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Why Yahoo! Answers Is A Librarian's Worst Nightmare

Don't worry – it's not because it's going to replace us anytime soon – it's because it's an incredibly crappy reference tool which is (unfortunately) also one of the most widely used on the Net, second only to Wikipedia.

The blockbuster success of Yahoo! Answers is all the more surprising
once you spend a few days using the site. While Answers is a valuable
window into how people look for information online, it looks like a
complete disaster as a traditional reference tool. It encourages bad
research habits, rewards people who post things that aren't true, and
frequently labels factual errors as correct information. It's every
middle-school teacher's worst nightmare about the Web.

The article has some good insight on why a site like Wikipedia succeeds while a site like Yahoo! Answers fails.  (On that note, I've mentioned it a lot before but Ask MetaFilter probably comes closest to getting the “community answer site” idea right of any I've seen.)

(via Reddit)

Posted 11 December 2007 § Internet § Main Page ‡ Comments (4) °

Making A List – Checking It Twice

All I Want For Christmas Is…

The Brit Box by Rhino Records.  (Tracklisting) 

(MetaFilter discussion on the subject and a Salon review of the box set)

Posted 10 December 2007 § Main Page § PopCulture ‡ Comments (4) ° Tagged:

The US Election – Less Than 365 Days Left!

I follow US Presidential politics and this year is shaping up to be one of the most interesting elections in a long time – because of the Iraq War, because of the razor-thin margins (and resulting controversy) of the last two elections in 2000 and 2004, because the Democrats made a stunning comeback in the 2006 mid-term elections in both Congress and the Senate but have been largely ineffectual since (with many commentators speculating that the Dems don't want to risk doing anything drastic or controversial – ie. impeachment – that might damage what looks like a sure victory in 2008.)

For the Republicans, the current front runners are Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney (interestingly, two men with a history of being more liberal than conservative) and for the Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. 

There are a number of interesting stories that can or will come out of this election.  Hillary Clinton could be the first female President, Barack Obama could be the first African-American President, Bill Richardson (who's polling around 4th for the Democrats in most places) would be the first Hispanic President if he somehow managed to win, Mitt Romney would be the first Mormon President, Giuliani would be the first cross-dressing President. 

In addition, if Hillary Clinton wins, that would mean an uninterrupted twenty-five year stretch of Clintons and Bushes in the White House going back to the George H. Bush Vice-Presidency in 1981!  (I thought monarchies were why the United States had a revolution against England?)

Barack Obama echoes of John Kennedy in his youth and charisma, bursting onto the scene with a mesmerizing speech at the 2004 Democratic convention. 



Nothing is likely to come of it but perhaps the most interesting element to me is the groundswell of support (especially online) for two unique candidates – one from each party. 

Ron Paul is a Texas Congressman and physician who once ran for President as a Libertarian and is the only Republican candidate that favours leaving Iraq. He is against the War on Drugs, the Patriot Act and even the US having a federal income tax.  These qualities match up closely with the beliefs of many of the technorati who are highly active online.  These people have responded by giving Paul (who is a distant fourth or further, in most polls of Republican candidates) a record for single-day fundraising efforts, fittingly on November 5 (Guy Fawkes Day which commemorates a thwarted plot to overthrow the English Parliament).  Unlike the other candidates for both parties, this fundraising isn't being coordinated by the campaign but is happening spontaneously as Ron Paul supporters plan “moneybomb” days which raise millions via thousands of small, direct donations.

The other unique candidate is Dennis Kucinich who is so liberal by American standards, he's practically a Canadian. But when polls are conducted in the US to match a cross-section of American respondents to see who best matches their own beliefs without naming candidates, Kucinich is always the winner (sorry can't find the reference for this statement but I did read it somewhere.) 

He has an amazing life story – occasionally living in his parent's car when they were poor, making his high school football team weighing at 4'9″ and 97 pounds, becoming the youngest mayor in US history – but because he's very short, he claims to have seen a UFO and he's married to a woman half his age (but who, except for her British citizenship, might be an even better President than him),  he gets marginalized completely.

Kucinich even broached the idea of a cross-party ticket of these two Internet favourites to bridge the red-blue divide in the US but was rebuffed by Ron Paul.  Still the idea of two candidates – one from each end of the political spectrum –  who have the support of real people rather than corporations and lobbyists and who believe in principles rather than profits makes you wonder what might have been since you know it will never have a chance to be.

Some related stories…

Washington Post's: The Line – Ranking the Presidential Candidates

“Ron Paul Bears An Empty Pot” – A Political Folk Tale

“The Heroics of Dennis Kucinich”

Posted 09 December 2007 § Main Page § Meme § Politics § United States § Video ‡ Comments (4) °

Friday Fun Link – 33 Reasons Why Libraries and Librarians Are Still Important (Dec 7, 2007)

This list is focused mostly on the Internet and technology as things that librarians are better at (rather than librarians successfully utilizing these tools beyond what normal users might do – he says, typing on a blog) but it’s still a lot of food for thought.

To be honest, I think it wouldn’t be hard to make a 100 item list of why libraries and librarians are still essential.

Plus they forgot #34 – “Librarians are the ultimate service occupation. Gas station attendant of the mind.” (Thanks to Michelle L. for the quote.)

Posted 08 December 2007 § FridayFunLink § Internet § Library § List § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

Wall Street to Costco: "Stop Treating Your Employees So Well"

If you're doing your Christmas shopping over the next few weeks, why not consider Costco aka “The anti-Wal-mart“?

Their unique practices as a retailer – paying employees a living wage, offering generous benefits, customer-friendly return policies – has led to low employee turnover, a wealthier clientele in general and continued growth while competitors such as Wal-mart, Target and others see stagnant growth or even declines.

Costco's corporate culture (like others such as WestJet, Google and so on) reminded me of a blog post I read recently which said that, in essence, the entire history of management theory comes down to two schools of thought:

Between them, Taylor (management as the rational analysis of numbers) and Mayo (management as the humanistic art of influencing people) carved up the world of
management theory. According to my scientific sampling, you can save
yourself from reading about 99 percent of all the management literature
once you master this dialectic between rationalists and humanists. The
Taylorite rationalist says: Be efficient! The Mayo-ist humanist
replies: Hey, these are people we’re talking about! And the debate goes
on. Ultimately, it’s just another installment in the ongoing saga of
reason and passion, of the individual and the group.

Here are a selection of Costco related stories that have been posted on Reddit if you want to read more about one of the world's most effective, successful retailers. 

Posted 07 December 2007 § Jobs § Main Page ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: ,

Security Can Always Be Circumvented

Posted 06 December 2007 § Main Page § Technology ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

"From Books to Beers and Stacks to Snacks" (Xmas Edition)

If you're a librarian in Regina, live nearby or are going to be back in town for the holidays, feel free to join us for a Christmas gathering on Friday December 14 from 5pm until whenever at Monarch's Lounge in the Hotel Saskatchewan. 

If you're on Facebook, full details are available here. 

Posted 04 December 2007 § Internet § Library § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

The Canadian Book Challenge

“In case you haven't been challenged enough lately, here's another to
add to your compulsive need to push yourself to your limit: The Canadian Book Challenge.

The
rules are simple: read 13 Canadian books (books by Canadians and/or
about Canadians) before next Canada Day (That's July 1st for you
non-Canadians in the audience). Make sure to blog about each one!
Participants will have their name entered in for some kick-ass prizes.“

I'm on the right track – I just finished the autobiography of noted Canadian philosopher, Chris Jericho this weekend and am halfway through the biography of Tommy Douglas by Dave Margoshes (who won “Book of the Year” at the recent Sask Book Awards for a different book.)  One of the next books on my reading list is “Pumped: Everybody's Guide to the Oil Patch“.  So I'm a quarter of the way there!

Oh, and well I'm talking books, I don't think this one is Canadian but I thought I'd put it here since it has one of the most apt titles for a book I've ever seen. 

(via the always illuminating Shelf Monkey)

[Edit: I've been added to the blog roll for the challenge so will endeavour to write a brief review of the Canadian books I read here.]

Jason's Canadian Book Challenge – Canadian Books I Read Up To July 1, 2008

1. A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex – Chris Jericho
I was a big wrestling fan as a kid watching Stamped Wrestling every Saturday and I still follow the sport (yeah, I know – we can have that debate another time) a bit.  So it was fun to read this autobiography from one of the sport's top stars who grew up in Winnipeg and had many of the same experiences I did when he was young (other than he became a world-famous wrestler and I'm a librarian.  Go figure.)  This isn't a WWE-sanctioned book so this one has a bit less whitewashing than those ones tend to have.  Plus Jericho studied for a year to be a journalist before becoming a wrestler at 19 so that training helps makes this book a cut above the rest. 

2. Tommy Douglas: Building the New Society – Dave Margoshes
This is a biography of Tommy Douglas targeted at young adults, part of a series of books on notable Canadian figures published by XYZ editions.  Although this makes it a quick read, it's very thorough, covers all the major highs and lows of Douglas's life and still provides great insight. 

3. 100 Greatest Hockey Arguments – Bob McCown & David Naylor
Excellent addition to the world of hockey books because of its unique take – instead of focusing on the game in general or a specific player, team or event like most hockey books do, this book has 100 short chapters on all manner of common arguments around the game (“Gretzky or Orr”, “Most Underrated Players”, “Best Draft Years”) with solid arguments presented for each case including some that might make you re-think your own positions (“Should there be fighting in hockey?”  McCown makes a solid case for the 'no' side.)  I especially enjoyed the chapter on why Saskatchewan is hockey's hotbed.

4. Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling – Bret Hart
As with the Chris Jericho book, this was another one that told the story of a Stampede Wrestling star's eventual rise to the top of the world of professional wrestling.  But even more than Jericho, Hart has an engaging, amazing and heartbreaking life that makes for gripping reading – from being “stretched” as a child by his dad, Stu Hart, in their family home's basement “dungeon” to the death of his brother Owen in a pay-per-view stunt gone horribly wrong.  This book has a special connection for me because when we were living in Calgary, Bret Hart had a stroke and ended up in recovery on the floor that Shea was working on.  She took in some old programs I had from my childhood to show Hart and he signed a poster I had of him from when he was just starting out.  He was also working on the book at this time and there is even a bit about his time at the Foothills hospital – though Shea doesn't get a mention.

5. Future Greats and Heartbreaks – Gare Joyce
A behind-the-scenes look at the top-secret world of NHL scouting by a reporter who managed to gain access to the Columbus Blue Jackets' scouting group during the 2006 season.  The book details his experiences and insights as he follows top prospects in junior league games and international tournaments.  An interesting read that would be even more interesting to read in a few years when more of the players discussed have (or haven't) made it to the show.

Posted 04 December 2007 § Main Page § PopCulture ‡ Comments (6) ° Tagged:

Four Week "Introduction To Computers" Course

I was asked to teach a four week “Intro To Computers” course for the month of November at the Weyburn Public Library, one of two city branches in our region, while they are temporarily short-staffed. 

Last week was my final class so I thought I'd put up the outlines and some thoughts in case that's useful to anybody who ends up doing something similar in their own library. 

Planning The Class
I wasn't sure if it would be the same people all four weeks so I structured the classes so they could be stand-alone (if the patron wanted to only take one) or that the classes would  build on each other so somebody who took all four would (hopefully) learn something new each week.

I had five spots available and five students registered for all four sessions (each being an hour long) so the second option turned out to be the popular one.  I had five attend the first week, six the second (somebody brought a friend to sit in), only two the third week and three the final week. 

I have no idea why the numbers dropped off but suspect I might have scared some people off as I really had trouble throttling back to a completely “beginner” level.  As with any computer course at any level, there's going to be a range in the knowledge of participants so that makes a challenge – for the students and instructor, whether you're teaching “Intro to E-mail” or “FIMS526 – The Internet and Libraries”.  Still, that was another challenge – some of the students found my material too basic and some found it way too advanced.  (I probably could've done a whole hour on “using the mouse” for at least one of the people who dropped out after week two.) 

Five was a good, manageable number for the most part – I felt I was able to keep everybody on track but also give some personalized attention.  I've heard of classes in libraries with more students and I've heard of some libraries that are able to do one-to-one (or one-to-two) classes which would've been even better. 

The configuration of the computers at WPL suited having five students as well.  They have two round tables of six computers each right beside each other so I had one table reserved for my students (with one machine for myself) and one was left for library patrons to use (and for teens to snicker as I talked about “this is a keyboard, this is a mouse.”)

Here's an outline of what I had on the agenda for each week.  I tried to be very open-ended and started each class asking the students what they knew about that week's subject and what they wanted to learn then tried to tailor the night to that.  I never covered everything on my agenda – some weeks, I got to a good portion of it, other weeks we focused on only one or two things. 

It's funny to think back to how, on week one, I was worried if I could fill an hour.  By week four, I wished I had three. 

Anybody out there done this before?  Notice anything major I missed?  I'd love suggestions and tips in case I'm asked to do this again in the new year.  There are tons of resources online as well.

Week One – Intro To Computers
– introduce myself, explain my background, plug the library and its other programs
– have round the room introductions to get names, experience levels and what people want to learn from the course
– parts of a computer – CPU, monitor, mouse, keyboard.  Touch briefly on peripherals such as printers, USB drives, digital cameras, scanners. 
– what is an operating system?  Different operating systems.
– MS-Office applications
– MS-Word and basic word processing techniques (return, space bar, delete, moving cursor around, etc.)
– useful keyboard commands – CTRL-C, CTRL-V, CTRL-X, CTRL-Z, CTRL-S, etc.

Thoughts:
If I changed one thing here, I'd do some basic mouse control exercises near the start of this week – perhaps with MS-Paint or Solitaire or something.  I might also have a typing tutor web site at the ready in case anybody asked – though nobody did.  I also stressed the importance of jumping in and just trying stuff without being afraid of wrecking the computer or messing it up this week and the other weeks as well.

Week Two – Intro To E-mail & The Internet
The Internet
– What is the Internet?  Different parts of the Internet.
– The world wide web
– browsers and how they work – toolbars, address bar, back button
– surfing the Internet
– search engines, Google
– Internet safety – privacy, fraud, security

E-mail
– what is e-mail? 
– the “killer application” of the Internet
– Web-based and local e-mail services – advantages and disadvantages
– e-mail etiquette
– address books
– spam and virus protection
– attachments

Thoughts:
We spent a good portion of this class setting up Hotmail addresses for everyone (again, some already had them but most didn't) then practiced by sending messages to ourselves. For this week, I gave the students their only homework assignment – to send me an e-mail to my work account.

Week Three – Electronic Resources 101
For this week, I basically spent half the class showing the students the various electronic resources the library has available – newspapers, magazines, databases plus how our online catalogue works and half the class talking about Google and some simple tricks for more successful searches.

Thoughts:
I failed miserably when I asked students for two things they'd like to find online – one wanted to find an old high school friend and one wanted to find the title of a book that was recently featured on Oprah but she could only remember what it was about, not the title or author.  I still think the idea of showing students what a well-planned, well-executed search with the right tool can accomplish is a good one.  I think next time, I'd ask for just one suggestion and focus on finding that info.  

Week Four – Everything Else 101
I'd kept this week's agenda purposely vague as I wasn't sure what we would cover at the end.  There was some interest in learning about digital cameras and also MP3 players but because of the scope of the course and the problems of trying to show someone how these items might work on a library computer when it could be completely different at home, I unfortunately had to use the “get a techy teen you know to show you” line. 

In the end, this week basically became a quick overview of some of the most popular and useful web sites online.  I started with Amazon.com (which led to a quick digression on e-commerce and buying online) then moved to Google Books then Flickr before ending on Wikipedia.  I also had YouTube, Facebook, Download.com, E-bay, Google's other services (images, news, scholar, etc.), IMDB, and more “local” sites like mysask.com and ratemds.com in the cue as sites I could talk about as well. 

I also had the following on my list of potential topics but never got to them (and realise now, that was probably for the best):
– blogs, wikis, RSS
– downloading/uploading
– instant messaging
– digital cameras/scanners/printers/MP3 players

Thoughts:
The idea of having everyone e-mail me in week two turned out to be a good one as I was able to e-mail everybody a SurveyMonkey feedback form instead of handing out a paper version at the last class.  I'm not sure if this is a good strategy with a group of 50-75 year old computer beginners but I was really trying to get them to say whatever the equivalent of “wow – cool!” is for their age group and sending the electronic survey was another way to do this. 

Overall, it was a great experience and I'm sure I'll get the chance to do it again in the future many times in my library career!  

Posted 03 December 2007 § Internet § Library § List § Main Page § Technology § Work ‡ Comments (0) °

(if) I DID IT!!! – Thoughts on the OJ Simpson Book

When I worked for the Writers Guild of Alberta, one of my main jobs each year was to organize their annual book awards program.  One of my most memorable experiences during this time was when of our members submitted her book in both the fiction and non-fiction categories. 

I looked at the book and saw that it was indeed part fiction and part non-fiction so I called her up to see if she was willing to just put the book in one category or the other since this could obviously lead to some confusion at the minimum should she be shortlisted in both categories and embarrassment if she won both!

“No.  This book is half fiction and half non-fiction.  Each chapter alternates from one to the other so those are the categories I want to be entered in.”

“Okay, I'll let it go.” I told her.  “But if you win in both categories, you're explaining it to the media, not me!”

That was the thought that crossed my mind the other day as I was working through our patron request “show pile”.  A couple patrons had requested the OJ Simpson book.  So I did the assessment we have to do for every requested book.  But this one provided some interesting twists and turns. 

If you don't know the story, OJ Simpson was offered a huge contract to write a fictionalized version of how he *might* have killed his ex-wife and her acquaintance.  There was a huge public outcry so the book was canceled, editors were fired and a small dash of civility prevailed for once in our celebrity-obsessed, anything-goes society. 

The reprieve lasted a month or so.  Then the rights to the book were assigned to the family of one of the murder victims who decided to go ahead and publish it to try and recoup some of the $38 million they were awarded in civil suit against OJ after he was found innocent in the criminal trial. 

Although the book was originally going to be marketed as a “fictionalized” account of how the murders may have occurred, I found that it was now classed as a “True Crime” book and the cover still had the original “If I Did It” title but the word “if” was in really small letters so it would appear to read “I Did It”.  A new sub-title was added “Confessions of the Killer” and the author was listed as The Goldman Family rather than OJ Simpson.


All I can say is “ouch!”  The family aren't likely to recoup much of what they're owed by publishing this book.  But they definitely got back at OJ with how they pulled a bit of a switcheroo.  Also makes for some interesting questions for the cataloguers out there – how do you treat a book where the line between fiction and non-fiction is so blurry?  (If I could remember the title, I could look up that WGA half and half book to see how various libraries dealt with it.)

Posted 02 December 2007 § Canada § Library § Main Page § PopCulture § Work ‡ Comments (7) ° Tagged: ,