'No, Herr Policeman, Chicago is nothing like your East German Communist Dictatorship.'

What with all the talk of the 25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, I recalled an episode that happened to me a bit earlier while visiting East Berlin.

The way it worked is you got to spend a day there but had to be back by midnight or they'd make you pay a fine. Normally we'd go there, visit the sites (such as they were), head to a couple of bars to spend the practically worthless East-German marks, and then head back to Checkpoint Charlie.

One night as we were racing back, we got stopped by an East-German policeman or border guard or I don't know what -- on the final street right before Checkpoint Charlie. "Why", I asked the guard.

"Because you crossed the street against the light," he explained. The fine for this trespass was 20 marks (West German of course). Naturally I grumbled as I handed over the ransom money.

"But," he said by way of defense, "we have our laws, you have your laws. It would be the same in Chicago."

I looked at the deserted street I had just crossed and then the huge forbidding Wall stretched left and right with watch-towers, spotlights and men armed with machine guns -- all to keep their own people trapped inside.

"No," I assured the guard, "this is nothing like Chicago."

At the Reference Desk: A Humble Request

People, could you please refrain from sticking pencils in dictionaries!

1st Saturday of the (School) Year

Nice day; lot of traffic.

Current Cites for Aug 2014

Current Cites for August 2014 is out! You can find the issue here...

My pick this month was an article on modeling library instruction as 'performance art' -- from a librarian whose background not surprisingly is in theater. The focus was on instruction sessions but there's no reason why such an approach can't be incorporated, at least to a certain extent, in face-to-face interactions at the Reference Desk.

WebDev with a Bag Over My Head

 Mystery website at MPOW. I inherited the thing. It was put together maybe 6 years ago or more. What system does it run on? Nobody knows -- not even the original developers. On the other hand, many of the pages end in 'aspx'.

Some links on the main navigation end in '#' (i.e. empty hashtag). "#"? You click on that link and you'll go absolutely nowhere. It's the web equivalent of a dead-end. What'd they do? Launch the site without bothering to develop those particular pages?

I guess you could call this the equivalent of walking into a house with a bag over your head. I think I'd prefer an actual bag.

Stormy First Day for Academic Year 2014-2015

Stormy first day for academic year 2014-2015.

Certified 'Library-Lover'

Results from the PewResearch Library User Quiz. Of course, I took the thing while sitting in the library (Depaul) so you could call me biased.

Moon Landing in Eagle River, Wisc. (1969)

The lunar landing in 1969 -- I remember it well. We were kids hanging out at Camp McCormick in Eagle River, Wisc. There in the darkness, under a star-lit sky, sitting on a hill overlooking the pine forests and lakes and streams of northern Wisconsin's 'Land O'Lakes', we listened on our portable radio -- TV not being allowed in summer camp -- as the Apollo 11 astronauts made their landing. When it happened and Armstrong said those famous words, we jumped up and cheered.

My, What Creativity with the English Language!

Suggested alternatives to 'UICNursing' courtesy of YouTube (i.e. Google).

Caption Needs Correcting

Daily Herald article on lowering administrative costs by consolidating suburban libraries. As one local library director explains why voters in Fox River Grove turned down a proposal to consolidate libraries:

"They didn't want to lose control of their local library."

Dueling Visions of our Tablet Future

Casey Johnston:

"Few people try to or want to use tablets like laptops, save for when they feel like they have to justify the cost and get every last inch of mileage out of it."

Wired Gadget Lab Staff:

"I don’t want a laptop. I don’t want a tablet. I want a tablet-shaped laptop-looking thing with a snap-on keyboard and a kickstand and a 3:2 screen and an Intel Core processor and a stylus and it has to run full Windows. Bueno?"

(Discussion precipitated by Microsoft's recent release of the Surface Pro 3.)

Daddy Fronting for the Home Team

Suburbanite Economist (4/30/1958):

"United Film and Recording Studio has been awarded the production of a full length motion picture on the subject of rehabilitation of the men- tally ill, by the State of Illinois. William L. Klein, owner of the Chicago studio expects the awarding of this contract to pave the way to promote Chicago as an able film capital. He says, "Chicago has the manpower and facilities to do a supreme job and does not have to take a back seat as far as New York or Hollywood is concerned." Hear! Hear! Hear! (Suburbanite Economist, 4/30/1958, p20.)

Current Cites for Mar 2014

Current Cites for March 2014 is out! You can find the issue here...

I wrote about an article that looked at the various iterations of the library home page at UNLV down through the ages (i.e. 1996-2012): "Tracking Changes: One Library's Homepage Over Time - Findings from Usability Testing and Reflections on Staffing", Journal of Web Librarianship 8(1)(2014): 23-47.

'Selfie' - At the Reference Desk

Everyone's doing it...

Florida, Bahamas, Saudi Arabia -- Eat your Heart Out!

Last snowfall of the year? One can only hope. Anyway, enjoy it while it lasts, as they say. [Link to larger photo...] 

Link de Jour : What Google Really Thinks About You

Google Analytics recently added a "Demographics and Interests" feature to its set of tools measuring website traffic. They amass this data basically by what kinds of searches you do, your Google+ account, the sites you click on, etc. To see how accurate a picture it has drawn of you, click the following link (updated):

https://myadcenter.google.com/?hl=en&sasb=true

QOTD: Not Your Grandmother's Horse-Drawn Tractor

UX Quote of the Day*:

"The designers of the Phelps farm tractor in 1901 based their interface on a metaphor with the interface for the familiar horse: farmers used reins to control the tractor. The tractor was steered by pulling on the appropriate rein, both reins were loosened to go forward and pulled back to stop, and pulling back harder on the reins caused the tractor to back up."*

The authors go on to say:

"It’s clear in hindsight that this was a dead end, and automobiles have developed their own user interfaces without metaphors based on earlier technologies."

*Don Gentner and Jakob Nielsen. 1996. The Anti-Mac interface. Commun. ACM 39, 8 (August 1996), 70-82. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/232014.232032

Infrastructure on the Skids

"High speed" Internet provider AT&T tells me that my connection speed sucks but instead of trying to fix it, they're throwing in the towel and lowering my monthly rate.

"About Your AT&T High Speed Internet Service - We regularly test the speed of your AT&T High Speed Internet service to ensure you have the best Internet speeds possible. Recently we sent a letter to let you know that our testing has found that your modem speed is slower than the speed shown in the AT&T High Speed Internet Terms of Service. We're moving you to a lower-priced plan more in line with your current speed, although we cannot guarantee specific speeds."

We Want 'Addison the Cub'!

So the dude's name is 'Clark'? Why that? Why not 'Addison'? This is so unfair! Outrageous! -- A message from the East-West Over North-South Local Justice Committee. (more here) 

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/comics/maakies-11758616/

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).

Library BoF at DrupalCon Portland?

I know a couple of library people are going to DrupalCon in Portland in a week or two.

Looks to me like a great opportunity to get together and talk shop. So how about if we organize a Drupal4Lib BoF -- maybe on the Wednesday (5/22) sometime mid-day or in the early afternoon?

Topics could be open or suggested ahead of time. People could present projects they're working on, ask whatever questions they want. It'd be a great time!

If you've got a suggestion, either email me back or leave a comment here.

Is this a good general time to meet? Do you have a topic you'd want to suggest?

Any feedback would be appreciated! And hope to see you in Portland!

(UPDATE1): I set up a poll at the Drupal Library Group asking people what timeslot they prefer:

Poll: Drupal4Lib BoF - 10:45a-12p or 3:15p-4:30p? http://groups.drupal.org/node/297483

(UPDATE2): Okay, '10:45a-12p' wins. Here's a link to the event on the Drupal Library Group:

Library BoF at DrupalCon Portland (5/22, 10:45a-12p) http://groups.drupal.org/node/297878

Library Related Events at DrupalCon Portland

From a short cursory look at some of the proposed sessions, in no particular order:

• The Library of the Future - Solr Search and Responsive Design for Multnomah County Library
• Re-imagining libraries on the web: a case study of the Stanford University Libraries website redesign
• Migrating the Library [GWU]

I may have missed something so feel free to add.

Design Fail

I swear if I get another one of these as a design proposal for the main page of a website, I'm going to sue Microsoft for crimes against usability. (P.S. Why Microsoft? Hint...)

Mom at Reference

Mom at the Reference Desk dealing with an unruly patron.

Presentation at UIC IT Professionals Forum: Mapping with Drupal

Slides from the presentation I gave today (larger version here). A couple people came up afterwards and said it had inspired them to go off and try it themselves.

Mapping with Drupal from leoklein

Worst People In The World : Edwin Mellen Press

So because someone on the blog The Scholarly Kitchen writes a post or two criticizing publisher Edwin Mellen Press (EMP), EMP sends their lawyer after the blog with the equivalent of a 'cease-and-desist' letter -- not just to the blog but to a person who left a comment on one of the offending posts. Huh?

I know diddly-squat about Edwin Mellen Press and even less about the quality of their work but this way of reacting to criticism does nothing but lend credibility to the arguments of their detractors.

The two offending posts have since been removed but both are still available thanks to online archival services (h/t Gary Price):

• When Sellers and Buyers Disagree — Edwin Mellen Press vs. a Critical Librarian (2/15/2013)
• One Down, One to Go: Edwin Mellen Press Blinks One Eye (3/5/2013)

On the Nature of Train Wrecks

Matt Enis from Library Journal writes about the 'Fail4Lib pre-conference workshop' at this year's Code4Lib Conference where people talked about failed or problematic projects and the lessons they learned.

As I wrote in comments to the piece, I find the greatest cause of failed projects to be those based on received wisdom. Let’s call it, the ‘Wrong Bandwagon Effect’. Some mis-identified trend is taken up and you can’t argue against it because “everyone knows” (i.e. received wisdom) that it's the way of the future. Everyone knows! Only "everyone" never seems to include the end-user. But that doesn't matter since before you know it, yet another mis-identified trend pops up and nothing says ‘cutting edge’ like jumping from one of these trends to the other. (Classic example.)

This isn’t an argument against innovation. Rather it’s an argument against not doing one’s homework, of coasting along without anyone ever looking back and asking, what’s the guru's record so far?

UPDATE (3/28/2013): Here's an even better, not to mention more contemporary example: link ...