As of today I have been in the old country for 6 weeks, and it's a great geographic location. However, here are a few things that irritate me, Britain:

• What's up with the faucets? There are two faucets in every sink. I have to choose between either having hot hands or cold hands every damn time I use the sink. No seriously, the technology to have a single faucet spout has been around for a long time, but you've all got cell phones, whats the deal?
• Most of your bars and pubs close at 11. The buses in Canterbury don't run past 11 regularly (every 45 minutes or hour). This is decidedly inconvenient, especially given the former of the next two related complaints.
• And the clubs have huge covers, and the alcohol is expensive as hell. If I just want to get a cup of tea it's going to set me back 2 American dollars, and that's just a cup of tea. I spent 9 dollars on a double gin and tonic the other night, before I realized what I'd done. Ridiculous! I forgive you for having a currency that's worth more than the dollar, but that doesn't make it suck less.
• I don't get what you want to talk about. What are you interested in talking about. With a few exceptions, I don't know what you want to talk about. I miss talking about and doing nothing with my friends who have similar interests in Bloomington.
• I miss my friends in Bloomington.
• You are smaller than America. (and for such a small nation, you seem to have a lot of dislike between each other. I obviously haven't met everyone yet, but I still sense a lot of hostility towards Scottish and Welsh people, why?)
• You once had an empire, but now your just historically attached to them and have no real sovereignty over them. We bailed you out several times, and we helped you win some of the most important wars in your history. Also, you tried to tax us without proper representation, not fair.
• I don't like your food as much. It doesn't seem as equally diverse as in America. And by that I mean your Mexican food stinks. I have you buy cheap stuff, and it tastes bland, lame.
• Paris takes about the same time to get to as London, but it costs between 4 and 6 times as much. (this is a blatant exaggeration)
• I'm still sick, after going on two weeks. Do I have allergies to your flora/fauna?

I know this has been quite unfair, but I just miss Mexican food, and my friends. I miss Monica. And Bloomingfoods. Bloomingfoods is a dream. It's not just for yuppies, and I'm used to it and it's easy to love. And good relatievely cheap vegetarian gourmet pizza: Bazbeaux, Bucca Di Beppo, Avers, Mother Bears. I miss watching movies and doing nothing sometimes. Wait, I can do that here.

I went trampolining again today, which is awesome--I'm already getting much better (intermediate form is in sight!). I guess I couldn't reall go rock climbing two times a week as easy in America either. And I suppose, regardless of the cost, I'll never be this close to so many incredible countries with lots of history and unique cultures. There are also trips nearly ever weekend to hike in beautiful English countryside (which some say is boring, but isn't) and climb huge rocky cliff sides. For nearly the price of two tickets to a movie I can get to London, one of the greatest cities in the world. Even the mundane things like candy bars are sort of new and interesting, too. Tomorrow I might even go to see the cliffs of Dover, basically for free. And, well, the cheese is still better.

If you have followed step 1 outlined in my last post, chances are you have a lot of stuff to deal with. When I go off the GTD system, my desk drawers become bottomless pits where I deposit just about anything, and then completely forget about it. I am sure all of us have cleared desks and drawers this way many a time. We are suddenly faced with all this surplus information which needs to be processed. Looking at a huge pile in front of you is stressful, so take a deep breath to start with! Next, pick up one item at a time from your in-basket, and start to process. It is important to deal with each item in the tray one at a time, and not put the item back until it has been processed. Outlined below are steps I follow to process my in-tray.

Step 1: I ask myself.... "What action does this particular item require?". It could require a form of action or, none at all.

Step 2a: If the item requires action, I determine what level of action is required. There are three possible options at this point:

i) Do it: If the item can be completed in 2 minutes or less then I get to it immediately. For example, if the first item on the tray is an approval letter which requires my signature, I sign it, and have it sent to the appropriate person.This item could also be responding to an email, or confirming attendance at a party. Anything which takes a short period of time to complete.

ii) Delegate it: If the item requires another person to take action on it, I mark it, and have it sent to the concerned individual. For example, if the item is a contract my partner needs to comment on, I have it sent over to him.

iii) Defer it: If the item cannot be processed immediately but requires action in the near future, I mark it, and place it on my calender. For example, if the item is a post-it note reminding me to call a particular customer, and today being Saturday, I will put an action item on my calender to call the individual on Monday morning.

Step 2b: if the item does not require any action, there are then a couple of easy ways to deal with it.

i) Trash it: If the item in your tray is junk mail, it should go straight into the trash bin. Anything which does not have some value must be trashed.

ii) Incubate: If the item is an invitation to a wedding, which is to take place in a months time, and you are uncertain of your travel schedule, put it away in a file to review after a designated period of time. Many items will require you to think about stuff, and such a file is a great place to organize them.

iii) Reference: If the item is a competitor's brochure, I would keep it as reference material. It is important that your reference material is well marked and easily retrievable. Much of the time we archive stuff and never see it again. Mark your files carefully, and keep them within reach at all times.

This may all seem excessive when you first look at it, however, with a little bit of practice all these decisions take place almost instantly. We know instinctively what we need to do with each item, since much of it may have been bothering you for some time. Getting into the habit of keeping your in-basket at a manageable level at all times can greatly improve the quality of life. It is important that you process this tray regularly. Once we have processed all the information, we can move to the next stage, which is, organizing all this information.

]]> http://catoshead.wordpress.com/?p=128 Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:15:45 +0000 gillsmoke http://catoshead.es.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/from-merlin-manns-blog-talk/ He's the one that got me started with a Hipster. I've got to tell you I use mine a little differently. He's got a little stack that he processes daily. I've got a big stack that I use like a planner, with a scribbled note page on top that I process all the time. Ubiquitous capture is what I'm shooting for.

Back to his blog talk. It was at a blog confrence, these were people looking to make money by blogging. I'm not in that camp but what he had to say applies to me. How do you write a good blog? His answer is:

Find your obsession.
Every day, explain it to
one person you respect.
Edit everything, skip shortcuts,
and try not to be a dick.
Get Better.

He repeated the points several times breaking it down to:
1.    Obsession
2.    Daily
3.    Explain it
4.    One person
5.    Respect
6.    Edit it
7.    No Cheese
8.    No Dick
9.    Better

The first thing I did was make a Hipster card and add it to my stack. Covering his first point I'm obsessive about just about everything I come into contact with I have been at least daily adding cards to the Infinite Dvorak Deck for most of the year. I've never mentioned it here but it's a interesting thought experiment. I am playing Living Forgotten Realms and I'm keeping track of three forums to stay on top of developments. I've started using Maptools to expand my play opportunities. I think I've convinced CRSE to do NaNoWriMo this year. her efforts last year have led to this current NaBloWriMo effort. I have become enamored to the Escape artists podcasts. So what do I focus my energy on?  Hmmm? Should I start 8 more blogs, one for every interest? I think not, I need Arthurian readers. Readers who can love me as a whole loaf instead of just slices. (name the movie in the comments and I'll slap you with a trout) I'm an obsessive kind of guy. A coworker once quipped that I knew things that only 5 people knew in the Renaissance. If I do it's because I'm curious and want to know more than I do. I owe a lot to Wikipedia giving me obscure information that has very little conversational value.
P.S. There's also my girlfriend in Canada whispering secrets in my ear.

After receiving some questions on what else is possible on SharePoint designer and answering many of them I figured I should post this to help anyone else who might be curious as to some of the easier reports you can get out of Designer:http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA101741361033.aspx

Hope this helps someone in the future,
Richard Harbridge

"At one time or another, you might need to get the goods on a stranger, like a prospective nanny or a business contact. Public records and people-finder sites are often the place to look; we list the best ones here. These sites use cool, Web 2.0 techniques to help you locate people, then (if need be) dig deep to find the "sensitive" intel about them you need.

WhitePages.com: WhitePages and PeopleFinders are both good tools for tracking down people, their addresses, and their phone numbers, but the nod goes to White­Pages for its upcoming addition of voice and mobile capabilities.

FriendFeed: Many content sharing and social networking sites exist now--Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and so on--and my friends seem to be spread out evenly among them. I don't have time to visit them all. Friend­Feed crawls more than 40 such sites to keep you updated on the Web pages, photos, videos, and music that your friends are sharing or commenting on.

Spock: This site looks for a person's school, work, and social affiliations, then displays photos, links to social network pages, Web sites, videos, and blogs about that person.

Facebook: I know, I know, recommending such a well-known standby as Facebook is like recommending that you wear sunscreen at the beach. But, really, what social networking site is more functional, more organized, and more populous than this one?

Glassdoor: This site invites you to log in and anonymously write what you really think of the company you work for, the culture you work in (here's where you gripe about your boss), and the salary you're pulling down. Then (and only then) can you dig for some dirt on current or former coworkers and, best of all, see how much they make.

Search Systems: Public-records sites do the legwork of collecting all kinds of public records from all over the country, and then sell access to them via the Internet. Search Systems, one of the oldest and most reliable of these companies, takes a no-nonsense approach to selling access to 36,000 public-records databases from around the country. You can access marriage and death records, property records, and business permits for a $5 monthly fee, or buy the "premium" service, which includes bankruptcy and criminal records.

NETRonline (www.netronline.com): For a somewhat more hands-on ap­­proach to accessing public records, NETRonline's free public records portal is a very useful tool, with direct links to the actual county and state databases that contain the data. NETR also offers background checks and criminal-record searches, for a price.

Criminal Searches: Do you really know the people in your neighborhood? Do some of them have criminal histories, including sex-related offenses, violent crimes, and theft (or just traffic offenses, as the site also details)? Criminal Searches provides their mug shots and even plots their addresses on a map, for free.

FundRace: This clever mashup site plots political donors on a map and shows how much they contributed. What did your neighbor give to the Democrats or the Republicans this year?"

© 1998-2008, PC World Communications, Inc.

LIS Wire reports today:

"Text a Librarian Makes it Easy For Libraries and Schools to Create Their Own Mobile Messaging Reference Services
Live, mobile Q&A system to power top universities, including UC Berkeley and the University of Kansas

San Francisco, CA–October 8, 2008—Every year, libraries answer more than 374 million reference questions, according to the American Library Association. Mosio, the award-winning mobile Q&A community, today announced the launch of Text a Librarian (www.textalibrarian.com), a new service that helps libraries set up mobile Q&A systems so they may answer students and patrons’ questions instantly via text message to any mobile phone.

On average, Americans text almost twice as much as they talk on mobile phones, according to a recent Nielsen Mobile Survey, making it a preferred means of communication while on-the-go. However, setting up a mobile text communications network for a library or school can be a daunting process: short code negotiations with all of the cell carriers, complicated software and/or hardware development, and extensive training—costing tens of thousands of dollars a year and months of setup.

Now, with Text a Librarian, any library or school can create their own secure, live mobile Q&A SMS reference service in just minutes, with zero hardware to buy or software to setup with packages starting at just $99/month + set up fees per library/branch. Text a Librarian works across all major carriers, mobile phones and devices, and works seamlessly with existing email and IM systems. Students and users simply text (or email) their question and it shows up live on the library or school’s own private and secure Web dashboard for them to answer back instantly.

For more information and a free online demo, visit: http://www.textalibrarian.com

“Mobility is a way of life for most students and increasingly for society in general, making the way in which we stay connected a central issue for many schools and libraries,” said Noel Chandler, CEO and founder of Mosio. “Text a Librarian leverages Mosio’s award-winning Q&A platform to make it possible for students and patrons to tap into the wealth of knowledge of local librarians from their mobile phones, keeping patron information private and secure.”

Beta test clients include public libraries, schools and top Universities, including UC Berkeley and the University of Kansas.

"Mosio's service opens up a whole new world for us. Text a Librarian gives us an easy-to-use texting component, increasing student access to KU Info,” said Curtis Marsh, KU Info Program Director. "We need to communicate with students the way they communicate with each other. It is about time we began offering our service through text messaging."

Mosio has received numerous accolades for its mobile Q&A technology, including the prestigious SXSW Interactive Award for Mobile..."

You can find the post here: http://blogs.msdn.com/ecm/archive/2008/10/09/publishing-sites-field-controls-or-web-parts-that-is-the-question.aspx

Thank you again Andrew and the ECM team,
Richard Harbridge

These books continually appear because they are incredibly useful.  However, lurking between these constants of reference, an observant browser can find a wealth of more unusual, and to be fair, less useful titles.  The Tillamook County Library is no exception.

One less common reference title that we have at the Tillamook library is E. and M.A. Radford's 1949 Encyclopaedia of Superstitions.  This well worn book is about the size of a modern novel and covers little know British superstitions.  This would be cool enough to keep it in the collection, but what really makes this title great is the author's commentary.  Almost every article on any particular superstition has, not only an explanation of the superstition, but also the author's advice to, and sometimes mockery of, any individuals who believe in the superstition.  For example the entry on eels:

EELS

A horse-hair kept in water will in due time turn into an eel.

It is suggested that the stupid superstition of the horse-hair is traceable to the appearance after rain of long hair-like worms in the deep marks left in the ground by horse's hoofs.  They were not seen before the rain, or before the marks of the hoofs were made; so the superstitious people long ago said they must be the hairs dropped from the horse's mane and tail, and in the course of transition into eels.  And there are a large number of people who still believe it to-day.

In February, 1946, the authors received a letter from a company of soldiers in Germany.  They were, they said, arguing on a topic which they asked us to decide -and also settle a bet.  The topic was "Do eels come to life from horse-hairs?"

Words like 'stupid' and personal stories are sadly lacking from most encyclopedias today.  The next time you are in the Tillamook County Library I highly recommend you visit Ref 398.3 Radford and check out one of our Gems of Reference.

Trampolining on professional athlete trampolines is different than at home. They go really high if you aren't careful, and you can really hurt yourself. Generally you're judged more on your form that what kind of tricks you can do--though some folks here can do some amazing tricks. Flips are called somersaults instead. There's a lot more terminology, which I still haven't totally picked up on. I can't wait until saturday.

• Ebsco Nursing Reference Center
• Mosby's Nursing Consult
• Mosby's Nursing Skills

To access these resources, click here.

For more information about these resources, contact us at researchservices@lumc.edu.

Now, something practical to help with the technology stress. Here is a great post from Pogue's Posts hosted by The New York Times. Listed are tech tips and tricks for basic computer use. The comments expand on this post and there are some great tips. I even discovered some shortcuts I didn't know about, which is super cool. Share the tips with your friends and patrons so we all can use the computer a little more efficiently.

Enjoy the rest of the day and remember--computers are stupid, it is the person who uses the computer that makes them perform great feats!

Hi all, Here is a little more information about the incident that occurred on Tuesday night (from Dwain)--

Profile pictures are simply more efficient at communication than away messages--and given the long way we've come sense simple away messages, much less awkward. The twitter phenomenon (if you can call it that even) is essentially what away messages were original meant to do but more to the point. But what would be even better than twitter, is a site that is for profile pictures only. Just about everyone has a cell phone at this point, and almost all cell phones come with cameras and basic editing functions (like sepia tone, black and white, contrast adjustment, cropping, etc.). Perhaps this is the greater message (that cell phones are the next area of progress in communication technology). But, why not have a twitter type service with images instead of words? You could use the facebook network API to do something similar to this already, and that's my point. The thing about twitter is that it is a medium end in itself, it is a method of commenting on a medium within a medium (in the case of away messages inside of instant message applications with idling capabilities). The point of having a service that did only this would of course be trivial (like twitter is, on the whole, despite a few unique content related services like 'novels in three lines')--it would merely further the obvious fact that images are a language that humans have been moving in preference towards (with some resistance) since the invention of photography. Even better would be video portraits though, like the ones from the newspapers in Harry Potter films--but that might be too much of an uncanny valley.

Completely inspired after today's trip to the library. I've been thinking about making an illustration of a mermaid but of course typing mermaid into the library database won't overwhelm you with references.
So I went to look up the one book that was in the Camberwell library and see what resulted.

It should have been no surprise that I came across a section covering fantastic creatures and folklore. This is perfect and I realised in a flash that what I should be doing for my MA proposal is a series of images on mythological beasties and folklore. So I loaded up with five books that were on the shelf and we are away!

Anyways, Lauren Lampstone writes in Reference Backtalk (pg. 88) that earlier this year, The New York Public Library's Best of Reference committee saw an amazing site.  A presentation by librarians that was "Saturday Night Live meets middle school talent show meets reference - a reference pageant, an encyclopedic extravaganza, a carnival sideshow announcing new and exciting resources".

And my next immediate thought was - we can all do this.

Librarians are damn funny.  I laugh a lot when I am in a meeting with librarians.  Well, usually.  We need to take our show on the road.  Reference at the mall anyone?  Opening act for the high school symphonic concert?

And we can't be wonky.  By wonky I mean, using the library lingo.  We need to be quick-witted, timely, and jargon free.  Y'know, us, but better.

Other cool ways of putting ourselves out there in presentation type ways?  What about Pecha Kucha?

I think we owe it to ourselves to brave embarassment and go out on a limb.

Well, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but I think we need to start thinking about new ways to put ourselves in peoples' paths.  SNL style.  ;)

1:02 pm  Phone call re: APA citation style from a distance student who doesn't own the APA Manual. After walking her through the basics of journal citations, I finally remember Perdue's OWL. She and I are both thrilled to have found her a good online resource.

1:30 pm  Gentleman who is perfectly content doing research in EBSCO has to ask whether he can "check out this article." I explain how to print, but wonder if perhaps we're missing some vital bit of communication when we talk to students. This is the second time this semester I've been asked about article-level checkouts by someone already in a database.

1:45 pm  After mass exodus of students, do a quick run-through pushing in chairs, checking that all the computers are still logged in, picking up golf pencils, etc. Get one printing and one directional question.

2:00 pm  Citation gal calls back with a much quicker question. Had never noticed before, but the APA Manual's font makes it very difficult to tell whether the volume number is in italics.

2:15 pm  False alarm -- someone misdialed.

2:37 pm  Some confusion re: searching electronic reserves vs. electronic databases. Again, not the first time I've been asked about this this semester. A little of the confusion is just because our electronic reserves module is new, but it also seems to go back to the fact that so many people don't really understand what a database is.

2:43 pm  Pretty much every time I work reference there's a phone call from a distance student needing to know their student ID number in order to access the databases. The number is on their bills from the university, which is an easy enough thing to tell them, but if we're getting this question so often why don't we just put that bit of info on the log-in screen?

2:55 pm  Did another computer area run-through. Just have to stretch my legs on occasion.

3:06 pm  We don't have Word on our computers, but the Writing Center does. Yes, you can access all the library's electronic resources from there.

3:14 pm  Headphones? Yes.

3:46 pm  Why yes, if you game the system and check out a movie before a break, you do get to keep it longer than three days.

That's all, folks.