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Library Geeks 013 - Jangle

dchud — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 04:17:52 +0000

...in which Ross Singer tells us all about his new job at Talis and his work on Jangle, aka Just Another Next Generation Library Environment. Jangle is an effort to connect and expose library resources using the Atom Publishing Protocol, but it's not as easy or obvious to do that as it sounds at first. Ross takes us through the reasoning of why Jangle is a compelling next step in the evolution of library web services and what needs to happen next.

We recorded this interview a few weeks ago, on the day of Halloween, before the U.S. presidential election, so if there's a reference or two to costumes or voting, that's why.

Slides from MLC talk on free software

dchud — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:40:49 +0000

I spoke at the MLC Annual Meeting a few weeks ago, and the slides from that talk are attached below. This talk was oriented toward the majority-administrator audience, focusing on the key aspects of why free software matters to me:

the freedoms to use, copy, study, and modify software
the dominance of free software in the marketplace
how we can make libraries better by understanding the above points

In the slides I highlight the Michigan Evergreen implementation, whose implementors were in the audience and had just gone live with the first two sites, quite happily, it seems. It's a very powerful argument to be able to say to a roomful of people "it's already all around you, and you don't even have to go first now." Makes a speaker's job easier!

I've also taken another crack at framing the comparison between the Carnegie library development program and the availability of free software for building libraries in a more intuitive manner. For years I've been making this case, but it's never clear to me whether it resonates or sticks with people. Hopefully you'll see the effect in action.

After doing slides this way for a few years now, I'm fairly well committed to the "many many slides with few few words on each" approach. It seems to help keep focus and balance the story I want to tell with the power of a very few words: in this case, "use study copy modify".

Oh, and always, Always, ALWAYS make copies of your slides available as a PDF on a thumb drive, your email inboxes, a network drive, and anything else before you go to sleep if you're due to give a talk the next day. I needed the pull up every one of those and to beg for the help of several incredibly helpful folks at the event to finally get the talk working. I've long done this but never been so glad I do until I really needed 'em all this time!

Questions for the 2008 presidential candidates

dchud — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:27:01 +0000

If I were at one of these debates, here are some questions I'd like to ask the Senators from Arizona and Illinois.

Why are there only two of you here? Shouldn't Bob Barr, Cynthia McKinney, and Ralph Nader be up there with you?

Why is it that all our states still handle elections differently, use a mish-mash of unreliable technologies, and voters are being disenfranchised in more ways than we can imagine? What will you do to ensure and let me verify that my vote will count, and that all of us will trust that the outcome of the election will reflect the will of the people?

Why are we at war in Iraq?

Why is it legal to profit from the provision of health care and health care insurance?

Was the 1999 Gramm/Leach/Bliley Act a mistake? Should we reinstate the aspects of Glass-Steagall which disallow banks to trade in securities and insurance?

Why are we at war in Afghanistan?

Why are federal military troops being stationed inside U.S. borders? Do you support that decision?

What do you think of the trend toward relaxing limits on consolidation of media ownership rules?

Bail me out

dchud — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:03:29 +0000

Been offline and now i'm in a hurry so I haven't the proper time to prep a rant against the bailout. Here's a few tips, though:

If you have more than $80k combined at any one bank, move some of it into a new account at a different bank or into some other kind of investment. Immediately. Like, as soon as you read this. FDIC only ensures each individual up to $100k per bank.
This is not a good time to be all in to any one thing. Are all your 401k/403b $$ in a single stock index fund? Best to move some over to treasuries. Are all your stock holdings are in one company? Think about the folks who held only AIG, or only Lehman Bros. Don't be like them.
Looking for a stock to hold? I like Southwest Airlines because (a) I use their product all the time and (b) they've held up better financially than their peers and stand to gain as the others suffer some more. I also like Costco, since their business caters to people trying to save a few bucks, and that's pretty much all of us just now. They're also Apparently Not Evil. These two companies haven't paid off overwhelmingly in the time I've held them, but they've held up, and I hope that continues.
Everbank's foreign currency-backed accounts look pretty interesting. If I had too much cash in one place (not even close!) I'd probably move some into one of their currency index CDs.
I own one stock that I expect to go up (it's been going up steadily in the past weeks): BRK.B. It's not like I own very much of it - I'm a librarian, after all - but I've been steadily moving toward it for the past few years and it just keeps paying off. Check the headlines for clear signals that that's not going to change.

I don't like this bailout one bit. I haven't read the senate markup that passed tonight but the house bill was terrible. It doesn't address the key issues, it doesn't provide much potential benefit for the risk, and it's being crammed through like so many pre-emptive wars. *Nobody* I've listened to or read in the past few weeks who knows the history of bank panics, depressions, and credit crises seems to think this plan does anything to help people like you and me, and I'm inclined to agree.

I'm also inclined to never vote for anybody who supports it. Unless something changed drastically in the senate's approved version, this is a horrible, horrible mistake we'll all be paying for for a long time.

Lack of Access redux

dchud — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 01:28:22 +0000

For the second straight year, I won't be at Access, the best damned library conference anywhere. Last year I was busy with a project deadline. This year the event is too close to the jewish new year holiday, and if it weren't, I'd still have a conflict, because later that week I'll be speaking at MLC's annual meeting in Lansing, MI.

/me sighs deeply...

Thoughts on iPod event

dchud — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:43:14 +0000

The new iPods look nice, but not too surprising. What really surprised me was to see that the end-of-talk musical performance slot normally reserved for a John Mayer or John Legend went to Jandek.

The Rep's everywhere these days!

Open position in LC repository group

dchud — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:25:14 +0000

Our group is hiring. Visit this jobs page and find "080214".

We're an interesting group with interesting projects and real long-term challenges, and this position, as a permanent FTE, is a good gig.

If you're interested, please contact me offline and I'd be happy to fill in any gaps left by the gov't speak in the job description, to the extent that I can (and keeping in mind that I'm now "one of them" too).

It closes in early October. If you're really interested, don't wait until the last minute to apply - it'll take some work.

Booting up PowerlessCamp - no, wait... er, you know what I mean

dchud — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:09:42 +0000

Ed Corrado liked the idea of a PowerlessCamp well enough to start a site about it, powerlesscamp.org.

Turn off, tune out, and drop in!

Conferences I'd Like to Attend

dchud — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:15:55 +0000

PowerlessCamp - no power. no lights, no laptops, no projectors. no wifi, no video or audio recording or amplification. Held outside maybe, in daylight. Maybe with some picnic benches.

virtual code4libcon - the regular conference is capped to fit a single track, which is lovely, but there are probably at least 2x-3x as many people who cannot attend. Those who don't attend but want to present and see other presentations post 5 minute lightning talking head or slide videos with a shared tag to an agreed-upon video sharing site before the start of the physical event. Then people at the conf can arrange a time/space to hear from those not present, and people not at the conf can hear from each other, and there's no hard limit on participation.

42camp -

AntiFest - the only accepted talks are about what you've done wrong in the past. could be held in conjunction with

Speaker For the Dead Code Camp - where you do what Ender did, but for code you no longer run.

Tuesday Quiz - find Paris Hilton

dchud — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:13:56 +0000

You have three seconds to complete this question.

What do you search for to find the Paris Hilton? The hotel?

Any answer that finds the hotel as the first hit wins. The shortest search (fewest tokens/letters) wins a free picture of Perez Hilton.