| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Feb | Apr » | |||||
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 | |||||
This is a stunning coin. The portrait consists of the names of Dutch architects.
click for big
The back side is even better. The artist made the shape of the Netherlands by creating building-esque shapes out of Dutch architecture book spines. Amazing. Want more? Each bird is flying over the capitol of a Dutch province.
click for big
The artist’s post How to Make Money with Free Software is worth the click to see the process.
Every librarian has a fantasy library in which they get to live, work and play, right? In mine, I’d take some time to sit in these rocking chairs and then make this abstract mobile with the young people. And anyone else that wanted to join in.
Which reminds me, are there many multi-generational craft programs in libraries? The libraries that I’ve worked in have segmented much of the stuff-making by age group.
In modern recording one of the biggest problems is that you’re in a world of endless possibilities. So I try to close down possibilities early on. I limit choices. I confine people to a small area of manoeuvre. There’s a reason that guitar players invariably produce more interesting music than synthesizer players: you can go through the options on a guitar in about a minute, after that you have to start making aesthetic and stylistic decisions. This computer can contain a thousand synths, each with a thousand sounds. I try to provide constraints for people. – brian eno
[via]
Southwest Airlines. The airline has succeeded in large part due to its embrace of constraints. For example, its fleet consists exclusively of aircraft from the Boeing 737 line. By flying only a single aircraft, the company spends less to train pilots, ground crew, and mechanics. And maintenance, purchasing, and other operations are also vastly simplified, which reduces costs too.
More ways that Southwest keeps it simple: It offers flights only to select cities, no seating class distinctions, a simple pricing structure, a bare-bones frequent flier program, no meal service, etc.
Shows how executing on essential functions and leaving the rest out can still take you a long way. – 37 signals
Have you seen the new library in Mexico City? I hadn’t and now I want to see more. Informative background stub at wikipedia: José Vasconcelos Library.
Yes, I like riding bikes but that’s not the only reason I’m posting about this bike rack. This clever system functions not only as a bike rack, but also a wayfinding mechanism and bench. I’ve been keeping my eyes open for examples of flexible infrastructure and this is a great one. I wonder if the P shape design element is meant to indicate PARK.
→ Semi-new logo
→ Semi-new color scheme
#fe007a
#808080
→ New typography via cufón
Cufón displays typefaces not included with browsers but doesn’t require Flash. It is a bit easier to use than sIFR. I was originally going to just specify “Futura” as the first value for my H2 selector as a treat for those that have the font installed on their machines but then decided to use cufón so everyone could see it. It is a nice but not perfect solution. To see it in action click through to walking paper if you’re in your reader and look at post headlines. I’m into ALL CAPS now.
→ New plugins
The Roku digitial video player, an AppleTV-like device that allows for easy streaming of NetFlix content to a TV, now supports streaming from Amazon’s Video on Demand. It costs $100.
…
Some people passionately disagreed with me in the comments on last week’s “libraries might not provide content in the future & it’s okay.” I remain unconvinced that it won’t be okay. An ideal future? Maybe not. The way we’d like to envision our future? No way. We’d love to be delivering content to people in convenient ways. A nevertheless viable and perhaps more meaningful future? Could be.
Of the comments questioning a future without digital library content there was only one real articulation of why such a future wouldn’t work.
Why would I want to go to a library to exchange thoughts and ideas about materials that I have found and (using the examples you have cited in the first six paragraphs) paid for outside of the library?… I don’t need a library to do this this kind of thing.
It simply does not make sense to think that people who use the web for materials provision will then travel to the library to “share their experiences about those materials.”
My experiences with the hundreds of people I’ve hosted film discussion groups, book discussions, gaming events and tech training classes for tell a different story. Hearing about playing miniature golf and ninja tag in their library tells a different story. The restaurant on the top of OBA tells a different story.
While it is certainly true that people don’t *need* a library to do the above things, they still chose the library. So it makes perfect sense to me that people will congregate at the library even if there isn’t an eBook to check out. Even increasingly so if libraries concentrate on becoming excellent public spaces that help people navigate their personal content consumption and create stories. (And let’s be a bit real here. Like Nate Hill said in his comment, this isn’t likely going to be an all or nothing situation.)
There’s another take on why people might increasingly use public spaces instead of private ones. They might not have a choice. In a Kunstler-esque future everyone will be forced to go back to using local public spaces because there won’t be a Starbucks on the corner in which to gather. Libraries are sustainable in this sense.
One more thing. In a comment Tony Tallent wrote:
Libraries–in all formats including electronic, can be a place where we ‘do’ not simply talk about what we did from home.
I agree and if it’s okay with him I think one of my new mottos will be: Libraries are places of doing.
Stuart Semple, a contemporary British artist, wanted to cheer people up a bit by releasing 2057 pink smiley faced clouds into the sky.
Each cloud, created from a mixture of soap, helium and vegetable dye, lasted for approximately 30 minutes before dissolving.
I’m convinced swissmiss deleted a post just so she could show it off.
walking paper’s 404 page has a nice photo but could stand to be more clever.
While clicking through some of the links on Casey Bisson’s post about Scriblio 2.7 I came across the Collingswood Public Library’s website.
It has the biggest searchbox I’ve ever see on a library website or maybe any website period. And I like it.
Yes it is nearly novelty size, but it is easy to see and use. I bet you might not have even noticed the little searchbox at the upper right.
