Tom Carmichael was recently selected as the new Dean at FIMS. (Thanks to Linda B. for the tip - it's been a month and I'm already out of touch with what's going on at FIMS!)
I went to all three information sessions for the Decanal candidates and Tom was my second pick of the three candidates but he should be good for FIMS based on his knowledge of the wider University community. As someone who attended Tom's session said to me afterwards: "if FIMS is in a 'time of change' like they say, maybe having a new Dean familiar with the University and its politics is a good thing rather than bringing in an outsider and doubling up the changes you're going through." Good point.
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Wednesday, January 31
Tom Carmichael Is New FIMS Dean
by
Jason
on Wed 31 Jan 2007 09:01 PM CST
Tuesday, January 30
Dad's Filing Cabinet
by
Jason
on Tue 30 Jan 2007 08:36 AM CST
My dad has a heavy old, four-drawer metal filing cabinet. When I was a kid, that filing cabinet was one the most fascinating things for me in our entire house. Many times, when my sister and I would play school or store, the filing cabinet had a part in the story. And it's probably not too much of a stretch to say that my early fascination with that filing cabinet - the various folders holding different papers on all manner of topics, the most important items in the top drawers, the least in the bottom, those topics sub-sorted by drawer, not alphabetically but in a system that made sense to my dad - played a role in a fact that I became a librarian.
To be a librarian (or at least a good one), you should have a certain love of order. For the non-politically correct, that's a nice way of saying "you should be anal retentive". (To put it yet another way, you should be the type of person who would find a filing cabinet fascinating.) Not everyone understands this so I suspect it was a bit of a shock when my mother asked for ideas for a graduation gift and I said "I'd like a filing cabinet, please." "We're not getting you a filing cabinet," she replied, in a voice that suggested I'd voiced my desire to have a human skull as a graduation gift. "I can get it engraved," I added hopefully. "No. Your dad and I want to get you something that has meaning. Not something that holds papers." I didn't try to explain why a filing cabinet would have as much meaning as pretty much any gift they could get me, especially to commemorate my graduation from the MLIS program. Besides the connection I already mentioned that it would have to my childhood and why I wanted to become a librarian in the first place, it would also be a daily symbol of much of what libraries are about - classifying, organizing and making accessible all of the information you need in a convenient fashion. Beyond these obvious (to me) reasons, a filing cabinet had other features that made it an appropriate gift. Like a fridge, a filing cabinet has an aesthetic value achieved by the artwork, clippings and other ephemera you can stick on it. And of course, it has a practical utility for the effective storage that it provides in its very small footprint. I brought the idea of a filing cabinet gift up again during a subsequent conversation with my mom and the utility argument swayed her this time. I explained that I'd brought home all of the books and papers I'd accumulated over the year but sold off everything that held them - two bookshelves, a desk, even a couple shelves I'd rescued from the dumpster (each went for $10!) A filing cabinet was something I was going to have to buy no matter what and if her and dad picked up the tab (a decent filing cabinet isn't cheap!), that would be a big help. So I now have a filing cabinet in my office and have been working to get everything organized. Connected to the "must like order" aspect of the librarian-type personality, there's also a related sentiment for some of us that says "must be a packrat". (But not for all - for some, "love of order" trumps "love of keeping items around" and some librarians take an almost ecstatic joy in weeding their collections to make sure only the most popular, most useful and most engaging books remain.) My problem is that I constantly struggle to find a balance between my love of order and my love of holding on to otherwise useless items. And often, the packrat side of my personality wins out, especially if I can somehow impose order on things that suggest no order in and of themselves ("Okay, these maps of Ontario that I'll never need again - or which I could easily get replaced by CAA or at a tourist booth or pretty much a million other locations if I do - will go in a folder called "Ontario Maps". Ahhh, sweet order.) That's just one example. I have trouble recycling old magazines and papers. After all, who knows? I might need our July 2005 London Hydro bill sometime in the future for something.  In a weird way, I think part of the reason I have trouble throwing things out is that all these scraps of paper are like photographs of our year. Looking at the receipt for a meal we had at Under the Volcano soon after Shea arrived in London helps bring back the evening as easily as if I was looking at a photograph of us sitting there. A ticket stub from Cedar Point takes me back to that amusement park as much as any overpriced souvenir I might've bought on its midway. I think the other reason for my packrat nature is the connection it gives me to both the past and the future. Just as dad's filing cabinet provided so much curiosity when I was a kid (I honestly have no memory of whether I was forbidden to look through the filing cabinet or not - but suspect I did anyhow!) I like to think that someday Oscar will look through the papers and files I've accumulated and get a picture of who I was (and am) and who is parents were (and are.) The receipt for our hostel in Montreal might tell something of either Shea's and my values or our lack of money (or both) during a trip we took. Those Ontario maps might provide hours of imagining future trips of his own. A thank-you card given by a classmate might show the type of friend I was to others. Even that London Hydro bill might provide wonder in ten or twenty or fifty years when electricity is provided by technologies we can't even yet imagine, just as looking at old issues of Life magazine in my grandparents' farmhouse provides a picture of their lives then. As I said, I really struggle with how to organize information - both in the "real" world and online. I keep something I call a "memory box" where I store all sorts of items that have special meaning to me. But then, where does something like that receipt for our meal at Under the Volcano go? In the Memory Box? In the London box? In the Visa file folder? (It went in the London box if you're curious.) The same thing happens online. I recently came across an article (which I of course can't find again!) which says people approach the web in two ways - there are the "settlers" who have their regular stops - Google, e-mail, online banking, perhaps a newspaper site and one or two other favourites - and rarely venture beyond this. Then there are the "explorers" who lose hours browsing various sites, sampling all types of unique sites and making heavy use of "aggregators" like MetaFilter and Digg to keep up on the latest trends, ideas and memes online. I think I fit firmly in the latter camp. But now, if I could just find a way to keep track of all of that so, like that article, I can retrieve it again when needed. (Edit: Found it - it was an article in the Globe & Mail a few days ago. And the author didn't use the terms "settler" and "explorer" - I just made that up. Uhm, anybody know a good trademark lawyer?) (In the interest of creating order but also collecting information, I have done some tweaking on this blog. I've dropped the link to my personal bookmarks from the header of this site and you'll now find a list of my most recent Delicious bookmarks on the righthand side instead. There's now a link to the most recent comments on the left side and there's also a "log-in" form at the bottom right column where you can create an account if you want and which, in turn, will make it quicker and easier to leave comments.) Monday, January 29
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom - Cory Doctorow
by
Jason
on Mon 29 Jan 2007 09:27 PM CST
Partly inspired by the upcoming keynote speaker at the OLA SuperConference, I finally picked up "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom", the first novel by SF author, former Torontonian, and co-editor of Boing Boing (one of the world's most popular blogs for those not in the know), Cory Doctorow.
Corey R. (also a soon-to-be first time novelist) is both a professional reviewer and much more well-read than I so I'll link to his recent review of this book instead of trying to hobble together one of my own. I agree with Corey that it's a pretty big achievement to create a realistic futuristic world that, given the pace of technological advances, seems increasingly plausible. One of the big conceits in the book is that money doesn't exist in the future and instead, people trade "Whuffie" which is like electronic credit that denotes esteem/gratitude/sympathy. That's a pretty interesting concept as we're already seeing versions of this in online communities, mostly notably Digg where users submit stories and then have both the stories and their comments voted on, positively and negatively, by other users. [Edit: Wikipedia has an entry on Wuffie that names a couple other sites using the concept - EBay for "feedback ratings" and Slashdot for "karma"] Doctorow is also a major player in the Creative Commons movement so even if science fiction and "Whuffie" aren't your thing, you should definitely try to check him out at the OLA SuperConference. Sunday, January 28
Ha Ha Ha
by
Jason
on Sun 28 Jan 2007 11:50 PM CST
To combine this as both a baby and a library-related post, I'll go back to an entry from a couple weeks ago where I talked about my favourite presentation from my year in library school which was on the topic of online broadcasting. One of the main points I discussed in the presentation is how we're now at a point where web-based video clips are picking up audiences that rival their traditional broadcast counterparts which, in turn, will be one of the main factors in the shift from television as the dominant communications medium in our society to the Internet. Which is all a long way to say, can you believe that eight million people have viewed the clip I linked to above? Wow! Saturday, January 27
Oscar's First Photo
by
Jason
on Sat 27 Jan 2007 03:28 AM CST
We had an ultrasound today. Unfortunately they didn't provide VHS or DVD video nor allow us to record even a short clip ourselves (it is a diagnostic procedure after all. But man, are they ever missing out on a guaranteed cash cow if they provided that option!)
Anyhow, they did give us some photos including the first 3-D shot of "Oscar Beckham Hammond". (Uhm, I think I mentioned before that Oscar isn't the actual name we've picked. Neither is "Beckham" but it is new. I thought baby needed a middle name too, that, like Oscar for his/her early grouchiness, reflected his/her current athletic regime of kicking Shea in the kidneys every five minutes!  ) Here's Oscar...  Shea's got a few more on her Flickr account. She also finally found the perfect t-shirt. Too bad they only had small sizes and it won't fit in a few more weeks. (And on a completely personal note, doesn't she look smokin' in this photo?  )  Friday, January 26
Friday Fun Link - "Homelessness: It's No Game" (Jan 27, 2007)
by
Jason
on Fri 26 Jan 2007 01:56 AM CST
Beyond the irony of that I’m writing about a game called “Homelessness: It’s No Game”, there are other problems with this Flash project. But before I get to that, here’s some background from the designer: “I created this game for a graduate-level course on game design I took at the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University*. The intent of the game is to raise awareness of the situation faced by the homeless, as well as to aid in my research into the effectiveness of serious videogames.” Although the concept has lots of
potential, the execution (at least in the current version) is lacking.
This Flash-based game asks you to simulate life on the streets by
taking on the role of a homeless person. You wander a small area of a
city picking up bottles and other items to sell, panhandling, dealing
with hunger pangs and a heavy bladder, visiting parks, diners and
churches while avoiding trouble and trying to earn “esteem” points by
your actions. You have a 24-hour window (accelerated obviously) to earn 24 esteem points. If you do, you “win” the game. If not…well, I don’t know what happens if not since I’ve played the game four times and never “lost” once (I think my record was raising my esteem enough was before 10 hours were up out of the 24.) The author promises future revisions to improve the game in various ways - a larger area to explore, more visual elements, localization options and unique characters. Hopefully this comes to pass as the game has potential to at least give a taste of what it is like to be on the streets - even if only virtually and from behind the safety of a computer screen. And it’s definitely a bit more meaningful than games dedicated to stealing cars, killing enemies or eating magic mushrooms that give you amazing jumping powers. Thursday, January 25
Head Tale - Anniversary Survey
by
Jason
on Thu 25 Jan 2007 09:56 PM CST
Today is 11 months to the day that I started this blog. And sure, if I wanted to be like everybody else, I could wait another month to post this on my much more appropriate one year anniversary. But since I'm thinking of it right now, I'll post it now instead...
I've created a really quick ten question survey about this blog and would appreciate if you would take a couple minutes to fill it out. This blog software gives me aggregate information for all visitors - how many come, when they come, where they come from and stuff like that - but this is a way for me to get some more specific details about how people get to this blog, what they read when they're here and so on. Again, if you can take a couple minutes to fill out the survey, I would really appreciate it.
Bend It Like Oscar!
by
Jason
on Thu 25 Jan 2007 08:50 PM CST
Today's the first day we felt Oscar kick! Well, Shea's been feeling it internally for a few weeks. But today's the first time we could feel the thump on the outside. According to Shea, the kid likes to kick like nobody's business. (Hopefully a $250 million soccer contract is in his (or her - must be gender positive!) future.)
Oh my god! Now, Shea held her breath and I was able to see the baby thumping right under her skin. Jesus, there's an alien in there!! Wednesday, January 24
Tuesday, January 23
I Want A Firefox Extension To...
by
Jason
on Tue 23 Jan 2007 11:35 PM CST
One of the beautiful things about Firefox as a browser is how customizable it is. According to my stats, the vast majority of people reading this blog use that browser so I thought I'd pass along this site that I had bookmarked: I Want A Firefox Extension To... which is a collection of over 200 extensions that add functionality to the Firefox browser in areas from Ad Blocking to Links to Weather.
I think I may have listed this elsewhere on the blog already but there are some new ones on the list since then so here is a list of extensions I have installed. My absolute favourites are in bold italic (I'm too lazy to add links to all of them but just do a Google search on any of their names and you'll find them) : Adblock - blocks ads (duh) AddBookMarkHere - helps control where bookmarks get added in your folder structure AlwaysRememberPassword - just like the name says, useful for banking sites and others that tend to clear your password, even if you told the browser to remember it. Answers - ALT-right click on any word to get a definition and other information Colourful Tabs - makes your tabs different colours which helps usability way more than it sounds like it should! CopyURL+ - allows you to copy to the clipboard the current document's address along with additional information such as the document's title, the current selection or both. CustomizeGoogle - just like it says, provides all kinds of hacks to make Google more usable delicious - adds buttons to your navigation bar for quickly adding bookmarks to Delicious DOMInspector - provides easy access to meta information about a web page DownThemAll - download all links on a page. Useful for sites that have things like multiple MP3 files or multiple programs to download. Foxylicious - combines your Firefox and delicious bookmarks FoxyTunes - provides controls for your media player within your browser GDirections - provides right click access directly to Google Maps when you highlight an address on a web page GooglePreview - provides thumbnails of web pages in your Google results GoogleToolbar - adds a toolbar to provide direct access to all Google functions IETab - allows you to switch to Internet Explorer without leaving the Firefox browser. Useful for those sites that are still only accessible in IE. MetaFilthy - tracks various information about your reading habits on MetaFilter PDFDownloader - provides a few extra options for reading PDF files Screengrab! - allows you capture an entire web page as a graphic image rather than just what's displayed in the browser window as is the case with a "Print Screen" grab. SearchEngine Ordering - gives you control of how your search extensions are ordered TabMixPlus - gives you complete control over all aspects of your tabbed browsing Unplug - easily grab video clips from YouTube, Google Video and other video sites |
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