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The New York (city) Public Library launched their ‘Digital Gallery’ today. 275,000 items available so far, and hopes for 500,000 in the next few months. I’m playing with it now, seems very cool so far.
It does sort of make my 25 item digital library semester project seem a little insignificant…
“The technical wizardry behind Google’s successful search engine may come down to a blindingly obvious insight: PCs crash.”
Cnet provides a rare insight into Google’s operations.
via Wired.com.
A library in Long Island has started offering audio books on iPod Shuffles. Very cool!
A few years back the library I worked at started offering audio books on Rio 500s. Never really caught on, though I think that was partly due to a lack of promotion. Maybe here the iPod brand name will do the trick.
I also like the fact that the library is buying their audio books online, rather than just loaning out ripped copies of a standard CD version. Buying the online version can save quite a bit of money. As the article says, “The units are paying for themselves.”
As a side note, I still think promoting the fact that there’s no screen on the shuffle as a ‘feature’ is questionable. But at least in this situation, with audio books, complex navigation really isn’t necessary.
Nick sent me this interview with a librarian about his job.
The answer to #6, “What’s the worst part about your job?” is what I’m going to focus on. It’s long, so I’ll reproduce portions only:
When the internet and databases became mainstream, “Information†suddenly got capitalized and became sexy…
The traditional emphasis on serving the information needs of people was jettisoned outright; technology become the only means instead of one of many means to an end.
Maybe my experience has been atypical so far, but most of my classes have really not focused on technology (I’ve wished for more that did). Or if they do, the content emphasizes the importance of avoiding technolust and overuse of technology. Or perhaps the interviewer’s perception is the attitude I can expect once I have a ‘real’ job. It’ll be interesting to find out.
If we Librarians spent more time honing the services we provide than obsessing over how others perceive us, we’d all be much better off.
I only partially agree with this statement. Yes the services need to be honed, but public perception is what brings in the budget money. In public libraries, public perception plays an undeniable role.
And a quote from later in the interview:
We are mostly politically liberal, but there are some closeted conservatives as well.
I’m one of those closeted conservatives. I’m not a hardcore gun toting nut, but in general the right is where my opinions fall. It’s been awkward at points. I’ve had multiple class sessions and group meetings turn into ‘bash the conservatives’ sessions, where my lack of participation sticks out like a sore thumb. It probably explains why I haven’t connected socially with very many other LIS students.
Kotaku links to a story today about video games in libraries.
The article in question makes for really interesting reading. Librarian and gaming writer John Scalzo walks through the process of developing a collection for a whole new type of media holdings. I admit that while some of the qualifications given to him for selection seem reasonable (no M-rated games), but others (A ban on Simpsons games) seem rather random.
The process for ordering the games seems to have been a larger problem than ‘selling’ the idea to adminstrative types in the first place. Sounds like some streamlining should be in order.
I would be very interested in seeing how the collection fares a few months from now. In my library experience, DVDs go mere weeks before having skip-causing scratches. PS2 games, theoretically handled by more children, will no doubt be worse. Does the library have any process for monitoring disc condition in effect?
Yesterday I won a free iTunes song from a Pepsi bottle. Exciting, I thought. So I went to my computer, installed iTunes, and redeemed my code. In the process I got another 5 free songs since I signed up with my paypal account. So far, so good.
I grabbed a couple songs, and downloaded away. The plan was to move them over to my Muvo TX mp3 player. But – no can do. I didn’t realize this before, but apparently without an iPod there’s no way to take iTunes songs portable.
Or maybe I’m just not finding the right option? For now though this seems like a boneheaded decision by Apple. Probably not a new situation, but this is the first I’ve tried it. I can convert the files to mp3s, but only by burning and then re-ripping the songs – sound quality is lost in the process. I should be able to do what I want with music I have legally bought.
I’ve been buying music from Napster for a while now and can move them over to my player no problem. So there my money will continue to go.
Side rant: On both Napster and iTunes, I’ve noticed something troubling. A number of tracks are now available “Album Only”, meaning they cannot be bought as a single song. You have to shell out prices inflated to more than the normal $.99/song for the whole album. One of the big plusses for buying music like this for me has been the ability to pick and choose. Is this to be taken away? I hope “Album Only” does not catch on.
New theme! Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Other?
Let me know.
I’m still in the customization process a bit. Not sure what to do with those seven tempting buttons across the top, for example. But give me time and all will be well.
I was browsing around some tags today and ran across this page of French military World War I photos… in color!
At first I thought hoax, but here’s the official page about the collection. It apparently is genuine.
There’s no battle scenes or anything, but it still gives a unique insight into the era.
Apparently del.icio.us‘ RSS feed of my personal links has a limit of 31 items. Sort of an arbitrary number… and also annoying as I’d come to depend on the feed more and more recently.
Anybody know a way around the limit? I’ve got a firefox extension that dumps my del.icio.us bookmarks into a local folder daily, but i’d like it updated more often than that.
I’ve got WordPress 1.5 up and running. When I use my old theme comments no longer seem to work…
sigh. So I’ll stick with this default until I can either fix the old one or re-customize a new one.
edit: fixed! I stuck in the new default theme’s comments.php into my old custom theme and that did the job. Not sure what I’d changed in there, but oh well.
I’d just like to give major thanks to this upgrade guide, which helped me avoid many pitfalls my (somewhat ill-guided) customizations could have caused.
