A Wandering Eyre

IMG_1064

Originally uploaded by Wandering Eyre.

This picture was taken in Scotland, at Castle Urquhart on Loch Ness almost one year ago. For 363 days, I have been married to my best friend. He is the most giving and forgiving person I know. Good thing, because I require a lot of forgiveness.

We are escaping for the weekend to celebrate our good fortune and blessings.

–Jane, shall not miss you

Mr. Rochester sent me an article from Gamespot while I was gone about Campbell County Public Library (last time I tried their website was down) in Kentucky that has started adding family friendly video games to their collection. He was surprised that this is a new concept. It does seem like the logical step, but that does not mean libraries are quick to make it.

What a great way to preview a game before buying it. I check out hardbacks from the library to see if I like it before purchasing my own copy, especially if it is an author that is new to me or that I am not head over heels for.

I know that the public library a worked for a few years ago did not have video games. Does anyone know of any systems that have a robust collection of games?

–Jane, maybe she could move there

Today is my first day back at work since CIL. Wow, the inbox. Wow, the piles did not reduce in my absence. Alas, back to work. Time for new ideas and getting things done.
My last CIL post is up over at TechSource. It is about the opening session, which was fantastic and fact filled.

Even with a full day of meetings, I managed to get through my work email. I had about 260 messages and only 10-15 actually needed to be read or required a response. Overkill?

–Jane, she’d rather just use Twitter

I received a spam comment from Jesus. The. Son. Of. God.

I know if Jesus can take the time to send me a spam comment, my place in heaven must be assured.

–Jane, what a relief

Sushi boat for 4

Originally uploaded by Wandering Eyre.

I realized this afternoon that most of my posts about CIL have been all business and no tales of hilarity. And boy, were there tails. On ponies. With monocles.

This week the fun was all about three things, in order of their importance:
Twitter
Alcohol
Strippers named Strawberry

If it was cool, bad, hilarious, or you said the wrong thing, it was on Twitter. I may have a slightly biased view as all of my comrades were also on Twitter, thus creating a self-fulfilling mode of hilarity. Steven Cohen is obsessed with Twitter and was sending jokes to Twitter from the bar. He lives his life in 140 characters or less.

Alcohol. Beer. Scotch. Beer. Wine. Beer. A shot named something with a surfer. We had, last night (Tuesday) at the Irish pub, perhaps the largest bar bill I have ever been handed. Luckily, I was not the only one putting money in the pot. The drink challenge never really took off, as neither Steven nor I were truly in the mood. Plus, seriously, I was drinking things like Blue Moon and Smithwick’s and Steven was drinking Budweiser. “I’m just saying.”

Sometimes rumors get started. Sometimes the rumors include strippers named Strawberry. But only sometimes. Related to this rumor is another fiendish plan, brought to you by the team that delivers ponies and monocles. Meredith Farkas will soon be quitting her job, selling Information Wants to Be Free, and starting a blog about Judge Mathis. As Meredith said, “All life lessons can be learned on Judge Mathis.”

Tonight we are having sushi. A semi-tradition of Information Today conferences. I am sure there will be more silliness, but then, there always is.

Added retrospectively: The sushi boat was wonderful (see post picture). I miss everyone already.

–Jane, don’t stop believin’

Audience Right

Originally uploaded by Wandering Eyre.

CIL 2007

Meredith and I delivered ponies with monocles to a large room of people. It was different presenting to a room filled with people I respect and love. Different in a nerve racking fun way.

The talk went very well and we had a lot of great questions from the audience. They asked about getting participation from people who are not comfortable putting themselves “out there,” being able to lock certain parts of a wiki and leaving the rest open, what our planning process looked like (on a wiki of course!), and what blogging software we liked the best.

I can not stress this enough: We want people to take this idea and build their own online learning experiences. We are happy to answer questions at any time. We made a wiki in lieu of slides.
Presenting with Meredith was great. She is, as always, “fabulous.”

–Jane, now can we go karaoke?

A fan of Firefly has created an island in Second Life called Washtown. They went so far as to recreate Serenity inside and out. It is amazing. I have to get in Second Life now. There are shindigs every Sunday evening.

–Jane, the screenshots are amazing

A brief CIL 2007 note:

Alan Gray is talking about the principles governing the new Darien Library building. He said the thing I say all the time:

It is not our library.

Indeed. It is not. We are only fooling ourselves when we think we should control the meaning of the library as space or place. We make all of these silly rules that mean nothing because we do not control the space.

You know that thing that you have a policy for? The patrons are not following it and doing what they want to anyway.

–Jane, think outside the library

CIL 2007

A few of us were sitting on the floor outside of the Potomac room and Tim Spalding came to join us. Very cool. He is very personable and funny. We are camped out so that we can get good spots for his presentation in 15minutes.

We finally succeeded in getting some seats and floor space at the back of the room. Michael Sauers has the ever present power strip. He is a blessing and the most popular guy in the room. Now if the wireless worked, we would be golden.

Roy Tennant
Tim Spalding
Catalogs/OPACs of the Future

[my comments in brackets]

[Tim’s part of the talk is mostly one liners with pearls of wisdom.]

The Fun OPAC – Tim Spalding is up first.

The catalog needs to be fun. They need funability. The library is the most fun you can have with your pants on. [that got some laughs]

The OPAC and the website are not separate. Most libraries hide the link to their OPAC because they are ashamed of it. [He is right! I am!]

People want to be able to link to things in the catalog. The more you link out the more people come to you.

Why are librarians hesitant to link out to other business sites? (like Amazon and the local bookstore) Why not? People know where the bookstore is located. A mall tries to keep you inside. Libraries should stop being malls. A website should not trap you inside.

Dress up the OPAC. Add covers. Someone needs to create an open repository of covers.

Link to Wikipedia. Your patrons are going there anyway.

Get your data out there. There are other people that want to use your data. Librarians do not have the monopoly on fun.

People do not want your content they want their content. The goal is for these to things to be the same. Widgets for blogs are an easy and free way to advertise.

Tim shows some cool tags and tools that Library Thing has built. Tag data will require that libraries cooperate and share data.

Roy Tennant
Catalogs for the Future

Roy wants to do away with the O word. Catalogs as we presently know them and hate them do not have a future. We need to find new ways for people to find information. Discovery should be disaggregated from the ILS.

Users want to find anything they can on a topic. They are often confused about why they can not find articles in a catalog. [indeed. This is a constant problem in instruction. Finding articles requires too many steps.]

[I like that Roy is giving some practical ways that OCLC is trying to help libraries make their catalogs better. He shows a bunch of examples of libraries that have added things to their catalogs and created a different experience for their users.]

Roy exposes the underbelly of his mind. It involves murder, gypsy midgets, and prostitutes.

–Jane, Was she named Strawberry?

A non CIL post:

Mr. Rochester sent me an interesting link today for a new Tolkien book called The Children of Hurin. There is a story from CNN on the release of the book, which is edited by J.R.R. Tolkien’s son, Christopher Tolkien.

–Jane, sounds like a book to add to the list