There can only be one...

Service point people! and also one highlander. which they really should have heeded when they decided to make some sequels. But I'm not talking about movies, I'm talking about Libraries.

So I have been rather lax with checking up on my RSS feeds of late, the new job is keeping me from having much time to formulate new stratagems for web interaction whilst I survey my new information landscape where I am positioned. But the first one I did read from Tame the Web was on the Reference Desk is Gone, something that had always bothered me. Previously I've worked in library's that have divided their reference services, and conquered them by having an all inclusive service point.

Almost every library I encounter has a different setup for this, and even in new purpose build ones they seem to be making this division concrete, but with marble to smooth over any such harsh facades. From my customer point of view I find it an unnecessary division, but once again, every library has its own contributing factors at play. Does a library have self checks? RFID? Roving reference? Split over multiple levels? Public/Academic/Specialist? Single institution/part of a network? All of these are influential, but can always be overcome with the right focus.

Probably one of the more notable things I've been able to observe in my years in the industry is the division between the so called professional and paraprofessional castes in the library world. When I first began my rise to library aspirations from the ashes of my historian/archaeologist dreams I was not aware of the segregation in the library ranks. Much like the lay person, I thought you worked in a library, you were a librarian (explaining this to people is always an interesting experience). It is not until you are inside the belly of the beast do that you understand your role, kind of like red and while blood cells working together, but with different functions. Sadly, this leaves little room for growth, and if you want to expand yourself in your role, you may come off with the body perceiving you as cancer. And it shouldn't be like that.

I've actually had this post sitting here for almost a year, but it has bothered me for at least three. Yes, you need the separation in the workplace, but in education as well? Having performed on both sides of this coined stage of discussion, I can say I've enjoyed what both aspects offer, but can see where the large overlap in skills used. And as these skills develop, will what motivates me be more important than any piece of paper reads in my career development?

And as reference enquires continue to decline, coupled with the increase in services offered, will mean education institutions will really have to look again at what it is to be working in the library industry.

Kinect for..what?

Ahh Microsoft, don't think I don't see you trying to get back into my life, and your library patron/marketing agent ploys won't fool me this time! Not even with a puppy sir! So I've changed jobs and now I'm writing by the sea, almost my 16 year old dream come true, but I'm not entirely writing fiction nor in Jamaica. But to the point: somebody asked me what kinect meant, the dictionary had no assistance, Kinetica was of no help, so onto the dark side, google. Turns out it is a revolutionary amazing never seen before motion detection anti sarcastic gaming device! much like the Wii however, all this motion detection of actual actions I should be actioning in real life seems to be taking it more away from playing games on a console to imitating the experience. Once again the world taunts me with its progress towards holodeck success. part of me is appalled at the notion that games are now asking you to mimic activities you could perform yourself; I can play pretend golf, throw a Frisbee, I'm sure I can even get into some hack n slash role play, but that one is better left to the games. Once again its all about the ease of access, but also personal preference. Music as another example: you can now never have to own physical music again or ever go and see a band live, hell you can even make music sans instruments. But, you can also live your life hunting down rare vinyl and attending warehouse shows for the over 30's. same love, but on a different wavelength. So in summation I am intrigued as to how far Microsoft will go with their new toy, but also worried about how people growing up with this technology will perceive their usage of it. But it all might just be me having gamer withdrawals at the expense of a social life.

Is private...rank?

Well, if you are in some from of army this may be in fact a true statement. Or perhaps you were a sometime PVP enthusiast in World of Warcraft some time ago and are quite proud of your obsolete rank. Or it may be the view of a certain CEO of facebook, and privacy just...smells.

but what kind of olfactory sensation are you on the receiving end of? The perfumed scents of the wide open Savannah of information that has been opened to you, or the brackish pungency of steel capped boots storming through your seemingly invincible invisible internal Internet walls of firewalls to expose your small time information sharing racket. so is it going to be hard times ahead?

Well, if you have a read of this little article you mind may be soothed by its information lozenge like qualities. If not, you may have some sort of allergic reaction to this one.

For me, I've always upheld the opinion that if I don't want information about me on the Internet, I won't post information I don't want out there. As for what others post about me, its up there with what others say about me. And I'm pretty happy with my stance on that. So how are you coping with change? For me its been a few weeks, and it really hasn't changed my Internet habits in the slightest, so I won't be in the habit of slighting it. However, it is always a good idea to asses what it is you are doing, how it is being sent and received, and how you feel about that. I wonder how this is affecting library pages...Anyway, I'm sure if Gene Roddenberry was alive he would agree that this is getting us closer to humanity forging forward, or putting me one step closer to seeing Star Trek come to life.

I'm on your Facebook, linking your internets

Ahh lolcats, the world is still a better when I place references to thee in my titles. So having upgraded my knowledge database of the Internet to a patchy 2.1, I decided to look at my mildly neglected bloglines. Sadly it was down for maintenance, so I thought I would peruse techcrunch which I've decided I will often do. When Bloglines is down anyway. That's where I came across/a cropper the latest news that facebook will acting like a gatekeeper/gateway to all things interesting on the web, see the article here.

So how does this affect you and me? Well if you are my friend Phil it means nothing to you, and you will no doubt be chastising me for wasting my time on facebook and not writing my humorous thoughts in my notepad for later telegrams to you. For the rest of my tech savvy interfriends, it means you can now delve even deeper into your 'im interested in your activities on the net, but I don't want to look like I'm interested in your activities on the net' habits. Make sense? partial credit?

Well, Since I have a strict moral code of not using facebook at work, and some sort of hazy rule about doing work at home (a holdover grudge from my uni days no doubt) I have yet to actually test what this will all mean to me. however tech nut Mr Scoble has sussed it all out for me.

But what does it all mean Mr Keith? it Mean to say in that in a Star Trek world, that if the web was like space, and the websites were like planets, facebook would be like the Borg. They would assimilate everything, and your (like)ness would be added to their own. I would write your own, but that avatar on the net, its theirs.

Humor aside, does it mean that facebook is evil? it certainly looks like it is trying to monopolise the way in which people will access the Internet. their nanoprobes will be everywhere. you can even chart your assimilation success! Do I want Facebook knowing everything I do so it can push products and services upon me? Well, do I want to tell my mum everything I do and everywhere I go so she can tell all her friends? Not really. I can see it being good in assisting me find things of interest, but bad in that my web activities are going to be monitored in the extreme. I will of course have to test this myself, but as usual, this Suburbanite is wary of big development moving in.

Darkness!!! Darkness is spreading!

Ahh, yet another humorous obscure reference completed. If Rick James was still with us today no doubt his keen senses would detect the spreading dark web of deceit that malware has wrought upon many an unsuspecting Internet user. So I ask, nay plead, when you are using the Internet adhere to this creed: what Would Rick James do?

Having been an Internet user for quite a while now, I have been able to mostly circumnavigate malicious malware. Sadly, even for such a tech savvy user, even I have succumbed to its dark clutches over the years. Much as I succumb to the distraction of my musical interests taking over at the mere mention of Rick James (truth be told I took a break mid post to search for recordings of the Rick James/Neil Young band The Mynah Birds...with success!).

Anyway, I've suffered trojans over the years, corrupted operating systems, and more viruses that a technical problem. And popups! they are like that annoying street spruiker that hits you up for something that you don't need, and without the proper defences against such intrusions (the line/popup blocker 'your right mate' is a doosy/doozy/doosie for these situations) you may be burdened by some physical and financial strains that you could really do without. That is until you reformat you life to rid yourself of such. Fitness First anyone?

Another I have encountered is friends being 'hacked' in MMORPGs in a way that is more debilitating that an avatar's death. This can go even even further into having your credit card account hacked. Apparently once upon a time my card was used to download a song off itunes. AS IF ITUNES! NAY! A good thing my bank knows of my hardcore hardcopy music collecting habits.

But onto phishing scams. Phishing scams are definitely one of the highlights of the low points of Internet life, with scams to tyrannise even the most trusting of individuals. It really is society gone wrong. They are often hard to spot, but giveaways can be misspelled email addresses, links to unofficial sites, and asking of personal account information. the library is often subject to these sorts of email scams, and personally I have received plenty of random emails from people. More that what I get from actual friends, which is a bit of a worry. I mean these scams seem to be more interested in my life than their human equivalents! Sadly there is always going to be greed in the world, and this is not only a case of being a faceless crime, but often an automated one.

So the latest patch of 2.1 is drawing to a close, and once again I have tried to equate how this new technology applies not only to my work life but also my social/personal life. I've also noted that I seem to add such technologies only slowly to my lifestyle, and with work they are also adopted extremely slowly, which is usually due to Council or Management misgivings on how it is best implemented. It can be frustrating at times but it is important to stick to ones guns on how such services are in the best interests of serving the public, with too much red tape preventing the ability to provide a meaning full service.

So does this mean this blog will end!? Well I actually think I will keep it going, keeping an eye on technology, and interesting ways it affects society. Plus I have grown fond of my own amusing ways I relate to the subject material. So if anyone has enjoyed reading this, congratulations!

Maaashups!

Ok, I'm going to state first up I've never been into mashups, though I have heard in my time some interesting musical mashups many would refer to as hip hop, something I am ludicrously into at the moment. I also have contracted a rabid penchant for vinyl, the staple in any good DJs diet. Coincidence? Fate? Kismet!?

As for the technological age of the mashup, the amazing perforation of the boundaries of ownership brought and wrought over online sharing has enabled a plethora of visual and aural bending creative endeavours. So anyway, I decided to take a quick flick across the boards to see what the latest flavours were.

Twitter was mainly on about music mashups, and when I happened to click on this unfortunate video, I'm pretty sure its in my repressed memory bin, sheesh! Flickr was thankfully a bit more tasteful in its artistic expressions, more heart; something I should develop more of an interest in once I find some time.

This lack of involvement has meant that I've had very little experience with actually using any APIs to generate my own mashups. The simple fact that we now have so many tools at hand to craft with is great to get people interested and started. But not me, not this time; time to browse what they have done for mankind.

bkkeepr has one of those fine grating titles I love, but its actual use would not be so bad to see what library users were reading, provided they wanted to share what it is they were in fact reading. Good as a tool to see what is popular.

Booktour is fabulously blocked at my library, so no dice there.

Libworm looks innaresting, but it is primarily US centric, so not so much for me here. Still it is an intriguing idea that they are running with; the possibility of a one stop feed shop with both searching and browsing capabilities. It's like having food and drinks! Sate AND Slake! Reminds me of my idea of the one global library system to rule them all that I have feverish dreams about that leaves me in a delirious stupor.

Visual Headlines is innovative in its presentation, as well as its stress on the computer I was on. Like giving me too much music to listen to with no real time to absorb it. So I can understand the duress such quality products being thrust upon once capacity; to be incapacitated by overloaded capacitors and other overloaded circuit/synapse themed sentences. Anyway, seems it doesn't like the whole visual interaction thing.

Intrestingness I like, not for the word (I'm going to have to get used to mashed words soon) but for the inspiration I feel to go out and take arty photography. Reminds me of my trip to the Newcastle Museum to take some snaps but to find they were all out of focus by a long way. Which I still used for a Uni assignment. Which of course left my lecturer wondering what they were looking at. So in effect I achieved the art of interpretation in its worst form.

Flickr Memari is deemed to much fun to be allowed at work, so twice no dice.

Let me google that for you is not a sentence you will hear me utter anytime soon, nor a sight to see me visit. I mean really? is google that hard to use?

Crime Reports seems interesting...I wonder how Boltwood street would fare in my fair state's north. Dubbed 'boltdown street' for the dual reason of A) if it wasn't bolted down it was likely to be stolen and B) unless you bolted down the street in swift fashion you were likely to be set upon by vagrants. Classy.

Walkscore - now there's a website for any budding fan of self propelled transport! Whilst it states that is States centric, a quick flash over the keys produced my location, with a behemoth score of 51%! So it seems this is the reason for my lack of visitors, they have seen my paltry figures and have wilted and balked at the though of said walk!

Interesting that the site primarily focuses on amenity data from Google maps, rather than how pleasant 6 lanes of never ceasing traffic is to my walkability. Not to mention all those great gradients on show in the area to test those tender tendons on! Still, its better than my Mums House, I mean you gotta go to Woolgoolga if you want a decent drink, take THAT Toormina pub (which if fair, even I wouldn't even go there). Still, I like the site, may even use it when I think of moving closer to the city.

A quick perusal of the web yielded Mashup Awards, though sadly it only serves as an archive now. Still, a good source to see what went down 2007-2009.

I think, therefore IM.

Instant messaging, not so instant is it really? I mean, I still have to type, wait for my Internet connection, the program to display. Even with voice operated systems I still need to verbalise my thought. Wheres the ESP? now that would be useful for instant messaging! but as I have yet to achieve such cerebellum feats of communication, I will direct my focus this instant to this instance of Instant Messaging.

So far my interaction with messaging has come in many forms. From Blogging whenever I feel like it or in later response to something I've read (similar to thinking of the ultimate comeback to a debilitating and social life threatening insult), to using IM chat on MSN Messenger, Facebook, and MMORPG games (the equivalent to that lightning quick riposte to a verbal vapulation, a most satisfying feeling for all involved). Another other joy with instant messaging is you can actually tell when a conversation is getting a little one sided, with a textual onslaught bleeding across you little chat receptacle, or even to the point of chatting to an offline friend (at that stage its best to switch to email).

Anyhow, Whilst I've had limited usage of skype, I have utilised online voice software often used for games, Ventrillo being one. You could even use this for conference calling, or a cheap way for endless conversation (as long as your Internet holds out). Hell I've even used it to talk to my mum.

Webcams however are where I draw the line. My pixelated moving image does nothing for my online persona's self esteem, and would hate to see my attempts to give someone 'the look' turn into a digitised blasphemous expression due to video compression. Diminishing returns people! In essence though I like the majesty of the written word for long distance communique times, and there is always the dog and bone.

Twitter as always seems interesting to me in a way, but I have yet to be compelled to jump aboard. The hash tagging is interesting, but with only 140 words to dispose on a discussion, it invariable ends in links to be a means to and end. In essence I compare it to posting newspaper headlines with a link to the article. ANd I don't like newspaper headlines at the best of times.

Once again my two cents, rounded down.