*I'm
backdating a few posts to this past weekend to keep up the illusion that I never leave the
front of my computer for such things as camping and otherwise spending
quality time with my family.*
CustomizedCoupland is an opportunity for you to design your own cover for his new book – for a price of course! Still, a pretty cool mash-up of traditional publishing and cutting-edge technology. Coupland is a natural fit for this as well with his history as an artist and graphic designer. In fact, we just had an exhibit at the RPL's Dunlop Art Gallery that featured a Coupland piece.
(via MetaFilter)
Head Tale
Yet Another Librarian's Blog
Design Your Own Cover For The New Douglas Coupland Book (Which Is A "Generation X" Sequel)
Friday Late Link – What The Internet Knows About You (September 4, 2009)
*I'm backdating a few posts to keep up the illusion that I never leave the front of my computer for such things as camping and otherwise spending quality time with my family.*
WhatTheInternetKnowsAboutYou.com uses an unintentional security hole that exists in most browsers – the ability to see which links you've clicked in the past to turn them that generic “visited link” purple – to be able to view your browsing history (explanation here).
As they say on the site, this used to be a lot less worrisome when we just went to some basic sites but now, with people visiting social networking sites and URL's that tell a lot about us (which sites we hit on Wikipedia, sites we've hit via Google searches), the potential for malicious use is much higher.
Fine Free Day Made Simple (Now, With More Ninjas)
The most excellent Common Craft videos on YouTube provided inspiration for this cool video from the Edmonton Public Library about their “Fine Free Day” promotion…
(Thanks to Beth L. for the tip!)
And Now I Shall Bore You With Some Family Photos…
…although these are quite a bit better quality than usual since we got a real photographer to take them as opposed to me whipping out the iPhone and going “Hold it!” anytime Pace does something cute.
(Funny story – we were at Central last Saturday and one of the pages saw Pace run by. Then she looked up and saw me close behind and goes “Is that yours?” I say “yes” and she goes “But he's so cute!”)
NB: The preceding anecdote may have contained (very) slight paraphrasing for comedic effect.
Happy Doughnut Day!
After years of planning and preparation, today was a pretty momentous day for Regina Public Library. Having recently completed a major Program and Services Review which looked at all aspects of the organization – staffing, programming, facilities – today was the official implementation day for one of the key components of the new structure – a revamped staffing model and organizational chart.
As you can well imagine, there are a huge range of emotions over the changes that are happening – some staff are moving to new units or branches, others are moving their physical location – and that means that people are feeling excited, nervous, frustrated, sad and angry – often with all of these feeling swirling around at the same time.
My role at RPL is a fairly unique one in a number of different ways – for example, I'm the only in-scope employee in the HR department which is otherwise completely comprised of out-of-scope staff.
Another unique aspect of my job is the work that I actually get to do. The major responsibility of my position is all staff training and development which is fairly standard. But the other part is a bit more nebulous – “Organization Development” which you can read definitions of in various places but which for me, basically means that I have a pretty wide flexibility to do various things to help the organization successfully achieve its goals.
Sometimes that's helping a manager develop policy, sometimes that's talking to front-line staff to see what concerns they have about their day-to-day work. And sometimes, like today, it's taking 20 dozen doughnuts around to every single branch and unit in the organization as a small gesture of thanks to the staff for their dedication to RPL. Needless to say, I enjoy my job quite a bit! 
Music Monday – "Lately, I've been thinking about everything/Something leaves me stranded in between"
The Woman on p. 194
A great story about the reaction to a photo of a naked model in fashion magazine Glamour which the magazine dared to run with the model looking normal (ack – a paunch!) rather than air-brushed to Hefner-esque visions of perfection.
A Couple Apple Related Stories
State of the Art: Apple's Sleek Upgrade
– The New York Times raves about Snow Leopard, the new update to the core Apple operating system, Leopard. The most amazing thing? After years of features wars that turned OS's and various applications into larger and larger messes, this upgrade may be the first time in history that a software program has significantly reduced its footprint – by eliminating unnecessary files (instead of having GB of printer drivers “just in case” even though most people use one or maybe two at most) and tightening up the existing programs. The tagline “A snow leopard is just like a leopard but faster and with a smaller footprint” definitely applies!
Three iPhone Apps with Augmented Reality Support
– “Augmented Reality” is adding information to a display of a real event to supplement what you are seeing. A common example is the yellow first down line overlaid on most football game broadcasts today. Here's a YouTube video demonstrating how this works for the London bus app.
I'd recently read another article about “10 Ways to Improve the iPhone” or something like that but can't find it again [Edit: Found it.]. One point the article made made which I agree with strongly is that they need a better way to organize your apps. Right now, I have about ten different tabs with anywhere from a couple to a full dock of apps on them. They're grouped roughly as “Apps I Use Regularly”, “News Sites”, “Games”, “More Games”, “Book-Related”, “Reference Services”, “Pace Games”, “Camera Related”, “Social Networking”, “Music” and “Utilities”. (Sounds anal but I'm a librarian – what can I say?”) The problem is that when a tab fills up, I have to either figure out a way to reorganize things one app at a time or create a new “category” out of things I already have grouped together (I used to have all my “Social Networking” apps on the same tab as my “News” apps but split them apart when I got more than the 16 total apps you're allowed to have on any one tab.
Anyhow, since I can't find that exact article again, instead, I'll give you a link to all Ask.MetaFilter questions tagged with “iPhone”. Lots of good reading there!
Friday Fun Link – Obama's Reading List for His Holiday in Martha's Vineyard (August 29, 2009)
Sorta interesting but not as cool as hearing what's on his iPod.
Hello Rotary Club of Regina Eastview
I hope you enjoy my presentation at your luncheon today and it doesn't make you do this…
