Tombrarian

I noticed that WordPress added a feature whereby “Possibly Related Links” are automatically added to the bottom of my posts. My first reaction was that I did not want these links, especially since the first post to have them was my post about The King of Kong, which is about video game competitions. The “Possibly Related Links” showed links to King Kong, quite a different movie.

I found how to turn off the links (under Design and Extras). Turning off this option comes with the following language: “Hide related links on this blog, which means this blog won’t show up on other’s blogs or get traffic that way.” Because the links were so off, I was not too concerned about shutting off the feature.

But I’ve been thinking about it and decided that I’m going to turn the feature back on, at least for a while to test it. I want to see what kind of links get generated and see if it actually does have an effect on my traffic.

The NYTimes has an interesting article today by Allison Arieff about the importance of environment in learning situations. It’s more about outdoor spaces for younger students than I dealt with in my presentation at CiL, but there is still a lot we can learn from this discussion.

I’ve added some older presentations to my slideshare account. My Computers in Libraries presentation was looking lonely.

More entertaining than a film about competitive Donkey Kong should be. On the surface, one would think this film would suffer the same so-what-who-care dilemma as does Helvetica. After losing his job, Steve Wiebe turns to playing Donkey Kong to fill the void. He enters the world of competitive gaming where Billy Mitchell, at the time, held the world’s record for the highest score in Donkey Kong. King of Kong transcends what could have been a rather niche picture because it explores a world not many people are familiar with but presents an engaging underdog and a smug, distance champion. Although the film devolves into a rather familiar underdog story, it occurs in such a strange milieu that it can’t help but to be interesting. King of Kong puts an interesting spin on Henry Kissinger’s famous statement that “University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” The competition here gets rather vicious and the people involved take the competition very seriously.

People of the right age group will find this film more compelling than people who did not grow up during the time when video games like this were popular. The film explains enough about the game to acquaint newcomers as to its basic game play and provides a bit of history of video games in the 1980’s.

As a member of ALA’s Video Roundtable Notable Videos for Adults Committee, I get to watch documentary films throughout the year. The committee will then meet to discuss the films and vote for the most notable films of the year.

I watched my first film for the committee, Helvetica, which provides a short history of the so-named typeface and discusses its cultural significance, being, as it is, the most-popular typeface. Directed by Gary Hustwit, Helvetica is more entertaining than a film about a typeface should be. It certainly shines a light on a topic that most people take for granted. One of the main reasons it is so entertaining is because of the well-chosen interviewees. Everyone in the film is very knowledgeable and passionate. Also, production is very professional throughout.

Despite the fact that viewers may become more appreciative of this aspect of graphic design, Hevetica still suffers from a so-what-who-cares dilemma. I say that mainly in terms of trying to decide if this will be one of the most notable films of the year. Although Helvetica is an entertaining and very well-crafted documentary, I imagine that some of the other films we will be considering will have a bigger and more lasting social impact.

This year’s National Media Market will be held in Lexington, KY on September 22-26. The early bird deadline is May 1and you can save almost $100 by registering early.

Last year, I volunteered to create a wiki for the conference. I didn’t make the suggestion until very close to the conference, so not a lot of people participated. So, this year, I have already set-up the wiki, so there is plenty of time for people to contribute.

In addition, there will be a special meeting about digital rights the day before the conference. That information has not been posted to the official site or the wiki yet but should be available soon.

You can see my posts from the 2007 NMM here.

I wanted to post a follow-up to my Computers in Libraries’ presentation, but since I was fortunate enough to have some time to visit family in Philadelphia after the conference, I’m just now getting around to posting.

First of all, thanks to the wonderful Cindi Trainor, I have proof that I actually presented:

Secondly, my presentation went over very well. The room was filled to capacity, and I had people in the overflow room (or so they tell me). I fielded some great questions afterwards and several people came up to me during the rest of the conference to tell me they liked my presentation.

Finally, a few people were kind enough to blog about my presentation, so if you want a summary (other than looking at my slides), you can follow these links:

@Attempting Elegance

@Library Voice

@Moqub’s bibliotheek van dingen

@bibliosk8

@clifflandis.net

<update>Another link:

@Ecobibl: Fysieke Bibliothek

The Social Library

Metropolitan Library System

</update>

http://www.slideshare.net/Tombrarian

The ever-wise and savvy fellow over at Pattern Recognition launched a Google Calendar for CiL2008. He explains the rationale:

As an experiment, I created a Google Calendar for Computers in Libraries 2008 and asked a number of my friends to help me fill it in with the schedule. Why? Because Google Calendar is an open standard, and allows people to do all sorts of sharing. People can add the calendar, overlay it with their personal calendar, copy events off….it’s just a much better way of dealing with this sort of information.

The calendar can be found here.

You can go to Pattern Recognition’s post for more access points and instructions for getting added as an editor.

I can’t believe it, but Computers in Libraries is just a few days away. I leave the day after tomorrow and will spend a day doing some sight-seeing before the conference. Which means, I better have my presentation together before I leave, and I am happy to report that, yes, it is done (with of course some last minute tweaking).

Here are a list of the references from my presentation. I just want to make sure they are somewhere accessible because the presentations don’t go up on the CiL site until after the conference.

Baker, David. “The Multimedia Librarian in the Twenty-First Century.” Librarian Career Development 6.10 (1998): 3.

Battin, Patricia. “The Electronic Library–A Vision for the Future.” EDUCOM Bulletin 19.Summer (1984): 17.

Birdsall, William F. The Myth of the Electronic Library: Librarianship and Social Change in America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994.

Borreson Caruso, Judith, and Gail Salaway. ECAR Key Findings: The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2007. EDUCAUSE, 2007.

Cattier, Alan R. “Navigating Toward the Next-Generation Computer Lab.” Learning Spaces. Ed. Diana G. Oblinger.Educause, 2006. 8.1.

Graetz, Ken A., and Michael J. Goliber. “Designing Collaborative Learning Places: Psychological Foundations and New Frontiers.” The Importance of Physical Space in Creating Supportive Learning Environments. Ed. Van Note Chism, Nancy and Deborah J. Bickford. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2002. 13.

Shimmon, Ross. “The Librarian at the End of the Galaxy.” New Library World 96.1120 (1995): 43.

Van Note Chism, Nancy. “Challenging Traditional Assumptions and Rethinking Learning Spaces.” Learning Spaces. Ed. Diana G. Oblinger.Educause, 2006. 2.1.

Waters, John K. “The Library Morphs.” Campus Technology.April (2008).

Willson, Jonathan. “Enter the Cyberpunk Librarian: Future Directions in Cyberspace.” Library Review 44.8 (1995): 63.