In case you were distinctly unimpressed by my sales figures, check out Translation of the New Testament from Coptic into Latin by David WIlkins. It took 191 years to sell all 500 copies what were printed by Oxford University Press.
Photo CC-BY-NC-SA gaspi *your guide
I’m excited by these numbers. They’re great numbers for the world of publishing for libraries. They also confirm that you don’t publish for the library market for the money 
Using the Internet as a Reference Tool (nine years of sales) – 2850 copies
Using MS Outlook (seven years of sales) – 1100 copies
Directory of Mgt Software for Public Access Computers (seven years of sales) – 630 copies
XHTML & CSS Essentials (five years of sales) – 980 copies
Searching 2.0 (one year of sales) – 1,460 copies
Some days I just love opening my mail.
“This book has something for nearly everyone. Even early adapters [sic] of Web 2.0 technology may find an interesting tip. Those who wonder about the usefulness of Web 2.0 for their work will discover several examples, whether in answering reference questions to organizing their own computer.”
—Legal Information ALERT, Barbara L. Fritschel, Law Librarian, U.S. Courts Library, Milwaukee, WI
“Throughout the book, Sauers evaluates the reliability and appropriateness of each tool for searching and suggests best ways to organize them for quick reference access. Screen shots help to visualize concepts being introduced, while exercises in each chapter help put new-found knowledge into practice..”
—Catholic Library World, Betsy Butler
There’s not much to say here other than “Don’t try this at home kiddies, we’re professionals.”
The answer is yes, providing you’re reading this text via RSS.
In the move from Blogger to WordPress the old feed (www.travelinlibrarian.info/atom.xml) is now dead. The new/current feed (feeds.feedburner.com/TravelinLibrarian) has actually been working for years and I asked people to move to is quite a while ago. It looks like 400+ people hadn’t ever gotten the message.
The FeedBurner version is now the only legit version. Please tell your friends and thanks for your continued support.
Back in December Mary came to me and said “I want a computer in the kitchen.” On a certain level I’d been expecting this for a while. She has quite the cookbook collection and has been scanning her recipe cards for while now. Having to print a recipe to paper whenever she wants to cook something in the kitchen sort of defeats the purpose of scanning them into the computer in the first place. However, and she will admit this herself, Mary is a very messy cook. I love her cooking but I’m glad she does the majority of the cleaning up. (I take care of the dishes.) A computer covered various foods and other unnamed substances was not something I wanted to look forward to. Also, there isn’t exactly a lot of available counter space on which to put a computer, keyboard, mouse, and monitor. A-researchin’ I went.
What we ended up with is shown in the photo above, which if you click will take you to some other photos at other angles on flickr. (There have been some minor tweaks since the photo has taken like better cable management but nothing too significant.) The computer is an Acer nettop which is sitting inside the cabinet. The monitor has been mounted under the cabinet so that it can be folded up and out of the way when it’s not in use. The keyboard is foldable for easy storage and rubberized for easy cleanup. The computer itself is connected to the home network via WiFi (802.11n) and stores all the scanned recipe files.(And is also backed up across the network to an external hard drive in my office.)
Needless to say, Mary is happy with the results. It’s not a powerful computer but it does the job she needs it to do. All for about $300.
Here are the detailed specs and links for those interested:
Also needed: 1.25" hole saw
(There are now six computers in our house. The only two rooms without a computer are the bathrooms. Technically there’s no computer in Diana’s room but only because she has it with her on campus.)
If you’re a Twitter user you may have noticed that this week you might have been forced to change your password. Why? Because so many people use the same password for multiple sites that Twitter was getting hacked as a result. Turns out that so nefarious people were setting up other sites that required users to create usernames and passwords specifically to collect those passwords and try using them on other sites! Please, please, please, do not use the same password on more than one site!
Use a password generator, store your passwords in some secure software or Web site, create a passphrase that you can modify on a site-by-site basis. I don’t care how you do it, just use a different password on different sites. Still going to be lazy about this? Then at least use a different password on the really important stuff like your bank account.
Cross-posted on the ITART blog, The Travelin’ Librarian, and the NLC blog.
The other day I posted a video titled “Why You Can’t Work at Work” and it started me thinking about how I handle my work day and other work (i.e. writing mostly) that I do while at home. (I recommend you spend the six minutes needed to watch this video for some great advice.)
This morning two more articles about how we work also grabbed my attention.
The first is on “The Importance of Buffers”. The idea that the moment you get to work you have to immediately dive right in to the first thing on your to-do list has always bothered me a little. Lately, I’ve been arriving at my office about 15 minutes early due to changes in how I get to work. In the past I felt that since I was at work I should get at it. Lately I’ve sat down, pulled a book out of my bag, (one that has absolutely nothing to do with libraries, computers, or the Internet,) and read for a few minutes to sort of wake my mind up. Then, at the “official” start of my shift I get my computers (yes, computers) booted up, logged in, and fire up Outlook. I check to see if there’s anything that needs to be read immediately and then I go make my coffee. I’ve built in a morning buffer and I seem to be much more productive for it.
The second article, “Reality Breakdown: Raises on Lowered Budgets?” has to do with how to get a “raise” in these tough economic times. (Note to my superiors, I’m not looking for one, it just got me thinking.) In this article Michelle Burleson notes that a raise doesn’t have to be monetary. Some of her alternative suggestions include a more flexible schedule, telecommuting, and a job title change among others. On first glance, some of these might not seem as beneficial or even possible depending on the library your in but let’s thing about one in particular: a title change.
Think about your current title and your long term career goals. The next time you apply for a job, would you rather have your previous job title listed as “Librarian II” or “Technology Innovation Librarian”? Which sounds more impressive? Which is more likely to catch a potential employers eye?
So, when this year’s evaluation comes around, and you know that there is absolutely, positively, no raise in the forecast, why not consider asking for something that won’t actually cost your library anything but will still benefit you?
I got the e-mail from ITI today that the manuscript for the 2nd edition has been accepted and is off to copy editing. There’s a little additional work to do on the microblogging chapter and I’ll have to make some changes to the Blogger chapter due to the recent announcement, but not all that much. It looks like it’ll be coming out late this summer.
The folks at Royal Pingdom have gathered a bunch of interesting stats about the Internet in the year that has recently passed. Head on over to the full article for all the numbers but here’s a sample of the ones I found particularly interesting:
