Yearly Archives: 2007

Foreign Fiction to be Discussed this Week

Posted on by
Reply

On Tuesday, January 1, 2008 at the Pittsford Barnes & Noble, the R-Spec group features a discussion of foreign fiction. This is admittedly more low-tech than most things I post here, but it should be a very interesting evening.

Join us as Ruhan Zhao, Gabriel Prajitura and David Pascal discuss science fiction in China, Romania, and the former Soviet Union. Nancy Kress will most likely be on hand, too, and we look forward to hearing about her perspective on science fiction in China following the convention she attended last summer.

The meeting is free and open to the public, and begins at 7 pm at Barnes & Noble in Pittsford Plaza.

Reworking the User Experience at the Genius Bar

Posted on by
2

I went to the Apple store a few days ago and was blown away by the user experience. The staff is knowledgeable and approachable, and once they’ve thoroughly answered your questions and you’re ready to make a purchase, they simply pull out their handheld device, scan the products, scan your card, and send you happily on your way. No need to stand in long pre-Christmas lines. This is cool for two reasons: it makes the buyer’s life easier, but it also clinches the sale immediately. Standing in a long line gives the buyer the opportunity to second guess whether or not they really want to drop a couple hundred dollars. Immediate purchase ensures the credit card is scanned while the buyer is still in the warm glow of an enthusiastic, helpful salesperson.

But they’re not salespeople. They’re Geniuses. They work at a Genius Bar, not a customer service desk. A genius inspires confidence in a way that a salesperson cannot. And a “bar” suggests an openness that a “desk” does not. Putting those two words together was a brilliant idea. “Yes, we’re geniuses. But we’re not intimidating. C’mon over to the bar and let’s chat.” It gives a sense of getting a useful explanation of a complicated subject, while chatting with a friend over a latte. A little bit of genius rubs off and you walk away feeling good about technology that you previously didn’t understand.

Oh, and if you happen to be paying by check or cash and have to stand in line, they have a way cool way to pass the time. The screens (which are extremely readable) behind the Genius Bar give you changing information to read while you wait. A glossary defines terms (bandwidth came up while I was there), there are quick how-to snippets for your Apple products, and random interesting facts.

In the Christmas Eve hecticity of mall shopping, I found this to be a soothing little oasis.

It also led me to wonder about the “Reference Desk” moniker. Can’t that be renamed to reflect it’s purpose as THE place to go for information provided by friendly, approachable, knowledgeable people?

Beyond Print: Presentation December 4

Posted on by
Reply

On Tuesday, December 4th Dana Paxson and I will be giving a presentation for the Rochester Speculative Literature Writers Association on the future of fiction. We will be discussing emerging technology and it’s impact on writers. Dana will demonstrate his Electronic Literary Macrame, I will give a tour of Second Life, and we will both discuss how writers can take advantage of social networking tools to promote their writing.

R-Spec meets the first Tuesday of every month at Barnes & Noble in Pittsford Plaza, in Pittsford, New York at 7 pm. Meetings are free and open to the public. Anyone with an interest in speculative fiction is welcome to join us.

Visual Medical Dictionary

Posted on by
Reply

Guus van den Brekel, a medical librarian in the Netherlands, recently posted this resource to his Facebook page. It’s a visual medical dictionary that works like AquaBrowser:

http://www.curehunter.com/public/dictionary.do

Besides providing a visual connection between resources, it also does a great job of helping me find something if I spell it wrong. Example: Is it acetaminophen or acetominophen? Doesn’t matter. Either way, the correct spelling comes up, along with the appropriate links. Nice.

Another nice feature: when you type in a term (disease, drug, body part, etc.) the results are color-coded, depending on whether the link is a drug, a related disease, a therapy, or a bio-agent.

A very bookmark-worthy site.

“It’s A YouTube for Nerds”

Posted on by
Reply

That was the response I got from an inventor friend when I sent him this link:

http://www.jove.com/

and he’s right: it is just like youtube, only the videos are for scientists or those with extremely nerdy tendencies. This sort of information sharing needs to be on the radar screen of librarians.

The Journal of Visualized Experiments is a site where scientists can upload videos of their experiments. It’s a great resource and definitely worth a look, even if science isn’t your thing, because we’re going to see more and more of this in the near future.

SRO at SL Science Events

Posted on by
Reply

Luckily, avatars don’t get tired of standing. The fantastic events put on by the Science Center in Second Life have been standing-room-only lately.

At a recent lecture at Second Nature, Nature magazine’s island in Second Life, a very large crowd gathered to hear Dr. Phil Holliger of the Medical Research Council Molecular Biology Lab in Cambridge, England speak about new ways to rescue damaged DNA from ancient samples (specifically, a 60,000 year old cave bear.)

NASA events continue to draw crowds. I missed an event put on by CSIRO (Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization) because I overslept and tried to log in to the 5 am event about four minutes late. The sim was full — it had reached the maximum capacity of avatars it could host — and I could not get in.

Second Life appears to be a wonderful medium for this sort of thing. And this is not only due to the platform-independent, interactive approach with a global reach, but also because of the world itself: the ability to build 3D models to explain complex ideas in a visual format makes SL especially enticing.

Edutainment is big. Just look at the popularity of The History Channel or Discovery, even C-Span. People want to learn in an environment that feels like entertainment. Second Life or other immersive environments are ideal for this.

Here’s a quick look at some of the ways SL is being used for science education:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfsSGBraUhc

In 2017 libraries will be…

Posted on by
Reply

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationallibrarynz/sets/72157601707383805/show/

I can’t help but wonder how much it would cost to have some pads of sticky notes printed up and distributed to county libraries. It would be a great campaign to get the public thinking about libraries and what they hope their library will be in 10 years, and get them to provide feedback in a quick, easy, anonymous way. And posting the notes prominently would encourage people to stop, read, and add their two cents.

How would you complete this statement?

The Library of the Future

Posted on by
Reply

Take a look at this video:

It’s a fascinating look at “user as co-creator” of future library space. While I’m fairly certain that my public library will not resemble this anytime soon, I’m sure there is a lot here that is worth discussing and incorporating into the way we do business. I’d love some feedback on this.

Also, here’s a link to the report, in English: http://www.aakb.dk/graphics/user/HB/projekter/Forvandlingsrum/Evaluering/transformationlab.pdf

And here’s one in which children aged 6-14 created models, pictures and stories with new ideas and visions for libraries of the future:

Technology is changing the way we interact with information. If libraries are going to continue to be vital resources, the way we provide information and allow our users to interact with it will have to grow to include some of the ideas presented here.

3D Browser: SpaceTime is a Nice Change

Posted on by
Reply

One of the websites I check on a regular basis is MIT’s Technology Review. A recent article led me to try out a new 3D visual browser, SpaceTime.

At first glance, this browser looks like a nice improvement over what we’ve had to choose from up until now. I did a quick ebay search on “books” and I really like the way it brings up the images of books to select, rather than a list to scroll through.

This is new and different, and it’s amazingly intuitive. I often have multiple windows open and with SpaceTime I can quickly bounce around among them with no more effort than a peripheral glance. Nice.

Like so many things, you don’t always realize what you want until someone puts it in front of you. This method of searching is really more like a method of finding. Browsers keep getting upgraded, but essentially are not much different from what they were back in the 90′s, until now.

The download is free and it’s worth trying it out to see how it feels. There are some features that I’m accustomed to having which are not included in SpaceTime. In fact, the long lists of menu items are gone. Surprisingly, I like that. If you just want a quick, visual way to find something easily, this program is light on unnecessary features and heavy on findability.

And the customer service is great, too. I emailed a question to them and got a pleasant, helpful response back from Eddie Bakhash almost immediately. We could all take a customer service tip from these guys. : )

Rob Sawyer: Visit Recap

Posted on by
Reply

We had a wonderful visit from author Robert J. Sawyer last night at the Science Fiction Library in Second Life. His avatar, SF Writer, chatted with us for close to two hours about a number of interesting topics including his newest book, Rollback.

Rob is always a pleasure to listen to (or in this case, to read the chat log) as he is not only very knowledgeable, but also very amiable. He greeted every person who wandered into the discussion and he answered every question, despite being asked multiple questions at once in an environment where one has to be reading and typing quickly to keep up with the conversation. Rob talked about his books and the science behind them, which was indeed fascinating.

Rob will be going to China to receive an award and his publishing company, Robert J. Sawyer Books is receiving some recognition these days for publishing a new author, Nick DiChario, who’s first novel, A Small and Remarkable Life, has been nominated for the 2007 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel. I hope to have Nick join us for an online book discussion and author visit in the near future.

I am looking forward to having Rob back again. There is some talk about hosting some science panels at the Portal and I know I want to get Rob back for those. Now I just need to figure out how to incorporate streaming voice.

Real Life Author to Visit Second Life!

Posted on by
Reply

Robert J. Sawyer will be visiting the Talis SciFi & Fantasy Portal, which is a library of science fiction and fantasy in Second Life. His newest book, Rollback, is the selection for this month’s book discussion, and we are delighted that the author will join us for this event with the help of his avatar, SF Writer. The event will take place at the outdoor auditorium on Info Island at 6:30 pm SLT (Pacific Time).

If you haven’t heard, Second Life is a virtual world that you join online. You create an avatar (online persona) and interact in real-time with other members of the virtual world. The world is created by its inhabitants. Info Island is a small part of this world, where librarians and educators are working to bring real life services to people all over the world.

 

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Info%20Island/233/125/35/?title=Visiting%20author%2C%20Robert%20J.%20Sawyer&msg=Talis%20SciFi%20%26%20Fantasy%20Portal

For more information on Rollback:

http://www.sfwriter.com/prrb.htm

Where on Earth have I been? : )

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been off the blog for the entire month of May, haven’t I? I’ve been swamped with other things and have unfortunately been too busy to blog about it all.

I started May with a week of lectures on Dr. Dobb’s Island in Second Life. Dr. Dobbs is a tech journal put out by CMP Publishing. They put together a series of talks, lectures and classes that went on for a week. I learned about what’s coming up Second Life, learned some scripting and building, and toured some amazing places. I had some good, useful conversations with some of the people I met.

I also attended a talk in Second Life given by Pete Worden, Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center. It was fascinating to hear what NASA is planning to do to take advantage of the virtual environment.

I’ve been working on getting things set up for Robert J. Sawyer’s visit to SL as part of our monthly book discussion at the science fiction library on InfoIsland. We will be discussing his latest book, Rollback, and Rob has agreed to join us for the event. This has spawned interest from other science fiction authors, and I’m very excited to get them in-world to meet their readers in a new way and to promote their work.

I have also torn down the library I was building in Second Life, and now have a much clearer vision in mind of what I will do with that space.

It sounds like I’ve spent the entire month in Second Life, but really I haven’t. I’ve also been working on some business-related things which have kept me extremely busy. And I’ve had a major breakthrough in my CSS cross-browser compatibility issues, so I am once again working full-speed-ahead on the library’s site redesign. I created two networks on Ning: one for my extended family, which has turned out to be a ton of fun, and one for a group of like-minded technical people, where we are sharing resources and nudging each other toward interesting projects. I came up with a list of training workshops I’d like to conduct, and have sent them out.

Since it’s summertime, I’ve also been having some fun. I took a mini-vacation to Pennsylvania, and have been hiking and kayaking. : )

SLA Seminar

Posted on by
Reply

As expected, Stephen Abram’s talk today was informative and stimulating. He’s an extremely dynamic speaker and a guy who has his finger on the pulse of what’s happening in libraries, sciences, and society in general. He’s very sharp, quite good at predicting trends, knows where his research needs to be, and has a great sense of humor.

Here are a couple of the interesting pieces from my notes…

An important statistic to keep in mind: 80% of librarians are text-based learners; 20% of the general population are text-based learners. What does this mean? Rethink your website, for one thing. Convey information with images. An example provided: take a look at USA Today’s (printed) weather page. What’s more useful? The long list of cities and their temperatures? Or the map that shows where it’s hot or cold based on color? Can your patrons find the information you’re providing with a quick glance? Or do they need to read long paragraphs to find it? Visual constructs are powerful.

Another key take-away: Google is very good at finding facts. But the How and Why questions require human interaction. The “Purple Cow” of the library is it’s people and the personal relationships one builds with it’s users. Information is easy to obtain. Use the library to support learning.

Take the time to research user needs. They are not the same as librarian needs.

Millenials differ from their parents’ cohort. On average, their IQ is 20 points higher than the average Boomer IQ. Do not expect their needs to be anything like yours. They seek information differently and use it differently. They’ve been taught to work in groups to solve problems, rather than to memorize facts and take a test.  They’re skeptical. They also have no problem asking questions — not only will they walk up to a librarian and state their needs, they also fully expect to engage in online interaction with politicians before deciding how they will vote. In other words, they know what they want and are assertive about getting it.

Lastly, for both fun and customer service, get yourself and your co-workers some librarian trading cards! They’re fun to share with colleagues, but they’re also a useful tool to hand out to patrons. Let them get to know you on a personal level by listing your hobbies, interests, and special knowledge you might have. Creating community is important, and this is a fun way to do it. (See examples of what others are doing here.)

There was a LOT more to this conference, but it’s late so I’ve only pulled out a few of the highlights. More info coming. Stay tuned…

: )