Random Music

Only just this afternoon noticed some interesting stats in my music player; it may reveal heretofore hidden facts about me! Top 5 artists by number of tracks:

• 203: The Cure
• 158: Nine Inch Nails
• 153: Depeche Mode
• 116: Duran Duran
• 113: Dead Can Dance
  

Artists 6-10 are Tangerine Dream, Andreas Vollenweider, Secret Garden, Durutti Column, and Hossam Ramzy. Make of this what you will.

100°, 27%Rh, 23%PoP. Feh.

And now, a moment of squee

So, I was browsing a list of what sites are being run with Drupal. I knew The Onion was a Drupal site, but was very surprised to find out that Warner Bros, Nike, FedEx, and a whole huge heaping pile of others were too. Very cool!

Should we ever have more than a dozen users at a time, at least I know the CMS I chose can handle it :-D

The Librarian Song

Found thanks to Just Browsing browsing through YouTube, I present Joe Uveges' "The Librarian Song." Be sure to listen to the whole thing :-)

"Librarians come in all shapes and sizes,
Full of facts and figures,
and a few surprises..."




A balmy 97° with 60%Rh and a complete who-knows for rain...

Library Day in the Life

Every once in a while I do a SysGrunt here (a nod to RefGrunt), and now there's a "Library Day in the Life" meme going around the library world. So here's another SysGrunt , aka "A Day in the Life of a Systems Librarian", for 17 July 2008:

Arrive at work. Get snagged about slow network access speeds in hallway.
Open office, fire up computer.
Another complaint about slow network speeds.
Make coffee.
Reboot router.
Check email.
Router reboot didn't help. Neither did server or workstation reboots. Now what?
Seems tied to single software package. Send email to tech support.
Many conversations in hallways about slow access and what to do about it.
Download SP4 of EDMS package.
Upgrade CAD package from 2007 SP3 to 2007 SP5. Learn that the rest of the team has upgraded to 2008. Sigh.
Wait for 2008 package to download from web site.
Start catching up on backlog of library journals while files are downloading.
Wait some more.
Check email.
Finish upgrade.
Open macro editor, stare at vendor-supplied VBA module. Panic.
Batch dump a directory listing with 18293 lines to feed into macro for renaming script.
Start directory sort and renaming list.
Listen to complaints about not being able to listen to streaming radio today.
Spend rest of afternoon working through renaming list. Uncross eyes.
Flee.

This meme was started by Bobbi over at Librarian by Day... good idea, Bobbi!

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog

Watch it. Go watch it now. Then tell your friends.

Really.

2% "Other"

Over on TCM's Movie Morlocks Blog, Moira Finnie has posted a fun graph ("The World of Work According to Classic Movies") and then headed into a great summary and review of librarians in classic movies titled "One of the Invisible Professions on Screen". (Librarians fall into the "2% Other" category on the chart.) More recent portrayals of librarians show up in the comments, too. It's worth a read not just for the summaries, but for the enjoyable way they're written. (thanks to Folderol.)

Currently 101° and no rain in sight.

All Hail Biblia!

If you aren't already reading Warrior Librarian Weekly, now's your chance to start! The most excellent Biblia (aka Amanda Credaro) has included a photo and lovely little mini-resume about me on the front page of Issue #256 (yes, my hair's still purple), and links to You don't look like a librarian!

Thanks tons, Biblia!

Take My Survey, Please!

(Insert bad stand-up comedic sounds here...)

No, seriously, folks, I'm looking for librarians to give me input to a survey about perceptions. I'd really appreciate the help. Pretty please with sugar on top?

Thanks.

(Addendum: This is the same survey I sent out about a month ago; I'm hoping for more input. If you've already participated, thank you! If not, please consider it.)

I <3 Rex

So. If you've been reading this site for any amount of time you know I have a thing for Rex Libris, the world's most awesome, bad-ass butt-kicking librarian around. Well, the new web site for Rex has been rolled out (so go check it out!), and to top it off, SLG Comics is offering a FREE COPY (yes, you read that right) of Issue #1, "I, Librarian" - you just pay for shipping.

I can't wait to run down to my local comics shop and pick up my copies of Issue #11 ("R'lyeh Rising") and #12 ("Space Balls... of Evil!") as soon as they're released. I'm keeping my eye on the site... and passing the time by browsing through the new Rexopedia.

As the cool kids say on twitter, I <3 Rex.

Hot from the Doorway

One of my engineers just this minute told me that his cousin's wife went to SLA, too (first-timer). "She's a meek, quiet little thing, the perfect librarian type."

Sigh.

Literary Tattoos and the LSW

OK, not together... well, not yet, at least... but I wanted to mention them both today!

• Literary Tattoos, Books category. A lot of patience went into some of these inscriptions... reminds me of the Skin Project, "a story published on the skin of 2095 volunteers."
• Hey! The Library Society of the World now has a website, in addition to the wiki! (Bonus: it's in Drupal.)
  

Speaking of Drupal... things are going swimmingly. I couldn't be happier! I'll actually be embarking on a new Drupal installation in the coming weeks, this time implementing web-based forms (a whole new module set to investigate!). I'll, no doubt, whine about the whole thing here :-D

It's only 96° so far today, with a 30% chance of rain (and 30% Rh; just enough to feel sticky.)

A big 'ol catchup

You may already know about some of these, you may not; I've been bookmarking them to chat about once the SLA furor was over. And now that time is here!

• OK, one more thing about SLA: The Washington Times nicely summarized the conference in an article amusingly titled "Library Techies: Beyond the Dewey Decimal System."
• A paean to my personal fave Rex Libris, "In Praise of Librarian Warriors" is a nice little review by William Alexander over on Powell's Books Blog. If'n you don't have any Rex yet, get some!
• Over at The Ledger (FL), correspondent Jennifer Fickley-Baker enters the whole "guybrarian" fray with an article titled "'Guybrarians' - An Overdue Phenomenon at Many Libraries, and a Fine Career Choice." Sadly, it seems Jennifer never actually looked at the Librarian Action Figure... but regardless, it's a nice article from the guys' point of view. (I think.)
  
• Two days after the above article was published, Brainella the Librarian pitches in on the whole titles thing (and made me chuckle).
• ALA has just recently concluded, as well, and Denise Hamilton (at the LAObserved blog) points out some excellent short stories about librarians in her post "Sex on my mind as librarians take over the Anaheim Convention Center." I'm going to have to look these up!
• Lastly, a bit of humorous stitching: Sexy Librarians embroidery patterns are now available.
  

The monsoon season has started, but no rain today, I think. Currently 102°.

My Recent Wordle

My Recent Wordle
Originally uploaded by desertlibrarian

Here's a wordle of my latest blog postings, heavy on the SLA stuff. Thanks to nengard for the info on the tool; it's pretty nifty!

We'll return to posting about librarians, pop culture, and systems stuff tomorrow :-)

SLA: Wrap-up

Due to a camera glitch I have few photos of the conference, but thankfully plenty of other folks stepped up! Here's some collections:

And, of course, you can just search Flickr for all images tagged sla2008...

This posting wouldn't be complete without a link to the video of SLA Librarians Gone Wild! (And this was taken early in the evening. Trust me, it got wilder.)

SLA Day 5: Wednesday

Wednesday morning came much too early after the dance party Tuesday night; the Astronomy Roundtable, which I moderated with help from Michael Blake, kicked off at 8am. Bless SPIE for sponsoring the coffee service (thanks, Kevin)! After some Info-Expo non-conflict time, which I used to finish packing and check out of my hotel, it was time for the IT Division Board Meeting. I'm just dipping my toes in (as chair-elect of the Information Systems section), so this was my first IT board meeting; it's made up of a lively bunch, that's for sure! Next year should be interesting :-)

Then it was off to the Closing Session with a closing keynote by Seth Godin (better notes than I took by jbaumga here). Funny and informative, all at the same time! I twittered the things he said I liked the most (and borrowed this idea from nengard):

After he was done, it was time for the Annual Meeting, and watching folks flee the session was quite interesting. I hung for a bit more and then headed off to the hotel to meet my folks and start my vacation!

SLA Day 4: Tuesday

(Way behind in posting; will catch it all up today!)

Today kicked off with the PAM Business Meeting; I said my two cents (well, a bit more than that) as Division Treasurer noted it in more detail over on the PAMBlog. I ran around for a bit afterwards catching up on email and getting more coffee; then I headed to the Tech Support Roundtable where I hobnobbed with a bunch of other systems/IT librarians and learned a lot. (Thanks to Anna Burke for the Office 2003->2007 how-to link, and I also learned about summize from another attendee whose name I've sadly forgotten.)

Then I played hooky for a little while.

After a lovely lunch at the Sound View Cafe (mmm, crabcakes) I headed off for the Blogger's (and Webmaster's) Social, hosted by Blogger Extraordinaire Nicole Engard. Fun and socialization was had all 'round (we overflowed the original table and pretty much took over the bar area!) and I can highly recommend the mango mojitos and the satay.

Thus fortified, it was off to the Sheraton to set up for the IT/PAM/LMD dance party, "Under the Sea Prom Night". What a blast! Photos are starting to show up scattered about the place; here are mine and Jill's , more will show up soon I'm sure!

I didn't quite make it to midnight; the energy reserves failed around 11:30 and I staggered back to the Roosevelt to try and get some sleep before the early start of Day 5!

SLA Day 3: Monday

Today kicked off with a great session called "The Science of Coffee" by Dr. Joe Vinson. Entertaining and also packed with real science. Check out his Coffee Science and Information Center web site! Then it was off to the exhibit halls again to finish schmoozing with and thanking the PAM sponsors.

After lunch, it was the PAMwide Roundtable; new format this year, a series of short presentations. Flora Grabowska talked about open access publishing initatives; Susan Koskinen talked about SCOAP3; Pat Viele discussed information fluency in physics; then Tony O'Rourke updated us about the IOPScience developments. (Tony's always a fun speaker.) After the break, Mandy Taha, the 2008 International Award winner, spoke about science in Egypt and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. (Be sure to look for her handouts on the SLA web site!) To round out the session, Joe Murphy talked about Library 2.0 issues.

Then, after a short break, it was off to Von's Grand City Cafe for the PAM Bookgroup and a yummy dinner. Thankfully everyone seemed to enjoy the book I picked, and I've gotten the nod from the chair-elect to run book group again next year :-)

Then it was off for the PAM Open House, over at the Sheraton. I could hear the noise as I got off the elevator! What a great party!

Monday in Seattle was gorgeous weather-wise... just lovely. I had to go shopping to get a short-sleeved shirt, I was so hot in my heavy winter shirt... gorgeous surprise!

SLA Day 2: Sunday

Sunday morning came much too early after the late night Saturday; at 7:30am I was at the Leadership Development Institute. I learned a lot about the SLA Innovation Laboratory and was really floored by everything that's in there - congratulations to the SLA staff who put it together! Then it was time to dash across town (so, of course, I dashed in the wrong direction for about five blocks, so it was a much longer dash than originally planned) for the Newcomer's Lunch at Tulio's - very nice, and very well attended by a batch of first timers! Afterwards was the PAM Board Meeting, also at Tulio's.

Then it was back to the convention center for the Networking Reception - damn tasty nibblies this year, I have to say! - and then it was off to the Nite Lite Lounge for a LSW meetup. My goal to find a dive bar to be rowdy in seems to have succeeded! A subset of us went out searching for food, and let me tell you, finding an open restaurant at 9:45pm in Seattle on a Sunday night is hard. Thankfully the Fox Sports Grill took pity on us, and fed us - best! restaurant! evah! It was weird eating dinner hours past my usual bedtime, but it certainly didn't affect my sleep :-)

SLA Day 1: Saturday

(finally have a few to catch up on blogging!)

Saturday was all about the flying and the ferrying. Had a good flight in and arrived stunned to sunshine! Got to the hotel - nice enough room, and less than a block from the convention center - and was able to get registration out of the way right off the bat. Then it was off to the Washington State Ferry for our Early Bird dinner out to Bainbridge Island. What fun! The ferry ride was quite enjoyable (I spent most of it looking at the water... what a novel occurrence!) and dinner at Madoka was lovely. It was a good start to the conference.

The sun is shining, and I am stunned

So, Seattle is gorgeous in the sunshine! This is, and I kid you not, my first trip up here in the summer and what a difference! I'm staying in the Roosevelt Hotel, and first impressions are quite good. It's also less than a block away from the convention center, which is fabulous. I'm going to head over to Pier 52 and take a ferry to Bainbridge Island for dinner - whee!

Hello, SLA. Commence conferencegoing!

Currently in Seattle: 63° and sunny. Currently in Tucson: 106°. Whoa!