Jim Rettig’s Travel Schedule for 2008/2009
My director, Jim Rettig, is currently the President-elect of the American Library Association. I had the idea of creating a mashup of his travel itinerary for the year to help the library community visualize where he’ll be appearing over the course of the next year. The result is below.
Here’s a link to the full version on Google Maps: http://snurl.com/29z6i
To accomplish this, I created a dedicated calendar in Google Calendar, fed the xml data from the calendar into a custom Yahoo! Pipe, and then exported the KML data back to Google Maps.
Props to the team at Lifehacker for picking up on a post of how to do this!
Friday TechTip - Digital Photo Rodeo, Pt. 1
This week’s tip that I’ve sent out to our staff focuses on digital photo management. Now that warm weather is here, I’m sure more people will be breaking out their digital camera for vacations, cookouts, family gatherings, etc.
Check it out at my *other* blog. 
- Friday TechTips
TechTips Blog
So a few weeks ago, I began distributing tech tips every Friday afternoon to our library staff via our internal mailing list. My goal in doing this is to share some of the more helpful web services and tools that I come across on a regular basis. Recently my director asked me to approach our VP for IS (we’re part of our campus IS group) to see if this would be something of value to the rest of IS. She gave approval and also thinks this is a good idea to try. She also suggested using a blog for archival purposes. Working with our Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology, I now have another blog installed on their WordPress MU platform. I will continue to distribute tips via email, but will simultaneously post them to the blog for wider distribution and archiving. Your comments and feedback are welcomed! I may also aggregate them here for further coverage.
Microsoft Virtual Earth Maps Crashes My IE
The following scenario has recently happened to me on multiple occasions on different WinXP systems:
- I visit weather.com
- Type in my zip code for local weather
- I switch to radar view to see how close the weather system du jour is (Weather.com uses Microsoft Virtual Earth for maps)
- IE7 promptly crashes
Is this another case of Microsoft’s left hand not talking to its right? According to the latest report from the Garter Group Microsoft/Windows has become "monolithic" and is currently incapable of competing with the various Linux distributions as well as OS X due to their flexibility and ability to be ported to other devices (OS X on iPhone, Google’s Android OS running on mobile devices). After experiencing this situation, it only reinforces the happiness I feel after "coming home" to the Mac OS (I grew up with II, IIc, early macs). It sort of feels like The Steve putting his arm around me and saying "Welcome home, wayward son. Let’s kill the fatted calf."
Attending CIL2008
I left early this morning from home in Richmond, VA and drove to Arlington/Crystal City to attend Computers in Libraries 2008. I came up early (conference offically starts tomorrow) to attend a preconference, Web Manager’s Academy. It was an all day session with lots of good content and dialog. I’ll post my thoughts later after having some time to digest the content. I’m glad to be here!
Need Online Storage for Library Users? Try drop.io!
A new online storage service, http://drop.io, launched recently and allows users to store up to 100mb of files. Yeah, it’s stingy storage, but great for office docs, a few images, an occasional audio file, etc. The benefits: no registration so you’re privacy is intact (as much as you want to believe that), multiple users can share the space, you can set a deletion date, users can add notes and make changes, etc.
I can really see this being beneficial to library users visit the library, create a project/document, but need a quick way to save it or send it to themselves. Yeah, there’s always Gmail, but I like the ease of use of this site and like the ability to collaborate.
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FaceBook Launches “Pages”
A few days ago Facebook launched Facebook Pages, officially allowing groups, businesses, organizations, etc. to host official sites. This is a great addition in a number of ways. Previously users had to form groups if they wanted to support an organization, now there can be an official page and supporters will be displayed as “fans.” The page administrators can also find and add relevant FaceBook applications, further enhancing the page’s usefulness. At our library, we created a group a little over a year ago to help students become more familiar with the library, and it’s always been a little awkward. Now, users can come to our official pages, check the events calendar, follow suggested links, and IM with a librarian directly from the page.
Check us out at: http://richmond.facebook.com/profile.php?id=6009397930 or just search for “boatwright library” (login required). Feedback is always welcome!
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Google Announces Mobile Phone "Open" OS
Today Google announced their long rumored mobile project, "Android," which they’ve been developing in secret. Most, including myself, were expecting an actual device. What was announced is an actual mobile platform that can be run on a wide range of devices. According to Google, Android "…will be composed of a "fully integrated mobile ’software stack’ that consists of an operating system, middleware, user-friendly interface and applications."
According to Engadget, many of the major players in the telecom industry have signed on and are official partners of Google’s Open Handset Alliance (minus Microsoft, Nokia, AT&T, and Verizon, no big surprises there). In my opinion this really raises the bar in terms of the levels of service that consumers will come to expect: devices that can operate anywhere on any network, share files easily, low-cost data access, etc. Any competition will by welcome in this space, especially in the U.S. market, where the service providers dictate what your phone is allowed to do. Read this post by David Pogue released earlier this year for a further analysis of this specific issue.
Watch this video that discusses what Android is capable of!
New Position/Role!
As of today I am the new Emerging Web Technologies Librarian for Boatwright Memorial Library at the University of Richmond! This is the type of work I’ve been eager to focus on for a longtime now. I’m entering this job after being in the access services world for 11 years, beginning with serving as the Stacks Supervisor at Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University as well as Head of Access Services at Virginia Commonwealth University and here at the University of Richmond. My new priorities focus on serving as the library webmaster as well as exploring service delivery through web 2.0 tools, mobile devices, etc. This means I get to play with and test all of the cool stuff that’s constantly being released on the web! The more beta/open source, the better!
My initial priorities will be preparing to move the library website to the university’s new CMS - Cascade Server from Hannon Hill. I’m also finalizing a wiki that our customer services group will use to organize all of the procedures and policies that desk staff need access to. We’re also going to re-examine our IM service over winter break and see if Meebo might be more suited to our needs.
Anyway, I’m really excited about the new possibilities that exist in this position and I’ve got a long list of people out there to talk with about their experiences with various technologies and platforms, so don’t run if I come calling!
Favorite Old-Time Spooky Cartoons, Pt. 3
Happy Halloween! This is the final installment of the series. I have distinct memories of watching this film in our library during elemtary school. For a young child, the site of the Headless Horseman chasing Ichabod can be quite intimidating! Bing Crosby does a great job of narrating this video. One of my favorite scenes is the clouds shaped like hands closing over the moon at the end of the video…
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Professional and personal ideas, thoughts, and comments from your favorite tech-brarian. Actually, that's probably not a valid term, but hey, I'm not sweating the small stuff!
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