Hitler explains Second Life

Second Life, Second Thoughts

Here's my Second Life presentation from Internet Librarian 2007.

| View | Upload your own

(I'm having a little trouble uploading my other two presentations to SlideShare at this time. I'll get them up as soon as I can.)

What is Second Life?

Here's my Second Life presentation shown yesterday at the NLA/NEMA 2007 conference in Kearney, NE.

(Especially for those of you that attended and wished to actually see the videos that refused to play during my presentation.)

Richard Dawkins speaks about Second Life

You can find the video on the Telegraph.co.uk site. (I was unsuccessful in my attempts to embed it here.)

When your first life and second life merge

Second Life moves toward real life age verification

Official Linden Blog � Blog Archive Age and Identity Verification in Second Life �: "Once the age verification system is in place, only those Residents with verified age will be able to access adult content in Mature areas. Any Resident wishing to access adult content will have to prove they are over 18 in real life."

You're Invited!

You're Invited to the Grand Opening of the Nebraska Library Commission in Second Life!

Second Life is the online virtual world built and owned by it's residents. More than 400 librarians from all types of libraries are using Second Life to provide programs, services and materials to their patrons in the virtual world.

For example, at the Nebraska Library Commission in Second Life, we have installed a rotating exhibit of photos from Nebraska Memories. The photos on display will be changed on a regular basis, so there will always be something new to see!

We will also be scheduling events and training in the upcoming months. Check back here and at our Second Life building to see what we have planned!

So, join the Second Life community by creating your own personal avatar (it's FREE!) and come visit the Nebraska Library Commission at our new building on Cybrary City.

Skydiving

Ok, this may be the closest I ever get to the real thing but I must admit once I got the hang of it I had a pretty good time. (That's PlanetNeutral Fackler a.k.a. Greg Schwartz taking the plunge with me.)

NLC Vendor Day 2007

Yesterday several dozen librarians from throughout Nebraska joined NLC staff and about a dozen library vendors at the Cornhusker Marriott in Lincoln, NE for the second annual NLC Vendor Day.

Overall I'd say it was a success. All of the sessions were well attended and many great questions were asked of the vendors about their products. Both of my sessions, Second Life and Hot Topics in Technology" were also well attended.

More specifically to me, my use of YouTube as presentation platform seemed to go over very well. All of the feedback I received indicated that it worked well and gave everyone an idea of what it was like to be in Second Life without actually going there. (That, and I didn't use PowerPoint at all so that's a guaranteed plus.)

From the presenter's persepctive YouTube did leave a bit to be desired. Due to the fact that all YouTube video pages force you to scroll to see the whole video window and each time you move to the next video in a playlist you have to re-scroll, I decided to use the playlist that I embedded in my blog the previous day. This way I could scroll down once, click play, and let it run, pausing when I needed to address something specific. Unfortunately, I didn't test this plan fully in advance. It seems that embedded playlists will play the first four videos and then force you to click over to the YouTube site to play the rest. (For purposes of ad revenue I'm sure.) So, due to this I was back in YouTube, scrolling to align future videos on the screen. It wasn't a complete breakdown of the plan but it did catch me off guard, something I try to avoid during a presentation.

The only other comment I would make about this method of presenting is not to go over the 30 minute mark when showing video. I pretty much kept to exactly 30 but I started to get the feeling at the end that if I'd gone any longer I would have started to loose some of the attendees.

Overall I'd give the day a 9 out of 10 and my YouTube experiment an 8 out of 10. (My photos from the day can be found by clicking on the photo in this post.)

YouTube as Presentation

Tomorrow is the Nebraska Library Commission's Vendor Day and as part of the festivities I get 30 minutes to introduce Second Life. So, with the discovery of the video I posted earlier today I decided to take a different approach and assemble 30 minutes worth of YouTube videos and use them. (I'll most likely cut short the Vega song short as I'm using it more as an intro to the video on building her SL guitar.) I've still got handouts but I thought this would be an interesting experiment. The videos are presented for you below and I'll report back afterwards as to how the audience liked it.

Second Life Introduction

Here's a great short video introducing Second Life. I think I'll use this one tomorrow. Listen for the line about linking from Second Life to an "old fashioned Web site".

CIL2007: Trends in Mobile Tools & Applications for Libraries

Megan Fox, Simmons College, (fox@simmons.edu) web.simmons.edu/~fox/mobile

• Patrons want and demand mobile on-demand services
• Mobile Market
• [I lost the stats I typed in...]
  
  
• Latest Devices
• iPods
• tablets
• PSP
• Blackberry
• m300 smart watch
  
  
• Treo
• Samsung B470
• Nokia N93
• HTC S710
• iPhone
• MyOrigo
• HTC Advantage and Shift
• Ultra Mobile PC - Q1 Ultra
• Mobile Web / Transcoded Web
• .mobi
• mobilelearn
• winksite
• volantis
• roundpoint
• mobiSiteGalore
• Freemont PL has a .mobi version
• zinadoo
• NYT
• National Weather Services
• Digg
• PubMed
• Hoovers
• Ball State University (Looks like Gopher)
• Mobile Optimized OPACs
• III AirPac
• LibraryThing
• Ready Reference On the Go
• Tucors
• handango
• dictionaries
• almanac
• Mobile Answers
• eBooks & eAudio
• Transcoding
• Optimizing for the mobile environment on the fly
• May remove content so somewhat controversial
• Blogger on the Go
• mobilicio.us
• Databases on the Run
• Factiva
• LexisNexis
• Mobilize your content
• via RSS then to SMS
• MobiFeeds
• xFruits
• feedbeep
• hubdog
• GoogleReader
• Text onto the iPod
  
  
• Mobile Search
• Google
• 4info
• Yahoo!
• AOLMobile
• Ask
• [Presented on this earlier in the conference]
  
  
• SMS for content
• GoogleSMS
• Yahoo
• AskMeNow
• Biblioteche di Roma (answer w/in 48 hours, ugh!)
  
  
• 411
• Meriam Webster
• Life's a Pitch - 1st chap via SMS
• Harper Teen
• Citysearch
  
  
• SMS for communication
• Simmons College Reference Services
• Altrama (SMS Virtual Reference)
• teleflip
• gizmoSMS
• MagicMessage
• MobileU
• AIRBaruch
• Class in Hand
  
  
• Text Feedback Link
• Feedback Meter Link
• Mobile audio & multimedia
• downloadable audio
• mobile tours - guide by cell
  
  
• instruction
• story hours
• video tours
• mobile tv
• mobile YouTube
• mobile Second Life
• Ball State University training videos & promotional videos
• Video downlaods
  
  
• Applications for staff
• Stats - bar code readers
• Sirsi PocketCirc
• Wireless Workstation
  
  
• What's Next?
• txt & video ads (you must approve & get a discount on your bill for viewing)
• MasterCard & Visa via your phone
• Hardware displays
• glasses
• eink/epaper
• project to wall
• ZenZui
• Microsoft Live Labs Deepfish
• Photo2Search
• Thrrum
• mobile visual interactions - qipit
• spoken interactions - GotVoice
• GPS Location Interaction
• [showing pics from my Library Signage flickr pool!]
  
  

SirsiDynix Institute follow-up

The MP3 and PDF for my Second Life presentation are now available on SirsiDynixInstitute.com.

When it comes to Vista, updated drivers are very important

I've seen the article Speed Up Windows Vista from ExtremeTech blogged about several other places so I wasn't going to mention it here. I did read it though and agree with the criticism regarding the section of the article dealing with Windows services. But the one thing that I got from the article was the importance of making sure your drivers are up to date; especially if you're upgrading from XP to Vista.

First a little background: In my workshop Tech Support on the Fly I talk about Windows update and the different categories of updates you'll find there. One category in XP is "optional hardware updates" and I stress that you should only install hardware (i.e. driver) updates when you're having trouble with said hardware or if the new driver gives you new features you want. This advice spawns from the times that I've had to rollback video drivers on computers where I can no longer see anything on the screen. That is not fun!

So when I upgraded my laptop to Vista I updated as many drivers as I could but was unable to find the updated driver for my video card. (As blogged earlier.) My laptop was running but it seemed a little more sluggish than I would like. I was poking around in the computer's properties last weekend and found something called the "System Rating".

The one pictured here is from my second office computer with known issues so don't worry too much about the low score. In the case of my laptop the score was 2.8 out of five. Looking for a little more detail I clicked on "Windows Experience Index" and found the detail and explanation I was looking for.

It turns out the the rating is based on the lowest score in five categories: Processor, Memory, Graphics, Gaming Graphics, and Primary Hard Disk. In my laptop's case, the graphics rating was 2.8. This may just have been the reason for the sluggish performance of my machine.

A commenter to this blog had recently pointed out where I could find the driver and a few days ago I download and installed the update. I then went to Windows update and noticed there was an "optional" update to my video driver so I took a chance and installed that next. After all the required reboots I went back to look at my computer's score. The score hadn't changed but it did inform me that it had "found new hardware" and needed to rerun the tests to recompute my score. I clicked OK and waited about five minutes. The score was updated to 3.8 and I was told that I could even comfortably run the Areo interface now.

I switched Aero on and started to play. My laptop is now back to the speed it was running at with XP. (Unfortunately, Second Life still won't run and my iTunes problems still exist but I've ruled out my video driver as the source of the problem.)

So, the bottom line, if you're running Vista, my current advice is to install those driver updates as soon as they become available. Might your system die as a result? Sure, but I'd say the benefits outweigh the very small risks in this situation.

Second Life & Info Island presentation

This morning Rhonda and did a SirsiDynix Institute presentation on Second Life and Info Island to more than 300 attendees and have both received several post-presentation e-mails already so keep them coming. For those that missed it, there are several ways to get copies of the material.

• The audio and video recordings along with a PDF of the slides will be available via the SDI archive page in the next few days.
• The raw PPT file is now available on my presentations page.
• I've embedded a Web-based version (sans audio) of the PPT files below.

Thanks to everyone who made this a success. Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions.

Herding Avatars is like herding cats

NLC Group Photo Outtake
Originally uploaded by Travelin' Librarian.

The NLC Network Services staff got together this afternoon to take a group photo in front of our new building in Second Life. Getting everyone in the right clothes, in the right place, not tripping over each other, and finally into the right pose is no easy task. Oh, then there's the lighting issues... Look for the final result shortly on the NLC blog.

Interesting Second Life advertising

Yes folks, someone has built something in Second Life that's large enough to be read as an advertisement on the map.

Dean Koontz in Second Life

From the BDD Web site:
"Not only has Dean Koontz completed THE GOOD GUY (coming in hardcover 5/29) but he’s also ready to read some of it to you. Dean will be appearing—rather, his avatar will be appearing—in SECOND LIFE on Thursday, 3/15, at 6pm (PST), as the first-ever “Bantam Dell Authors-in-Second-Life” event. Already a member of Second Life? Visit The Bantam Dell Book Shop in Second Life for more details."

Tooling around in Second Life

This afternoon I've been having some fun in-world. First, I went go-kart racing with myself. (I'm envisioning taking a classroom of librarians here to have some fun.)

Next I went diving over zombies. Yes folks, there's an island on which you can rent a car, hop in, and start running over zombies for points. Sorry, I was having so much fun I forgot to take pictures.

Lastly, I went shopping for some equipment and now have a katana on my back. I've figured out how to draw and sheath it but it's remaining transparent while drawn. In the mean time, it looks really cool on my avatar's back.

Be a librarian, get paid in L$

If you don't know what I mean by "L$" this position isn't for you but if you're very into Second Life, you can be the librarian for Rockcliffe University in-world. Now this is a Library 2.0 position!

Rockcliffe University SecondLife Campus (RUSLC) is associated with the Rockcliffe School of Business due to launch in the fall of 2008. The school's purpose is to provide online education in the fields of Organizational Design and Management. RUSLC is a proof of concept school within Secondlife to test various elements of education design and delivery compared to other online techniques.

On December 5th, 2006, RUSLC opened its doors to SL residents through the offering of programs specifically tailored to the SL environment. These classes are free of charge to all SecondLife residents and are sponsored by the Rockcliffe School of Business and Knomaze Corporation. These courses will be the forerunner to additional courses aimed at a college level of education in the fall of 2008 (including tax receipts, college credit hours, certifications and all that good stuff).

Open Position: Librarian

Rockcliffe is looking for a Librarian to assist us in establishing the underlying library infrastructure services necessary to provide support to our business objects. That is, in order to develop a world class set of business courses, we require someone that understands the ins and outs of how to access peer-reveiwed publications and is interested in experimenting with how those services can be delivered through various communication mechanisms, including the Second Life platform.

The inital starting conditions of this venture however will not be that grandious at the get go. We are building this school up from game play to real-world business only as quickly as venture capital and revenues allow. To start we are looking for someone to help guide us in the possibilities of what library services may offer beyond the obvious sorting and cataloguing of resources, objects, scripts, etc within Second Life.

The position will be mostly volunteer to start. Compensation will consist of a weekly stippend in line with what others currently working on this project are receiving. Depending on the effort required we are looking at a range of between $500 and $1000L/wk.

If interested please forward a brief resume to Phelan Corrimal including some idea of both SL and RL history in Library Services.

To Vista or not to Vista?

Ok, so, what's my official advice on upgrading to Vista? I did it, so should you? Well, let's keep in mind a few important items:

• Some would consider me a bit of a geek and willing to futz around with my computer and change all sorts of settings just for fun.
• I specifically bought this laptop with the specifications needed to run Vista Ultimate edition and planned on upgrading it once Vista was released.
• I get paid to do this first and warn everyone else about the potential pitfalls.

So, with those things in mind, my official advice and this time is the following:

1. If you're going to be buying a new computer, get Vista. (Really, you won't have a choice but if you did I'd still say go with Vista.)
2. If you have a recently-purchased machine with one of those free upgrade coupons, go for it. I'm assuming you haven't had the computer long enough to customize it too much and you're probably not running any highly-specialized programs. (Check with vendors if you are. Hell, OCLC software had some problems with IE7. Who knows how they're reacting to Vista.)
3. You've got an older computer and the Windows Upgrade Advisor says the hardware can handle it, don't unless you're a masochist like me.
4. The Upgrade Advisor says you can't run at least Home Premium, don't even consider it. If you can at least run Home Premium, see #3.

To be honest, I love it despite the problems I'm having. (Second Life won't run, iTunes is fracked, I'm having some issues sharing files between the Vista computer and my XP computer, (let's not even consider the NT4.0 box,) and there's still an outstanding issue with upgrading my BIOS.) The bottom line, is that if everything's running fine on XP and you're considering upgrading everything in the library to Vista "because I can" or "because it looks cool" don't bother. Wait for the next round of computer purchasing and bring it into your system then. You'll be much better off in the long run.

Vista and Second Life - Part 5

Uninstall. Download new version. Reboot. Install latest version. Reboot. Run... Crash. Does anyone have Second Life running under Vista?

Vista and Second Life - Part 4

Nope, rebooting didn't solve the crashing problem. Next attempt will be to uninstall and reinstall the SL program.

Vista and Second Life - Part 3

Well, the video drive upgrade went smoothly and I wasn't even required to reboot. (Kudos to Vista for that one.) When I start Second Life I no longer get the video driver error. However, before I reach the login screen it crashes without specifying why. I'll try rebooting anyway, just to see if that might solve the problem.

Vista and Second Life - Part 2

I looked at the AMD site for a driver update to my Radeon X1400 video card and found no X1400 series listed as having available driver!

So, I took a look in Windows Update and I'm told there's an update available.

Let's see if that solves my problem...

Vista and Second Life

Well, I tried to run Second Life in Vista a got this:

I clicked Yes and then got

Who's fault is this? Well according to Linden Labs, it's ATI's fault:

Question
Under Windows Vista, my graphics card reports as a GDI Generic. Why is that?

Answer
Second Life requires that the Windows drivers for the system's graphics card fully support the OpenGL graphics standard. Any graphics card whose installed driver does not support OpenGL will detect as a "GDI Generic" instead. This message means that Second Life has detected no hardware OpenGL support.

It is up to the graphics vendor (Nvidia or ATI) to provide drivers that support both OpenGL and your operating system. As of this writing, we have successfully run Second Life on Vista under several PCs equipped with Nvidia's Geforce graphics cards. However, it does not appear that ATI has provided Vista drivers with OpenGL support. (Check ATI's website; they may have updated drivers since then.)

If you receive this message under Vista, are running graphics hardware that meets our Minimum System Requirements, and cannot find a driver provided by your graphics vendor which provides OpenGL support, you will be unable to run Second Life under Windows Vista on that computer.

As far as I can tell my driver's up-to-date so I'm stuck. Anyone got an answer that will actually help?

Last day statistics

It's my last day @ BCR and there's not much left for me to do. So, I've pulled together some numbers (thanks Stephanie) that might be on interest. Basically, the numbers say that in the past 9.5 years I've presented 686 live workshops with a attendee total of approximately 7256. That's an average of 69 workshops and 726 students per year. (Of course, this short year is throwing off the averages.) The number of online workshops and presentations is around 100 but considering that we just started doing those about three years ago, that's not too bad. (I don't have attendee numbers available for the online classes.) Add to those numbers a few dozen conference presentations at the local, state, and national level where attendance was not recorded. (I believe my reference presentation at Computers in Libraries 2000 and the Second Life presentation at IL2006 both topped 400 attendees each.) So, I've met a lot of people and unfortunately, don't remember most of your names. (Don't take it personally, I have a problem when it comes to remembering names until after several meetings.)

I'll just throw out a few other numbers just for fun. Number of BCR bosses: 3. Number of BCR directors: 2. Number of computer bags/backpacks I've been through: 6.

Second Life Portable

I'm a big fan of portable apps if for no other reason than is messes with many a librarian's head when I show them that I can plug in my flash drive and run my software on their "locked down" computer. And, with the recent acquisition of a 4GB jump drive, I've got a lot of room to play. So, when I saw these instructions from Brett Bixler of The Pennsylvania State University on how to make Second Life run off a jump drive and leave no trace on the local hard drive (though admitedly, it does use the C: drive while Second Life is running, it just deletes the files when you exit,) I had to try it out. Yes folks, it works. Second Life does run a little slower than usual since jump drives aren't as fast as hard drives but it did function reasonably and might be a solution for those wishing to run Second Life on public computers.

For some time I've been looking for a way to run SL off a Flash drive. This will enable students at Penn State using public labs to run SL, keep up with the frequent updates, etc.

I finally have a batch file (for the PC) that seems to do the job.

I installed SL on a Flash drive.

I created this batch script. A batch script is just a text file, so you can copy this script into any editor and save it as RunSL.bat:

: This script will launch Second Life.
: When SL is closed, it will delete temp
: directories that cause PSU Lab problems.
: For this script to work, the folder
: containing the Second Life application
: (SecondLife) must be in the same directory
: as this script.

@ECHO OFF
ECHO Please leave this window open.
ECHO IGNORE ANY "Profile Storage Space" MESSAGES YOU SEE!
ECHO Now launching Second Life...
ECHO.
PAUSE
CD /d %~dp0
CD SecondLife
START /wait SecondLife.exe
RMDIR /q /s "%APPDATA%\SecondLife"
ECHO.
ECHO Second Life is closing. Now cleaning up your temp files...
ECHO.
PAUSE
CLS
EXIT


Student directions:

The batch script named RunSL.bat will launch Second Life when you launch it. When SL is closed, it will delete the SecondLife temp directory that is stored on the C: drive in the Documents and Settings folder. This will keep the PSU labs at UP from forcing the user to manually delete these files, as the user's file storage space quota is exceeded when Second Life runs. Second Life runs fine without these temp files.

For this script to work, the folder containing the Second Life application (SecondLife) must be in the same directory as this script. You cannot change the name of the Second Life folder, or the names of anything inside the Second Life folder.

If you are running this off a Flash drive, install Second Life (download the software from http://secondlife.com) directly onto the Flash drive (~70MB), copy this script onto the Flash drive in the same directory, and run this script to launch Second Life.

The Second Life application is frequently updated, and most of these updates are mandatory. If you launch Second Life and must update it, please follow the directions Second Life provides. Make sure you have enough free space on your Flash drive (~100MB) to perform a successfull update.

Staff Meeting... in Second Life

The Library Management Team of the Kansas State Library held a staff meeting in Second Life. Go Christie!

Special announcement (Yes, read this one.)

As you may have noticed I haven't been blogging much for the past week and what I have posted has been of little consequence. Well, that's because things are changing in my life that are taking up a lot of my time right now...

I am happy to announce that one week ago yesterday, I officially accepted an offer from the Nebraska Library Commission to be their Technology Innovation Librarian starting 1 March 2007. This means that I will be finishing up a 9.5 year run at BCR in mid-February and moving to Lincoln, NE.

This all that The Travelin' Librarian will continue to travel just not as much, not as far, and mostly by state car instead of United Airlines. (So much for earning premier status...) I still plan on presenting at conferences and, as I understand it, will not be prohibited from accepting other speaking requests outside of Nebraska. (Normal scheduling issues still apply.)

I accepted the position for several reasons. First, the lower amount of travel. Yes, I enjoy traveling but after more than nine years it does start to take its toll. Second, I'm feeling a bit stretched thin with having to cover an eleven-state region. Believe me, I love having worked with all of you in the BCR region but focusing on just one state allows me to work more closely with libraries on special projects and to focus my efforts. Third, there's nothing more Library 2.0 than having the title "Technology Innovation Librarian".

So, please bear with me over the next three months as I blog about movers, packing, and getting my house sold. I'll try to keep up the tech and library posts as much as I can but some of that may have to be put on the back-burner for a little while.

CAL2006: Saturday Keynote

Julie J. Boucher Memorial Lecture on Intellectual Freedom: Brent Hartinger

• As If blog [Author's Support Intellectual Freedom]
• Thrilled to be speaking to librarians
• Recently asked to speak at a lesbian bar; "What the hell, they're my people"
• Opening joke didn't go well
• "Lesbians don't have a sense of humor, librarians do" ;-)
• The Handmaid's Tail by Margaret Atwood
• Information is censored by the government due to terrorism
• He thought it was paranoia when it was published in 1995
• Partner Michael thought is was prescient
• There's no way that could ever happen here
• Now doesn't seem so far fetched
• Censorship of teen books like the ones he writes
• Hardmaid's Tale 37th most challenged book in last 10 years
• Teen books, a brief history
• YA seems patronizing
• 1967: The Outsiders
• Pre-Outsiders, teen books were idealized and emotionally flat, maintaining the status quo, preachy
• Outsiders was a "neutron bomb"
• world of violence, the greasers were the good guys
• Outsiders critized the status quo & brought relaisim
• 2nd teen best seller of all time (Charlotte's Web #1)
• now teen books passionate and critical
• relevant to the lives of teenagers
• Judy Blume: Forever
• Teen sexuality
• previous books dealt with sex on a fear based model
• in Forever, the teens take responsibility
• Title is ironic
• accurately describing life of most teens
• sex nto terrible, but not great either
• realisim over moralizing
• speeks to the teens reading it 7th most challenged book
• Money for teen publishing cut in the 80s
• Decided to publish to teens strongly in the 90s
• high teen appeal
• grittier / edgier
• some more fun
• better covers
• genre exploded
• keep growing to this day
• now teen fantasy is big
• They're being read by teens now
• were being published in the 70s but they weren't being read
• Kids books to Flowers in the Attic ("trashiest book ever")
• Gay/Straight Alliance formed in 1989
• Who doens't love the story of an underdog?
• gay teens are underdogs
• underserved readership
• teachers would say "there are no gay students in our school"
• books to those readers seemed to be written for straight students
• didnt' seem honest about feelings and were depressing
• Wrote 1st draft of "Geography Club" in 1991
• bookstores, libraries & schools wouldn't carry it
• too much of a niche audience
• won award for unpublished books in 1996
• 1999, new/7th agent
• said times have changed
• still denied by 38 editors
• ended up at HarperCollins
• "won't sell, too controversial"
• Came out in 2003
• sold out, needed 2nd printing
• second printing sold out before printed
• needed 3rd printing
• Adapted for stage in works, also film in the works
• 1000s of letters and e-mails received from readers
• thanks for being accurate of and relevant to me
• Other gay teen lit also published in 2003
• As if Affrican Amercians didn't reas prior to Waiting to Exhale's publication
• 30%+ of channenges are gay-related materials
• Libs & schools can buy any book they want
• shouldn't be compelled to purchase
• can't argue the literary quality isn't high enough
• Adults systematically underestimate the number of gay teens in their area
• Recent banning of Geography Club
• in his home town
• parrent complained at the middle school
• parrent hadn't read the book, just the back over
• demanded removal
• school said no
• parrent read book and made a long list of objections
• superintendent aggreeded with one point / kids met on Internet
• banned
• teacher told the newspaper
• media said much but kept repeating one quote from one article, never called him
• big blow-up in the Seattle area
• got to know major players but not the whistleblower
• finally she admitted who she was
• forced community debate
• prdominately military an morman area
• debate
• what is a library
• is school lib dif
• student rights
• who shoudl decided
• gay rights
• ban was reversed in the highschool but not in the middleschool
• when people think about this issue, most people agree with us
• taken a line out of context works, context helps
• when you can personalize the issue the censorship doens't work
• the concern is real but...
• Road to hell is paved with good intentions
• The people who send hate mail are a small minority
• yes, some of these questions are difficult
• the debate is healthy when done in the open, important, essentials
• The Queen [film]
• the conflict between tradition and change
• death of Diana forces the question of change
• tradition is important, change can't happen over night
• just because traditionalists are sincere, that doesn't mean they're right
• Do books create the change or reflect the change?
• either way, the books are important to the debate
• are the morality tales or are should they ask questions?
• both, depends on the book
• there's room for both
• Teaching highschool
• questions about what's "appropriate" for the classroom
• it's the wrong question
• First line by a student: "The problem with sex dreams is who never know who will show up."
• The right question is: Is it honest or purrient?
• Censor: The book is evil
• this is unfair not only to the book but also the author
• Everyone should be able to decide for themselves
• If you don't like it, don't keep it from others
• ASIF
• the threats are real, we're not making this up
• there will always be the conflict
• it's up to us to point out when the pendulum has swung too far
• the way to deal with a "bad" book, tell your friends but allow others the freedom to decide for themselves
• group supports librarians
• when banned, the author gets all the attention
• but librarians fight the fight
• librarians stay in the community after the controversey and the author leaves town

CAL2006: Geek Fest 2006: What's Cool and What's a Good Investment

Jo Haight Sarline, Denver Public Library Carson Block, Fort Collins Public Library John Sulshaw, University of Colorado-Boulder Jimmy Thomas & Susan Staples, Weld Library District Jeff Donlan, Salida Regional Library Sharon Morris, Colorado State Library

• Susan
• 1st year w/ library system
• previously in manufacturing and healthcare
• invest in the virtual
• how much can be put online?
• online collaboration
• online training
• online surveys
• translation services
• 170+ lanugages
• dial a number and get an interperter online
• <$100/mo
• Concact center concept
• easy, catchy phone number
• metrics
• Hot
• Copier/Espresso maker
• USB cooler shirt
• ID rings
• DVD vending
• bestseller vending ouside the library
• John
• mobile computing
• new content & content management models
• supporting users in an advanced age of technology
• authentication
• portals
• blogs & wikis
• increased collaboration
• social networking
• blogs
• wikis
• podcasts
• MySpace
• 84 million users
• 2 million new users a month
• 48mil unique visits
• 51% of 13-17 year olds online
• 79% are 18+
• 25mil are over 30
• YouTube
• Google paid $1.65 Billion
• 100 mil videos watched a day
• 65k uploaded a day
• What's going to become of the ILS?
• Disintergaration (Marshal Breeding)
• Institutional repositories
• Libraries need to support all this stuff
• security issues
• open source model moving to libraries
• programming skills
• Jimmy
• (Aquabrowser)
• OCLC Perceptions Report
• Searches done at his member libraries (top queries in OPACs)
• Google, Yahoo
• My Account, Library Hours
• Library Journal Hotline
• The next library building
• "place"
• Jeff
• Maximize use of the OPAC
• Clean up our database
• Having functional PCs for the patrons
• Firefox
• GIMP
• Open Office
• Picassa
• Let patrons plug in their hardware
• E-media market needs to be "better sorted out"
• Skype
• Carson
• Building a staff that represent different parts of my brain but can also built on that
• Deliver information to people without barriers
• Be more involved in the culture
• Second Life Library 2.0
• Balancing abilities and constraints of what staff can do to meet the needs of users
• Technology is not always the solution
• Sharon
• Dutch Aquabrowser guys are "hot"
• Library Elf
• Plinket
• The Engaged Patron
• LibraryThing
• Free online e-books and e-audiobooks
• Second Life Library 2.0
• Searching for information is changing
• Retrevr
• Search fickr by shape & color
• Aquabrowser
• del.icio.us
• wikis
• blogs
• podcasting
• YouTube
• set aside time every week to look at something new
• libraries have a "role to inspire"
• Jo
• Be the enabler for your cusomers
• be there, be in those spaces
• you feel comfortable, they'll feel comfortable
• downloadable media
• convergence of everything
• everyone is a creator
• create a space where your patrons can be a creator
• tagging content
• no geographical boundaries
• look outside the library world for ideas and solutions
• be where your customers are complainaing about you
• thisisbroken.com
• viral marketing
• YouTube
• gaming

IL2006: Day Three Wrap-up

Last day of the conference and I woke up tired. That's not necessarily a bad sign as it was not unexpected. Plumes for coffee, by myself this morning as others decided to sleep in. (This also was not unexpected.) Morning keynote then off to the wikis souble-session. Lunch somewhere; I honestly don't remember where. (Oh yeah, it was the free lunch that I rushed through before doing my book signing at the Information Today booth. Duh!) Then back to the conference center for "social softwr" and blogging tools.

Liz Lawley's closing keynote was on gaming and I did ask her a question about her thoughts on what we're doing at the Second Life Library 2.0. I didn't blog it at the time as I didn't want to be typing as she was answering my question. What she said was somewhat unexpected yet thought provoking. Basically, she doesn't feel that SL is a game at all (I agree) as there's no "point" or "goals" for the "players". The more interesting point she made was that she feels that SL is "the AOL of virtual worlds". In other words, it's where companies and people will get used to things before moving on to the next stage, as may did with AOL before moving on to the Internet. Thanks Liz! I enjoyed your response very much and I'll be thinking about what you said for a while.

I then went back to my room for two hours to relax and watch the first two eipsodes of Torchwood(!). At 6:30 eleven of us met in the Marriott lobby and headed off for some great Sushi at Ko-To. (If you want spectacular sushi at reasonable prices without all the "fru fru" atsmophere, Ko-To is the place to go in Monterey!) $265 dollars later (plus tip) we were all stuffed and looking to head back to the Crown & Anchor. There more merryment was had, "goodbyes" and "see you in March"es were shared and I finally succumbed to the exhaustion, leaving about 10:15.

This morning I'm waiting to meet up with an OCLC researcher to talk about social software for an hour or so before heading back to San Francisco for a 2:30pm flight. I'm assuming that I'll blog about the meeting when I get a chance and will definitely post some final conference thoughts in the next 48 hours.

IL2006: Day 1 Recap

It was a totally full day as expected. I started by waking at 5:30am and heading down to Plumes for coffee & WiFi. Karen and Michelle met me there and then we all headed to the opening Keynote. J.A. Jance was an interesting choice but she told the moving story of her life and ended with singing. The standing ovation even had her get back up and sing another song! How's that for a totally unexpected keynote? I spent the morning attending sessions and those I've already blogged so I won't repeat them here. I caught up with Greg Schwartz for lunch at India's Clay Oven and headed back for another session or two. I finally caught up with Rachel Singer-Gordon and got her to let me into the yet-to-be-opened exhibitors area to get me a copy of my Blog/RSS book. It looked great! Information Today was now down to just 49 copies at the conference. At 3:15pm was my session with Lori Bell and Tom Peters on the Alliance Second Life Library 2.0 project. The room totally filled with folks standing in the back. The presentation went great and I almost lost it on stage laughing so hard when Lori started talking about the "sex and gambling" in Second Life and how InfoIsland was a haven from "all that" for some. We did have time to take a few questions and I believe we answered them to the audience's satisfaction. I then relaxed, checked my e-mail and headed off to the evening exhibitors reception. I caught up with too many people to name beyond the usual suspects. I also finally met Amy Reeve from IT who got my book through the final post-editing stages of publication. During the reception I saw at least five copies of my book sold and I'm sure they sold more than that while I wasn't looking. If everything goes well, they'll all be sold and everyone will come back for the book signing on Wednesday. Then I was of to Isabella's for dinner with the Second Life crowd. A few of the regulars showed up along with some newbies. One of them was Rowan who said she'd signed up for SL right after our talk and was interested in helping as soon as she gets off Welcome Island. Jenny Levine was also at the dinner and filled some of us in on many of the "quirks" of working at ALA. Then we crashed the gathering of the "Five Weeks to a Social Library" gathering down at the Crown & Anchor. There ended up being about 20 people there and I met many more new people. I finally ended up back at the hotel about 10pm to crash. (This morning my company credit card doesn't seem to be working. I need to make a phone call.)

IL2006: The Web 2.0 Challenge to Libraries

Paul Miller Technology Evangelist Talis Information Ltd 10:15-11:00am Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and more: Tansforming Libraries the 2.0 way

• What is Library 2.0
• Only a year old topic
• www.talis.com/resources
• Do Libraries Matter?: The Rise of Library 2.0
• Library 2.0: The Challenge of Disruptive Innovation
• Fundamental shift in how libraries can engage with their users
• You need to be where your users are
• A link to the library OPAC isn't integration
• There is controversey; is it just hype?
• 1.52 million hits on "library 2.0" in Google
• Library 2.0
• open th elibrary
• push the library everywhere
• engage with actual and potential user communities
• disaggregate library systems, and bring the together
• shared innovation
• Mashing up the Library competition
• www.talis.com/tdn/competition
• John Blyberg won
• Library data on Google home pages
• Second Life Library 2.0
• The competition goes on
• Innovation Directory
• www.talis.com/tdn/innovationdir
• Talking with Talis
• talk.talis.com
• What makes Library 2.0 possible?
• falling cost of storage
• falling cost of computing power
• growing connectivity
• camera 2.0 (camera phone)
• commoditisation
• aws.amazon.com/ec2/
• buy the computing power (servers) as you need it
• rented computing power
• scaling
• The Three 'O's
• Open source
• Not necessarily free
• Open data
• Open APIs
• Essence of Library 2.0
• An architecture of participation
• www.aadl.org/catalog
• are the vendors participating?
• A platform for patricipation
• Open Source ILS
• Pines in Georgia
• Revolution
• Talis Keystone
• www.talis.com/tdn/keystone
• ILS modules
• Evolution
• Open Data
• Tim O'reily quote
• Software is increasingly open sourse but the data is more important and continues to be locked down. this is a problem that must be addressed.
• In the library...
• current model is broken
• pay to contribute
• limited data mobility
• lipstick on a silo
• contribution can and should be free
• shared data shoul dbe mobile and accessible, whilst adequately protected
• guarantee freedom to access and share but preserve the quality
• creative commons doesn't work on data since it's an extension on copyright, not database right
• Open Systems
• project cenote
• cenote.talis.com
• Silkworm Directory
• directory.talis.com
• Like OpenWorldCar but with Web services
• API Refernce
• www.talis.com/tdn/platofrm
• Biigfoot Data Stores
• UK Bibliographic Store
• api.talis.com/bf/stores/ukbib/items
• stores/holdings/items
• stores/holdings/services/augment
• So what becomes possible?
• Greasemonkey scripts into the library
• Amazon
• LibraryThing
• AdHoc groups of only the libraries you're interested in
• Aquabrowser
• clarecounty.aquabrowser.com
• Conclusions
• Liberate data
• and some more systems
• get the data to the user, not the user to the data
• open, open, opwn
• shared innovation

Presentation files

The PPT file for my RSS pre-conference is up on my presentations page. The files for my flickr and Second Life presentations will be up after they've been presented. (Once I have copies of the final versions too.)

You're Invited! Grand Opening of Second Life Library/Info Island

Alliance Library System and Second Life Library/Info Island Pleased to Announce Official Opening.

The Alliance Library System and the Second Life Library/Info Island collaborative group of librarians are pleased to announce the grand opening and a host of activities planned for Second Life residents scheduled October 12-14, 2007. All events will be held in Second Life and are free to residents.

“We have been working on this project with partners from around the world for six months,” stated Kitty Pope, Executive Director of the Alliance Library System. “We are grateful to all the librarians and others who have put in huge amounts of time to make this happen and we are pleased with the reception the library has received in Second Life.”

Gonzo Mandelbrot, Coordinator of Grand Opening Activities said, “We have a variety of activities, events and tours that people can pick and choose from or they may attend everything. The goal is to highlight all the different aspects of the library and Info Island and all that is available there.”

A detailed schedule of events is provided below. If attendees have questions about specific locations, come to Info Island. We will have tour guides there who can show people to the event location.

• Thursday, October 12 – Virtual Worlds and Education: The Cutting Edge – 4 pm sl – 6 pm sl – Speakers: Pathfinder Linden, Kitty Paul, Puglet Dancer, Professor Beliveau, Lorelei Junot and Maxito Ricardo – Puglet Dancer and Kitty Paul will cut the ribbon to begin grand opening ceremonies at Info Island open air auditorium (Info Island 143, 82, 34)
• Friday, October 13 - Virtual Worlds and Alternate Realities – Where Do Libraries Fit In? – 7:30 a.m. sl – 1:30 pm. sl – A variety of wonderful speakers with keynote by Pathfinder Linden - Info Island open air auditorium(Info Island 143, 82, 34)
• Friday, October 13 – 5:00-6:00 p.m. sl – Scary Movies at Second Life Pantheon Picture House (Info Island II, 98,71,24)

• 6:00-8:00 p.m. sl – Costume Ball at Info Island Mystery Manor – prizes for best costumes! (Info Island, 214, 163,33)
• Saturday October 14 – 8:00 a.m. sl – Opening of Caledon Branch – 19th century library (Caledon Tamrannoch (211,31,22)

• 9:30 a.m. sl – Grand Opening of Second Life Library Medical Library – special events (Info Island 165, 204, 33) – Bioterrorism demonstration
  Speakers: Moriz Gupta and Sojourner Truth
• 12:00 p.m. sl – Second Ribbon Cutting and special speaker – Info island Open Air Auditorium (Info Island 143, 82, 34) – Katt Kongo, editor, Metaverse Messenger
• 3:00 p.m. sl – Talis SciFi & Fantasy Portal Opening – special events (Info Island 29, 62, 33)
• 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. sl – TX950 Beach party and celebration – dancing refreshments, fun (Info Island 85, 33, 23)
• Throughout the day – Tours, scavenger hunts, information kiosks – come and have fun!

For further information, please contact Gonzo Mandelbrot or Lorelei Junot. (I'll be a greeter and tour guide during the day.)

Practicing with SecondLife

All the ILA folks have been at a luncheon so I've been able to sit at the booth and caught up on some work. One thing I've been trying to figure out is the mechanics of presenting in SecondLife. Well, it looks like I've finally pulled off using a whiteboard tool and being able to script my slides so when I clidk on the board, the next slide is automatically loaded. I'm pretty sure that my first presentation will not be on USB (shown below) but thse are the slides I had loaded in to play with.

New SecondLife Avatar

I was getting tired of my normal-looking Prince Charming-based avatar so I spent some of my Linden on a Gossamer avatar. Here I am outside the SL Library.

Fall speaking schedule

• October 4-8: Idaho Library Association, Moscow, ID
  • Tech Terms
  • Firefox Search Plugins
• October 21-26: Internet Librarian 2006, Monterey, CA
  • 22: Integrating RSS Into Your Web Site (Pre-Conference)
  • 23: The Second Life Library 2.0: Going Where the Users Are
  • 24: Flickr & Libraries
  • 25: Book Signing (Information Today, Inc. booth)
• November 9-12: Colorado Association of Libraries, Denver, CO
  • 11: Tech Terms
• November 13-15: University of Nevada, Las Vegas Law Library, Las Vegas, NV
  • 14: Web Page Creation Basics (XHTML)
  • 15: Introduction to CSS
• November 26-December 1: Nevada State Library Gates Workshops
  • 27: Computer Security (Salt Lake City)
  • 27: Setting up a WiFi Netowrk (Salt Lake City)
  • 28: Technical Support in Your Library (Salt Lake City)
  • 30: Computer Security (Moab)
  • 30: Setting up a WiFi Netowrk (Moab)
  • 01: Technical Support in Your Library (Moab)
• December 5-8: Iowa City Public Library
  • 6: Blogs (BCR Workshop)
  • 6: RSS (BCR Workshop)
  • 7: Podcasting 101 (BCR Workshop)
  • 7: Wikis (BCR Workshop)
  • 8: The Social Web (Staff in-service day)

Internet Librarian 2006

The official information about the conference is now available on the InfoToday site. Here's what I'm doing:

Sunday, October 22nd
Workshop 19 — Integrating RSS into Your Web Site
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Michael Sauers, Internet Trainer, BCR
RSS feeds are an excellent way to receive information from the Internet today. What many people don’t know is that you can receive that information and easily repurpose and republish it on your Web site with little technical know-how. Imagine automatically posting up-to-date local or industry headlines on your library’s home page. This is what you can do in just a few simple steps. Our expert Internet trainer shows you how to do just this. This workshop also covers additional RSS tools and services, including one that will create feeds from content without its own feed and another that will turn your text-based content into a podcast automatically.

Monday, October 23rd
Session C105 — The Second Life Library 2.0: Going to Where the Users Are
3:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Lori Bell, Director of Innoation, Alliance Library System
Tom Peters, CEO, TAP Information Services
Michael Sauers, Internet Trainer, BCR
In April 2006, the Alliance Library System put out a call for librarians interested in participating in a project to set up a library presence in the virtualreality world of Second Life. By the end of the month, more than two dozen librarians from around the world were meeting at a brand-new virtual library to staff the reference desk and discuss collection development, online programming, and library services. Since then, the response has only grown, and Second Life citizens are taking advantage of all the library has to offer. Our speakers provide an overview of Second Life, the creation of the library, and the services that are now being offered in this completely virtual environment.

Tuesday, Octboer 24th
Session D203 — Flickr & Libraries
1:15 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Michael Porter, OCLC Western
Fiona Hooten, National Library of Australia
Lluisa Nunez, Universitat de Barcelona
Michael Sauers, BCR
Flickr is a treasure-trove for library professionals interested in community, connections, innovative software applications, and marketing. With a strong library-centric focus, this session starts with a brief look at libraries and librarians with Flickr accounts and then explores the largest and most active library/librarian photo group on the Internet, the Flickr “Libraries and Librarians” group with more than 550 members on six continents and 2,600 images. Entertaining recorded stories share observations and comments from speakers on other continents, including how participation turned into a partnership that created a mashup between Google maps and images in the Libraries and Librarians Flickr Group. A dynamic demonstration of third-party Flickr applications using Open API/Ajax, as well as tips and tricks, round out the program. This is the ultimate library professional’s Flickr guide.

More IL2006 News

I just received the following e-mail from the conference's program chair:

Hurray! I was able to include your Integrating RSS workshop into the schedule on Sun afternoon, Oct 22nd.

This is spectacular news. I'm now on the program for a half-session on Flickr, a full session on the Second Life Library, and a three-hour pre-conference on RSS. (This is a repeat of my RSS post-conference at CIL back in March. Updated to the latest tools & resources of course.) As soon as the preliminary program is released I'll be sure to post all of the official information.

Second Life at Internet Librarian

In a last-minute squeak-through I, Lori Bell, and Tom Peters will be presenting on the Second Life Library 2.0 project at Internet Librarian 2006. Probably in the last session of the "Digital Strategies" track on Tuesday. Here is the draft session description. (As soon as a final one is release I'll be sure to post it.)

The Second Life Library 2.0: Going to where the users are
Lori Bell, Director of Innovation, Alliance Library System
Tom Peters, CEO, TAP Information Services
Michael Sauers, Internet Trainer, BCR
In April 2006, the Alliance Library System put out a call for librarians interested in participating in a project to set up a library presence in the virtual reality world of Second Life. By the end of the month more than two dozen librarians from around the world were meeting at a brand new virtual library to staff the reference desk, and discussing collection development, online programming, and library services. Since then the response has only grown and Second Life citizens are taking advantage of all the library has to offer. This session will present an overview of Second Life itself, the creation of the Second Life Library, and the services that it is now offering in this completely virtual environment.

Second Life Library 2.0 gets organized

SL Library Org Meeting_008
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.

In the interest of not repeating myself, I'll just point you to my post regarding the first Second Life Library 2.0 orgizational meeting on the SL Library blog.

Sitting on the bookshelf

Sitting on the bookshelf
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.

I finally made it out to the new location of the Second Life Library and sat on one of the bookshelves. I made a few changes to my avatar (it's still pretty plain and I still can't figure out how to pull off a goatee) and was able to set the library as my home. Rain was there to give me some help but unfortunately I ran out of time. I will be attending the organizational meeting tonight. Check out the SL Library blog for details if you're interested in participating.

Virtual attendance

OPAL - Getting Along with IT Staff (36)
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.

About twelve people (insluding a few non-librarians) assembled at the SecondLife Library 2.0 this morning during David King's OAPL session. My snapshots can be found in my SecondLife flickr set.

Second Life

Second Life
Originally uploaded by travelinlibrarian.

I've gone and created myself a Second Life account. That's me talking to a parrot. I tend not to play games as I end up playing them and getting nothing else done. However, I'm trying to look at this as a social experiment, not a game. I'm not sure how well that'll work but it'll take a while to find out. In any event, it doesn't like my office notebook all that much as it slows to a crawl so I guess I'll have to experiment more at home. If you've got an account send me a friend request. My Second Life name is "TravelinLibrarian Mandelbrot".

Travel Tips

Here's two more great articles from business travel guru Christopher Elliott. (The second one is a bit Microsoft-centric but it's still worth reading.)

• Balancing business travel with your life: 5 tips
• 5 secrets to getting the best seat on a plane

The Nigerian Scam Gets the Holiday Spirit

Dear Friend,

As you read this, I don't want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will die someday. My name is Mr. Naveed Jafar merchants in Dubai, in the U.A.E.I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer. It has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and right now I have only about a few months to live, according to medical experts.

I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for anyone(not even myself) but my business. Though I am very rich, I was never Generous, I was always hostile to people and only focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this, as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world.

I believe when God gives me a second chance to come to this world I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it. Now that God has called me, I have willed and given most of my property and assets to my immediate and extended family members as well asa few close friends.

I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul so, I have decided to give alms to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth. So far, I have distributed money to some charity organizations in the U.A.E, Algeria and Malaysia. Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself anymore.If you are interested in helping me kindly reach me on my private email address (removed@hotmail.com)

God Bless You.

Naveed Jafar.

CAL2005: Saturday Keynote

Introduced by Gene Hainer, Colorado State Librarian

• Where are Colorado Libraries today?
• A lot of good things going on operationally despite the budget problems
• State library lost 79% of funding in 2002
• Talking book library
• lost all the regional systems
• replaced by CLiC
• State aid to school libraries
• loss of $11 million in local funding
• homework help line now gone (grant funded)
• Request for courier support for CLiC was approved (review and consideration in governor's office)
• State Aid restoration has been requested
• Database funding has also been requested

Colorado Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff

• [M: First democrat to hold the office since 1972]
• [M: His district is East Denver and Glendale]
• [M: Teaches PoliSci at Community College of Aurora]
• Thanks for helping pass Referendum C
• What does it mean and where do we go from here?
• Librarians help enlighten Colorado
• Unfortunately enlightenment is optional in the budget
• This is not an end to our fiscal crisis
• We still need to economize
• This is a state where people do agree with each other
• Ref C was totally bipartisan
• Both the Boulder and CO Springs city councils supported it
• CO fell further and faster in job growth than any other state in the nation
• We lost a lot of high tech industries
• Drought
• forest fires
• tourism due to terrorist attacks
• We couldn't wait for the national economy to turn around
• This state can deliver on what the employers want
• low taxes
• high quality of life
• skilled workforce
• good education system
• We're 49^th in higher education support
• second highest rate of college grads
• also high rate of high school dropouts
• The businesses go where the good education is
• Governors of other states are happy we're cutting since the result is that jobs go to their states
• We've also got to compete with the educational systems in other countries
• Ref C allows us to restore services that have been cut over the last few years but we can't restore all of them
• “once you've fallen into as hole you should stop digging”
• Ref C is not a blank check or an authorized spending spree
• It was passed by a very narrow margin (52-48%)
• that should humble us
• general population growing, prison pop growing, medicaide pop growing
• Most folks don't know who their rep is, that's not good
• Bills not killed, just postponed indefinitely
• Tell the legislator what you thing we're going wrong
• We're better representatives if we stay in touch with those who we represent
• Denver Broncos are better known that the legislators and that's not the way it should be
• Current debate: What role, if any, government ought to play
• There are things we can do better together than separately. We're stronger ogether than separately
• Q&A [mostly about specific legislative items and asking for advice on better getting “our agenda” passed]

[M: This guy is funny!]

Rocky mountain sla

Last night I gave a presentation on blogs & RSS to the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Special Library Association. My co-presenter was Scott Brown from Sun Microsystems. It went very well despite the combination of my not being able to get an Internet connection for my laptop and the provided computer with a connection not reading my jump drive (where the backup copy of my presentation was) due to it running Windows 98. (I ended up running my PowerPoint off of my laptop then switching the projector cable to the desktop to do the live portion of the presentation.) While figuring all this out one of my hosts commented that I seemed to be handling all the problems in stride. Ah, the life of a trainer. I must say that the most interesting part was learning that Sun employees are encouraged to blog, whether or not it's work related. Most of those blogs are publicly available at http://blogs.sun.com/roller/, and they all have RSS feeds too. It was fun to learn last night that currently the most popular blog at Sun is not the one by the CEO. He's currently in second place.

I'll Be There for You

So no one told you life was gonna be this way
Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA
It's like you're always stuck in second gear,
When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month,
or even your year, but…

I'll be there with you...
When the rain starts to pour
I'll be there with you...
Like I've been there before
I'll be there with you...
'Cause you're there with me too.

You're still in bed at ten, though work begins at eight,
You burned your breakfast, so far things are going great,
Your mother warned you there'd be days like these,
But she didn't tell you
when the world was brought down to your knees
that...

I'll be there with you...
When the rain starts to pour
I'll be there with you...
Like I've been there before
I'll be there with you...
'Cause you're there with me too.

No one could ever know me. No one could ever see me.
Seems your the only one who knows what it's like to be me
Someone to face the day with.
Make it through all the mess with.
Someone I'll always laugh with.
Even at my worst, I'm best with....
you - yeah

It's like you're always stuck in second gear,
When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month,
or even your year, but...

I'll be there with you...
When the rain starts to pour
I'll be there with you...
Like I've been there before
I'll be there with you...
'Cause you're there with me too...

— With apologies to The Rembrandts