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.
Suggested alternatives to 'UICNursing' courtesy of YouTube (i.e. Google).
"They didn't want to lose control of their local library."
"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."
"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.)
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 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.
Last snowfall of the year? One can only hope. Anyway, enjoy it while it lasts, as they say. [Link to larger photo...]
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
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
"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."
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.
Interesting photos from the historical photo blog, Calumet 415:
Also, links to Ultralocal Geography (Chicago).
Hanging out with one of my esteemed colleagues at the library.
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".
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.
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.
