
Some places let you create your own world - -meta place; multiverse;…

Resource: The entrepreneur's guide to SL / Terdiman

IL2007

IL2007 - Other sessions I attended and will post notes later

2007-10-30T02:32:00.000-04:00

Session C104 — Inspiration for Your Library Redesign
2:15 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Bennett Ponsford, Digital Services Librarian, & Christina Hoffman Gola, Undergraduate Specialist Librarian, Texas A&M University Libraries
Erica Reynolds, Web Content Manager, Johnson County Library

Session C105 — Cool Tools for Library Webmasters
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Darlene Fichter, University of Saskatchewan Library
Frank Cervone, Assistant University Librarian for Information Technology, Northwestern University

Session C106 — Web Design on a Dime: Quick Web Tips for Small Libraries
4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sarah Houghton-Jan, Web Services Manager, San Mateo County Library

Exhibit Hall Grand Opening Reception
5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Too crowded. Left. Will go back tomorrow. Maybe 

IL2007

IL2007 - Session C103 — New Rules of Web Design

2007-10-30T02:29:00.000-04:00

Session C103 — New Rules of Web Design

1:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Jeff Wisniewski, Web Services Librarian, University of Pittsburgh

This I think was my favourite session all day. Fast moving. Full of information. Good speaker who knew his stuff.

Old	New
Keep it simple	Very complex sites needed to provide information expected these days. Interactive rich sites
Content is king	Design matters a lot users decide very quickly if your site is any good based on design that negative view stays if people like design they may ignore some usability issues
All content is created equal	Some content is more important. This should be emphasized. Make clear starting point based on mission and evidence of use
Rule of seven	# of top level categories. Not really a rule. 5-9 categories are ideal. Unless it is necessary and well organized
3 click rule	User swill click many times as long as they feel they are on the right track
800x600	1024x768 but think of other platforms, phones, etc. flexible design. Use CSS correctly
Web safe colour pallets	Most people can use 24-bit colour. use what you want. keep small images to download faster.

How often to redesign – constantly – iterative – major changes are disruptive

Do follow these basics – home link in upper left – clickable banner – contact us top left

More high speed users

Impatient users

Some using slower networks

Support all browsers, however there are other higher value content – graded support – progressive support – browser dependent content – main stuff is compliant – extras may not be

Old	New
Provide text only version	Not if properly designed in xhtml and CSS
Avoid CSS	Do use it properly – for layout
Popups never	Often blocked so don't put in anything critical – can sometimes be useful for supporting info
Flash is evil	Flash intros ARE evil – flash can be used for tutorials and animation if used properly
Mouseover menus	Usability issues – slower – not always readable
Never open links in new window	Ok if you tell them – ok for external content – ok for help files – less of an issue now that browsers have tabs
Scrolling is bad	People will scroll a long way if they know that there is something to scroll to
Keep it above the fold	Maybe – most important stuff should be—people will scroll

Add images of people to increase trust in site, draw attention, people (labeled) are best. If people are too good looking then they don't increase trust.

IL2007

IL2007 - Session C102 — Putting Evidence-Based Practice to Work

2007-10-30T02:28:00.001-04:00

Session C102 — Putting Evidence-Based Practice to Work
11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Frank Cervone, Assistant University Librarian for Information Technology, Northwestern University

• Design based on fact not feelings
• Analyzed search logs in voyager (we have voyager, perhaps we can do this as well??)
• Make no assumptions
• Note to self – find out what his team's "extensive reading list" consists of
• Data available to guide decisions and discussions
• Less pushback on changes as they are improvements not simply change for change sake
• Terminology still a problem
• Problem still to get people to use the library catalogue
• Presentation will be posted in IL2007 site later
• He will post link to reading list

Amanda Hollister, Web Services Librarian, Memorial Library, SUNY Cortland

• Breadcrumbs on web pages tracking where you are
• Used htat data to track people's tracks through site to particular pages
• Homegrown code
• Looked very complicated

IL2007

IL2007 - Session C101 — Planning & Implementing Library 2.0

2007-10-30T02:27:00.000-04:00

Session C101 — Planning & Implementing Library 2.0
10:15 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
David King, Digital Branch & Services Manager, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

This session mostly I sat in on because there was nothing else I wanted to see and it was in the room that the next session I did want to hear. That said it was interesting. He went over the basic things you need to think of before implementing Library 2.0 items. Most were obvious but it was nice to have them all organized in one place. Being from a public library much was not immediately implementable for a corporate environment. He is a good speaker. Easy to listen to.

IL2007

IL2007 - Keynote - Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project

2007-10-30T02:26:00.000-04:00

2.0 and the Internet World
Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project
Monday, 9:00 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.
KEYNOTE

He is a great speaker, very personable, very interesting. What he had to say – percentages of user types; demographics of internet users; etc. – did not come as news. Perhaps I read too much on this topic, but it was not new.

IL2007

Monterey IL2007

2007-10-28T23:32:00.000-04:00

IL2007

Day one in Monterey - IL2007

2007-10-28T23:22:00.000-04:00

Preconference Workshop
Introduction to Cascading Style Sheets
Presented by Ran Hock, Online Strategies

This was an introductory course and intended for those of us just starting to get into converting our pages to CSS.
It did what it was advertised to and that is what I was looking for. No great detail or complex coding, just an overview of what is possible.

Very good.

IL2007

In Fort Bragg

2007-10-26T23:51:00.000-04:00

After a long day of driving we made it to Fort Bragg. Those redwoods are magnificent!!

Highway 1 from highway101 to Fort Bragg is unbelievable. Twisty, turny, steep, and scary. We did it in the dark.....

Oakville to Portland to Monterey

2007-10-25T22:56:00.000-04:00

On my way to Internet Librarian 2007 in Monterey CA I stopped into Portland (Wilsonville actually) to visit the Xerox staff there. I did a little library marketing, taught a little RSS, met with many interesting people, and drummed up more business for the library.

Then to Powell's book. WOW. Multiple locations all with thousands and thousands of books. WOW

Then on the road. We are driving to Monterey from Portland. The end of day one finds us in Coos Bay. The views, the vistas and the scenery are spectacular. And it is sunny.

IL2007

Blog Action Day

2007-10-15T13:22:00.000-04:00

Today is the day all bloggers are asked to write about, think about, and do something about the environment.

I'll tell you a secret. I have worms.

No, not that kind, the vermicomposting kind. I have had worms for years and years now. Going on ten I think. I have a green bucket tucked under a desk in the kitchen. This is what the bucket looks like:
It is full of Red Wigglers (the cadillac of worms) that look like this:

I read things like this and get annoyed

2007-09-06T14:29:00.000-04:00

rant-on

Head Librarian – Jim & Mary Kearl Library – Cardston, AB

The Town of Cardston Public Library Board is seeking a dynamic, creative, and innovative library professional to fill the position of Head Librarian for the Jim & Mary Kearl Library.

The successful candidate must possess a commitment to the ongoing development of exceptional public library service to meet the diverse needs of patrons residing in Cardston and the surrounding area. Day and some Saturday work are required. The successful candidate will be required to reside in Cardston. Salary is negotiable, and benefits will be the same as those given employees of the Town of Cardston. For information on the Town of Cardston and the library, please go to www.cardston.ca.

Qualifications:
* A Library Technician Diploma or two years experience in the daily operation of a library. An equivalent combination of experience and education will be considered.
* Excellent public relations skills, as the librarian will be dealing with the public on an ongoing basis, as well as training and supervising other staff.
* Knowledge of assessing and developing a library collection.
* The ability to instruct in the use of library services.
* Experience in preparing budgets, policies, statistical, and financial reports.
* Familiarity with researching and preparing government grant applications.

The Board desires to fill the position as soon as possible; however, only short listed candidates will be notified. Please email or send resume and three references by Friday, September 21, 2007 to:

Vern Quinton, Chairman
Box 869
Cardston, AB T0K 0K0
quinton.mv@shaw.ca

Head Librarian, library professional, management, public service, budgeting, reporting, policy creation ....

sounds great. A real librarian job. BUT, what do they ask for??
a library technician or someone who has worked in a library for two years!!!!
No mention of salary but with these requirements I suspect it is too too low for anyone to accept.

AARRGGGHHH

They want professional librarian performance and are willing to pay enough for a local volunteer who has done some library work for a couple of years.

rant-off

Blog Day 2007

2007-08-31T22:47:00.000-04:00

Five blogs

Web Strategy by Jeremiah
Web Strategy by Jeremiah. Jeremiah Owyang discusses how web tools and social media enable companies to connect with customers ...
www.web-strategist.com/ -
Beauty Brains
Real Scientists answering your beauty product questions
The Beauty Brains are a group of cosmetic scientists who understand what the chemicals used in cosmetics really do, how products are tested, and what all the advertising means.
http://thebeautybrains.com
Common Craft
We've been serving up fresh, online community-related content here since 2003 and our new focus is online video. Make yourself at home - and don't forget to check the Zeitgeist page.
http://www.commoncraft.com/blog
Kevin Kelly Cool Tools
Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/
David Lee King
I create, write, think, and speak about library websites and emerging digital technology. This website reflects those topics. I tend towards library website stuff - managing, marketing, experimenting, usability, and planning. Sometimes I stray into other related-yet-cool (translation: fun) topics, like videoblogging, experience design and planning, and web 2.0 / library 2.0 topics. Basically, anything in my head on any given day that’s somehow related to libraries, digital technology and websites.
http://www.davidleeking.com/

Where are all the posts?

2007-08-21T11:34:00.001-04:00

Oh Dear!
No posts for months!
Anything serious happening?

No. What happened is that I have been blogging internally at Xerox. We now have internal (inside the firewall) blogs for employees. The system uses Blogroller software which works fairly well, but has not got all the nice features of the "big guys" such as wordpress.

Now that I have realized this oversight, I will try to post what I can from my internal blog here as well.

Congratulations to John Dupuis

2007-05-24T09:19:00.000-04:00

New Members Join IEEE Library Advisory Council

Four new representatives have joined the IEEE Library Advisory Council. They include: Jose Octavio Alonso Gamboa, Biblioteca Universitaria; David Alsmeyer, British Telecom Library; John Dupuis, York University; and Gerald Steeman, NASA Langley. The IEEE Library Advisory Council brings together international corporate, academic, and government librarians who consult with IEEE to help develop products and policies. For more information, visit here

I invited John many years ago to speak to the Sheridan Park Library and Information Science Committee about blogging and his talk convinced me that I could do it too.

Scitopia.org

2007-05-15T20:46:00.000-04:00

Welcome to scitopia.org – 3 million articles, spanning 150 years of science and technology

Scitopia.org is a free federated vertical search that lets you explore the research most cited in scholarly work and patents in a single click.

Brought to you by thirteen of the world’s leading science and technology societies, scitopia.org searches more than three million documents, including peer-reviewed journal content and conference proceedings. You’ll get to the content you need quickly without having to search each individual society’s online library.

Scitopia.org, the best place on earth for technology research, will be revealed in June 2007.

To read more about this groundbreaking partnership, please visit our Press Room

Scitopia.org Partners:

American Geophysical Union (AGU)
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
American Physical Society (APS)
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
The Electrochemical Society (ECS)
IEEE
Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP)
Optical Society of America (OSA)
SPIE
Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)

Other organizations will be invited to join as the project progresses

Scitopia.org is powered by Deep Web Technologies' Explorit Research Accelerator federated search engine.

2007-05-06T14:17:00.000-04:00

As some of you may know my family has been fostering a Dog Guide since October 2006. His name is Casper. You can see his photos here. http://pets.webshots.com/album/555254083lUOkiP

Because of him, we will be participating in the Purina Walk for Dog Guides on June 3, 2007, to help raise funds for the training and placement of Dog Guides for Canadians with visual, hearing and medical or physical disabilities.
The Purina Walk for Dog Guides is organized by local volunteers and is truly a grassroots effort. Everybody is welcome – all ages and abilities, with or without dogs. It’s an outdoor, feel good, start to the day.

You can help by giving a online gift by credit card at http://www.walkfordogguides.com/personalPage.cfm?ID=1186 You will receive immediate credit card payment confirmation and an official Income Tax Receipt.

It would also be great if you would accept my invitation to walk as well. Go to http://www.walkfordogguides.com/findWalk.cfm to find a walk near you.

I hope you can join me in supporting this wonderful event that will help provide mobility, safety and independence for Canadians with disabilities. If you would like more information about Lions Foundation of Canada and the Purina Walk for Dog Guides, please visit www.dogguides.com.

Carolyne, Albert, Emma, Andrew, and Casper

CISTI offers Ebook lending service

2007-05-04T09:45:00.000-04:00

Press Release http://cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/media/press/myilibrary_e.html

"The National Research Council's Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (NRC-CISTI) and MyiLibrary, the market leading eBook aggregator, have partnered to launch an innovative new service called eBook Loans, an electronic twist on the traditional library-interlending model. With the click of a mouse, eBook Loans offer instant access to tens of thousands of electronic books from major scholarly publishers, including Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Blackwell and Springer."

"Each loan costs US$25, payable online using a credit card. Users have access to an eBook for 30 days through a URL received in an e-mail immediately after payment has been received. There is no need to return a borrowed eBook because the link expires automatically, and there is no need to worry about lost or damaged books."

Very cool.

My questions so far -
1. We have clients in both the US and Canada. For all other CISTI services we need separate accounts, US and Canada. Is there any differentiation between US and Canadian users for this service.

2. Since we are control freaks, can the library order the ibook to its email address and then forward to the original requester, or must the requester's email be used?

3. It appears to be credit card based. Can we charge to our CISTI account?

Since people have to know the books are there to order them, I guess I better start working on our ILS to get "remote" searching working.

A map of the "world"

2007-05-03T10:03:00.000-04:00

This is the coolest thing I have seen in a while.

Posted by eddie a. tejeda on the "Future of the Book" blog http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/

Google Reader -- better than ever

2007-05-02T16:20:00.000-04:00

Google Reader fixed the one thing which has been bothering me -- their email format when sending links.

It is now easier, cleaner, and creates much better output.

Thanks Google.

And I thougth the quiz was US accents :)

2007-05-02T14:31:00.000-04:00

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

Canada. You probably get irritated when British people and Europeans think you're from the States, but over here we wouldn't make a mistake like that.

Take this quiz now - it's easy!