→ First there was the Aargh Page, a cool infographic of the word’s spelling. Now we have even better graphs for Oh Shiit and Daamn.

→ citation needed shirt

→ earbud JACK keeps your headphones untangled

Ok, so the *last* thing I ever expected to blog about is a children’s book but I came across one in the library yesterday that I liked so much I want more people to know about it. It is titled Not a Box and is about a little rabbit with an active imagination. The story is nice, but I was immediately taken with the design of the book.

Each two page spread consists of a short sentence set in a simple sans typeface accompanied by a minimal line drawing. The way the author uses space really complements the message of letting one’s imagination wander just like the book’s brown paper bag dust jacket is reminiscent of the book’s box.

The book was a Theodor Seuss Geisel Award Winner for 2007 and ALA Notable Children’s Books Winner. Antoinette Portis also wrote Not a Stick which I’m going to put on reserve.

Young babies and toddlers can sometimes be loud in the library. They scream and run around, often disrupting real patrons’ placid library experience. Parents have no control. These little menaces really have no place in our buildings. NO BABIES OR TODDLERS IN THE LIBRARY!!

Is there any library that would dare post this sign or slide down this slippery slope thought process? No library would post a sign like this, but plenty of library think like this, right? Replace “babies” with “cell phones” and see what happens.

Cell phones can sometimes be loud in the library. They ring loudly, often disrupting patrons’ placid library experience. People have no control. These little menaces really have no place in our buildings. NO CELL PHONES IN THE LIBRARY!!

Not too far from what we really see in practice, eh?

The point that I’m sure I’ve written about here before is that if librarians are going to take up this issue they need to concentrate on patron behavior, not specific devices. These devices can be used silently in a multitude of ways, just like babies and toddlers can be in the library without screaming. And if *gasp* on occasion a baby screams or someone’s phone plays the “La Macarena,” so what? It is simply part of this wonderful and sometimes messy existence in the Public. If you wouldn’t dare put up a sign like the one above, you similarly shouldn’t put up such a sign about a phone. After all, more people enter your building with a phone than a baby. Won’t somebody please think of the cell phones?

Note: This morning I had the idea to start a repository of good, positive signage for libraries. I might still make some signs that people can use to replace their crummy, mean signs in the upcoming days but I got sidetracked with this!

→ Zkimmer
Browse magazines with Google Maps controls. It actually works pretty well.

→ The hours of operation are perhaps not the sexiest aspect of a library website, but they are nonetheless a “killer app,” providing a small, crucial bit of information for your users. Great intro to the article Using Google Calendar to Manage Library Website Hours in the Code4Lib Journal

→ Line Game
My favorite time killer since Line Rider. I feel like a lab rat. Every time I fail I get so mad and have to try again. And again.

→ The importance of the mobile web
A fantastic post by Fiona Bradley. I like it because the content is valuable. I like it because she lays it all out in a clear and professional way.

→ Adidas no.74 concept store
Here’s a case of a company knowing their market. Adidas is connecting to their community, so to speak, through a low key and underground design aesthetic. Even before customers enter the store they’re being told that Adidas understands them and that they’re on common ground. What does this do? It increases brand allegiance. I’m not suggesting that libraries necessarily open up graffiti covered storefronts with no signage, but rather that we think about connecting with our communities - physical and otherwise - on this level.

The CIA’s library has a copy of “Danger Man” aka “Secret Agent.”

originally uploaded by goppenheim

P.S. I did some spy work on my own and noticed that the CIA’s holdings appear to not be in worldcat.org. Huh.

Last Friday I had the honor of giving the first talk in the newly resurrected Margaret Chisholm Lecture series. Over 100 LIS students, alumni, and faculty spent a portion of their evening talking about the read/write web with me. LIS on a Friday night? My kinda folks for sure. I even got to meet my Flickr friend Jen Waller face to face. Nice!

They made some great posters for the event:

And had a big screen:

Here’s a pdf of my slides for the event: Libraries and the Read/Write Web. [11 MB]

Someone asked about what I read to keep up with all of the cool things happening on the web and in libraries. I managed to recommend using a feed reader and name a few blogs. I didn’t give a very exhaustive list mostly because my incoming self selected information stream is such a blur. I probably couldn’t name a quarter of the weblogs I subscribe to, I just pick out the interesting bits when they pop up.

To make up for my weak answer I promised to list some blogs that could make a little starter kit for keeping track of what’s happening with libraries and the read/write web. You’ll notice it is mostly non-library blogs. I’m not slighting library blogs, just highlighting the point that we need to get outside of the library and related writing.

Tech stuff
Gizmodo
NYT Technology

Design
Signal vs. Noise
information aesthetics
swissmiss

General
kottke.org
Lifehacker
TechCrunch

Misc
Pasta&Vinegar
Pink Tentacle
Wired Top Stories

Libraries
Librarian.net
LibraryCrunch
LibraryBytes
The Shifted Librarian
Swiss Army Librarian

Two more points. First, don’t click around to all of these sites every day. Use a feed reader to bring the information to you. To learn about that, see RSS in Plain English. Also, don’t limit yourself to these blogs and their feeds. Find some blogs relevant to you and your hobbies. This will get you in the habit of checking your reader frequently.

Thanks to everyone that made it a great event.

What: Gaming (& Gadgets!) Night
Where: CIL 2008, Jefferson Room
When: Sunday, April 6th, 5:30-8:00 pm
How much: FREE
Who: You and other people interested in gaming

Jenny Levine and I have given a few gaming workshops at past Computers in Libraries and Internet Librarian conferences. After the sessions we’ve opened up the room to anyone interested in playing some games and/or learning about gaming. It’s proven to be a popular and really fun time, so this year Information Today has turned the post-workshop gameplay into a featured event. With refreshments even!

We’ve assembled an impressive array of games!

Systems: Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2, and Xbox 360. We’ll also have two Nintendo DS handhelds.

Games: Wii Sports, DDR, Hotel Dusk, Guitar Hero III, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Wario Smooth Moves, whatever you bring, and Rock Band.

Since we’ll have three systems going at once, we’re opening up the option of an honest to goodness tournament with prizes. You probably want to know which game, huh? Well, it’s up to you. Sign up in the comments here or at a page we’ve created on the CIL08 wiki titled CIL08 Gaming Night to play Rock Band, Guitar Hero, or DDR. We’ll play whichever game gets the most signups!

In addition, Chris Harris is bringing some modern board games. Bring your own games, bring your latest shiny, new gadgets, and we’ll see you Sunday night!

For Aaron.

Originally uploaded by hilweber

Our DVD player died after over six years of heavy use. The only logical replacement was a PS3 since it can play DVDs (and upscale them), Blu-ray discs and of course games. This will probably be the last physical media device we buy. Crazy!

The system came with a copy of “Spider-man 3″ on Blu-ray that is hopefully going to find its way into the NPPL’s collection. Once we get this cataloged correctly I’ll likely buy a few more Blu-ray titles. Just enough so that we can advertise that we have a small collection. Not only will it serve as a good experiment to see if the discs are popular, it will also serve as good marketing for the NPPL. Even if swarms of people don’t have Blu-ray players (yet) it will showcase the library as a place with exciting new stuff that understands what’s happening in the larger information world. All that for $200? A bargain! It doesn’t always take much to try new things.

We’ll make our Blu-ray discs non-holdable for a month, just like our other new materials. Yes, this slightly diminishes the spirit of library sharing and maybe inconveniences some non-NPPL patrons. However, it drives some in house traffic to our relatively new beautiful library. While that sounds like a library-centered policy (bad!), it isn’t *fully* library-centered. The non-holdable period keeps new and popular titles around for people in North Plains to browse. This makes residents of North Plains happy and increases the library’s “placeness,” making it interesting and vital.

Yeah, I’ve got some deadlines to meet. But you know what? Sometimes taking a break to play in Photoshop is just what I need to get on track.

Ever since Stephen Abram mentioned the 100 best opening lines from novels list from the American Book Review I wanted to put them into some sort of image. Mostly because I enjoy looking at vast canvases of Helvetica.

Today was the day. It looks only okay shrunken down here, but laser printed at its full tabloid size of 11″x17″ [15.21 MB - wow] it looks pretty nice. If you want to print it but aren’t crazy about the background color, I’ve uploaded a Photoshop file for you: firstlines.psd [7.27MB].

If you print of it, I’d love to see a photo of it hanging up.