Pierogi Mascot Fired

This post is weakly related to libraries or technology. It is about public relations. The Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team demonstrated how little they understand public relations when they fired a pierogi mascot for writing critical statements about the Pirates on his Facebook status. Earlier in the week, the Pirates admitted to extended the contracts of Manager John Russell and GM Neal Huntington, which had been kept a secret for a year. It's really one public relations disaster after another. Did the Pirates think that no one would pick up on this juxtaposition where the pierogi was fired instead of the GM and/or Manager?

I just think it makes for interesting commentary. I'm not in favor of firing JR or Huntington (yet) but to fire the pierogi the way they did seems like no one in their office has a sense for how a story like this plays out. Not well.

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A Day In My Life

Here's what I did today:

Morning

• Made iced tea for breakfast.
• Watched my cat Roberta while she was sleeping.
  
• Went grocery shopping for vegetables.
• Cooked roasted veggies.
• Read a few journal articles for LIS 2000.
• Looked over LIS 2000 small group dicussion board.
  

Afternoon

• Played tennis.
• Watched knuckle-baller Tim Wakefield pitch for the Red Sox against the Dodgers.
• Looked at some websites I found while reading the World Book Almanac.
• Looked over a few of my classmates blogs for LIS 2600.
  

Evening

• Rendez vous with a friend for dinner somewhere in Pittsburgh.
  

The Future of Public Libraries: Tending the Garden

Tending to existing customers of libraries should be first and foremost. I understand the need to broaden the base of users and to bring in larger numbers of users. However, I think there is an existing constituency that is being neglected. I would rather have fewer, more passionate advocates for the library over more lukewarm users. I also think the existing needs of patrons may be overlooked when the emphasis isn't on their particular needs and enhancing service to them. The "tending the garden" analogy is that it's easier to get great results from an existing garden or flowerbed over planting from seed. Enthusuastic supporters will advocate for the library and can be considered as a the best tool for success. It's also more likely that they will become lifelong supporters, not simply library users while their children are in school (for example).

Aggregating Web Resources | American Libraries Magazine

Aggregating Web Resources | American Libraries Magazine

Librarians working on digital collections have traditionally focused on the digital library management system that houses the items they select. The items reside deep inside the silos that are created. ORE - The Object Reuse and Exchange specifications provides the opportunity for items from different sets of collections to be aggregated together into one collection.

I think it's true when you hear in the library program that things might start making sense over time. I don't think an article or development like this one would have had any significance for me earlier in the program.

Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales

This video interview of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was posted to Bb for LIS 2000. One of the things he said is that the science or understanding behind what outcomes you'll get based on the software features you design is in its infancy. An interesting observation.

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Live, Love, Meow!

Image by divemasterking2000 via Flickr

June is Adopt a Cat Month.

Omeka Assignment

Omeka seems to be a good tool for creating collections, even though I haven't used any other similar system. The challenging part is cataloging the item with the Dublin Core metadata scheme. Without having a good understanding of Dublin Core, many of the fields don't make sense to me. I can see that most of the metadata doesn't pertain to the types of items in my collection (documents & websites) so I've left much of the metadata blank.

HTML

I had my first experience looking at HTML tags (or code). I had embedded the Jing video in an earlier blog post, and the size of the video was too large. The code from Screencast.com showed the width as 1920 & the height as 1080. I tried a few different dimensions and settled on 425x344. The embedded video fits in the blog, not perfectly, but good enough.

Is a National Identification Card Necessary for the Security of the Nation?

This issue was mentioned in the LIS 2600 textbook. There is a Federal initiative underway that calls for a national ID card. Some groups fear that the information contained in the cards would be shared among other government agencies and that would erode civil liberties. One of the examples given would that police power would be increased in an event where a person could not produce their national ID.

Other arguments include whether biometric data should be on the card or whether the information should be tied to a national database.

Many other countries have the sort of thing we're talking about. Each state has a requirement for drivers to have a license and to carry it at all times when driving. States even offer a state ID card for those who do not drive. I generally trust the government when it comes to protecting my information. One example, I believe the census bureau when they say my data is only used for census purposes. I believe we would have the necessary safeguards that would address people's privacy concerns. (Heck, I think we trust companies like Facebook and Google more than we trust our own government. Which is surprising!)

I can appreciate a healthy concern. However, I think a national ID card would be a good idea if it can protect people.

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Comments about assignments

LIS 2600 assignments have been a pleasure to complete. I've enjoyed the practicality of the latest Jing assignment and foresee using that technology in the future. I'm a little anxious about the midterm exam because I'm not sure what it might cover. There seems to be quite a bit of information over the past 10 chapters of the textbook and I'm having trouble identifying the most important parts. My hope is that the review this week in class will put me on a good path for success on the midterm exam.

LIS 2000 has been a challenge. Critical thinking and reading large amount of material can be a real challenge. I'm sure the latest essay on scholarly communication is the most difficult assignment I've ever done in my school career. The fact that there were three books to read along with the requirement of an additional six outside sources has made it challenging and I fear not having made decent connections.

I think the reason writing this latest essay in LIS 2000 has been so challenging is that I didn't have a clear road map or outline for the essay before I started. I've also not had to write many essays in school before. In contrast, the Double Fold essay was practically written in my mind before I started. I think I can handle short essays with at most one book and a few outside sources where a thesis can be formed much easier. The biggest challenge I'm having is critically analyzing what I've read and figuring out what the influence is on scholarly communication.

The advice I'm giving myself is that this is the first time I've tried an assignment like this and that going through the process will make it easier the next time.

Jing Assignment: Video (with audio narrative) demonstrating how to install and configure the Firefox extension for Zotero

2010-06-04_2010

The link to the video presentation is above and the embedded video below. I used the entire 5 minutes allowed by Jing. I successfully installed Zotero and walked through the preferences. I would have liked to introduce the Zotero interface by clicking on the Zotero name in the lower right hand side of the browser window. In any event, enjoy the presentation. Thank you for watching.

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Benefits of Web 2.0 for Libraries

After reading an article in the online magazine Ariadne, I wanted to share a few of the highlights in my blog. I think one of the ways this blog is developing is like a journal or a place for me to organize my thoughts and discoveries about library science and technology. I still reach for a typical journal to jot down a note, but I can see myself using this blog more and more. It has it's advantages (searching, easy to organize) and it's disadvantages (need to have a computer handy, privacy.)

The link to the full article is below.

http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue63/nogueira/

The article focused on libraries (and by extension archives) using Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube. An LIS professional Dongmei Cao listed these benefits:

• increased importance of the library to the user;
• improvement in the library’s image;
• potential of new interactive services to raise the level and quality of the service provided;
• increased involvement of users and improved communication of the library with such users;
• improvement in communication among librarians;
• greater ability to find quick solutions to meet the needs of users;
• improvement in shared knowledge and collaboration.

Other advantages listed in the article include: an increased awareness of the collection; varies access of the collection; diversification of users; improved relationships and links; new dynamic ways to engage; free of charge; contributes to the improved information literacy of users and the general public; the recognition of users as a valid source of information; and the opportunity to enthuse users with the type of contact established and better communication through contact that is simultaneously institutional and informal, professional and personal.