It's not the People that are Stupid, It's the System!

Okay, I've got way too many things on my plate at the moment to go through this report, "Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL) Project" but Sarah Kessler in a write-up for Mashable sums it up thusly:

"Students in a two-year ethnographic study referred to Google more than any database when discussing their research habits. But ironically, say the study’s authors, they weren’t very good at using it."

Now, as a librarian and lifelong user of Google, I know you can limit it (kind of) by date or content type (eg book, article, image) plus a thousand other fancy things using a minus sign ('-') or quotes, etc. but should requiring knowing these things always -- or ideally -- be the ticket of entry? Doesn't sound very Google-ly to me.

Kessler in the Mashable write-up quotes one student:

"I know there are books but I don’t really know how to find them. Really the only thing I know how to do is go to Google and type in what I’m looking for."

My reaction was, I dunno. Sounds more to me like 'system fail' rather than 'people fail'. Ideally all that user should have to do is go to Google and type in what he or she is looking for. That at least is what I'd consider the 'Holy Grail'.

1st Day - UIC Fall 2011

Yippie! The students are back!

NY Times ArtsBeat Blog: Stew in Africa: A Long Time Coming

"Pathetic Eurocentric Negro!" That's how Stew, an old pal of mine from my Berlin days begins an account of his first trip ever to Africa. He's working as one of the creative advisers for a program in Kenya that coaches upcoming African theater people. He's also agreed to share his experiences by posting regularly on the New York Times' ArtsBeat Blog. Stew was the lead guitarist of a good-time band we had in Berlin called 'The Wonderful Guise'. Tony Millionaire was also a member of the group. Anyway, it's good to see Stew maintaining the spirit of those free-for-all wild times in passages like this:

The workshop I'm giving on Manda will probably consist of a song by song analysis of the Rolling Stones 1966 release "Between the Buttons" which I'll compare and contrast with "King Lear," even though I've never read "King Lear" and I'm almost certain absolutely no connection between the two works actually exists. But Sundance can handle this sort of thing.

You can read the whole post here...

Current Cites for July 2011

 

Current Cites for July 2011 is out! You can find the issue here...

MetaFilter - Happy 12th Anniversary!

MetaFilter was the original community blog. It's where everyone went to discuss everything from web design to politics. Last week it celebrated its 12th Anniversary.

The site was originally put together by Matt Haughey and frequented by techies. There was a lot of discussion in the early days about web design and development. Adherents of Jacob Nielsen and web designers would trade barbs particularly over the use of Flash (hence the 'Flash Wars'). This was a dispute not settled until the arrival of more reasonable adherents of usability like Jared Spool who knew how to speak to designers and thus had a far more positive impact.

Later on as membership grew, topics of more general interest such as news and politics became more prominent. MetaFilter was where we went to discuss the fall-out from the Bush-Gore election results in 2000 as well as the aftermath following 9/11.

Anyway, the local alternative weekly where Matt Haughey lives in Portland has run an interesting article on him called, "The Blogfather". Also, MetaFilter has its own page of user-submitted reminiscenes called, "MetaFilter Memories".

Give Me a Chicago Butt - Or No Butt at All!

You know, when we look up the dress of a 26-foot statue in the middle of downtown, we have every right to expect the butt we see there to scream, 'Chicago' from cheek to cheek.

So if they ever do this again, I suggest they use Mrs. O'Leary maybe or Oprah Winfrey -- clad of course in nothing but a bra and girdle. That way they'll have someone with connections to Chicago (finally) while still appealing to boys in 5th grade.

When Design Gurus Clash: Edward Tufte vs. Don Norman

I was going through an interesting article on (quantitative) design guru Edward Tufte when I came across this interesting spat between him and (simplicity) design guru, Don Norman that -- despite a cheap shot by Tufte -- seems to wonderfully address polar opposites:

"Some designers have questioned whether Tufte's reverence for elegance and accuracy can verge on dogmatism, with too little consideration of context or audience. "The world is not filled with professional statisticians," said Donald Norman, the codirector of the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University and the author of The Design of Everyday Things. "Many of us would like a quick glance just to get a good idea of something. If a graph is made easier to understand by such irrelevancies as a pile of oil cans or cars, then I say all the better." (Tufte deflects this criticism by pointing out that Norman has been a paid consultant to Microsoft; Norman says his consulting work has nothing to do with his own thinking and writing.) "

'Er Kommt' - Or My Short Stint as a False Prophet

Of the many encounters I had in Berlin recently, one of the more interesting was with a woman who I had never met before. It was at the Bauhof Anniversary Party and she came up and gave me a photo which she had taken over twenty years earlier.

The photo was of a poster of me with the words, 'Er Kommt' (i.e. 'He's coming'). She had seen the poster plastered all over the neighborhood and like a few others at the time, had interpreted it as the harbinger of some significant event.

The truth was far more mundane. I had spent much of the year (1987) in New York and when Tony Millionaire heard I was coming back, he grabbed a photo of me from my expired passport, enlarged it and proceeded to paste photocopies of it all over Kreuzberg. So I guess you could say it was a significant event -- but more along the lines of Tony Millionaire finally getting his American drinking buddy back. I hope she wasn't disappointed.

Berlin SO36

Popular tourist destination. 

Hommage à Madame - 21 Rue Soufflot, Paris

This is where it all started -- as anyone who took the year abroad program organized by UIC's French Dept. under the directorship of the incredible Prof. June Moracevich ('Madame') will tell you. Most left after the first year. I stayed for ten.

Blast from the Past (1985): Tech-savvy Educators Choose ... LaserDisc!

 

"Rapidly changing technology confronts an educator with difficult choices in selecting new equipment. Will today's state-of-the-art equipment be tomorrow's Edsel? Obviously, educators must be careful in choosing a particular technology, making certain that it will play an important functional role in the educational system. The Laser Videodisc system is such a technology."*
________

*Schwartz, Ed. "The Educator's Handbook to Interactive Videodisc" (1985), p1.

Frankie Z's RIP

Wow, Frankie we hardly knew ya. Thanks to all the staff for so many years of good times. This was a place where you could just go and relax. It'll always be a favorite. 

The End of Apple is Upon Us

Here's a prediction: in ten years Apple as a computer company will cease to exist. I mean, when the 'top feature' of their system upgrade, the very first thing they show you, is nothing but a front-end to their online commercial "App Store" and when to erase all doubt as to your role in this transaction, they promote this as offering "endless possibilities for browsing and purchasing apps" -- this is hardly a sign of innovation*.

Instead what we have is a company completely self-absorbed with their own marketing narrative -- a company at a competitive disadvantage to any rival not subscribing to the notion that the primary purpose of a computer is to drive traffic to their online software store. Their days are numbered.

____

* At least not the company that gave us Migration Assistant and Time Machine.

Rumors of RSS's Demise are Greatly Exaggerated

I have a confession to make: I'm becoming somewhat concerned by the direction that people perceive such things as social networking and mobile computing to be heading. This perception seems to lack any perspective as to how we got to where we are and how the lessons of the past are likely to inform developments in the future. Instead what we're treated to are assumptions about the characteristics of technologies that we all agree are still in their relative infancy.

I think I'll write more about this in a later post (or possible article) but one example is the rather hasty postmortem people are ascribing to RSS. Scott Karp touches on this in a post called "How to Fix RSS Redux".

Now it's probably true that fewer people use RSS feed readers and hence fewer people directly access RSS feeds, but that's just one use of RSS. Equally as important at least to my mind is syndication. I mean, who cares how many social networks there are -- my first question is always, how can I hook my feed into them? Since that's currently performed through RSS, it's hard to imagine it going out of style anytime soon.

I guess the important point is that while many now depend on Facebook or Twitter for things they used to get through RSS feed readers, this doesn't completely nullify the other uses that RSS may have. People claiming otherwise may simply be unaware of these alternative uses.

Party in Berlin

Don't want to miss this:

"Party in Berlin: Squatters' Ball. Dresscode: Evening Attire."

IM Widgets More Effective Than Crummy Old Links for Library Chat Reference

First, I like this study of Chat Reference at S.I.U.-C. because it stresses the need to take its results in context. Maybe you're getting more questions about holdings because you've now got your IM widget on all the database pages listing articles your users are looking for, etc. In any case, the fact that they now have their IM Widget on those pages instead of a simple link seems to have significantly increased virtual traffic:

"The number of SVR ['Synchronous virtual reference' -- i.e. IM] questions increased by another 1,000 in the year when the library embedded a widget into the SFX link resolver menu and EBSCOhost databases. Even though the Ask A Librarian link had been included in the SFX menu and the EBSCOhost banner for many years, an increase was recorded only after the widget was embedded. The increase in SVR questions supports the notion that placement of a widget can influence use."

Julie Arendt, Stephanie J. Graves, (2011) "Virtual question changes: reference in evolving environments", Reference Services Review, Vol. 39 Iss: 2, pp.187 - 205. 

'Mobile First' Doesn't Mean 'Mobile Everything'

 

I was reading about a presentation by Ethan Marcotte on re-designing the web-site for the Boston Globe so of course I headed over to have a look.

The site was okay as things go but a little heavy on the list side together with a spartan application of formatting and layout. In other words, it was about as plain as you can get.

Then I went back to the account of the presentation and read about its "mobile first approach to design":

Mobile First

Why Mobile first: traffic has exploded, new capabilities, and narrow screens force us to focus. In many cases our mobile experiences are focused while our desktop experiences are cluttered. Going mobile first pushes focus everywhere.

While I'm all for designing for multiple devices and while I use a mobile device myself practically the entire day, if that's what you build your site around, you're more than likely to end up with something that looks like it was designed for, well, mobile devices.

You're then liable to short-change yourself on the advantages that layout and formatting can (and should) bring to the larger screen -- characteristics that help organize content and make it more appealing. These things need to be part of the process from the ground up. And when they aren't, it shows.

For a couple of good examples, have a look at the recently redesigned Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times.

UPDATE: Here's my comment to their staff:

Nice but kind of plain.

Just because you have to design for a mobile device that fits in my pocket doesn't mean you have to strip out all the visual design elements that might make your interface more appealing when I'm looking at it with my 27" monitor.

The goal ought not to be lowest common denominator but best solution for each platform.

UPDATE (10/3/2011): Similar sentiments expressed by Jonathan Longnecker at .Net Magazine

Current Cites for April 2011

Current Cites for April 2011 is out!  You can find the issue here...

End of World Especially Inconvenient This Year

 

What kind of scheduling is this? The end of the world is suppose to happen this year on May 21, 2011? Huh? How inconvenient! Not only is this two days before I'm supposed to celebrate my birthday (gift-givers, please adjust your calendars) but it's two days before Lady Gaga is scheduled to release her new album as well as two days before Lykke Li is supposed to appear at the Smart Bar in Chicago. I'm sorry but if they really want to end the world, they're just going to have to schedule it on a more realistic date.

Generation Gap

 So a group of high school students came into the library, one with a video camera. They asked me a couple of questions, said 'thank you', and then extended their hands which I naturally shook -- until one said they usually do 'fist bumps'.

I'm sorry, I'm just so out of it.

We Were All Librarians and All Human Beings

From an article written in 1944 about the Good Old Days of librarians in Chicago in the 1890s:

William Warner Bishop (1944): "As I look back on these formative years I am struck most of all by the sense of fellowship and solidarity among librarians. It was a new profession in our American conception of its possibilities; there was no little of the "missionary" spirit among its members, and there was much kindly feeling and much sharing of information and experience. A newcomer was made to feel at home. One instinctively felt he could rely on and trust his colleagues. I had a beautiful illustration of these solidarity ten years later, during my first summer at the Library of Congress. One of our messenger boys went swimming in the Potomac and was unfortunately drowned. His people came from a village near Milwaukee. They were too poor to come on to Washington, and the body was sent to Milwaukee to be transferred to their home. I telegraphed to Agnes Van Valkenburgh in the Milwaukee Public Library without any hesitation, and that great-hearted woman not only met the train bearing the corpse but went, provided with flowers, to the small town and to the funeral. It was a perfectly natural action on her part and on mine. We were all librarians and all human beings in distress at the sudden death of a very minor member of our calling. The incident is typical, and I like to recall it. We all felt not only pride in our work but a sense of responsibility toward our fellow librarians. It is a great thing to have been a member of such a profession."

Current Cites for March 2011

 

Current Cites for March 2011 is out! You can find the issue here...

I wrote about two articles, first about a Library 2.0 postmortem written by Walt Crawford, and second, about an excellent study of library databases evaluated for accessibility which concluded, to universal embarrassment, "no database included in the study was rated as largely accessible".

Library Buzzwords We Can Do Without

Roy has a list of library buzzwords that have outlived their usefulness. My question is, why focus on a bunch of golden oldies when there's such a wealth of current -- I'm almost tempted to say, 'next-gen' -- buzzwords to choose from.

A partial list would include:

• Digital Native
• Discovery Tools
• Library as Conversation
• Emerging Technologies
• Whatever 'cataloging' is called this year

Thought of the Day on Web Design

It's really, really hard to make something really, really easy.

Just Freeze Me

The Pew Research Center reports on the 'app gap':

"...[W]hile almost half of adults get local news on mobile devices, just 1 in 10 use apps to do so. Call it the 'app gap'."

Please just put me in cold storage for the next 5 years. I don't know how otherwise I'm going to endure the incessant call to build to particular brands (iPhone! iPhone! iPhone!) rather than to the platform in general. Hopefully by the time I'm revived, they'll have come up with a credible standard. I mean, that's how it usually works.

Dries Speaking at DrupalCon

Dries Buytaert speaking on the exhibit floor at DrupalCon Chicago. Topic: "The Drupal Revolution - Buckle up, we're just getting started!" 

Library BoF at DrupalCon Chicago

We were able to squeeze in more than 50 librarians into the Library BoF. Topics of discussion included migrating to Drupal from other systems, integration with ILSs, creation of research guides, etc.

I put together a complete write-up for Library Hi Tech who'll be publishing it at some point. 

Library BoF on Tues. 1:30p-3p (3/8), Location TBA

 

Okay (in the words of WNYC's Brian Lehrer) after an Informal, Unofficial, Thoroughly Unscientific Availability Poll, it seems like most people can make it to a Library BoF on Tuesday 1:30p-3:00p (3/8).

That takes care of time.

No Points of Distribution

On the way home, I made a last sweep through our local Borders. I went through the bookshelves and magazine racks and wondered what exactly will be the extent of our access to print media when none of this is around any more. Is the publishing industry (no matter how vibrant or moribund) about to run out of outlets? 

The Scourge of Internet Filters in Libraries

The Illinois Library Association has just sent out an 'Action Alert' with the title, "Contact your representative to oppose filtering legislation".

Although I agree with all the 'talking points' it suggests, this one really strikes a nerve:

Early Voting with Mommy - Chicago Mayoral Election 2011

 

Mommy and Leo outside of the Early Voting Polling Place (CPL Lincoln Park) with Voting Receipts.

Bad Investment of the Day

You'd think these people had better things to spend their money on:

Facebook and Google size up takeover of Twitter: report

(Reuters) - Google Inc and Facebook Inc, plus others, have held low level takeover talks with Twitter that give the Internet sensation a value as high as $10 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Sites like Twitter come in and out of fashion all the time. $10 billion bucks? Can you say, 'MySpace'?

Techno-Infatuation Disorder (TID)

So let's say the iPad Fairy™ comes down and gives everyone at your school a free iPad. Miracle, right?

Well, apparently not at Stanford's School of Medicine. As an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education explains:

But when Stanford's School of Medicine lent iPads to all new students last August, a curious thing happened: Many didn't like using them in class.... In most classes, half the students had stopped using their iPads only a few weeks into the term.

How's this possible? Didn't they hear their own Assoc. Dean Charles Prober describe them as "extremely tech-savvy" in a press release from the School earlier in the year:

Because the population of new students is extremely tech-savvy, it makes sense to teach them through the use of the electronic devices they're familiar with, Prober said, adding, "We can either say, 'That's silly. They have to learn the old-fashioned way.' Or we embrace where they are."

Yup, 'embrace where they are'! That's the spirit!

Only they didn't. And you're entitled to ask where exactly 'they' -- in this case the extremely tech-savvy incoming class -- where exactly 'they' are.

Well, wouldn't you know, Stanford provides us with an answer! Every year the University conducts a survey of incoming students as to their computer use and in 2009, for example, they found that "90% have a Windows or Mac laptop".

So basically an overwhelming majority of students already have a computing device. It's called a laptop.

Of course the notion that a laptop might be more useful to students than an iPad, even in this day and age, never seems to dawn on the administrators. Instead they seem to be afflicted with a serious case of 'techno-infatuation disorder' or 'TID' for short. This is where the desire to be seen buying the latest tech gizmo overrides any consideration of whether the intended audience might actually want to use it.

Now if the administrators at Stanford's Medical School truly believed their students were 'extremely tech savvy', they might have left the decision of what to bring into the classroom up to the students themselves. But again, we're talking techno-infatuation disorder here and considerations such as what our users might actually want fade in comparison to what we might want for them.

The New Delicious

I'd say we have a problem here.

Snow Storm Aftermath: DePaul University

 Some shots on the way to work today.

Sign post in snow saying 'Caution: Falling Mice'

Snow sprinkled statues just outside of the DePaul Library.

Devastating News from Amazon

Wonderful! Look what Amazon's recommending to me. Not only do they think I'm a vegan but an overweight vegan at that. I'm devastated.

'Mobile First' Doesn't Mean 'Mobile Everything'

I was reading about a presentation by Ethan Marcotte on re-designing the web-site for the Boston Globe so of course I headed over to have a look.

Mommy, They're Speaking in Code Language Again!

 Boy this is a classic: I email one of the IT people at MPOW asking how I can get access to the directory '/usr/local/' on one of the local servers here and he replies:

"You likely need to use: 'sudo -s' to access a root user shell first."

No, really? I'm thinking of returning the compliment and replying to him in Hoch Deutsch.

I'm attending DrupalCon Chicago, March 7-10, 2011

Hey, just two more days (thru 1/14) to save $50 bucks on registering for DrupalCon Chicago (3/7-3/11) -- the greatest event ever! Also, don't forget to throw in an extra twenty bucks for the Opening Night Party (3/8, 7p-10p) at the Field Museum!

Depressing Historical Factoid of the Day

From Magill's Medical Guide:

"Meanwhile, Spanish physician Michael Servetus published a treatise in 1553 describing how circulation of blood to the lungs and back (often called the lesser circulation) might occur. Unfortunately, because he also included religious views, all copies of his writings that could be found were destroyed, and he was burned at the stake. Eventually, in 1694, a copy of his book was found; his circulation theory matched later findings." [6th ed., v. 1, p.369]

Apple More Evil with Each Passing Day: App Store Edition

So Apple thinks it's okay to download and install commercial links to itself -- not just anywhere but on the taskbar no less, all under the guise of 'Software Updates'. If MS had done this back in the day, the Justice Department would've already been after their sorry a*ses by now. 

Redesign of UIC Admissions & Records Website

As if I didn't have enough to do over the holidays (see below), I redesigned the website template for UIC's Office of Admissions & Records.

Basically what I did was to bring the thing into compliance with the University's new top-level website which they changed at the beginning of the school year.

The holidays are always a great time to do something like this (since basically no one's looking) so you can believe I worked my butt off to get this done on time. 

Top 10 Things You Probably Shouldn't Attempt to Do All at Once Especially at This Time of Year

1. Move in the Winter.
2. Move in the Winter -- with you doing much of the work yourself along with your trusty hand-truck.
3. Redesign the website at work while everyone's off on vacation -- and you ought to be schlepping boxes.
4. Embark on a 2nd ambitious web project before the first one is complete (see above).
5. Install that brand new copy of Adobe's 'Master Collection' (CS5) even though you know you could probably do without it for the next week or two.
6. Assess your hardware and software needs for the coming year and try to order everything before the end of this year.
7. Warning! Warning! Your health insurance plan is no longer any good since (1) your primary care physician (PCP) is retiring and besides (2) the medical group he worked for (Rush Medical) is no longer available through your crummy plan (BCBS IL HMO). Either you pick a new plan before the deadline or you'll automatically be enrolled in...
8. Is there a smart phone out there that's caught your eye? Well, if not, you'd better start looking since your 2 year contract with AT&T is about to end and if you don't get a new phone now, AT&T will make you wish you had.
9. Here's an idea: Why not just sit on your butt and try to think of 10 things you should be doing? That way, you'll avoid doing anything at all!
10. And finally, just say 'What the hell', throw a party and invite everyone you know.

Goodbye Cruel World

I think I’m going to jump off a cliff -- the lords of platitude have won: http://tinyurl.com/3yndb62

In a Perfect World (Adobe Acrobat Ed.)

So I'm reading about 'Reembedding Fonts in a PDF':

"In a perfect world, all parties which contribute to a regulatory filing would properly embed fonts. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world . . . there are times when you may need to embed fonts as a post process."

First Snow

Hey, San Diego and Tampa: Eat your hearts out! (Corner of Fullerton & Kenmore, just outside of DePaul's Richardson Library).

Berlin, Oct. 3, 1990

 

I remember the ceremony out in front of the Reichstag very well. The flag was raised and they played 'Deutschland, Deutschland'. It was the culmination of events that had started a year earlier with the opening of the Berlin Wall (11/9/1989) and the upheaval all over Eastern Europe.

This date has always had personal significance for me. I had been in Europe by that time for 10 years (Paris, Rome, Berlin). The reunification of Germany represented a new beginning. I had known the old way: the two Berlins, the Wall, the crazy lovable nut-house ('Bonnie's Ranch') on one side and the police state on the other.

That was coming to an end -- and thank God it was -- but the new beginning prompted me to think about what I was doing and where I wanted to go.

I got into an airplane and flew back to the United States the next day.

Citizen Action/IL Annual Dinner

The good people at Citizen Action/IL had their Annual Dinner at the Chicago Hilton yesterday. Congressman Phil Hare received the Lerner-Egan Award. On the dais, from left to right: IL. Senate President John Cullerton, CFL President Jorge Ramirez, Citizen Action-IL Co-Director Lynda DeLaforgue, IL Governor Pat Quinn, Congressman Phil Hare, Citizen Action-IL Co-Director William McNary and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (partially hidden).

Dem Day at the Illinois State Fair

Photos from the County Chair Breakfast and then the Rally at the State Fair later on.

Humanities -- the Salvation of Technology?

Being an English major, it's nice to read reaffirmations such as this one by Daniel Paul O'Donnell in The Edmonton Journal, called 'Humanities, Not Science, Key to New Web Frontier':

"Engineers and computer scientists are not the only ones who have played important roles in building our new digital economy; students of the humanities and social sciences have played an equally significant role."

It reminds me of the time when two Business librarians asked me what it takes to become a programmer and I replied, a knowledge of English poetry.

That said, I've never been a fan of 'all one way or all the other'. I've seen too many ambitious initiatives go sour because the people implementing them simply lacked the technical chops to figure out whether they were headed in the right direction or whether the product just recommended by their vendors was worth its high price.

So although I still think a knowledge of English poetry is perfect preparation for programming there still is the part about learning the programming -- or the systems development or whatever technical aspect is required. Hearing that you don't need one or the other is probably a sign that you should go elsewhere for advice.

Taking Spring Pix at UIC

It's near the end of classes -- in fact, we're in finals week -- and I always like to go around campus taking pictures of students -- which I can then use for the UIC OAR website. Here I am on the West Side in the Medical District -- looking for someone, anyone, in scrubs or a white jacket.

Is Steve Jobs a Role Model for Librarians?

I'm hijacking the title of an editorial in the latest issue of Journal of Academic Librarianship because I believe it illustrates a problem rather than a solution to our approach as librarians to technology.

In the piece, the author describes two approaches to meeting user needs:

...[To] wait for someone to tell you what they want (which assumes they know their needs and the solution possibilities clearly) or to know your customer and the solution possibilities well enough to provide a useful solution that would likely never have occurred to them.

So which, according to the author, should we pick? Why the latter, of course, which the author calls "opportunity-driven" and characteristic of Steve Jobs:

As trained information specialists who are also dealing daily, upfront and personal, with the changing information environment, I believe we are particularly well positioned to develop the insights and perspectives that allow us to see opportunities and possibilities that are not as clear or as obvious to our patrons.

The obvious, almost classic problem with this approach is that it moves the focus from our users to ourselves and while that might make for applause lines at library confabs where we're basically talking to ourselves, it risks ending up with solutions more suited (surprise, surprise) to our own needs rather than to those of our poor 'benighted' users.

The fact is, the library doesn't exist in a vacuum. Sure, we're in the information business but so are a lot of others. When our users come to us, they don't want a "19th-century library" as the author jokes. They want everything online and easy to find -- just like they've come to expect on every other site that seeks to attract their business.

To do this, we don't have to reinvent the experience. We don't need Steve Jobs even if we could afford him. All we need is to do our homework, to keep the focus always on our users, seeing what they prefer and how they prefer to work, melding our own wares to their requirements. Our users have already told us what they want. It's in the usage statistics of the most popular websites. Now all we need are librarians smart enough and sharp enough to listen to what they're saying.

Oy, What a Day

• 8:30a UIC Digital Accessibility Expo (UIC Forum)
• 10:45a Prospective student tour (UIC SCE) - take pictures
• 12:00p Lunch and see 2nd Keynote at UIC DAE (UIC Forum)
• 2:00p Visit the folks at Partnership READ about video
• 3:00p Back at the OAR Office to check pictures of tour
• 5:30p Reference at DePaul
• 9:00p You can go home now...

Eric Meyer on What Makes Web Designers Special

Do people designing for the web need any special skills beyond a knowledge of Photoshop? The question comes up every once and a while. Here's what CSS Guru Eric Meyer has to say:

Designers need to know mark-up. They need to know HTML5. They need to be able to write CSS and understand web layout. And they need to have at least a decent grasp of what JavaScript does. I don't necessarily insist that everyone who ever touches the web be able to write their own web app by hand, but designers should understand how JavaScript works.

There are a lot of people who call themselves web designers who are really just designers who put their designs on the web. And there's nothing wrong with being just a designer. But they're not necessarily web designers. They're visual designers. There's a difference.

Springtime at UIC

It's that precious moment in Chicago when the trees start to bloom.

Net Neutrality Is Internet Freedom

What Fred said...

Place I Was Born in Now Up for Sale -- $2.6 Mil (Marked Down from $3.1)

Daddy had good tastes. The apartment at 155 W. Burton Pl. was his 'bachelor pad', designed by friend Sol Kogen, where he lived in the Fifties. At the time, he was owner of United Film & Recording Studio on Erie & St. Clair and producer/announcer of the German-language radio show, The Germania Broadcast.

I remember seeing a short film of the place. It was a duplex with my mother and grandmother waving from the 2nd floor. That's about all I remember -- by the time I was two we had already moved further north to Barry Ave. near Pine Grove. Note on the Kogens: One of the Kogen brothers was our first pediatrician. Another was our dentist.

[h/t mommy]

Happy 13th Birthday, WebDesign-L

"Happy 13th Birthday, WebDesign-L" -- that's how "List Mom" Steven Champeon titled his post reminding us that the hallowed Listserv for web designers and web developers that originally started way back in 1997 is now celebrating its 13th Birthday.

As he remarks, "the Web was smaller and the field of Web design smaller still". Anyone with even a passing interest in web development was a member of that list. That's where the original arguments about design, usability, web techniques and web standards were waged. Our skills and knowledge have progressed infinitely since then but part of the learning process was helped immeasurably by the community created on that ListServ. The good news is, that it's still going strong today.

The Joys of Content Management - In the Business of Dramatic Improvement

The best definition of a trade or skill that I can think of is being able, through your 'expertise', to make a significant improvement either in people's lives or in how they get things done. This applies to many things; it even applies to Content Management.

I remember the website I did for a relatively large non-profit organization. The original site consisted of nothing but a drab collection of web links and PDF files. It didn't take much work to automate the site and in that way to fundamentally change how people in that organization approached online content -- to the extent that the energy and dynamism of their activities "on the ground" finally were reflected in their web presence as well.

I was reminded of this again today at UIC. A number of people from Classroom Scheduling were looking at an application I had put together for students to find what room their final exam would be in (see page here). Since it's getting close to the end of the Semester, something like this might be kind of handy.

The demo went well. I had promised that the application would be easy as hell to maintain and it was. But what really impressed them were the feeds. These were formatted not as RSS files but as MS Word and Excel files (thank you, Views Bonus Pack module). This meant that every time they had an edit, they no longer had to distribute or print out for the entire University a completely new Word or Excel file. They could just point to the feed which like all feeds is updated on-the-fly. This they really liked!

Anyway, the time it had taken me to put this feature together wasn't much. In fact, the whole project didn't take me more than a day or two. So what's most gratifying then is the positive effect it produced in others -- almost sinfully out of proportion to the amount of effort I put into it. And that's a good thing!