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On Other Blogs…

I know that everybody who reads this blog doesn't necessarily read all of the same blogs that I do.  So every once in awhile, I like to highlight some of the great entries I've found elsewhere. 

For example, Meshell had a great post on what exactly a blog is, why people do it and a list of related resources on topics such as blogging on the job, a blogger's code of ethics and more.

The Librarian Fonz found a story that didn't get much play here in the English-speaking world about how the Bavarian National Library is making one million books, mostly in German but also in a variety of other languages, available to Google Book.

John M.'s Interiority blog is doing a fascinating series on that topic including “Librarians Undressed”, “Thinking Like An Information Seeker”, “Looking Within the Library” with more to come.

Mark P. at Polivision is one of the most consistently funny bloggers I read on the web.  His take on the Oscars was funnier than some of the pros. (Uhm, I mean the three people I link to at the end of that first paragraph, not me!)

Princess Cosine is another consistently hilarious blogger that I read – plus she's been blogging up a storm lately which is cool.  And her lists are way funnier than mine could ever be.

Quinn has his own thoughts on the Cha-Cha search engine I blogged about recently.  (Please note my added comment/admission in my post about how I'm an idiot, having realised the reason the “expert guide” got the proper answer to my question so quickly was because the answer can easily be found via a Google search for the RQ's exact wording in an AskMF thread I'd started last year!)

Quinn also regularly writes posts I can barely understand even though I'm pretty sure they are written in English.  (That's why he's in a Masters of Philosophy program and I still enjoy watching Teletubbies.)

Renee S. at Birdcage of the Muses did a funny, thought-provoking, engaging series on her recent holiday in SE Asia capped by Flickr photos of her travels that are useful for vicarious living.

True librarian rock star, Linda B. posts the exciting news that Buttonfly's record is finally done!  I still remember Orientation Day at FIMS when I ended up talking to Linda at a break and she told me she was in a band working on a record.  “What do you sound like?”  “Well, sort of like a cross between Radiohead and Neko Case – except the guy in the band sings all the Neko songs and I sing all the Radiohead ones to keep it interesting.”  I keep going back to their MySpace page to listen to “Haiku” over and over again and can't wait to get my grubby little hands on a copy of the CD.  Linda reads this blog so maybe she can post ordering details in a comment? 

That's a quick round-up of some recent highlights from my own personal blogosphere.  There's a lot more blogs I read regularly but most of them don't get updated very frequently so I may be missing some great entries that are a bit older (not that I'm complaining – it's hard enough to keep up with these blogs as it is!  Thank god not everybody posts on a regular basis like one gigantic windbag I know.)

Posted 19 March 2007 § Blog § List § Main Page § Randomness ‡ Comments (4) °

Is the DVD Shelf replacing the Bookshelf?

(This is just a random picture I grabbed off Flickr.  Not a photo of the DVD collection of anyone I know.)

Something I've noticed more frequently when visiting friends and family (and even on occasion when I get access to strangers' homes – ie. going to check out used baby items or whatever) is that lots of people have a shelf full of DVD's in a prominent place in their home while the bookshelves, if they have them at all, are hidden in bedrooms or basements and are often a lot smaller then the space given over to movies. 

I'm someone who doesn't think libraries should see themselves in competition with places like Chapters and Rogers Video except in the broadest sense of competing for people's limited leisure time.  How can a place that offers pretty much everything it has – products and services – for no charge be competing with a place that charges (overcharges – have you rented a new release or bought a hard cover book lately?) for everything? 

But conversely, I am very aware that books are in competition with movies and other entertainment options.  And I sometimes wonder if books are losing out?  The stats about books published per year would indicate otherwise, the 12 million initial print run for the final Harry Potter indicate otherwise and it's been proven that people are reading more than ever (although maybe not books – the range of what is “reading” also includes Internet sites, magazines, newspapers, gaming manuals, comic books and graphic novels – at least in my definition.)

Posted 18 March 2007 § Library § Main Page § Photo § PopCulture ‡ Comments (7) ° Tagged: ,

Is There A "Universal" Book – Some Follow-Up

It's funny – you do a post you think will get lots of responses and then, ..not really.  But then you do a bit of a throwaway post albeit on a fairly interesting hypothetical question and you get tons of thoughtful, passionate responses. 

So inspired by Cenobyte who said she was going to pose that same question in a Live Journal forum, I thought I'd tap the hivemind and see what the folks over at AskMetaFilter had to say about potential “universal” books. As usual, they had lots of great suggestions plus adding some interesting resources – the list of bestselling books from Wikipedia, the list of the most widely held books according to OCLC, a few relevant newspaper articles and so on.

The administrators at AskMF frown on “chatfilter”-type questions (which is why I stuck in that “if I was planning a library display on universal books” line to give my question a practical aspect) but I find the questions about these chatty things (the proverbial “Desert Island Discs”-type questions) to be the most interesting.

My question didn't get deleted and instead, got a fairly good response with 56 comments as I type this and 15 users who marked it as a “favourite” question.

(Oh, and you don't have to know us or anything to play that virtual baby book guessing game I linked to in my first link of this post.  We won't be insulted by what you write (Shea's brother put “Duke Hazzard” as a name!)  Plus you can win free books!  I'll even throw in 1-2 extras over and above the two I listed.  What's better than that?)

Posted 17 March 2007 § Library § Main Page § PopCulture ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Friday Fun Link – Free Online University Courses (March 16, 2007)

I was recently forwarded an e-mail that mentioned how MIT is offering a variety of free University courses that cover almost their entire curriculum.

This
e-mail reminded me of a MetaFilter thread I saw a few weeks ago (and I
think had even bookmarked into my “Potential FFL’s” folder) that
mentions not only the MIT offering but captures a number of other similar resources as well.

The
only catch with these is that they don’t count for University credit
and therefore, you can’t use them towards your degree requirements. But
if you want to explore pretty much any topic you can think of, you
can’t beat this price!

(via Stephanie P.)

Posted 16 March 2007 § FridayFunLink § Internet § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

Cha-Cha, New Human Powered Search Engine

A fellow FIMS student pointed me to a new human-assisted search engine called Cha-Cha. 

It allows you to do regular searches but if you're stymied, you can also click on the “Search With Guide” button, a chat box pops up and you're quickly connected with one of their guides. 

Who are the guides?   It doesn't really say but the site apparently has a classification for “Master” searchers and they, in turn, are the only ones who can invite others to be new searchers.  (Not that I saw any other qualification needed to become a new searcher other than knowing somebody already on the inside.) 

The site says that searchers are paid between $5-$10/hour based on performance and can work from any computer with a broadband connection. 

I logged in and chatted a bit with “Tiffany”, the first guide I was given but then lost her trying to get her to help me find a web site for “Jason Hammond in Canada.” 

I re-connected and gave “Joe” a different question that was actually something I'd been meaning to look for – a list of every band that had won Rolling Stone's band of the year award since the magazine started (or first started giving out year-end awards anyway.) 

After leaving me on “hold” for a couple minutes, Joe came back with these results then hung up rather abruptly, thanking me for using Cha-Cha. 

(Wait a sec…just noticed, the top of the results page had this disclaimer: “The Guide did not provide results. Please “Search With Guide” again, or you can try following these links.“)

I wonder if the searchers give up quickly if they can't find the answer since it hurts their per hour performance pay or something?  

I should log-in again with a question that I know an answer is out there (but that would take more than a simple Google search to find.)  Maybe one of my 503 RQ's?  Just a sec…(er, you don't know that it takes me a sec.  Isn't this cyberspace wonderful?)

Here's one:

“Which antiquarian
bookstore in Mississippi has the largest stock?”

This time I saved my chat transcript:

“Status: Connecting …
Status: Looking for a guide …
Status: Connected to guide: Brandt(81601)
Brandt(81601): Welcome to ChaCha!
You: hey there!
Brandt(81601): Hello
You: can you help me with a question?
Brandt(81601): Yes… just one moment
You: i'm trying to find the largest antiquarian bookstore in Mississippi.
Brandt(81601): sure thing
You: how did you get to work for cha-cha? are you guys paid?
Brandt(81601): Yes… you have to get invited by an employee and go through a short training stage
You: online?
Brandt(81601): Yes
You: how many guides do they have? it must be a lot!
Brandt(81601): I'm not sure… good question
You: maybe that will be my next search! 🙂
You: any luck?
Brandt(81601): these are highly recommended
You: how'd you find them?
Brandt(81601): messageboards for theses
You: do you just go over to google? 🙂
You: oh…i see.
You: can you give me that link as well?
Brandt(81601): No, many different sources
You: oh, i see.
You: you're going to put libraries out of business!
Brandt(81601): I hope not… one of my fav places!
You: mine too!
You: libraries aren't open right now.
Brandt(81601): Good thing you have us then!
You: can i ask – do you get paid by the question or the hour or ???
Brandt(81601): pretty much fifty cents a search
You: i clicked on that link to choctaw books – it looks perfect.
Brandt(81601): Great… anything else I can help with?
You: do i have to do anything to prove y
ou gave a good answer?
Brandt(81601): just rate me!
Brandt(81601): Have a great night also!
You: where's that?
Brandt(81601): Please RATE ME. Thanks for using ChaCha.
Status: Session ended.”

So, final verdict?   Well, after the first two searches, my impression that the site was pretty rough but it definitely had potential.  But I think other sites in the past have tried something similar but the labour cost killed them.  Does machine-driven Google rake in over fifty cents on every search?  I think their click rates are variable depending on the keyword so probably on average, they do.  So if Cha-Cha could incorporate relevant text ads, maybe they could make a go of it?  Their guides pay for their own internet connections and hardware.  So the company's costs are probably fairly low. 

The newly minted librarian snob in me was pretty nervous about trusting searches to untrained people, especially when the price is the same whether you're using Cha-Cha or your library's reference desk (and with more and more libraries doing virtual reference via chat, IM, web-based modules, etc., there is similiarity.  But libraries have limited hours – and not everyone will think to log-in to a virtual reference desk in another time zone like one classmate did for an assignment.  And often the interfaces for libraries virtual reference aren't as straight forward as this one was.)

Plus Cha-cha claims that its algorithm keeps track of successful answers and will get better as time goes on.

I'm sure my RQ hadn't been asked before.  But this guy did get me the correct answer for my question in a couple minutes which I have to admit, surprised me. (It took me about four days to find the right answer at library school! ) 

Of course, librarians are trained to back up their answers with multiple sources and three of those days were trying to find a print source!  Plus this guy wasn't able to tell me exactly where he got the answer in case I wanted to verify it (which I might've if I didn't already know that was the right answer.  But then again, maybe the answer he gave would be enough for most people?)

So are libraries going to have to compete with search engines and human powered answering services?  They already do.  And is the future of reference in any form, increasingly going to happen online?   I'd argue that it already does.

[Edit: Here's some more info about the behind-the-scenes of Cha-Cha.  Sounds like there's a bit of a pyramid scheme aspect to how searchers get paid in that you get 10% of what your invited seachers earn.  Here's something else interesting:

they
have the best system around for issuing your pay.  You are issued a
visa debit card with First Internet Bank.  There is a “Pay Me Now” link
on the website.  You click this link and the funds are instantly loaded
to your visa debit card.  Have you been paid this fast from a real
job.  HA, I bet you haven't.  Anyway, I have been working for
Cha Cha since August and I love it.  Anytime my money is low, I just
log in and work a while and get paid the same day.  I have used Cha Cha
to pay a bill at the last minute, go grocery shopping, and to take my
son out for a night on the town.

TechCrunch aren't fans of the site and relate a story from a former guide who claims that 90% of the guides are pranksters (whatever they mean by that – maybe just people who aren't serious about giving good answers?) and also a screenshot of an exchange where a guide apparently didn't know what Digg was.

And some more criticism from a former guide.

One more…here's a (real ) librarian's POV review of the service.  And I think this is pretty self-evident but I should note that I realise any thoughts I have about this site are based on a total of  two and a half searches.  My suggestion is that you try it yourself and  form your own conclusions!]

Posted 15 March 2007 § Internet § Library § Main Page ‡ Comments (3) °

Dave Greber Award – Call For Submissions

I was fortunate enough to work with Shirley Dunn when she created this award a few years ago.  It began as an award for Calgary and area writers and I remember telling her "It's too bad you can't go province-wide with it - or even beyond - as you'd get a lot more 
submissions and interest."

Well, I sort of lost track of the award for the last couple years but it 
looks like that idea's come true.  Writers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and BC are now eligible!

The award is a $2000 prize for a freelance writer writing in the area of 
social justice.

More details from the web site listed in the message below.  

---
Hello

The 2007 *Call for Submissions for the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award* can now be found on the website at
http://www.greberwritingaward.com/about/submissions.htm

This year we are very pleased to announce that eligible freelance
writers living in Saskatchewan are welcome to apply, as are writers in
Alberta and British Columbia.

In the past you have been helpful in informing writers, publishers and
your members about the award, and the Call for Submissions.  I am
hopeful that you can be called on once again to spread the word. Your assistance and support makes a difference.

If there are any concerns or questions please contact me. Thank you.

Keep Writing

Shirley Dunn
Fund Developer
Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award
1.403.259.5689

www.greberwritingaward.com 
info@greberwritingaward.com
Posted 14 March 2007 § Canada § Main Page § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Universal Books?

Last night, while thinking about the vast publishing industry and the fact that you could never read even a fraction of the books published each year, even in a lifetime of reading,  I wondered “Are there any books that you could be sure that almost every single person who is a reader has read?” 

I think children's books are a good place to start – most of us have exposure to the same classics when we're young – Cat in the Hat, Charlotte's Web and into our adolescence with things like the The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew.

For that reason, that might be a good way to approach the list of books that every adult has read – except I suspect that there isn't probably a single “classic” in literature that everybody has read, the same way that there might be for children's and YA books.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, given any list of 100 Great Books, there's probably a few gaps on that list for anybody (I usually feel like I've barely read half the books on any of these lists – and I've got an English degree!)

Maybe that's another way to approach it – education.  There must be some books that everybody reads in the course of their schooling.  Is Hamlet the universal book we have to read in school?  Not necessarily – I think we studied Merchant of Venice in grade ten then Romeo and Juliet in grade eleven then MacBeth in grade twelve in my high school.  I didn't see Hamlet until university (but then I saw it in about three different classes!) 

How about coming at it from the opposite direction – the books no teacher would ever recommend?  Mass market paperbacks like Stephen King, Tom Clancy, John Grisham – all of whom have been referred to as the best-selling novelist of all-time.

Is there anybody out there who has not read at least one Stephen King book?  But then again, he's got such a large back catalogue, is there a single book out of his dozens that you could say everybody has read? 

The Bible is another book that is a strong contender – it's known as the best-selling single book of all-time according to Guinness.  But I would be fairly certain that “best-selling” doesn't not equate to “most read” by a long shot!  (“David begat John begat Paul begat Mark begat Mary…” makes for some pretty dry reading!)

Any other ideas?  I think I'm going to go with Hamlet as my pick for a “universal book”.  I don't think you can be a reader of any level of finesse and get away with not having read it.

Speaking of reading habits, I had another idea driving home from RPL yesterday.  Below is a list of the books I grabbed on a fairly typical visit to the public library.  There was no filtering – either to pick “good” books or avoid “bad” ones since I didn't come up with the idea for this list until coming home so here, completely and honestly, is a list of books and other items I borrowed.  (Not that I think there's anything particularly embarrassing in this batch but just want to state for the record that I'm not “forgetting” that biography of Posh Spice that I had on hold for a month.)

The Undercover Economist
This was a hold that brought me to the library on this day.  I'd seen the book at Chapters and in typical librarian fashion (?), made note of the title so I could borrow it from the library and save myself $40.  It's supposed to be sort of similar to Freakonomics which I really enjoyed.  I started it last night and it seems like this will be a good one too! 

Atheism: A Very Short Introduction
– I usually start my browsing at the start of the non-fiction shelves so usually end up grabbing 1-2 computer/book on books/philosophy-religion titles when I visit the library.

A Devil's Chaplain – Richard Dawkins
– while waiting for “The God Delusion” to come through on hold, another Dawkins book caught my eye while browsing – this a collection of various essays.  The Selfish Gene is a great book and the origin of the word “meme” if you didn't know.

The Weblog Handbook
– browsing at Superstore the other day, I saw a new book called the Rough Guide To Blogging.  RPL doesn't have it yet but this one from 2001 seemed similar but yet, should be good
for a laugh at the same time. 

Butter Down The Well – Robert Collins
A classic about growing up on the prairies in the 1930's, I've been meaning to read this one forever.

Neil Young Nation – Kevin Chong
Someone suggested this Vancouver author's first book for our FTRW “Book of the Year” in Calgary so I was aware of him as an author.  Then I heard his new book would be a non-fiction travelogue where he compares his life to Neil Young's (plus I have about a dozen guitar picks emblazoned with the title of this book from a promotional event I attended in Moose Jaw a couple years ago.  So I figured the least I could do is read the book.)

Touched By Tommy – Ed & Pemrose Whalen
A collection of anecdotes about people's encounters with Tommy Douglas.

Stripes (DVD)
– perhaps the funniest opening scene until “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective”

Animal House: Special Edition (DVD)
– I've seen this a few times but wanted to check out the extras.

Jesus de Montreal (DVD)
– great Canadian film with an awesome ending.

(All DVD's are ones I've seen before but I like to have a familiar film playing in the background when I'm on the computer or doing other stuff so I can tune in and tune out without feeling like I'm missing anything.)

Last fall, I had a debate with one of my readers about whether 40 items was too high of a limit for a public library (she said it was, I said it wasn't even close!)  I admitted at that time that I never read all the books I take out but do like the convenience of having a “mini-library” with a range of borrowed books in it so that I can find something to read no matter what mood strikes me.  (Let's not get into the hundreds of neglected books on my own bookshelf!)  Anyhow, every book I took out yesterday is a book I *want* to read, whether it is a book I *will* read is another question. 

Oh, another realization – I'm really into non-fiction these days and rarely read fiction anymore.  Which in turn inspires an idea for a post for another day – the hierarchy of genres within the book world.  But that'll have to wait.

[Edit – I posted this question to the hivemind at AskMF for their thoughts.]

Posted 13 March 2007 § Library § List § Main Page § PopCulture ‡ Comments (18) ° Tagged:

Petition to Stop Climate Change

I don’t post every petition I come across
on here but this one is from a solid organization and it looks
like it has some potential to at least get a legitimate hearing from
top decision makers. So why not add your name to support this message?

—
Dear friend,

This
Thursday, the environment ministers from the G8, the world’s biggest
contributors to climate change, will be meeting in Germany. The outcome
of this meeting is crucial to world’s response to global warming.

Avaaz.org
has been invited to attend this meeting to present our climate change
petition. A strong voice for action could help set the agenda for the
G8. To help seize this opportunity, click below:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/climate_action_germany

The G8 is a summit of world leaders from the “Group of 8?
largest economies. Together, these countries account for 50% of global
greenhouse gas emissions–the gasses that cause climate change. The full
G8 summit is coming in June, but the agenda and outcome of this type of
high-profile event is usually set far in advance–at meetings like the
one this Thursday.

This year, the president of the G8 is
German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her environment minister, Sigmar
Gabriel, is in charge of the ministers meeting Thursday. And at 4 pm on
March 15th, we have a personal meeting with Mr. Gabriel to present our
petition for binding emissions targets to stop catastrophic climate
change.

Merkel has indicated an interest in making climate
change a top priority. With a significant global petition, we can make
the case that the world is ready for aggressive leadership on climate
change–and pave the way for truly historic commitments at the G8 summit
this June.

It’s a rare opportunity to have a global impact. Add your voice to the petition now:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/climate_action_germany

50,000
people from 131 countries have already demanded action. Our goal is to
reach 100,000. Please sign the petition, forward this email to friends
and family, and post the link on your blog–we only have a few days to
make this statement count.

If we add our voices together, now, 2007 can become the year we took the first step to save the world.

With hope,

Ricken, David, Iain, Lee-Sean, Galit, Graziela, and the rest of the Avaaz.org team

Posted 12 March 2007 § Main Page § Politics ‡ Comments (0) °

Stephen Lewis To Speak at U of R

I've heard from multiple people that the free David Suzuki lecture a couple weeks ago at U of R was awesome.  I missed that but I'm not going to miss this one – I saw Stephen Lewis speak at CLA in Ottawa last summer and it was amazing. 

Here's the official blurb:

As you may or may not already know, on Thursday March 15, Stephen Lewis
is speaking at the University of Regina in the Education Auditorium
starting at 7:00 p.m. The talk is hosted by the U of R's Engineers
without Borders.



Stephen Lewis was the former UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and
will speak about his remarkable work with the United Nations, which
spans more than two decades. He has garnered respect and attention
internationally for the strength and eloquence with which he presents
his convictions about HIV/AIDs, lobalization and the international
responsibility to address these problems.



It is free for students and $5 for non-students. Tickets are available
now at the U of R Student Union desk, and will also be available that
night (assuming they do not sell out). Contact the Student Union for
more info. 

Posted 12 March 2007 § Main Page § Politics § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (0) °

The Impact of Having a Librarian Doing Your Reader's Advisory…

Bush's wife is a librarian for anybody who doesn't know.  (Now if she could just teach him to pronounce “eclectic”…)



Oh, and I'm tagging this with “humour” but really, it's about as far from funny as it gets.  I think it was better when Bush admitted that all he read was Sports Illustrated and summaries of the Washington Post provided by his staff. 

Posted 12 March 2007 § Humour § Main Page § Politics § PopCulture § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,