Current Cites for September 2008

 

Current Cites for July 2020 is out! You can find the issue here...

Banned Books Week

In observance, I guess you could say, of ALA's Banned Books Week, NPR did a segment on how The Grapes of Wrath was banned at the end of the 30's.

It was good but I really wish they had focused on more recent titles. Going over the Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2007 might have been more relevant. At least it would have helped people understand what librarians and advocates of free speech are dealing with in this day and age.

UPDATE: WBEZ did something slightly more along the lines of what I was thinking with yesterday's segment, 'Celebrating Some of the Best Banned Books'.

2008 ILA Annual Conference

The Annual Conference of the Illinois Library Association is in Chicago this year.

It runs the whole week and is located at Navy Pier. Here's a shot of the entrance to the exhibits.

More Divine Intervention for the Chicago Cubs

As seen on the Blue Line this morning. The South Siders might have difficulties with this.

Drupal Camp Chicago Fri.-Sat. (10/24-10/25)

Kyle and Matthew along with a few others from the CDMUG are putting together a Drupal Camp Chicago.

It's a two-day event running from Friday (10/24) to Saturday (10/25). Location is the UIC Innovation Center at 1240 W. Harrison in Chicago.

Website for the event is http://drupalcampchicago.org/. It's only a month away but they're still taking suggestions for sessions at this link:

I'll be doing a Library BoF tentatively scheduled for early Friday afternoon. The idea is:

• Showcase library-related Drupal projects in the Chicagoland area.
• Talk about future plans and aspirations, field questions and compare experiences.

Mark your calendars today!

OneWebDay 2008

OneWebDay is Monday. Here's a link to the spiffy event site:  http://www.onewebday.org/

The idea is to celebrate the benefits we derive from the Web. The hope is the more we appreciate it, the more we'll be protective of it. You can read more on the OneWebDay's About Page...

Last year I did a video of UIC students talking about how they use the web. This year I've got a ton of commitments so I'll just have to replay last year's effort. See below.

PT Reference Gig at DePaul

Today was my first day doing reference at DePaul University Library. I grabbed a couple of volumes of the DLB and a volume of the NUC (Pre 1956) and I was in 7th Heaven. It's only a couple hours a week but I love it!

PLAspace.org - Official Launch

Okay, today was the official launch of the new community site that I've been working on for the Public Library Association: PLAspace.org

The announcement reads:

"Today marks another milestone in the rollout of PLAspace. We officially open the doors to new CoPs and new participants.

We created PLAspace to give Public Library Association members a place where they could share ideas and work together on common interests. Today, the first official day for the site, we already have several dozen members and a half-dozen CoPs."

Old Projects Never Die : Red Scare (1918-1921)

"Red Scare (1918-1921)" was a project I did for extra credit while finishing up my MLS at Queens College (CUNY). It must have been around 1997.

The online exhibit consisted of political cartoons with some photos from the period 1918-1921. There were over a hundred images illustrating the hysteria of the time -- most scanned from hard-bound copies of the Literary Digest, then conveniently housed in the stacks of NYU Bobst Library. The exhibit is hosted by Newman Library, Baruch College (CUNY) where I went after NYU.

Anyway, every once and a while, I get a request for permission to use one or two of the images. There was a lot of interest in them around the time of 9/11 but even afterwards, the requests still come in.

I usually explain that the copyright has long run out on the images and that they're free for the downloading. The latest request was from one of the College Prep Testing Services. They want to use one or two of the images for their section on U.S. History.

I guess, I'll have to upgrade the project at some point. Ten years is a long time for content like this on the Web.

Back to School at UIC

Today was the first day of classes at UIC. It was a nice summer but I'm happy to see the students back.

They had people at all the entrances giving out information. You can just make out the "UIC Orientation" table in the distance.

Amherst College Library Launches New Site

Tracy Sutherland gave us a sneak peek of the new site, then under development, at the Drupal4Lib BoF at ALA Anaheim in June.

Now it's been launched for the whole world to see:
https://www.amherst.edu/library

Nice job and Congrads to all!

PLAspace.org - Soft Launch

We're doing a 'soft-launch' of PLAspace.org -- the community website that I've been working on together with some very nice people from the Public Library Association as well as a number of volunteers.

It's open to the public but it won't be officially announced till sometime in September. Anyway, have a look:

http://www.PLAspace.org

The Parboiled Rice Has Come! The Parboiled Rice Has Come!

 

Yay, the Parboiled Rice has come!  For 10 years, I lived in New York City and for 10 years I ate Parboiled Rice from the Associated Supermarket either on 14th St. or 23rd St.

So what do I do when I start running out of the cherished grains? Why I send for 10 pounds more of course -- via Priority Mail.

Here's the latest shipment.

eBook Readers Suck as eBook Readers

First people, please don't mention the Kindle and the future-of-print in the same breath. That would imply that one has something to do with the other and why do Amazon's marketing for them?

But ignoring that for a moment, I think the whole concept of a dedicated "ebook" reader is somewhat dodgy.  I mean, if that's all they do, why bother?

You can't copy out bits and pieces of the text, import them into something you're working on, share them with friends, blog about them -- or do any of the million other things you're used to doing on electronic devices that are increasingly just as small and inexpensive.

In other words, an 'eBook' reader completely sucks as an 'eBook' reader because it treats what you're reading as a complete digital dead-end.

Leo Kline in the Onion!

Workplace environment: I've been on the receiving end of this from my co-workers since yesterday. From the most recent edition of The Onion:

ROCHESTER, NY—Reported sightings of Rochester's legendary "phantom diner," a mysterious restaurant that purportedly appears only to those in the most inebriated state of their lives, are often met with skepticism and incredulity. But for Leo Kline, 24, who claims he visited the diner this past weekend, the apparitional eatery is all too real.

Like I wear green?

No Vacation for Leo

I wish I could say my lack of posting for the last week or so is because of me 'gone fishing'.

Instead, I'm working on a site for the Public Library Association that, happily, is close to completion.

The thing's looking good but it's taken all my free time away.

Flatbed CTA Buses

The Sun-Times writes:

CTA L cars could become more like cattle cars if the transit agency goes ahead with plans to remove seats on some L cars in the next few months to squeeze in all the riders leaving their cars home and turning to mass transit.

What's next? Flatbed CTA buses?

'Hell' - Too Hot a Word for the Chicago Sun-Times

I wanted to leave the following comment on an article about MillerCoors [MGD] moving its headquarters to Chicago:

"Well, it's not the best but what the hell, reason enough to order another MGD for me."

Unfortunately, the word 'hell' appears to be too hot for the prudes over at the Chicago Sun-Times since I got the following error (in red no less):

"Please edit or remove the following word(s), then resubmit your content: hell." 

Usability Guidelines from the Yale University Library

We've come a long way from the days of 'you must learn our system in order to use it'. From the Usability Guidelines at Yale University Library:

Factor:  

• Simplicity. Scale back features and dramatically simplify the experience for initial use. This should reduce unnecessary distractions, excess information, from initial screens. An initial search screen should not include advanced features, such as search by publisher or call number.

Examples:

• Avoid wordiness -- only show most necessary text, be concise.
• Initial page should include only the most important and common tasks for this service with unobtrusive links to other advanced functionality.

More here...

P.S. Remember the Yale site when the front page was one big graphic of nothing but a bunch of leather book spines?

Anthony Millionaire

I caught up with old pal and former Wonderful Guise Anthony Millionaire while in LA.

Currently, he's working on a tv show for Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" based on his comic strip, "Maakies".