Last Project of the Year: Clean Out the Office Microwave

At MPOW, we each volunteer for a whole month to clean the office microwave. Being the last day of work for the entire year, I thought it about time I fulfill my promise.

Calumet 415

Interesting photos from the historical photo blog, Calumet 415:

• Map of the area destroyed by the Great Fire, Chicago, c.1871
• The world’s first live “broadcast” via telephone on Michigan Ave, 1896, Chicago.
• The intersection of Clark, Broadway and Diversey, c.1905, Chicago.
• Clark, Diversey and Broadway, 1921, Chicago.
• A shanty town on Northerly Island, c.1930, Chicago.
• Looking south on Michigan Ave from Pearson, 1944, Chicago.
• A derailed ‘L’ car above Lake and Wells, 1974, Chicago.

Also, links to Ultralocal Geography (Chicago).

Esteemed Colleague, Frosty the Snowman

Hanging out with one of my esteemed colleagues at the library.

Big Week Out: Four Days, Four Different Events

• Event #1 (Wed., 12/4/2013): Tech Cocktail Chicago, Frank Gruber interviewing Jason Fried of 37signals.com. My favorite part: where Fried said that the best sites don't consist simply of some huge photo plus parallax. People want services, he said, and oftentimes to deliver those services the site needs to be a little messy. Totally agree. Anyway, as usual, a great representation of the entrepreneurial side of web and digital development in Chicago.
• Event #2 (Thurs. AM, 12/5/2013): UIC Urban Forum. Toni Preckwinkle giving opening talk.
• Event #3 (Thurs & Fri., 12/6/2013-12/7/2013): Chicago Colloquium on Digital Humanities & Computer Science, Thursday Afternoon presentations (there's way more tomorrow).
• Event #4 (Sat. AM, 12/7/2013): DrupalCamp Chicago 2013, Opening Session.

Current Cites for Nov 2013

Current Cites for November 2013 is out! You can find the issue here...

I wrote about an usually sharp article in IFLA Journal from a librarian who obviously was writing from (less than happy) personal experience. The article is called, "Non-librarians As Managers : The Case of State University Libraries in Saudi Arabia".

Never Forget

Current Cites for Sept 2013

 Current Cites for September 2013 is out! You can find the issue here...

Roy has got the latest version of Current Cites up. I wrote about an interesting article that looked at how librarians can appear more "approachable" to patrons by smiling and looking up. It's something I think about every time I'm at the Reference Desk waiting for students to drop by.

The Usual Disruption

File this under the 'Usual Disruption': Media types are dying, just dying, to jump from one technology to the other -- I mean, otherwise what do they have to talk about? In this episode, the usual disrupters are so hell bent on declaring email dead that they don't bother to consider an obvious possibility -- that maybe little Johnny or Suzie don't use their college-supplied email accounts because they're already using their own Gmail or Outlook accounts. Yeah, I know, common sense -- the ultimate disruption:

Technology and the College Generation
Regarded as too slow, e-mail is barely a second thought for college students, who prefer texting. But that sets them up for trouble with their professors.

UPDATE (9/29): P.S. Surveyed the student worker in today at the library. She says she uses email -- Yahoo -- all the time (since 5th grade). So that settles it: NYT article is totally clueless.

West Berlin : Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

 

Old pal, Tony Millionaire, best known as the illustrator of Maakies, adds me to one of his comic strips this month. He portrays me singing 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' -- in German -- at a concert in either Munich or West Berlin at sometime in the mid-Eighties. I can't exactly recall the episode but he follows up (offline) with a description of my attire:

...[Y]ou had a potato sack on your head and shoulders with a hole for your mouth.

You can see the complete comic strip in all its original glory here:
https://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/9df6/maakies.jpg

Saturday Crew at Depaul

Part of the Saturday Crew at DePaul on the first week of the new school Year.

First Day of the New School Year (UIC)

 

First day of the New School Year (Fall 2013) at UIC. Kind of warm this week.

On My Perch Over at Reference

We've been moved up to the 2nd floor while they're remodeling the first floor. The seat is probably no higher than normal but for some reason -- maybe because we're bang up against the main entryway or because the desk is smaller and more like a music stand -- it seems like a perch to me. Just as well. We'll be back downstairs in a couple of weeks.

This Week in Library of Congress Subject Headings : 'Pewter as an Investment'

This Week in Library of Congress Subject Headings: 'Pewter as an Investment'. Who knew?

Draft BBC Mobile Accessibility Standards and Guidelines

Draft BBC Mobile Accessibility Standards and Guidelines:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/posts/Accessibility-Mobile-Apps

Interesting that they worked with a firm from "the States" (USA! USA!). A summary of the guidelines can be found here...

Interesting points include:

• Provide large enough touch areas
• Provide visible changes of state

h/t .net magazine

Telnet First!

Peter Merholz serves up a welcomed reality check amid all the hoopla of 'mobile first':

My concern with "mobile first" is that we'll mistake that for "mobile only" (the way that the Web was seen as the end-all be-all for quite a while) and not appreciate just what our customers are actually doing, nor prepare ourselves for what's next.

I'll be the first to admit, proudly in fact, that 'responsive web design' was clearly the right way to go. We had multiple devices and we needed some coherent way of accommodating them.

But I've never been able to comprehend why this required (at least among some) a second -- and to my mind completely unrelated -- step, namely that of having to start your design at the level of the least capable device (i.e. mobile) especially since 'least capable' doesn't necessarily mean 'least complicated'. You might as well have told people back in the old days, 'design for telnet' -- 'telnet first'!

+1 for RibFest Website

Yeah, I went to the Ribfest and had a great time. Beyond the event itself what impressed me the most was the website. Great professional job! (And responsive to boot.) 

Back in Chicago - I Couldn't Resist

 

Taking the Blue line home from O'Hare I couldn't resist getting off at Western Ave. which put me within a couple of blocks of Honey 1 BBQ. It was a Sunday and they weren't going to be open for long but I had just enough time to order (and partially devour) an extra-large order of rib tips. Mama mia, Chicago has its advantages!

Report on the Drupal4Lib BoF at DrupalCon Portland

Okay, they say this happens every time but maybe 19 people signed up for the event -- and 67 showed up. I'd say it was 'standing room only' except that maybe a dozen people were sitting on the carpet in the central aisle. People were standing alongside all the walls and needless to say there wasn't a free chair in the place.

Even with that number of people, we went from person to person, each telling us his or her name and institution. We had a good mix of academic, public and special libraries. This variety showed up repeatedly in the quality of the discussion.

Nina started things off with a presentation of the new Arapahoe Library District website. We next moved to an open discussion on everything from Drupal's compatibility with repository software such as Islandora to the possibilities of Drupal replacing the ILS entirely. One theme that manifested itself through the course of the discussion was the strong desire to collaborate more on projects. Possible vehicles for this include the Drupal Library Group, the Drupal4Lib ListServ and of course, the Drupal4Lib LITA IG.

Clearly we could have gone another hour but 60 minutes was all we had. People were encouraged to continue the discussions throughout the day and also, at our Drupal4Lib IG Meeting at ALA Chicago on June 30 (10:30a-11:30a).