Dot Matrix Revolution*

DOT MATRIX REVOLUTION* from superbrothers on Vimeo.

Announcing Library Camp Nebraska

Library Camp Nebraska
University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Wednesday 19 November 2008
Sponsored by
The Nebraska Library Commission and
the University of Nebraska - Lincoln Libraries

Library Camp Nebraska is the first of what we hope to be a series of unconferences throughout the state of Nebraska. So, just what is an unconference?

An unconference is the best part of a conference (conversing with your colleagues) stripped out and crammed into a fun and informative day-long event. Unconferences have no pre-selected presenters, just group discussions on the topics that you want to talk about with your colleagues. There are many different ways unconferences can be run. Library Camp Nebraska will be using the BarCamp model this time around.

Library Camp Nebraska will be held at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln Union on 19 November 2008. Participation will be limited to just the first 100 registrants and is open to anyone who is interested in dialogue and conversation about customer-friendly libraries, library 2.0 and how we can all improve our services and organizations to meet the needs of our communities. (There will be tech topics covered, but if you aren't a techie, come talk about something else.)

For more details and to register head over to the Library Camp Nebraska wiki at http://librarycampnebraska.pbwiki.com/. Please don’t wait until the last minute to register. Seating will be strictly limited to the first 100 registrants. No additional seats will be made available.

(Please feel free to forward to everyone.)

The "Defending Marriage" Song, By Roy Zimmerman

What are you doing here?

The Internet Overdose Song

Economics and Annoying Smart Guys

'Slacker Uprising' Now Belongs to You (Down/Load, Rise/Up!)

From: Michael Moore [mailto:maillist@michaelmoore.com]
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 11:27 PM
To: msauers
Subject: 'Slacker Uprising' Now Belongs to You (Down/Load, Rise/Up!)

 

Friends,

It's officially September 23rd and my new film, "Slacker Uprising," is now premiering live at SlackerUprising.com! It is available for free as a gift from me to all of you. And you have my permission to share it or show it in any way you see fit.

Watch it all: http://slackeruprising.com/download/location.php?utm_medium=download&utm_source=7985974

At that link, there are five ways you can watch it free and without advertising:

1. blip.tv is providing streaming right from slackeruprising.com, free of commercials and advertising.
2. Amazon Video on Demand will provide a higher resolution version of the above stream for people with lots of bandwidth. It will be available in a few hours.
3. iTunes will make it easy for you to download "Slacker Uprising" on your iTunes, iPod, or Apple TV, and view it there or transmit it to your television. This way, the film can be portable as well as for home viewing. This will be available soon.
4. Hypernia is providing bandwidth and servers to host MPEG4 and DivX versions of "Slacker Uprising" online, so you can burn a DVD or download the film to watch on your computer, XBOX, or PS3.
5. Lycos is providing free streaming of the film and an on-demand version.

Stream it, download it, burn it now. It's the first time a major feature-length film is being released for free on the internet. You can be part of this historic moment by logging on now!

Enjoy!!

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
SlackerUprising.com

P.S. Remember, we're doing something that's never been done, so I have no idea how it will all go! Don't give up if it seems to go slow (like with any streaming, give the downloading a head start before you hit play), and don't forget there are two places where you can actually download it to your hard drive and three ways to stream it. You can get to all of them at the link above.

P.P.S. If you're not yet registered to vote, here's a good link: https://www.voteforchange.com/. There's less than two weeks for you to get registered, especially if you have moved since the last time you voted.

One of the coolest birthday presents I've ever received!

Early review of my next book

The manuscript of my next book Searching 2.0 has been reviewed by an outside (non-publisher) reviewer and things are looking good. Although the reviewer agreed to allow her comments to be used in  pre-publicity I've not asked them about quoting here so I've removed identifiable details. This isn't the full review but you'll get the point.

Truly, this is one of the most useful books I’ve read this year... It came just in time for me personally to continue my own professional development. The information is accessible for Web 2.0 tool beginners. However, the application of the tools and the full information he provided about the ways in which the tools work was clear enough to give me the extra bits I need to know about and organize the ideas for me. I’m recommending this book to my friends at [a large well known academic institution] as I type this up.

One thing I really found useful and will consider adapting for my own teaching are his ‘mental exercises’ to explain what he is trying to say.

He convinced me to try Delicious again – I’ve tried it but find it a pain to share so now with his instructions I’m going to re-attempt the idea.

...if this were a workshop I’d attend somehow. I really want a final copy of this book – I have printed out the draft rather than just reading it online because I want to go back through it and find some quotes and ideas that I will use in my own workshops. I will cite properly.

I will be adding it to the reading list for the...courses I teach. I will – and have – recommend it to my colleagues as well.

[ChapterOne] is a short workshop in the basics in itself. The discussion of folksonomies vs. taxonomies clarified the issue for me in a way I can make use of in my teaching and research. Convergence, Remixability, and Participation discussions place the whole big Web 2.0 snarl into neatly understandable justifications for using Web 2.0 tools in the providing library services. Most other justifications I’ve read or listened to at conferences emphasize only the participation piece and that is not enough to justify extensive time and labor spent on these tools. Convergence is a great concept for justifying it. Remixability gave me some neat ideas that I hope I have time to implement in my own work this winter.

[Chapter Three] will be very effective in clarifying for librarians when and why to use Web search engines and when and why to bookmark or otherwise create a knowledgebase of what they find when they do use them so they can more efficiently re-use good results.

Wikipedia [Chapter Four] is such a touchy subject for librarians – [a certain listserv] has an ongoing argument when the topic is re-broached. Next time it comes up I will post a citation for this book and chapter for those who are confused or being fed bad information to use to learn the facts.

[The rest of the book contains] good discussions of specific search tools. Again even though I am not a beginner at this I picked up either some new information about each tool that will be useful in my work and teaching, but also good thoughts and ideas to use in my teaching. I never thought about teaching students to search their own desktop… good idea. Not sure how I’d teach it web-based though.

Just when I thought the long dark tunnel that has been the writing of this book was never going to end I read this. This has totally made my day!

The return of free TOR ebooks

Free Ebooks from World Fantasy Award Finalists

Last week we announced the return of free ebooks from Tor.com. We’re kicking things off this week with backlist titles from two of the authors who are finalists for this year’s World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. To download these and upcoming freebies, all you have to do is register at Tor.com.

Will Shetterly and Emma Bull are the first married couple to each simultaneously have a novel among the finalists for the World Fantasy Award—Emma’s Territory and Will’s The Gospel of the Knife. In commemoration of this, we’re offering registered Tor.com users free e-book editions of a pair of classics from the Bull and Shetterly backlists—Emma’s War for the Oaks and Will’s Dogland. Check them out here!

Each title in our giveaway program will be available for A Limited Time Only, so don’t delay. The books will be offered in a variety of formats, with no DRM. After this month’s pair of books, we’ll be putting up a new title every month, so make sure you register—and tell your friends about the great books (and blogs, and art, and conversation) that are free at Tor.com every day.

This e-mail was sent to you by Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

email marketing by Macmillan

Del Rey & Lucasbooks Announce Extension of Star Wars Pub Contract & New Multi-Book Series

From: Star Wars Books from Del Rey 
[mailto:Starwars@info.randomhouse.com] 
Sent: Monday, September 15, 2008 2:10 PM
To: msauers@travelinlibrarian.info
Subject: Del Rey & Lucasbooks Announce Extension of Star Wars 
Pub Contract & New Multi-Book Series

DEL REY AND LUCASBOOKS ANNOUNCE EXTENSION OF STAR WARS(TM) 
PUBLISHING CONTRACT AND NEW MULTI-BOOK SERIES


NEW YORK, NY - September 15, 2008 - Maintaining a relationship 
that began more than 30 years ago, LucasBooks and Del Rey are 
slated to publish another 45 STAR WARS titles from 2009 through 
the end of 2013. The titles will include 35 novels and 10 
nonfiction books.

Since 1976, when Judy-Lynn del Rey took a chance on an unknown 
movie called STAR WARS and published the tie-in novel to 
unprecedented bestsellerdom, Del Rey Books has published a wide 
range of STAR WARS titles, including movie and video game 
tie-in novels; original series and stand-alone novels; as well 
as character guides and non-fiction film books. Every hardcover 
STAR WARS novel from Del Rey/LucasBooks has been an instant New 
York Times bestseller, and 2008 saw STAR WARS in the #1 spot 
twice on the New York Times list with Revelation, the eighth 
book in the recent STAR WARS: Legacy of the Force series, and 
with STAR WARS: The Force Unleashed, the tie-in to the upcoming 
video game from LucasArts. In 2007 alone, the total number of 
STAR WARS books printed under the Del Rey/LucasBooks imprint 
was over 1.5 million copies.

"Our relationship with Lucasfilm is treasured," said Gina 
Centrello, President and Publisher of the Random House 
Publishing Group. "We are extremely proud of our STAR WARS 
publishing program, which is the cornerstone of the Del Rey 
list." Howard Roffman, President of Lucas Licensing, said "The 
legacy of STAR WARS publishing began with Del Rey. For more 
than 30 years they have been a superb partner with an 
unflinching commitment to keep STAR WARS fans informed, 
entertained and enthralled."

Among the titles launching in 2009 are the first three in a 
new STAR WARS multi-book, multi-author story arc following 
directly in the footsteps of the Legacy of the Force series. 
The nine-book, three-author series, STAR WARS: Fate of the 
Jedi, will break new ground by being the first multi-book STAR 
WARS series to be published all in hardcover. The series, 
which will be published over the space of three years, will 
launch in April 2009 with Outcast, by Aaron Allston; the other 
two authors planning and penning the nine novels will be 
Christie Golden and Troy Denning. Also to come is The Making of 
The Empire Strikes Back, to be released in 2010 in conjunction 
with the 30th anniversary of that film, along with a 
continuation of the hugely successful series of STAR WARS 
Essential Guides.

ABOUT DEL REY BOOKS:
Del Rey Books (www.delreybooks.com) was founded in 1977 as an
imprint of Ballantine Books, a division of the Random House 
Publishing Group, under the guidance of the renowned Judy-Lynn 
del Rey and her husband, Lester del Rey. Del Rey publishes the 
best of modern fantasy, science fiction, and alternate history. 
In 2004 it expanded by launching Del Rey Manga, which has grown 
to be a major force in the U.S. graphic-novel field.

ABOUT LUCASBOOKS:
Lucasfilm, STAR WARS(TM) and related properties are trademarks 
and/or copyrights, in the United States and other countries, of 
Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. TM & (c) Lucasfilm Ltd. 
All rights reserved. All other trademarks and trade names are 
properties of their respective owners.

# # #

Merlin Mann on How To Blog

How To Blog

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: advice)

Find your voice, speak intelligently to the people you respect, and get better. This presentation covers everything I know about producing the kind of work that I enjoy and that I strive to make. NB: I'll eventually replace this upload with an annotated version, so apologies in advance if comments and what have you disappear later. SlideShare Link

I'm in Federal Computer Week

I'm the lead in the article "Psst! Are you Twittering yet"

Michael Sauers, technology innovation librarian at the Nebraska Library Commission, uses Twitter, a free message-routing and social-networking tool, to communicate with colleagues and spread the word about his organization’s reference service. He encourages others to check out Twitter for themselves — but don’t ask him to describe it.

“People are always asking me to explain it to them, and there really is no good way to do that,” Sauers said.

“My best answer is that it’s a mix between e-mail and chat, where you get the benefits of the group without requiring the group to be there all the time.”

I'm not 100% sure I'm happy with the characterization, but it is what I said.

Keith Olberman on 9/11™

JFK on the separation of Church and State

Play:

Download the MP3

The recording of my KCUR appearance

You can of course download it from the KCUR site, or you can listen to it (or download it) right here.

Download the MP3

Hear me on the radio: Update

Here's the promo from the KCUR site:

Many of us use it every day and have trouble remembering life without it.  The usefulness and ubiquity of the Internet has made looking for information as easy as pushing a button.  The personal computer created an Internet where anyone with a keyboard could be master and commander of the World Wide Web. Now,Internet-centered products — such as iPhones, Xboxes, and TiVos — can’t be easily modified by anyone except their vendors and are killing the innovation of the once-open Internet according Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of the Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

In a new book titled The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It, Zittrain argues that the Internet’s current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. Zittrain reasons that the seemingly endless Internet is on a path to tighter security— such as car GPS systems reconfigured at the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on occupants.

Today Michael Sauers, the “Travelin’ Librarian” from the Nebraska Library Commission talks with guest host Stephen Steigman about how the salvation of the Internet lies in the hands of the users. Drawing on generative technologies like Wikipedia that have so far survived their own successes, we’ll discuss how to develop new technologies and social structures that allow users to work creatively and collaboratively, and participate in solutions.  We’ll look at the role technology is playing in library services (both good and bad) and we’ll examine search engines and how to use the latest Web 2.0 - from improving basic search skills and evaluating search results to making the best use of search engines. We'll also discuss digital rights management, creative commons, and other copyright issues.

Image: (cc) Danard Vincente
Michael Sauers speaks this evening at 6:00 at the Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology, 5109 Cherry St.  This event is free and open to the public. Click here  or call 816.926.8716 for more information.

Additional Information:
Michael Sauers is currently the Technology Innovation Librarian for the Nebraska Library Commission in Lincoln, NE. For nine years prior to moving to Nebraska, Michael was the Internet Trainer for the Bibliographical Center for Research in Aurora, CO. He has been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, consultant, bookseller, and has worked with the New York State Assembly. He is also the Webmaster for the Greece, NY Historical Society and for the fan site of the SF/Fantasy author L.E. Modesitt, Jr. As an amateur photographer, Michael has had his photographs published in both domestic and international publications. He earned his MLS from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy in 1995, and has a BS in American Studies from SUNY Brockport. Michael's ninth book, Searching 2.0 will be out in the summer of 2008. He has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines. In his spare time he reads about 130 books per year.
Photo (cc) cindiann, http://www.flickr.com/photos/trucolorsfly/1817313361/

The guest host is the show's producer that I spoke with about the interview on Friday. He sounds like a pretty tech-say guy (he even asked me about Google Chrome) so it should be a pretty smooth hour.

As for the rest of the day, as it mentions I'll be at the Linda Hall Library for a librarian brainstorming session (a mini unconference that will include Mr. Joshua M. Neff) and then the public talk about the Zittrain book in the evening. Check out more details about the public event on the Linda Hall Library site.

Hear me on the Radio

For those interested I'll be making an appearance on Kansas City's NPR affiliate KCUR tomorrow morning from 11-Noon CDT. The show is up/to/date and we'll be discussing may issues possibly including Copyright, Creative Commons, DRM, Searching, Filtering, & Privacy. I don't know specifically what we'll get to until it happens.

The first 72 hours with 64 bits -or- Taking the Ferrari to the corner for milk

As some of you may have read on FriendFeed and Twitter, after six years, I finally replaced my aging home desktop computer. The old one ran Windows XP at 2.0GHz with 1GB of RAM. The new computer (shown right) runs Windows Vista 64-bit with a 2.66GHz Quad-core processor and 6.144GB of RAM. I've nicknamed it "The Beast". (Full specs can be found on the Gateway site.)

First, some background.

Whenever someone asks me, "Should I get a new computer?" I ask them "Well, does your current computer do what you need it to do without an undue burden on you?" In other words, does it work without going too slow, or needing regular (daily) reboots? If the answer is yes, then it isn't time for a new computer. If no, then it is.

Readers, it's been that time for me for about a year now.

I knew that this computer was never going to be upgradable to Vista. I looked into doubling the RAM (which is generally a stop-gap measure at best) and found that the old Gateway used some sort of obscure RAM and that all my slots were full so upping it to 2GB was going to cost me something in the neighborhood of $300. That wasn't going to fly.

So, I've been looking. I've been trolling the NewEgg and TigerDirect flyers and RSS feeds and figured that I'd be purchasing a bare-bones kit (case, power supply, CPU, RAM) then customizing it with a graphics card, hard drive, and OS. This was looking to cost me about $900 for something in the neighborhood of a dual-core 3GHZ with 3GB of RAM.

Then, this past Thursday, Gateway sent me an e-mail.

The e-mail listed a deal on a laptop and The Beast via Office Depot. I posted a message to FriendFeed and Twitter to get opinions and most were "go for it". The one from @stephenk was memorable: "Do you really need a Ferrari to go to the corner store for milk?"

The simple answer is of course no, but I'm glad I got the Ferrari. (I ended up driving 50 miles out to LaVista, NE to pick it up at the store so I'd have it to set up over the weekend.)

I'm not a serious gamer (as can be shown by the fact that The Beast doesn't contain the greatest graphics card in the world,) but I have been known to encode DVD video. Did I "need" 6GB or RAM and a quad-core processor, probably not. But for this price, I'm glad I didn't pass it up.

Here's an example from the weekend:

At one point I had Firefox, Outlook open, BitTorrent downloading and seeding some video, a bunch of background software running in the system tray, I was burning a DVD-ROM, AND streaming a tv show up the the livingroom over the network.  All at the same time, and yet was still using only about .45 of the CPUs and .40 of the available RAM.

That's what I need my computer to be able to do and it did so with enough headroom to be able to handle anything else I could think of throwing at it. Oh, and did I mention that it boots in about 30 seconds?

As for the 64-bit version of Vista, I was hesitant but Paul Thurrott over on the Windows Weekly podcast says that it's ready for prime-time and the 64-bit hardware drivers are no longer a problem. So, how's that working for me? Just fine.

I did have to hunt through the Dell Web site for a 64-bit driver for my Dell 1100 laser printer but once I found that, it printer works as it should.

The only continuing problem is with my Ultra USB hard drive enclosure. Which, most unfortunately, contains my music. So far The Beast refuses to recognize this USB device even though it works fine on the old computer. I contacted Ultra and they insist that it should work just fine in Vista 64-bit, it's a Windows problem, and I should contact Microsoft. I'm thinking I'll just replace the enclosure with a different brand. Right now that decision is coming down to wether I'd rather spend time with Microsoft technical support or just shell out $30 for a replacement.

So, yes, I'm glad that I bought the Ferrari. Sometimes a little overkill is worth not having to walk to the store.