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.