→ 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.

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!

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.

Flickr user Shinyville mashed up my photo of talking books at the Oregon State Library. Nice!

I have a confession. The gradient theme in Apple’s sideshow software Keynote and I had a passionate love affair. But like many bright lights, it burnt fast. I can’t really tell if the breakup was all about me or the theme’s fault. Whatever the case, I’m through with it. I think it has something to do with the time that it let me down in the big, bright rooms with somewhat anemic projectors at Internet Librarian last year.

It isn’t entirely obvious how to design a new theme in Keynote so I’ll report what I learned from a post on MacTips. There’s a small divider directly underneath the “View” button in Keynote’s menu. Pull this down to reveal master slides.

You can design the slides to spark a new flame, then choose “File, Save Theme” to move the relationship along. You even get to give it a pet name. I’m sure I’ll fuss over it for a few days, but I’m aiming for a new theme with white letters on a grey background with light blue highlights. It might remind you of the design on walkingpaper.org, should you ever click through from your feed reader. Once I get it squared away I’ll upload it here in case it is good and you ever want a minimalist Keynote theme. *sigh*

Here’s where my new love and I have planned for the Spring:

26 Feb
National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services Annual, Philladelphia
The New Information Economy: The Changing Value of Content

3 Apr
Multonomah County Library Staff Day Keynote, Portland (!)
The Read/Write Web Opportunity

4 Apr
Margaret Chisholm Lecture, University of Washington iSchool, Seattle
Work on This, Please: Facing Current Challenges in Librarianship

6-11 Apr
Computers in Libraries, Crystal City
Various sessions and workshops

22 Apr
Suffolk County Handheld Libraries Conference Keynote, Bellport
Library in your Pocket

7 May
Massachusetts Library Association Annual, Falmouth
Having a Phone: IM Reference

8 May
Medical Library Association Annual, Chicago
Web 2.0 Panel

22 May
Catalan Library Association, Barcelona
The Read/Write Web Opportunity

27 May
ProBiblio, Amsterdam
Transatlantic Tech Librarianship

In my last post, late night wifi, an opportunity for libraries?, Eric Frierson comments that he liked the idea, but also that he’s

…not sure why it should be a *library* venture if the purpose is to provide coffee, free wifi, and non-circulating magazines.

The more I think about it the more I’m convinced that the concept of a cafe branch is a great idea. Libraries are doing the reverse and putting coffee shops in libraries, why not go all the way and put a library in a coffee shop? The idea doesn’t seem that radical to me. Here are some characteristics of my hypothetical cafe library branch:

→ provides access to information
→ has some computers available
→ provides help finding things (if asked)
→ provides access to content (magazines, newspapers, some books strewn about)
→ is a community gathering place
→ holds some special events
→ has reservable group study space

Pretty traditional stuff, right? People might bristle at this idea not because of the traditional services it would provide, but what it would lack. In particular, a collection of books.

Now before anyone gets bent out of shape, let me be clear. I’m not saying that all libraries should be like this, just that this model is an option. Libraries can certainly be much more than what I’m describing here, and they should be. However, libraries don’t always have to strive to be their full incarnation 100% of the time. Just like a small neighborhood branch probably doesn’t have an extensive collection of periodical back issues, so my hypothetical cafe library could shed some library baggage to free it to explore new territory. The geographical language is appropriate. Without large collections to house, the relatively small cafe library can fit into spaces that other branches couldn’t. (Wouldn’t it be great to have space for picking up and returning holds though?) This might allow it to be located in vital and busy areas with tons of foot traffic.

I know you didn’t get a Masters degree to serve coffee. No big deal, it wouldn’t be part of your job. The “shift supervisor” could be a “for real librarian,” managing staff and doing other librarian work like monitoring the library’s IM reference service.

I’m not convinced this idea would work in every context or community, but sitting here in Little Beirut where many people are fueled by their neighborhood coffee shops, I can think of a number of cities where this would work.

This library cafe branch would not just be a means to the end of getting people to use other library resources. It would be legitimate on its own, but wouldn’t it do a good job marketing the larger library too? Among the locally made art on display there would be adverts for relevant library events. Each time someone logs into the wifi network they’d be greeted with list of library resources and be authenticated into library databases. Oh, and how about this? People don’t need a library card to access the wifi, but customers get a 50% discount on coffee and food when they sign up for one. And a 10% discount on each transaction when they present the card.

In a certain sense, a cafe branch would be for a niche market. This is a good thing because we know that niche markets can become obsessively enthusiastic about their interests. Because they’re often concerned with trying to be many things to different people, libraries often miss out on capturing this passion. Last time I checked, we want people passionate and excited about libraries. Having a narrower focus might be one way to cultivate more use and zeal for the library.

→ Would love to see this on a library!

→ I really appreciate the NPPL staff’s sense of humor.

→ At my local cafe.

At age 76, my friend’s dad just bought his first computer: a MacBook. He’s getting set up with all of the best web based tools to use, including gmail. He was getting a computer lesson from his son-in-law and I chatted him up. Despite what he says, he’s doing an excellent job chatting. He even TOTALLY gets how to capitalize the RIGHT WORDS!

Let this serve as more evidence that age does not necessarily have anything to do with whether someone can use computers. Every reference librarian in your building could do IM reference if they really wanted to.

P.S. Just making sure you’ve seen that google is finally using its 5% stake in AOL for something: AIM chatting in Gmail.

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UPDATE: A few people said that the video crashed their browsers. I’ve taken it out of this post and put it on a separate page. I’ll have to sort it out. Any reports would be appreciated!
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Way back in the day at the TFML some YS librarians recorded stories, I put them online and since the site is (soon to be was, I understand), blog based, the stories were being podcast. Yay. As neat as it was to have a podcast, the interface for listening to stories online was not ideal. As you’ve likely experienced before, clicking on an mp3 takes you to a grey page with a simple controller. Not very pretty, and not good for usability.

I want to provide a better interface for listening to stories the second time I implement a “listen to stories online” program. Considering how easy it is to add artwork to audio by exporting AAC files from Garageband, I thought I’d start there.

This is fine and dandy but makes iTunes the only way to see the artwork while listening to the audio. Why? I can’t find any online tools that will let me embed .m4a files in a website. Do you know of one?

Compressor is one of the most versatile file encoding tools and I guessed that if anything could convert an .m4a file into something useful (like a QuickTime file to embed!) that would be it. It did, but with only slightly satisfactory results. Something like this will appear on the NPPL’s Click-A-Story page (yes, that’s the same name, but give me a break, the libraries are across the country). If this embedded video doesn’t appear in your RSS aggregator, you’ll have to click through:

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The offending video was here. To see it, though for some reason it might crash your browser, here it is on a seperate page.
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iTunes artwork is 300×300 pixels, but Compressor keeps turning the files into 160×160 pixels for some reason. I’ve not yet been able to find the right setting that spits out proper images. Scrolling is unsatisfactory too. I thought I’d put this out regardless as a quick proof of concept, and to see if anyone has suggestions.

Recently, Joshua M. Neff posted about his library’s Johnson County Library Online Storytime. You know, the title of their project is pretty straightforward and I like it. Another part of the project that I like and that I’m planning on replicating is having CDs of the stories for distribution. That’s a good way to get content to do more work.

I’ll be sure to let you know when the project is live and what the response is like!