2.18.2006

O'Reilly Radar




Question:
How do you monitor/ track the pulse of change?

Answer:
I would bet everyone has their own system of information-amalgamation and processing. But, could the best way be to center it around a set of guidelines that you match to your needs, desires, interests, and relevancy to what you want out of life?


O'Reilly sources/ writer/ people who link to them
O'Reilly Radar: "CampfirePermalink
By marc on February 15, 2006

"Our friends at 37signals just launched Campfire, their latest product (following on Basecamp and Backpack). I've been testing this product"

Who's bubblin'?


Question:
How do you know when something is true?

Answer:
Sometimes, someone, somewhere in some way says what you're thinking -it is possible to know things in another person's mind. Other we would never really be able to communicate and we can.

Information Takes Over » Blog Archive » Library 2.0 bubbling away: "Perhaps there really is more to do in our libraries than we had thought, and the fear of being left behind has kick started our desire to make everything better. Reading through Walt Crawford’s cites and insights shows a myriad of good ideas spread all over the library, but tagged with the same Library 2.0 ticket.

And now, having just read David King discussing the confrontational aspects of Library 2.0 we begin to see why this reaction might be. That same fear that galvanises some of us, is battening down the hatches in others.
"

Tags:

2.16.2006

What are you reading?



1. Point & Click Openoffice.Org
ISBN:
0131879928

2. Openoffice.Org 2, Firefox and Thunderbird with CDROM
ISBN:
0672328089

3. Blog On: Building Online Communities with Web Logs
ISBN:
0072227125

4. 501+ Great Interview Questions for Employers and the Best Answers for Prospective Employees
ISBN:
0910627509

5. Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software
ISBN:
0262062461

6. Lincoln on Leadership
ISBN:
0446394599

7. The Threefold Lotus Sutra
ISBN:
4333002087

8. Leadership can be taught
ISBN:
1591393094

9. The Inner Art of Vegetarianism
ISBN:
1930051255

10. Web Design in a Nutshell
ISBN:
0596001967

11. Buddhism without beliefs
ISBN:
1573226564

Tags: ,

Is "The Myth of the Paperless Office" true?


Question:
Is "The Myth of the Paperless Office" true? This was wrote four years ago, is it still applicable?

Book:
"The Myth of the Paperless Office"

How do you do "it"?









Question:
How do you do "it"?

Quote:
"5 Suggestions for Upgrading to Library 2.0
(or Some Easy Steps to Get Started...Really)"

What is the way we work?



Question:
Are people still thinking about the paperless office? What is the way we work?

Answer:
Yes, yes they are.


What's tame these days?



Question:
What's tame these days? Who should I read if I think about information, access to information and like thinking about information & libraries?

Summary:
You should read people like this; I hope to discover more of them.

Quote:
Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology: "Not Library 2.0 Part III

Via Michael Sauers:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelinlibrarian/99868083/
"With this and these two examples so far (and I'm sure there are many more) that point to barriers created by librarians when, for example, across the pond, the word is CONVERGENCE.
Let me know if more pics like this go up on flickr. Can we use a tag? 'NotLibrary2.0'?"



Good, better, best, great?



Question:
What's a good database but not a great interface?

Summary:
While Naxos seems to be interesting, the web interface needs work. Proquest is hard to beat in terms of their interface and functionality -nearly every time I use Proquest I get what I expect; that's saying a lot about databases.

Quote:
FGCU Library Services:
"Naxos Music Library: good comprehensive collection of classical music available online. Select works by composer, artist, period, year of composition, genre or instrument."


Who isn't blogging about the state of blogging?



Question:
Who isn't blogging about the state of blogging?

Quote:
Sifry's Alerts: State of the Blogosphere, February 2006 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth: "In addition to that, about 2.7 million bloggers update their blogs at least weekly."

Thoughts:
What would be interesting to see is how many bloggers blog this and more importantly, how fast.

2.15.2006

What do you think about?



Question:
What do you think about?

Answer:
I think about things like this. In fact, an editorial I'm writing now ends with "...Information is big business. Look at Wal-Mart ..."

Summary:
Libraries are and have always been in the information business. Now, we need to wake-up and realize this time is the experience economy -that means service plus information.

The Journal of Electronic Publishing:
"Meanwhile, outside the world of research publishing and librarianship, life is good and getting better, at least in that small corner of the world where I conduct my everyday activities. I buy a book from Amazon in two or three mouse clicks, and the book appears at my doorstep three days later, with no charge for shipping. I transfer money online into my checking account without a hitch (if only I could remember my password!). Managing a Netflix subscription is a real joy: fast, reliable, with a pot of gold arriving regularly in my mailbox. Or I step into a Kinko's copy shop to make some file copies of IRS forms: insert a credit card, press for copies, and get a receipt printed out at the end, all without having a single exchange with a Kinko's staff member. Publishers are toiling in purgatory, librarians in hell, but there is a paradise somewhere, a world of carefully analyzed and optimized workflow, where, mirabile dictu, a person's time is so highly regarded that it is never, ever squandered."

How do you design for public space?



Question:
How do you design for public space? How do you make life more integrated? How do you help people realize all of their life is connected, that all decisions matter, that everything from seemingly mundane public transportation to an environmentally sustainable street to why they should buy organic -that it all matters? Through great --thoughtful-- design. Great design considers humanity's interaction with the elements, tasks, places, jobs, buildings etc., that we face everyday.

Source:
Design Trust for Public Space

How do you know what information sources you need?



Question:
How do you know what information sources you need? This series of articles on tastemakers list the different sources the writers trolled through for their research. Among those listed are compiled statistics, industry reports, interviews, newspapers, and electronic databases.

Quotes/Examples:
1. "...as recorded by Factiva..."
2. "The more companies invest in design, the more likely they are to see success, according to the Design Council."


What is your Methodology for teaching research?



Question:
How do you teach research to students? Do you make things hard to find in the library? Do you use academese or librarian-speak? How do you develop information fluency? Show the students that research is what makes you a professional and that developing a methodology for your research is as important as any other thing they will do in their chosen field. But, the most important part of research: the synthesis. Any information literacy program that focuses on finding information as opposed to synthesizing that information is missing the freakin' boat.

Example:
Tastemakers: Chefs Methodology - Forbes.com: "Tastemakers: Chefs Methodology "

How hard are you willing to work to master your field?



Question:
How hard are you willing to work? I like hard work. I like hard working people. There is something to be respected about anyone, whether it's someone in a third world country or an executive chef, working to make a living.

Quote:
Tastemakers: Chefs - Forbes.com: "Many chef-owners don't take a salary until their eateries are successful and are forced to live very frugally--even if they are celebrated for their cuisine."

Isn't this a newly recognized form of power?



Question:
Isn't this a newly recognized form of power? What's interesting is how you think about these tastemakers. Mark Twain says whenever you find yourself on the majority you need to stop and think. What if you don't know your on the majority? How do you know what you don't know? You start by questioning why you think you like certain things. You start by breaking down your mental models of beliefs, values, ethics, or ideas. If you're only building up the walls of Jericho to defend what you believe how long is it before those beliefs crush anyone in your way or crush you? All types of architects from information_architects to civil architects need to consider their "tastes."

SUMMARY:
The Tastemakers - Forbes.com: "Forbes.com selected ten individuals who have made the greatest creative contributions (or continued to make great contributions) to their respective fields over the past year."

2.14.2006

What can you do with information?



Question:
What can you do with information?

Thoughs:
Create change. I like to be able to eat this fresh as described in this Time article and I'm willing to pay a premium (well at least a little more.)

Article 35: Time, Nov 14, 2005 v166 i20 p61
What's Cooking On Campus: Locally grown food is the latest student cause. Can this movement save family farmers? (Society/Food) Margot Roosevelt.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Time, Inc."

How will you be touched?




Question:
How will you be touched?

Thoughts:
This is sick. Conceptually it seems simple and therefore most people are missing how powerful this interface will be.

Source:
Multi-Touch Interaction Research

2.12.2006

What's next is how?



Question:
What's next is how?

Source:
Semantic Blogging: Spreading the Semantic Web Meme: "The semantic web promises to make the web more useful by endowing metadata with machine processable semantics."

Remark:
Well, that sums things up well.

"If we all hate consumerism, how come we can’t stop shopping?"



Question:
This Magazine: The Rebel Sell: "If we all hate consumerism, how come we can’t stop shopping?"

Remarks:
This is great. I mean, if you don't get it, don't worry about it. In life, there really are only questions -well, maybe some answers.

What is an Information Literacy Program?



FGCU Library Services
"Mission: the mission of the library's Information Literacy Program is to develop learner expertise in searching for, analyzing, evaluating, and managing the information needed for use in academic, personal, and professional life."


There are two clear tiers. The first looks at meeting the immediate and important FGCU general education programs. The second tier aims to develop deeper, more unique sets of skills for the student/scholar/learner, but most importantly seeks to develop the "researcher." As I see it, you are a researcher first"80%.this value you being a researcher," and then a professional "%20.this value=the name of your field."

Simply, you are a researcher first, then a nurse, coder, social psychologist, sys admin, grants writer, veterinarian, management consultant, or a comptroller second. Without the deft ability to use the ever-increasing ammalgamated sources of information and their search tools to solve increasingly time-constrained problems, you're going to be in serious trouble. Information literacy isn't talking about mastering MS Office. As we discuss this below, perhaps we're really talking about: Information Fluency at FGCU.

To wit:
your job isn't going to ask less of you; your life won't ask less of you; and the world's problems which are your problems, aren't going to ask less of you -only more.

Further more:
"Executive Summary | Being Fluent with Information Technology: "Generally, 'computer literacy' has acquired a 'skills' connotation, implying competency with a few of today's computer applications, such as word processing and e-mail. Literacy is too modest a goal in the presence of rapid change, because it lacks the necessary 'staying power.' As the technology changes by leaps and bounds, existing skills become antiquated and there is no migration path to new skills. A better solution is for the individual to plan to adapt to changes in the technology. This involves learning sufficient foundational material to enable one to acquire new skills independently after one's formal education is complete."



This is a brilliant statement:

Articles: "There is also another, very human problem to overcome: that most people don't understand computers or software, but have memorized only the keystrokes and mouseclick patterns they need to get through the day, so the second they are given a new program they need to memorize a whole new set. This is not an OS-to-OS migration problem per se, but one that can crop up any time a new piece of software is introduced in a workplace environment. But then, because Dave and Mike aren't constantly running around fixing PCs, they have time to train people and answer users' questions, a luxury they would not have if they were fighting Windows problems all day long."

Can a library still have value to people?

Brian Kenney. Library Journal. New York: Aug 2005.Vol.130, Iss. 13; pg. 34, 4 pgs

The economic edge:

"As great a building as this is for Seattle's readers and researchers, learners and dreamers, its impact is even bigger. For libraries to be able to stake their claim in today's civic enterprise, it helps if they can flex their economic muscle.

A year after its opening, the library's foundation and Seattle's Office of Economic Development sponsored a study to assess the new buildings effect on the local economy. In its first year of operation, the study reports, the library was visited by over 2.3 million individuals, 30 percent from out of town-and more coming. Seattle's library is becoming a destination point for a global community."

What is humanism?


Question:
What is humanism?

Quote: HUUmanists Essays: "'Like most persons of this persuasion, I regard myself as a Religious Humanist not because of having been converted to a creed; a faith; not because of my having signed a membership card in a crusading fraternity of believers. The term Religious Humanism is more descriptive of a state of mind, of an attitude with respect to philosophy, religion, ethics, than it is a label for another 'ism.''
• Lester Mondale (from Religious Humanism: A Testimonial)"

What type of script are you?




Userscripts.org - Universal Repository
Question:
Again, you're not using Firefox? And, I read somewhere someone saying we're really all just little user scripts -hilarious!

Are you really still using internet explorer?

mozdev.org - mycroft: index: "The Mycroft project provides a collection of search plugins (6235 at the last count) for browsers using Apple's Sherlock standard including [Firefox Icon] Mozilla Firefox and [Mozilla Icon] Mozilla Suite. The name Mycroft refers to Mycroft Holmes, the brother of Sherlock Holmes in the novels of Arthur Conan Doyle - Mycroft plugins are based on the Sherlock standard."

What is unusual?


Question:
How do you develop yourself: through odd idiosyncratic behaviors or through habits larger than yourself?

Book:
"New Book of Unusual Quotations"
ISBN:
0060015853
Quote from the preface:
"Everybody has a hobby. Mine has been for many years, the extremely mild and innocuous one of collecting books ..."

The author's preface continues on discussing paradox, serendipity, and in some ways, being caught in that most powerful, gripping virus: learning. I mean "mild and innocuous" -that's just sick-cool.

What is this all about?



Question:
What's this about? Remove church and put in whatever word helps you realize the value of connecting to people in a deep and authentic way. How do you do that?
1. Read the quote.
2. Act on the quote.
3. Repeat until it clicks.

Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Myers: "You've got to settle on a church and throw your life into it, and build it up. Who would want to go to a picnic all the time and eat out of other's people's baskets? It's our obligation as members of one church to give ourselves to it. The church is the only hope of peace and goodwill to people that exists among us. It is the last hope of the earth, and yours is a high and holy opportunity to support it with undeviating loyalty.'

Poet Carl Sandburg
(who rang bell for Universalist church in Galesburg, Illinois)"


If you don't like the word church, re-invent it -I don't particularly care for it; if you don't know that lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for, then wake up.

"'What Users Want?"


Question:
What do users want? Neils Bohr says the opposite of a profound truth may very well be another profound truth. Ain't that true?

Quote:
Main Articles: 'What Users Want: An Academic 'Hybrid' Library Perspective', Ariadne Issue 46: "We must be prepared also to be surprised by such deeper insights, even if they run counter to what we think we already know. Not many years ago, for example, the writer was involved as an external consultant, in two very different academic libraries, with reviews which revealed a number of mutually exclusive expressions of users' wants within both institutions. In both cases, the library authorities and managers were looking for empirical evidence to justify the expansion of networked electronic information. Yet both reviews - using the same in-depth consultations with representative user groups - uncovered some diametrically opposing 'messages'. 'Longer opening hours, please' versus 'Just get it all out on the Web'; 'More multiple loan copies urgently required' versus 'We need more research monographs on the shelves'; 'More print subscriptions, please' versus 'Cancel all the hard copy titles'; 'More librarians to consult' versus 'Spend less on staff and more on stuff' - these were among the contextual 'surprises', some of which the library authorities did not really want to hear. But they all point up one thing: the 'twilight world' of the academic hybrid library requires us to be much more locally sensitive to users' needs - in all their complexity - than we might have thought."

How can you see around corners?



Question:
How can you see around corners?

When you focus on an idea to the exclusion of anything else, you could skew what could be a fantastic idea/benefit into a panacea. When electronic ink becomes as cost effective as paper and as ubiquitous then you may have paperless office. But, you'll still need some forms of paper.
"Office Space: The Next Generation"
"The paperless office is just one of many ways corporate executives, small business owners, architects and furniture designers, futurists and others believe offices will look like in the future."

and ...

"86 percent of Fortune 1000 executives said they will expect in 10 to 15 years for employees to stay more or less connected with the office while on vacation."

and ...

I doubt the first quote for a lot of reasons. The second is eminently believable.

But: here's what a company called Oticon has been doing for years,

Quote:"

At first glance, Oticon seems less than revolutionary. Its 150-person headquarters has an oddly deserted feel. There are plenty of workstations, but no one is sitting at them. In fact, hardly anyone is sitting anywhere. Listen closely, though, and the sounds of subversion begin to register: the quiet chirping of the company's "internal" mobile telephones; footsteps tapping up and down a three-story circular staircase; the rumble of wheels on hardwood, a signal that employees are moving their "offices" -- standard-issue caddies with room for 30 hanging folders, a few binders, perhaps a family photo -- and forming new self-managed teams.

"There's a paradox here," Kolind says. "We're developing products twice as fast as anybody else. But when you look around, you see a very relaxed atmosphere. We're not fast on the surface; we're fast underneath. ... So Kolind abolished the formal organization. Projects, not functions or departments, became the defining unit of work. Today at Oticon, teams form, disband, and form again as the work requires. Project leaders (basically, anyone with a compelling idea) compete to attract the resources and people to deliver results. Project owners (members of the company's 10-person management team) provide advice and support, but make few actual decisions. The company has a hundred or so projects at any one time, and most people work on several projects at once. It is, essentially, a free market in work."

Where is the garden of eden?


Question:
Where is the garden of eden?

"THE TEN PRINCIPLES OF THE EDEN ALTERNATIVE"
Joseph Cerquone. Balance. Alexandria: Nov/Dec 2001.Vol.5, Iss. 6; pg. 4, 3 pgs

THE TEN PRINCIPLES OF THE EDEN ALTERNATIVE TM

1. The Three Plagues of loneliness, helplessness, and boredom account for the bulk of suffering in a human community.
2. Life in a truly human community revolves around close and continuing contact with children, plants and animals. These ancient relationships provide young and old alike with a pathway to a life worth living.
3. Loving companionship is the antidote to loneliness. In a human community, we must provide easy access to human and animal companionship.
4. To give care to another makes us stronger. To receive care gracefully is a pleasure and an art. A healthy human community promotes both of these virtues in its daily life, seeking always to balance one with the other.
5. Trust in each other allows us the pleasure of answering the needs of the moment. When we fill our lives with variety and spontaneity, we honor the world and our place in it.
6. Meaning is the food and water than nourishes the human spirit. It strengthens us. The counterfeits of meaning tempt us with hollow promises. in the end, they always leave us empty and alone.
7. Medical treatment should be the servant of genuine human caring, never its master.
8. In a human community, the wisdom of the elders grows in direct proportion to the honor and respect according to them.
9. Human ;growth must never be separated from human life.
10. Wise leadership is the lifeblood of any struggle against the three plagues. For it, there can be no substitute.

[Author Affiliation]
Joseph Cerquone is Editor of Balance.

Can you matter?


Question:
Can university have a purpose?

Summary:
Document View: "Istvan Rev is director of the Open Society Archives, which he founded in 1995. The archives are housed at Central European University in Budapest. He is also a professor of history and political science at the university, which was founded by George Soros in 1991. The professor's research, including his latest book, Retroactive Justice: Prehistory of Post-Communism (Stanford University Press), is cited often in the burgeoning research on the collapse and afterlife of communism in Central and Eastern Europe."

The Chronicle of Higher Education. Washington: Nov 4, 2005. Vol. 52, Iss. 11; pg. A.14

This is fascinating.