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About Aaron Schmidt or Walking Paper.

comment prone

Dec 15, ’06 10:07 AM

My post on the game/toy Line Rider, appropriate titled line rider appears on the first page of results for the google search for, you guessed it, line rider. How did i figure this out? After a number of random comments from young peopke appeared on the post, I figured the post had to have a fairly high ranking.

There are a few small lessons to be gleaned from these comments. First, the fact that so many kids have left comments should indicate just how normal it is for them. It is totally standard for them to participate in a conversation on a blog they’ve never seen before. Second, and this is no surprise to us, some kids need serious help with their information literacy. A few of the comments thank me for making the game. Isn’t it fascinating that they make this incorrect connection?

I’ll let you draw your own conclusion from this comment:

Line rider is the coolest game on the net….its so easy and fin to play…here at school, they blocked it, but now i just save it on my computer at home and bring it in on the flash drive!!!! its amazing!!!!

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meebo love

Dec 12, ’06 8:08 AM

Jessamyn and I got mentioned on the meebo blog today:

Turns out that locked-down computers, reference librarians who always want to be in touch with their patrons, and the desire to make libraries fun and friendly have given meebo and meebo me the perfect opportunity to shine.

Just recently, we smiled when reading Jessamyn’s blog where she helped a librarian post these posters advocating the use of meebo instead of download clients. Also, Aaron has been traipsing around libraries promoting meebo me as well. He explains, meebo me doesn’t require a download and the widget can be placed directly on the library’s website.

Thanks for keeping meebo in mind when you’re visiting your local library and public computer clusters. We’re happy to help out!

Just in case you haven’t seen it, meebo me is a small web to IM gateway widget that librarians can put on webpages that allows people without IM accounts to IM the library’s screen name. It is pretty much 90% of the functionality of vendor driven web-based chat products….but it is FREE. And it just works. And doesn’t commandeer their whole browser. Etc, etc.

Here’s the full post on the meebo blog: librarian love. There are a few nice, “Yay libraries!” comments on it.

Disclaimer: I would have posted about this even if meebo hadn’t just sent me a sweet t-shirt.

[thanks rob!]

Comments (4)

a new opportunity

Dec 8, ’06 1:32 PM

NPPLI’m happy to announce that in addition to the other things I’m doing, I’m now also the director of the North Plains Public Library. Located about 20 miles outside of Portland, this small town of 1755 people has a beautiful library building that is staffed by three paid employees and a ton of volunteers. The 2500sqft building is only 6 months old. The previous three years the library was housed in the storage room of the town’s community center.

The job is very part time but is going to keep me busy. You might be able to imagine that I’ve got a bunch of potential ideas for the library, but am in the process of learning as much as I can before actually doing anything. What excites me most about the opportunity is that, being 6 months old, the library hasn’t had time to learn bad habits or nurture sacred cows. Tabula rasa!

I just spent an hour in the building and noticed a few things:

  • The library has no reference desk. This indicates that the focus for this library might be content and community. Progressive!
  • The shelves are already near full. Hmm.
  • There’s no wifi. Yet.
  • There are 12 internet stations managed by SAM.
  • The library signage is pretty tolerable.
  • We have a Scrabble club. AWESOME.

Take a look at the building in my flickr set: North Plains Public Library

Comments (33)

don’t mind me!

Nov 7, ’06 1:48 PM

i just upgraded wordpress and some plugins, so this is just a test of everything, including how bloglines is liking or disliking the feeds coming from here. always fun to poke around!

Comments (4)

don't mind me!

Nov 7, ’06 1:48 PM

i just upgraded wordpress and some plugins, so this is just a test of everything, including how bloglines is liking or disliking the feeds coming from here. always fun to poke around!

Comments (4)

library n00b

Sep 11, ’06 2:12 PM

Working in a library (especially one in the same town in which I lived) for the past 5+ years I never really placed ILL requests using anything other than the staff mode of our ILS. Now that I’m a bit more removed from a library setting I’m having to work a bit harder to look at books.

I think only 15 minutes had passed from when I got my Multnomah County Library card to when I placed a hold online. A few days later, I received my first ever hold notification via email, and now my limit of 15 holds at a time has been nearly met.

It’s like I’ve passed some sort of milestone.

Comments (6)

walking paper out west

Jun 29, ’06 7:22 PM

I haven’t made many meta announcements on walking paper but this one is probably worth mentioning.

I gave my notice at the TFML and am moving to Portland, Oregon to get my school library media certification. This is a bit of a change in direction career wise (I can’t wait until I try to get IM unblocked from a school’s network), but much of my time as a reference librarian has been spent working with teenagers, and working on stuff teenagers like so I think it will be a good fit. Plus, my wife has summers off so it will be nice if I do too. This will probably help my serious case of wanderlust.

Leaving the TFML will be bittersweet because of the amazingly easy to work with staff, and because I’ve been able to do so much great stuff there with their help. I’m so glad that the library has dramatically changed since I started working there four years ago. My favorite projects and accomplishments have included:

There are also a few things I wish I could have seen happen at the TFML:

  • end cap displays for the stacks
  • a mounted projector in the board room
  • a redesign of the meeting room (a huge project because of structural supports)

Though I’ll be in Portland, I’m not going to be a stranger to the TFML. I’m still going to be developing fordlibrary.org, and I’m actually going to have more time to do it. I’m really happy about this because the site is getting used quite a bit, and we’re about three quarters of the way though an amazing redesign planning process. The website will be better than ever!

In addition to work on the website and taking classes, I’ll continue to write articles for print publications and continue to give presentations and consult with libraries. Not all, but most of my presentations to librarians (aside from at Internet Librarian shows) have been in the Midwest, so I’m looking forward to working with some libraries in the West. Walkingpaper.org will likely continue to stroll along at its usual pace, and perhaps even pick up more steam at some point. I know I’m going to get just as excited about implementing relevant, user-centered technology in school libraries.

That being said, I’m certainly looking forward to some major away from keyboard time. Living in the Pacific Northwest is going to provide me with greater opportunities for cycling, climbing, rafting, and everything else I like to do. As neat as it is to be connected, and as much as I like managing my digital presence, nothing beats being on top of a mountain, looking out on the vastness of the earth and sky. Except maybe the Nokia N80. Just kidding.

So. Thanks for reading. I’ll be back in the future with my thoughts on the web presence of public libraries, and neat things about school libraries!

Comments (17)

database craziness, bloglines saves the day

Apr 20, ’06 10:08 AM

So, LISHost had a hiccup and was restored back to Sunday’s state. Therefore, two posts here were zapped into oblivion….or not. You saw them appear again because I was able to rescue the content from bloglines’ cache. I knew it was too soon for the Wayback Machine , but I knew it had to be around somewhere. Digital content never dies, right? There’ve been a few links in to the obit index post, which had to move from walkingpaper.org/309 to http://walkingpaper.org/311. Your insightful comments, however, are gone.

In my long-time use of LISHost, this is the only bad thing that’s ever happened. Not too shabby. Blake gives amazing support (he especially loves mod_rewrite), and is a great hosting solution for you or your library.

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different conference reporting

Mar 27, ’06 10:21 AM

UPDATE: Derik gave me permission to use a sketch!

Sick of going through people’s line-by-line accounts of conference sessions? Check out these sketches!

I got an email this morning from Derik A. Badman telling me about the sketches he make during Computers in Libraries 2006. Here are 45 sketches, including one of me. Another personal favorite is this one of Michael, me, and Amanda and our computers.

Comments (1)

workshop post

Mar 21, ’06 10:26 AM

hey, i’m demoing how to blog.!! whee!!

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