I realized that not everyone who is attending Midwinter might be aware of the _awesome_ calendar of LITA events that is available via BIGWIG. So here it is, freely shared and embeddable and such.
Click on the day in question, and you’ll get a list of ALL the LITA events. Subscribe via RSS, or link up via iCal, it’s all there. And if it’s not, send me your gmail address and I’ll add you to the editors and you can add the thing you’re interested in. 🙂
As a part of the reappointment process at UTC, we’re required to be reviewed yearly by the Reappointment and Tenure Committee to ensure that we’re on the path to Tenure. One of the pieces of paperwork that they ask for is a Philosophy of Librarianship statement. I’m not sure how common this is with other academic institutions, but I thought that if anyone was wondering what something like this looked like, well, here’s mine.
WARNING: No library content is involved in this post. Thank you.
Nothing gets my hackles up more than the current fashion in the US of denigrating science as something to not be trusted. The list of absolutely insane beliefs that people cling to here in the US would take hours to enumerate, but for parents to threaten a scientist because he is doing good science is just…*boggle* Read this article in the NYT about Paul Offit and see what I mean.
It’s not that I don’t have sympathy for parents who have autistic children…I do. My heart breaks, and if I discovered that Eliza had a genetic disease I would be destroyed. But my emotional reaction to it doesn’t change the science, and the science says that vaccines don’t cause autism. On the contrary, vaccinations are arguably the single most important development in children’s health of the last 100 years.
There’s a lot of emotion around this subject. But the fact of the matter is that vaccinations save children’s lives. If you are a parent, please, please, please: Have your children vaccinated.
Take a look at the new Microsoft Tag barcode software. Really interesting alternative to things like QR codes or other 2D barcode technology. I’ve tested the iPhone application, and it works very well…hopefully other mobile phones do as well with it. I’ve impressed by the cleverness of the encoding scheme.
If you aren’t listening to YLNT, you’re missing some of the funniest stuff on the web. Their brand of humor is in the John Hodgman dry-and-absurd style. I hadn’t realized that they were now doing videos! Here’s an example of their humor…I love this stuff.
“The Noises Rest” from lonelysandwich on Vimeo.
My post from last week on the ALA presidential debates and YouTube seems to have struck a cord with some librarians, and I’m somewhat pleased with the results. At the same time, I definitely am guilty of what Karen Schneider says: “…he spent too long explaining how ALA isn’t “getting it†and not enough time talking about what’s right about this project.” This is completely the case. I did pick on the details of the announcement, without clearly saying “BRAVO!” to the ALA and more specifically (again, as Karen pointed out) to the Jim Rettig presidential task force that is continuing to do good things for the ALA. I do think that this is absolutely where the ALA needs to be going. But just because they picked the right destination doesn’t mean that I can’t critique their driving skills. 🙂
With that said, I’m overjoyed that the ALA changed the rules to allow for non-member question submission! Thank you, thank you, thank you to whomever took that forward to the powers-that-be, and to all the non-members who might want some clarity on what the ALA is good for: here’s your chance to ask the presidential candidates your questions. Don’t waste the opportunity.
The other part of my suggestion, that anonymous submissions be allowed, wasn’t changed in the submission policies. Karen even says, in her post:
Besides, what would an “anonymous†YouTube film look like? Hand puppets? Mr. Bill? (â€Budgets slashed, oooooooooh noooooo!â€) Anyone who really had a burning question they couldn’t ask themselves could always find a friend willing to do it. I’ve fronted questions for people in all kinds of situations.
True that people could always find someone to front their question, but why should that be necessary? There are a million ways to do an anonymous question….not all videos have to be talking heads. A voice over a video of book stacks would work just fine, and creating a sock-puppet YouTube account is, needless to say, a trivial matter. Again, I ask: If these videos are being screened before being responded to (which they are) then why does identity matter?
I’ll admit this is a particular obsession of mine, but anonymous speech is important and necessary for the freedom of speech to be a real thing. Any time that I see the capacity for anonymous speech being held back for no particular reason that I can discern, I’m predisposed to push for it.
This isn’t a new video, but it just recently made the rounds again on the ‘net. This footage makes me want to quit my job, devote myself to getting in shape, and just do nothing but jump off things with a wingsuit. Wow.
wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.
Hobbies: driving (just kidding!), walking (or should I say toddling), putting thing into containers and dumping them out, finger painting, reading books with mom and dad, feeding her babies and stuffed animals, feeding mom and dad, mimicking sounds and words.
Favorite books: Where to begin? Especially loves all books by Matthew Van Fleet (lots of cool textures) and the “That’s Not My…” series (she has robot, monster, and snowman…guess who got her which book, mommy or daddy???)
Favorite foods: We’ve unfortunately slipped into toddlerhood in this category. Is now rejecting old favorites (read: lots of the vegetables she once loved!). Greatly prefers things like cheese, any kind of bread product, turkey, ham, yogurt, Goldfish crackers, and most fruits. Is on an interesting and strange strike against pears, though. Surprisingly doesn’t like her Dad’s delicious scrambled eggs. Hoping she’ll come around.
Favorite toys: She got lots of new stuff for birthday and Christmas, but she loves all the books the most. Also her new drum and instrument set from Nana. Still obsessed with any and all baby dolls. Also likes her shape sorter, which she can do with help.
Changes and milestones: has at least one of her molars and is getting the other three. Has been a trooper about it, though. Now sitting forward facing in her carseat. Started walking for real a few days before Christmas! Can climb steps frighteningly fast. Says lots of words and learns more almost every day. Her favorite new word is “ball,” which comes out more like “baw.”
While 2008 wasn’t always easy, in looking back at it, it really was an outstanding year for me. Personally, of course, I had my amazing wife Betsy helping me survive the first year of Eliza’s life… easily the best thing that’s happened in any year of my life. Professionally, I hardly know where to start. At MPOW, we rolled out a new OpenURL resolver, and worked like crazy in planning a new library for the UTC Campus. And in the larger professional community, my year was just nuts: my first book was published (well, half-mine, anyway…Thanks, Karen!), I spoke at a ton of conferences, and made my international speaking debut. And I had a great year writing both here and over at ALA Techsource.
I can’t imagine having another year as full as this one. I’m not sure that I even want to try. But 2009 is shaping up to be pretty interesting already. Working on a second book, signing a contract for another big writing gig for the later part of the year, and I’m sure that even more exciting things are around the corner.
My best hope for the new year is that I can find even more great friends, write things that people want to read, help push MPOW into a few interesting places, and continue to be the best father and husband that I can be.
So the ALA is taking a hint from the US Presidential elections and taking questions from YouTube…with some caveats. Here’s the email that went out to ALA members:
Members Invited to Submit Questions to ALA Presidential Candidates via YouTube
Do you have a question you’re dying to ask the candidates for ALA President?  If you can’t attend the Presidential Candidates’ Forum at Midwinter, why not submit a question on YouTube?  It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s the new ALA way!
•    Questions should be submitted as videos and posted to YouTube
•    Maximum running time is 90 seconds
•    ALA members or groups of members may submit questions using your true name(s) (anonymous submissions will not be considered)
•    Video submissions must be tagged as ALAelection09 in order to be identified as questions for the ALA Presidential Candidates
•    Submissions accepted from Dec. 8 through Jan. 16Six questions will be selected by a jury of past ALA presidents and presented to the candidates.  Candidates’ responses will be posted to YouTube and AL Focus prior to the opening of the ALA Election on Mar. 17.  The candidates for ALA President for the 2009 election are Kent Oliver and Roberta Stevens.  Questions will also be posed to any petition candidates.
For more details, go to http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/governance/alaelection/index.cfm
ALA is trying to get social media, but failing in significant ways. Why is it that only ALA Members can submit questions? The ONLY way that ALA is going to pull in the next generation of librarians is to show them that there is a benefit to joining…and withholding participation is so completely the wrong way to do it. The ALA should allow non-members to ask questions, in the same way they should start pushing conference content to non-members in a more robust way. Inviting virtual participation is a huge step…don’t screw up by limiting your audience, ALA. Change this requirement.
I also have a significant personal issue with requiring names to be attached to questions. The questions are being vetted anyway…what’s the harm in allowing anonymous questions? For a profession that holds privacy as high holy writ, to then disallow anonymous speech seems a bit hypocritical. The US Supreme Court has held that the right to free speech and the right to anonymous speech are the same…that “identification requirements burden speech”, as Talley v. California is sometimes expressed. I would love to see the ALA Board reconsider this requirement as well.
