Whitehouse.gov now powered by Drupal

Pretty exciting stuff. This short article explains a few of the advantages of open source software over proprietary software.

http://crooksandliars.com/jamie/whitehousegov-finds-familiar-power

HPL To Go

Houston Public Library has started a trial program where books are carried out to patrons' cars at two of the system's more parking-challenged branches. At least one public library in CT has had a drive-through window for some time now, similar to the drive-through window at a bank. In fact, the building may have been a bank in a former life.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6594373.html

New job, new town, new state

On June 6th, I started a new job as the Technology Librarian at Rye Public Library in Rye, New Hampshire. This blog started out as my contribution to the 23 Things/Learning Library 2.0 program at New Canaan Library in Connecticut, but now that I'm a "dropout" from that program, I'm hijacking this blog (can you hijack your own blog?) to become a log of my adventures in managing the technology needs of this small, rural library.

We only have 12 public access computers, but they're a challenge in that they are all Windows machines (or were until a few weeks ago, when I installed Ubuntu on 2 of them) and we have no domain server to enforce group policies or serve up other means of locking them down. Five of the public computers are actually laptops, because we don't have enough space to set up permanent stations for them. We also have a number of staff computers, of course, but my primary focus for the last 10 weeks has of necessity been the public computers.

All of the laptops were running Windows XP, which is astonishing when I tell you that 3 of them--the cute little ThinkPad R40 pictured here--only had 128MB of RAM each. After adding an additional 512MB of RAM to each, disabling all the background programs that run at Startup, canceling all Scheduled Tasks, and installing and running Malwarebytes, Spybot Search & Destroy, and Spyware Blaster, all three are running a lot better now. More on this next time.

#8 Blogging About Technology

The New York Times reports that the problem of pirated books has ballooned in recent months on file-sharing sites such as Scribd. Author Ursula K. Le Guin was browsing the Web one day and was surprised to find a complete copy of her 1969 Nebula and Hugo award-winning classic, The Left Hand of Darkness.

Authors Cory Doctorow and Harlan Ellison expressed two opposing views. Doctorow, author of the 2009 Hugo-finalist novel Little Brother, has long been a vocal opponent of DRM and has routinely, with his publisher's blessing, released his new novels onto the Web under a Creative Commons license, on the belief that free versions will entice new readers.

Ellison, also an award-winning science/speculative fiction author, has seen his work routinely pirated in print in many languages, and has spent a lifetime defending his copyrights. Ellison is 74, Doctorow is 37. Ellison just wants to get paid for his work. Doctorow says that obscurity is more to be feared than piracy.

Question 1: Who do you agree with and why?
Question 2: Why is it always science fiction authors?

Drum Roll, Please

This morning I submitted my MLS portfolio to the department at SCSU for archiving and review. The graduation ceremony is Thursday, May 28th.

http://www.vsa-software.com/mlsportfolio/

#7 More Flickr Fun

Oh, the possibilities!

#5 Locating Useful Feeds

I tried searching for interesting blogs using both Bloglines and Technorati. Using the "search for posts" option in Bloglines with the search term "calligrapher" turned up no results. Changing the search option to "search for posts" turned up a few results, but nothing that interested me. I changed the search term to "calligraphy" and tried both options again. This time "search for feeds" turned up posts on a Japanese calligraphy blog and on BibliOdyssey, a blog on books, illustrations, book history, and other aspects of the book arts. Finally I tried the "search the Web" option, and that turned up the most interesting and relevant results, although not all of them are blogs and may or may not have an RSS feed. Interesting to note that Bloglines has partnered with Ask.com for its "search the Web" option. Google has so pervaded the Web that it's easy to forget that there are still several other very useful search engines.

I repeated the exercise using Technorati, searching both posts and blogs for "calligraphy" and "calligrapher," and got an entirely different set of results. I found public domain (mostly) illustrations From Old Books, and Arabic Calligraphy. The posts are mostly in Arabic or romanized Arabic, but the illustrations are still very enjoyable. Technorati also turned up the blog on the website of a calligraphy supplier in the UK.

I first had the impression that Bloglines was only searching the feeds and posts of blogs that other Bloglines subscribers had already subscribed to, but then I saw that some of the blogs it found for my search had zero subscribers. So I can't quite account for the differences, but my overall impression is that Technorati did a better job of finding "what I really wanted," as opposed to "what I asked for."

I forgot which one found Chainsaw Calligraphy, which is most decidedly not about calligraphy as I know it. One of them found the website of the Society of Scribes, the real pros, but it doesn't have an RSS feed. One of these days maybe I'll have time to take a class with them.