Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Public Art
If I read previously about the amazing digital art in the Mixing Chamber at Seattle Central Library, I forgot about it. It looks and sounds awesome. The flashing up on LCD screens of call numbers and titles of works just checked out makes "a real-time living picture of what the community is thinking." I'd like to think it's educational, that people would watch 917s and see that they were travel, and notice that 741.59ish are cartoons -- but I bet the Dewey numbers don't really speak to people. I wonder that it doesn't trip off the Privacy alarms of librarians. It sounds like it's "safe," that it's not near circulation desks: you can't see who's checking out Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul or other possibly embarrassing titles.
I read somewhere -- I'll try to find where and link to or quote it -- that it may be time for librarians to revisit how we feel about privacy. It may be that the shared spaces of Web 2.0 make (some) people less concerned about privacy, less prone to assume they have a right to expect privacy.
I didn't just do professional reading yesterday. I hooked people up with: the table feature in Word, books on remodelling, a copy of Eldest, a class on basic computer skills, another copy of Eldest, and online resources for a research project on green building. I taught a woman how to attach a document to an e-mail, a skill I have now taught so often that I know exactly where to look for the "attachment" button in all major e-mail programs.
Reading: Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon. This morning I stood with him on Manteo and looked over to Nags Head at the new Ramada Inn, and agreed when he said "I hope you're not going to put highrises here, too. ... Overwhelms everything out there -- no harmony between it and the land. Architecture without regard for place or history. They've been Jersey Shored, if you ask me." Twenty years on, and a few name changes later, and I don't know which I wonder at more: that the Atlantic has yet to reclaim it, or that it didn't collapse of it's own shoddy draftiness, sand-weighted shag carpets, and crappy towels.
Capital City weather: cold and clear
If I read previously about the amazing digital art in the Mixing Chamber at Seattle Central Library, I forgot about it. It looks and sounds awesome. The flashing up on LCD screens of call numbers and titles of works just checked out makes "a real-time living picture of what the community is thinking." I'd like to think it's educational, that people would watch 917s and see that they were travel, and notice that 741.59ish are cartoons -- but I bet the Dewey numbers don't really speak to people. I wonder that it doesn't trip off the Privacy alarms of librarians. It sounds like it's "safe," that it's not near circulation desks: you can't see who's checking out Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul or other possibly embarrassing titles.
I read somewhere -- I'll try to find where and link to or quote it -- that it may be time for librarians to revisit how we feel about privacy. It may be that the shared spaces of Web 2.0 make (some) people less concerned about privacy, less prone to assume they have a right to expect privacy.
I didn't just do professional reading yesterday. I hooked people up with: the table feature in Word, books on remodelling, a copy of Eldest, a class on basic computer skills, another copy of Eldest, and online resources for a research project on green building. I taught a woman how to attach a document to an e-mail, a skill I have now taught so often that I know exactly where to look for the "attachment" button in all major e-mail programs.
Reading: Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon. This morning I stood with him on Manteo and looked over to Nags Head at the new Ramada Inn, and agreed when he said "I hope you're not going to put highrises here, too. ... Overwhelms everything out there -- no harmony between it and the land. Architecture without regard for place or history. They've been Jersey Shored, if you ask me." Twenty years on, and a few name changes later, and I don't know which I wonder at more: that the Atlantic has yet to reclaim it, or that it didn't collapse of it's own shoddy draftiness, sand-weighted shag carpets, and crappy towels.
Capital City weather: cold and clear
Friday, January 26, 2007
The New Yorker : online : content
For the Birds
I've been reading a lot about birds in the last two years. So much that I am starting to mix up what I read where. Extinction is a common theme. There was the book on the ivory-billed search, and something about North American parrots (where did I read that?), and now dodos in the January 22 New Yorker. Go here for some bizarre pictures made with model dodos.
I've read about "big listers" in To See Every Bird, and I think again in an article. CNB gave me a nice book of essays on birding that included one by a fellow who found his city's water treatment ponds to be great for birding. Somehow that image sticks more than the plain pieces on birding in Central Park.
And then Phiance got a subscription to National Geographic, so I read about hummingbirds the other day. All of this leads to me not really feeling up to reading Hope is the Thing with Feathers: a Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds. Oh, maybe that's where the parrots were. I started it, but I feel maxed out on birds, for the moment.
I've been reading a lot about birds in the last two years. So much that I am starting to mix up what I read where. Extinction is a common theme. There was the book on the ivory-billed search, and something about North American parrots (where did I read that?), and now dodos in the January 22 New Yorker. Go here for some bizarre pictures made with model dodos.
I've read about "big listers" in To See Every Bird, and I think again in an article. CNB gave me a nice book of essays on birding that included one by a fellow who found his city's water treatment ponds to be great for birding. Somehow that image sticks more than the plain pieces on birding in Central Park.
And then Phiance got a subscription to National Geographic, so I read about hummingbirds the other day. All of this leads to me not really feeling up to reading Hope is the Thing with Feathers: a Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds. Oh, maybe that's where the parrots were. I started it, but I feel maxed out on birds, for the moment.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Five Things
Wowwee! Tagged by The Vampire Librarian for a meme. Five things that blog readers don't know about me:
1. In elementary school, it really annoyed me that the school librarians kept the Narnia books in alpha order by title, and I'd make a point of putting them in the Correct numerical order whenever I could.
2. I went to library school wanting to get back into the history museums and archives field.
3. It was my reference class (burdened though it was by a cumbersome name like Information Sources and Services) that make me see that public libraries would be cool, too.
4. Capital City is a minor league town, in so many ways. (This is not the part you don't know.) One of the things I like about that is that it gives a kinda average kid like me a chance to be if not a big fish in a small pond, certainly a medium-sized one. When I go to big events, I enjoy playing the How-many-people-will-I see-that-I-know Game.
5. I really, really wanted to name my blog Floor Pie, but someone took that name and has never posted. How long does it take Blogger to reclaim names, I wonder?
Okay, now the hard part. My friends who blog seldom pick up memes -- I bet they've been shredding my chain letters, too! No wonder I never got that five dollars.
Turning to people I don't actually know, it doesn't look like Librarian Girl has played yet. But after that, I'll follow the lead of Happyvillian and say, If you'd like to play, consider yourself tagged, and do comment to let us know.
Wowwee! Tagged by The Vampire Librarian for a meme. Five things that blog readers don't know about me:
1. In elementary school, it really annoyed me that the school librarians kept the Narnia books in alpha order by title, and I'd make a point of putting them in the Correct numerical order whenever I could.
2. I went to library school wanting to get back into the history museums and archives field.
3. It was my reference class (burdened though it was by a cumbersome name like Information Sources and Services) that make me see that public libraries would be cool, too.
4. Capital City is a minor league town, in so many ways. (This is not the part you don't know.) One of the things I like about that is that it gives a kinda average kid like me a chance to be if not a big fish in a small pond, certainly a medium-sized one. When I go to big events, I enjoy playing the How-many-people-will-I see-that-I-know Game.
5. I really, really wanted to name my blog Floor Pie, but someone took that name and has never posted. How long does it take Blogger to reclaim names, I wonder?
Okay, now the hard part. My friends who blog seldom pick up memes -- I bet they've been shredding my chain letters, too! No wonder I never got that five dollars.
Turning to people I don't actually know, it doesn't look like Librarian Girl has played yet. But after that, I'll follow the lead of Happyvillian and say, If you'd like to play, consider yourself tagged, and do comment to let us know.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Saturday, January 20, 2007
TimesDispatch.com | Girl Scouts protest plan to sell camp
CK
Most of you interested in the sale of CK are getting the group e-mails, but in case you aren't:
TimesDispatch.com | Girl Scouts protest plan to sell camp
Channel 12
Free-Lance Star
Most of you interested in the sale of CK are getting the group e-mails, but in case you aren't:
TimesDispatch.com | Girl Scouts protest plan to sell camp
Channel 12
Free-Lance Star
Friday, January 19, 2007
Google Librarian Central: Talking At Librarians
Google Librarian Central: Talking At Librarians "eleven (count them - eleven) librarian weblogs"?! What, like that's a lot?? Tales from the Liberry, for one, has twice that in the sidebar, and each of those folks is bound to offer slightly different lists.
Well, shoot, I annoyed one patron in the first half-hour we were open. The day's first patron (outside of two or three self-sufficient frequent fliers) called to cancel out of two computer classes. "Thanks, we can offer those spots to someone on the waiting list."
The second person marched up to the desk and asked if I had coffee ready for him.
- Ummm, no.
I don't really know what you do here, but I need some information.
- Okay, I'll see if I can help.
Then he launched into the words "Federal Reserve Note" on his [our] money. What does the word "note" mean? Don't get distracted! Do you know the fed is a private business, not the government??
- Ummmm, no. I scanned http://www.federalreserve.gov/ while he asked if this is what we do -- find people answers. Well, we try to point people in the right direction on their research.
I signed him onto a public PC and pointed out what looked to me like the fed's definition of a Note.
No, no, "obligation" doesn't tell me anything! I've been looking online for a year! I called Richmond, I called Washington.
- Okay, let me help this other patron, then we'll see if I can find you a book. Sadly, as I gave the other man a visitor card, the first fellow slunk out.
Yeah, sadly, that's it.
The second person marched up to the desk and asked if I had coffee ready for him.
- Ummm, no.
I don't really know what you do here, but I need some information.
- Okay, I'll see if I can help.
Then he launched into the words "Federal Reserve Note" on his [our] money. What does the word "note" mean? Don't get distracted! Do you know the fed is a private business, not the government??
- Ummmm, no. I scanned http://www.federalreserve.gov/ while he asked if this is what we do -- find people answers. Well, we try to point people in the right direction on their research.
I signed him onto a public PC and pointed out what looked to me like the fed's definition of a Note.
No, no, "obligation" doesn't tell me anything! I've been looking online for a year! I called Richmond, I called Washington.
- Okay, let me help this other patron, then we'll see if I can find you a book. Sadly, as I gave the other man a visitor card, the first fellow slunk out.
Yeah, sadly, that's it.
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