nirak.net - Musings of an LIS Student

When it comes to computers, I was lucky to have a mother who was technically oriented and excited about technology. We got our first computer when I was very young- of course, it was command line only, and to do anything interesting with it, you had to learn to program. My mom took up the challenge, and programmed the computer to quiz me on my spelling, among other things. When the mac came around, my mom just had to have one of those as well. It had an interesting program called HyperCard, which my mom was quite fond of as well.  I learned from my mom that a computer isn’t just something you buy that does things for you- you can manipulate it, program it, use it to do new things.

I wonder if kids today, those that grew up with Windows and Mac OS’s - ones that don’t really facilitate exploration and tinkering - aren’t at a disadvantage when it comes to computers. They can run circles around us when it comes to IM and SMS and social networking, but sometimes simple things can throw them (like how to get a virus off a computer or, better yet, avoid getting one in the first place.) This is part of the reason I LOVE the OLPC- the entire thing is tinkerable. You can change the programs, you can view the code and make alterations. And I have no doubt that some kids will do amazing things with the machines. It’s quite likely that the next programming genius will come from the ranks of OLPC owners.

Photo by  isforinsects

karin :: Jan.29.2008 :: Open access/Open source :: No Comments »

Week before last on Uncontrolled Vocabulary, we (I use the term “we” loosely, since I lost microphone during the broadcast and could only chat) discussed Lawrence Lessig’s post about the Creative Commons licensing of his book “The Future of Ideas.” The question was, should librarians be making an effort to include creative commons licensed work in their catalog? I believe it was Julian who mentioned the possibility of copy cataloging, and this was a point I would have liked to hear more about. It seems like a huge wasted effort to have to re-catalog every CC licensed book out there.

Three examples:

Last semester I caught a nice glimpse of how published records can speed up the process of making the library catalog more friendly. Jim Shaw, government documents librarian at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, demonstrated how he carefully reviews government documents for inclusion in the catalog. I, knowing little about cataloging, asked how long it takes to get the documents in the catalog, and he said the records are already available, so it is just a matter of downloading and tweaking.

When I took reference resources and services, the final project was to recommend new books for our library’s collection. I chose, as my topic, open source. This topic lends itself to creative commons licensed books, and, in fact, nearly everything I thought was worthwhile was also creative commons licensed. In some cases I recommended buying the book, and in some cases not- but it certainly seems like a good idea to include a link to the electronic version if it exists whenever you buy the book.

Today, at a staff meeting, we talked about getting our digital projects into the catalog, and therefore into worldcat. The problem with this is if people want to find the project through he public interface, how it lists is dependent on where you live (at least on Worldcat.org). For instance, if you are looking at the Willa Cather book “One of Ours” through worldcat.org, you won’t see the freely accessible online version at UNL unless you happen to be near UNL or a library that happened to catalog this digital edition of the book. Similarly, if you look for the Walt Whitman Archive in worldcat.org, the URL is not listed anywhere- you have to click through to a library record to get the URL. Is that useful? Could worldcat help call attention to these free resources by featuring them regardless of location?

What to do?

So, what if there were a source for creative commons books and online resources like there is for government documents? What might it look like? How would it work? It seems like there might already be a tool out there for this- Library Thing perhaps? Maybe there’s something already out there I don’t know about?

One of the things that constantly bugs me about creative commons work is how hard it is to find it. Few sites have gone as far as Flickr to make finding creative commons work easy to find and use. One thing we can all do is suggest to our favorite sites that they provide a way to license their work and create a way to search on that license.

karin :: Jan.28.2008 :: Library, Open access/Open source :: 1 Comment »

Journal, Sugar’s file management system

We have been using the same tired old metaphors for computers for a long time. I look at my computer with its desktop metaphor (clean at work, cluttered at home, as in real life) and think there’s got to something better. Recently, there have been advances to file management- much of it online. Take Flickr for example. Flickr automatically stores all your files in a big, long, chronological list. You can then organize your files in many ways- you can associate words with them (tagging) put them into sets, or, if you pay for the pro account, put the sets into collections. One photo can be several places- in a few sets, tagged with a bunch of words. This makes it easier to find. There’s no reason that our computers can’t work the same way. Why should I have to think of where to put my document when I stop working? Why do I have to remember to save? Why do I have to decide if this file should go in this or that folder- when it could just as easily go in both? The more I become accustomed to organizing files online, the more I have come to hate the artificial limitations placed on my by my computer- and that goes for all the operating systems.

OLPC with old iMac keyboard hooked up

One of the things I love about Sugar (the XO laptop’s OS) is that the programmers rethought the entire process of using the computer. Ever since windows were introduced, they have been incorporated in most every OS – but are they useful? Did anyone ever stop to ponder whether they work more productively with windows?  Now, we’re so used to tabs in web browsers and multiple windows open that we can’t even imagine just looking at one website at a time - or maybe that’s just me. Sugar eliminates most of the distractions that make it so hard for me to get anything done on my computer. No endless ways to customize the desktop, no way to arrange and re-arrange menus, no folder structure to clean up and rearrange- just my files and my programs. I am finding that when I want to write, I want to use the OLPC - because I know that I’m less likely to be distracted on there than on my “real” computer(s). I am especially starting to love the journal - that’s Sugar’s file management program - and the fact that the computer automatically saves my work for me.

So when I hear complaints that the OLPC isn’t any good because it doesn’t manage files like a traditional computer, I have to laugh. Similarly, when I hear people complain because it doesn’t play YouTube videos, I giggle a little. It’s not that there’s nothing educational on YouTube, but I’d say I have used the site more to avoid learning things. I think the developers have done a wonderful job on the XO and on Sugar. Like others, I think Sugar, especially, has huge potential for learning. I would love to see sugar pre-bundled as an alternate login for Edubuntu. I see endless ideas for the XO popping up, like Jovi’s idea of getting a Hypercard like program to run on the XO. I’m so excited abotu the project, and can’t wait to see what’s next.

karin :: Jan.25.2008 :: Linux, Open access/Open source :: 1 Comment »

I presented on Zotero and RefWorks today. I think it went well (at least, people told me it did) and I had a lot of fun. I tried to add a little humor this time. -not sure how it went. I asked, and only 4 people knew what lolcats are, so the reference may have been lost. I liked my images, so here they are, in slideshow form:

| View | Upload your own

If you would like to see the entire presentation, you can find it on my portfolio site, with notes:

Zotero and RefWorks - It Doesn’t Have To Be Either/or

Next presentation is on the XO and Sugar, and you can bet I’ll have a lot to say about that. Expect posts in the next week.

(sorry if you get this post more than once- having troubles embedding the slideshow. :/)

karin :: Jan.23.2008 :: Library, Open access/Open source :: No Comments »

Zotero and RefWorks: It doesn’t have to be either/or

Tomorrow (January 23) I am giving a brown bag at my work about Zotero and RefWorks. I’m comparing the two citation management systems, and trying to make a case for supporting both. Full slides and notes will be up tomorrow.

In comparing the two products, I could think of many reasons why one might choose to use one over the other- a graduating student might not want to pay the $100/year fee, a mobile student might want something that he or she can access from many different computers without having to carry around a key drive. I hope that my presentation is balanced, even through I prefer Zotero.

If anyone (in Lincoln) would like to see this, it’s in Love Library, LIR room, 11:30 AM.

One Laptop Per Child: Laptops designed for learning

Next Friday, February 1st I will present on the One Laptop Per Child project, the XO laptop, and especially the operating system Sugar. The more I use Sugar, the more I like it- so much that I decided not to try to install Xubuntu on the XO after all.

Here’s the official description:

The One Laptop Per Child (http://laptop.org) project’s goal is “To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves.” To that end, the XO laptop is a machine created explicitly for children and learning. Karin Dalziel will demo the XO laptop, give a tour of the operating system, called “Sugar,” and explain how features of the laptop are custom made for education.

This is at the Nebraska Library Commission, Friday, February 1, at 12:00 noon.

If you are going to go to the 2nd presentation (and don’t work at the Commission) let me know.

karin :: Jan.22.2008 :: Library, Linux, Open access/Open source :: 2 Comments »

I don’t talk about my job very often here. I’m not sure exactly why that is. Part of it, I’m sure, is that I worry that I don’t possess the political acumen to know what is and what is not ok to post. There have been plenty of times in the past when I have talked about a topic that, unknown to me, was taboo or secret. I feel that I understand more about what I can and can’t post now, though.

The other reason I don’t post about work related stuff much is because, strictly speaking, it’s not usually library related. For the most part, my job has little to do with library operations- no circulation, reference, or technical services stuff for me. I hope that, lacking that, my libraryland readers will still find it tolerable.

karin :: Jan.17.2008 :: Asides, Work :: No Comments »

I didn’t actually get tagged for this, but I saw it on the blog humachine, and it looks like fun.

I added a step 4 to go with step three, so that I could use use a Creative Commons licensed photo. The previous directions just pulled from Flickr’s “interesting” page, of which very few are CC licensed.

1. The first article title on the Wikipedia Random Articles page is the name of your band.
2. The last four words of the very last quotation on the Random Quotations page is the title of your album.
3. Use the random word generator to generate a word.
4. Use the word to search FlickrStorm (creative commons licensed photos) and the third picture will be your album cover. Or just choose any image.
5. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result.

Article Title: The World Famous Pontani Sisters
Random Quotation: The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. - Bertrand Russell
Random word: Tread
Image: Tired Cone by Travis Gray

Software & Hardware: Wacom Bamboo Tablet, ArtRage 2 (Through Wine), Gimp, Inkscape, Ubuntu 7.10

If you wanna do it, consider yourself tagged. Be sure to let me know in comments!

karin :: Jan.14.2008 :: Art, Free as in Freedom, Linux, My Stuff, Open access/Open source, Sites and Stories :: 1 Comment »

A big thanks to my husband for correcting my previous entry. I shouldn’t post late at night.

This is me. At home. See, I’m COLD. And I realize my glasses are a tad too big.

As you may or may not have noticed, I have been taking a little blogging break. One of the great things about working in an academic library (at least this one) is that I get the week off between Christmas and New Year’s. You may remember that I had some big plans for that time. I did get a lot of it done- the house was cleaner since last Christmas (notice I say “was”), my computers are running a bit faster, my files are organized, I backed up the most important stuff, I worked on a few presentations, cooked quite a bit (after cleaning the kitchen, of course) and played around with various installations (Drupal, wikis) on my web space. I also read, played video games, played around with my OLPC and slept a lot. Towards the end, I got sick- as I am prone to do when I have time off.

So now here I am, more than a week into the new year, and not a blog post to show for it. I blame a bad case of the winter blahs. It is seriously hard for me to get really excited and motivated lately, especially when my nose is running constantly and stepping outside makes me miserable. The fact that I’ve begun planning my trip to ALA Annual in Anaheim this summer (room reservations opened already) has not been helping- I want to go to California NOW.

On the bright side, ALA Annual should be exceedingly fun this year- Geoff and I will head up before the convention for vacation, and he’ll probably join me Saturday for the Scholarship Bash at Disneyland. After that, all are invited to the Rocky Horror Picture Show featuring my old cast Midnight Insanity (link probably NSFW) on the Queen Mary (this link is safe for work. mostly.).

Look at all the places to visit:

View Larger Map

So that’s what is keeping me going right now- just knowing that I’ll be by the ocean this summer.

School starts next week, and the week after that I am giving a presentation to my co-workers on Zotero. I’m sort of looking forward to the return to school, maybe it’ll help me kick the blahs- or at least, maybe it will keep me so busy I don’t notice them any more.

karin :: Jan.10.2008 :: Conferences, Library, School Stuff :: No Comments »