Walking Paper

Over coffee this morning my wife called her dentist to make an appointment. At the end of the conversation I heard her say, “This is my home and cell number. My only one.” Then a pause and, “Sure, sending me a text message reminder is a great idea!” I think I’ll switch dentists.

If you haven’t done the academic research like I have :P The Pirate Bay is one of the biggest and best torrent search sites. You can find and download the torrents of a few libraries worth of movies, music and software using it.

I continue to be amazed and impressed by the efforts of some file sharing enthusiasts. A member of TBP made a compilation titled “Wikipedia – Every UK Number One (1952 – 2007)” seeded it to the world.

The creator of this compilation even gives us what we could consider a bibliographic record. Emphasis mine.

*****************************************************************
———————————————————————
VA – Wikipedia UK Number Ones (1952 – 2007)
———————————————————————

Artist……………: Various Artists
Album…………….: Wikipedia UK Number Ones (1952 – 2007)
Genre…………….: Pop
Source……………: Internet
Year……………..: 1952-2007
Ripper……………: various
Codec…………….: various
Version…………..: MPEG 1 Layer III
Quality…………..: see list
Channels………….: Joint Stereo / 44100 hz
Tags……………..: ID3 v1.1, ID3 v2.3
Information……….: Date when number one is stored in comment for each track
Information……….: BPM for each tracked listed in tags (MixMeister BPM Analyser)

Included………….: NFO
Covers……………: Custom CD

———————————————————————
NOTES
———————————————————————
Why ‘Wikipedia’ I hear you ask – well I wanted to use a ‘definitive source’
of information as to what was Number one & when, so I plumped for Wikipedia…..
Although in the early days of the chart, there was competition between
NME (New Musical Express) & RM (Record Mirror) as to who publishd the definitive
chart. I did find some ‘discrepancies’ on wikipedia between pages, but I used
hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-one_singles_%28UK%29 as my definitive
reference.

The compilation was based on about three different torrents available on the net,
then verified & amended against the wikipedia list.Lots of work to standardise
all the ID3 tags, adding BPM, then copying the ‘date when it was No. 1′ into the
comments section of each MP3.Removing any file with a BitRate of less than 100,
and finding a new source. All in all, 2 weeks of slog to pull together a great
complilation. I have posted ‘big compilations’ in the past, many have had either
a US or European bias, this is probably the best & most definitive compilation
of UK number ones available on the net – and I have looked long & hard for them !

I hope you all enjoy……….

NOTE :
If in any particular year, an entry appears to be missing, i.e.
1955 192 kbps 01. Dickie Valentine – Finger Of Suspicion
1955 128 kbps 02. Rosemary Clooney – Mambo Italiano
1955 128 kbps 05. Dean Martin – The Naughty Lady Of Shady Lane
1955 128 kbps 06. Ruby Murray – Softly Softly
1955 128 kbps 07. Tennessee Ernie Ford – Give Me Your Word

Numbers 3 & 4 – do not appear, that is because the third Number one
of 1955, was actually a re-appearance of the first number one of 1955.
Simialrly, entry 4 was a re-appearance of the second number one of 1955.
You can see this by looking in the comment ID3 tag of said MP3′s to see that
there are two entries for it’s number one appearance.

i.e.

1955 – 1. Dickie Valentine – “The Finger Of Suspicion”
January 7 for 1 week
January 21 for 2 weeks

Hope that makes sense & clears up any confusion.
*****************************************************************

The description then continues with a complete track listing of over 1,000 songs. This must have taken a long time to collect and organize.

Imagine what people would be doing with library content, data, and systems if they were as open as a folder full of mp3s and file sharing systems.

Well said!

Over the past few days I’ve had a number of conversations with folks about presentation styles and abilities. David Lee King even suggested that someone give a presentation about giving presentations at a library conference. Until that happens I thought I’d post a list of my thoughts here. Please note that I’m not claiming to be an expert presenter. I’m sure I use terribly too, many, uh, pause words when I’m speaking to people. I also think I caught myself pacing a kinda fast at one point during a talk this week. Oops! Even though I’m sure I have presenting foibles, I bet the following thoughts remain helpful for presentations at conferences, in your own library or on the corner soapbox.

→ Remember that you’re not giving a presentation. What you *are* doing is sharing ideas and hopefully trying to convince people of something. So don’t “give a presentation.” Just talk to your audience. Have a main point or two and tell the story surrounding those points.

→ Often said but worth repeating: Please don’t fill your slides with words. Find some relevant and pretty pictures to support what you’re saying. You can use the pictures to remind yourself what you’re going to say next. Search Creative Commons photos on Flickr and cite the photos with a URL. Your presentation should be *very* incomplete without your narration.

→ Instead of spending time practicing a presentation, use the time to learn more about the subject. The more developed your thoughts on the topic are, the more you’ll know what the audience needs and doesn’t need to know. This also helps with the Q&A portion of the talk.

→ Leave plenty of time for that Q&A session because it’ll probably be much more interesting than your prepared remarks*. If you get stumped during this time, don’t pull a Palin and answer an entirely different question. Ask the questioner to get in touch to talk about the subject later.

*The two end of the day 45 minute Q&A sessions at IL2008 were totally great. They were nothing less than free-flowing, organic conversations among supersmart folks. Audience members included. The one on Tuesday evolved into a discussion about experimentation and failure for about 20+ minutes. Good.Stuff.

→ Quoting other people looks you make smart.

→ Don’t be nervous. The people you’re talking to aren’t out to get you. In fact, they want to see you succeed. Because if you succeed they’ll be informed and entertained. Instead of being nervous, have fun. It will be apparent that you’re having fun and having fun is contagious.

→ Say something outrageous. Big, bold statements get people’s attention and are often funny. People like to laugh. Don’t confuse this with me suggesting that you be crude. I’ve heard “hell,” and “damn” used a one or two times to great effect, but I don’t think anyone would suggest you drop an f-bomb on stage at a library conference.

→ Speaking of stages, get off of them. The podium is not your friend.

→ Read Presentation Zen, The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint (though I don’t agree with it all), Tufte’s classic The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, watch Steve Jobs and Lawrence Lessig.

→ Don’t fret if there’s a software or hardware glitch. With any luck your moderator/handler can help you with it whilst you keep talking. Or maybe the tech is a lost cause (Kate, you were amazing!). If you rely on the web during talks, it will fail on you one of these times. Be prepared with screenshot/casts or just plain talking.

→ Be polite. Thank the audience for listening.

Hey, thanks for reading (I’ll be here all week).

→ Your library getting chilly this fall? Warm yourself up and reset your life with ctrl – alt – del tea cups.

→ In-game campaigning from Obama. From GigaOm:

Last week we noted unconfirmed sightings of an “Obama for President” billboard in the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise. Today we’re able to report that it is, in fact, an official advertisement placed by the senator’s campaign team.

On AskMetafilter: Help me haunt my library in time for Halloween!

I’m a youth librarian at a small library, and this is my first big program since I started here in September. I am putting together a “haunted library” program for all ages, and want it to be impressively spooky.

I’ve done library Halloween parties before, but this library has no dedicated meeting room. So I thought I’d spread the spookiness throughout the small building with the main activities centered in the kids’ room. There are also 3 small alcove rooms off the main room that could be used for something. The program is after hours, so I can just turn off the lights in any area that has nothing going on for the event.

There are some good ideas in the comments.

Bonus: Free zombie vector graphics

It is the start of a beautiful Autumn here in Portland. The air is crisp, some leaves are falling, and the rain hasn’t yet arrived. If Autumn is here, that means Internet Librarian can’t be far behind.

I’m involved with a couple of things at the conference and I’m really excited about them:

Gaming Night at Internet Librarian 2008 – Sunday, October 19th, 5:30pm – 8:00
The game night at Computers in Libraries 2008 was an amazing event. Take a look at the pictures on Flickr. With the addition of Erik Boekesteijn showing the student created, information literacy teaching, born from a public/academic library partnership video game Dark Ink the gaming night at IL08 will be even better!

In addition to seeing Dark Ink we’ll be have DDR, Rock Band, Wii Sports and more. In the spirit of true library gaming event we’ll have plenty of pizza and refreshments. While it isn’t necessary you can register your attendance on Facebook.

NOTE: Drop me an email if you want to bring some other games. For instance, I don’t have Rockband 2 yet. It would also be great if someone could bring a few wiimotes nunchucks.

Believe it or not, I’m even more excited to be moderating an amazing track at the conference. I had the honor of assembling a group of speakers and they are all going to talk about how they’ve used technology to solve certain problems in their libraries. This is a brilliant lot of folks and I know I’m going to be captivated all day long:

Solving the Reference Desk Problem
Kate Sheehan, Head, Knowledge & Innovation Services, Darien Library
Joseph Murphy, General Science Librarian & Instruction Coordinator, Yale University
Ellen Peterson, Public Services Librarian, Maui Community College

Solving the Money Problem
Laura Crossett, Branch Manager, Park County Library System
Sarah Houghton-Jan, Digital Futures Manager, San Jose Public Library

Solving the OPAC Problem
John Blyberg, Head, Technology & Digital Initiatives, Darien Library
Christopher Barr, Design & Interface Specialist, Villanova University

Solving the Interest Problem
Kelly Czarnecki, Technology Education Librarian, ImaginOn, Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County
Cliff Landis, Technology Librarian, Valdosta State University

Solving the Buy-In Problem – Interactive Discussion
Speakers From the Day, & Audience