Ready, Set...Those New Year's Resolutions?

Happy New Year DIGITAL Archive readers! It's a little late, true, but, you know, better late than never, right.

So, what are your new year's resolutions? No, seriously, what are they? We've all made some, loudly or secretly. This time around, however, let's avoid those long lists of resolutions that so often (I'm at pains to say it) fail miserably.

Social media and technology expert Chris Brogan wrote a thoughtful post on new year's resolutions - and how to achieve them. First off, he doesn't make any; rather, he selects three words that help him define goals for the year ahead.

3 Words to Achieve Goals in 2009

Brogan clearly and logically explains the potential and power of selecting three words to set goals for 2009. Unlike traditional New Year's resolutions, which often push us, mostly reluctantly, towards a set of goals, the three keyword technique pulls us toward those goals. Their hope inspires us to achieve them. So how do we set those three keywords? Brogan offers this advice:

Look for three words that will help you frame your challenges and opportunities for 2009. Don’t think about where you are this exact moment...Try setting your three words far out on the horizon, but such that they can lead you to your goals every day.

Nice Stuff. But I'm Stuck!

As hard as I tried, I could not come up with even one word. But then, serendipity stepped in to the picture in the form of an email from a friend. In his email he wrote: Work. Freedom. Enlightenment. I kid you not. Perhaps he had read Brogan's blog post. I don't know. But what I do know, these three words sound perfect to me.

Work.

In these difficult economic times, I believe most adults fall into one of the following categories: employed and satisfied, employed but fearful of losing their job, and plain and simple unemployed and discouraged. If you fit in either of the latter two categories, I, in those immortal words, feel your pain. Seeking work in these times is hard work. Period. But let's use this keyword to inspire us, to pull us towards our goal. Work. Let's see. What kind of work? Let's step it up a level: What are you passionate about? It often said, but so true. What are you passionate about? Whatever it is, I am certain it will propel you through these difficult economic times.

Freedom.

Year after year, we drag chains that are latched to bad habits. We drag chains latched to negativity. Sour moods. And so on. These chains weigh us down and weigh down our productivity - and, worse still, weigh down our goals and dreams. What is the solution? Freedom. But to achieve freedom we need action. We need to take appropriate, effective, and resolute steps to achieve freedom from those chains that hold back. Objectively and often swiftly, we need to create plan and set it into motion.

Enlightenment.

This one is a touch vague and open to interpretation, which could be a good thing. From my perspective, the pursuit of enlightenment is about seeking wisdom from sources that we may have overlooked previously, such as those around us who are smarter and wiser than us. It also is about listening to understand rather than talking and wanting to be heard. It also is about quiting the mind in order to hear that still, small--and usually incredibly knowledgeable--inner voice.

Work. Freedom. Enlightenment. This is not another blog post. This is something I really want to pursue. Consider this a record of my decision.

Set your 3 words for a successful 2009!

Photo credit Harpagornis

Remember. Never Forget.

"I'll never wear a poppy!  I do not support war!" said a woman after being offered a poppy.

Today, when you are observing a moment of silence for Remembrance Day (or Poppy Day, Armistice Day, or Veterans Day), remember those men and women who fought and died in wars and conflicts around the world.

Remember also that we, all of us, right here, right now, 2008, are part of a long, long thread of human stories, both told and untold but nonetheless intertwined and bound tightly together across time. Remember that we are part of a fabric of humanity that endured, in the last century, the depths of inhumanity and the heights of human selflessness.

We cannot disown the past, this dark part, thinking and saying that it was not our generation or our war.  For if any generation fails to remember the past, the past will surely return to plague the future. 

In preserving the past, in preserving the stories of those who came before us, by keeping their voices alive and available for the world to hear, whether with our bare hands or with technological wonders, we honor them...and we buy humanity some more time.  Maybe.

"On the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month..."

DO NOT READ THIS POST! GO VOTE!

If you are a reader living in the United States and eligible to vote, I have two words for you:

GO VOTE!

What Library 2.0 Can Teach Archives 2.0

Michael Stephens, blogging over at Tame the Web, has posted an interview he had with Special Libraries Associations' IT Bulletin Digital Focus in which he discusses, among other things, his views and predictions on Library 2.0. Although long, it is still a very good read, filled with ideas that those in the archives profession contemplating Archives 2.0 should consider.

I mention Stephens' blog post because in the past few weeks there has been a healthy discussion in the Archives blogosphere about Archives 2.0 - what it could be, what it could do for archives and archivists, what it would mean to researchers and future users - and the Archives profession in the Web 2.0 era.

Kate over at ArchivesNext started the discussion with her interesting blog post "Archives 2.0?" and several other bloggers (including yours truly....wink wink) made thoughtful comments. Be sure to read the blog post and comments - and submit a comment as well.

As someone who has been calling for change in Archives in regards to Web 2.0 adoption (its values and ethics and technology usage) both from this blog and currently from this dismal unemployment chair, I believe these discussions on Archives 2.0 is the correct course of action. But these discussions must be followed up with concrete strategies.

Archives 2.0 will not be Library 2.0. Archives 2.0 will not merely mirror the actions taken by our colleagues in libraries. No, Archives 2.0 must grasp the values and ethics of Web 2.0, understand the Web 2.0 technologies, and then muster up the courage and envision how these elements can solve the problems facing archives and archivists.

Annoyed Librarian Sells Out, Reveals Motives not Identity

So the librarian collective known as the Annoyed Librarian has parted ways with Blogger and joined forces with Library Journal, where their new blog, called, well, the Annoyed Librarian, is hosted. The apocalypse is near, ladies and gentleman. Never mind the economic meltdown. This is a true sign.

Why did they leave? A lead writer explains:

I might have been bored with fame, but I'm never bored with fortune.

While the Annoyed Librarian collective sells out to the Man, in their own words, and seeks fortune more than fame (heck, I'd love some fortune cuz these Google Adsense ads ain't paying me squat [c'mon folks share some click love]), they nonetheless have not revealed their true identities.

What a crock!

The End of HR Professionalism

It's happened to me frequently enough that I need to write this post. And since no one else will say it, I might as well be the one.

I believe some Human Resources personnel have lost their professionalism.

When I submit job applications and resumes, I rarely receive:

• an email acknowledging receipt;


• and when I inquire, I rarely, if ever, receive an answer

Is this the kind of place where I would want to work?

HR Personnel with no professionalism = FAIL

The Low-Stress Archivist Diet

Catchy title, huh?

Yes, the low stress archivist. How interesting. I wish I could meet this person in the flesh so I could shake his or her hand and learn a few tips. If my feelings on this topics are not obvious yet, they soon will be.

I really don't want to walk down this path, for I can already feel a pinch of tension in my head and the words to express what I'm about to say are bottlenecking somewhere between my head and fingertips. But I will continue. Calmly.

By now I'm sure most readers reading this must have read the article on Yahoo!

[Update: I made a journalism faux-pas here by not summarizing the article for those who had not read the article. Essentially, Yahoo! hotjobs publishes career-related articles. In this one article, the writer wrote about professions that have low stress. Among those listed was Archivist. Let the flood waters rush in.]

Kate over at ArchivesNext blogged about the piece and even scored a scoop of sorts with a blog comment written by the author of the study, Laurence Shatkin, Ph.D (not the author of the article, Vicki Salemi, mind you). Also, Gayle writing on her blog quoted several archivists responding to the article on the SAA listserv.

For the most part, the majority of archivists can agree on the most common stresses, not to mention the stress associated with properly handling them: lack of resources, poor funding, low priority and low visibility, uncooperative senior administration, and the occasional pretentious researcher. These stresses come with the territory, I suppose. All within the realm of possibility between 9 am and 5 pm.

I believe that, while the profession is not by its nature stressful, there are stressful elements and, from my unorthodox experience in the field, some very stressful and unpleasant elements.

• Contractual employment stress
• Seeking a full-time permanent position stress
• Unable to move ahead with career stress
• Professional identity crisis stress

Now, be honest, how many archivists reading the article yesterday can relate to the above stresses?

There are some who walk into a job and follow a process. Meanwhile, there are those who design the process and leave it for others to follow. Then, there are some who face the familiar on a daily basis, while others face the unknown every single day. There are those who work in teams and accomplish much, and there are those who work solo on projects that require a team but who nonetheless deliver excellent results. There are even a tiny fringe of professionals (yes, mercifully, a tiny group) who pride themselves in being slothful in their full-time permanent position, while there are those who do the work and play by the rules and end up chronically contractually employment.

If your mom or dad or best friend ever told you life was not fair, they were correct.

Now about that low stress archivist diet...

Is Mygazines.com the Napster of the Magazine World?

A friend of mine sent me an email in which he heaped praises on a website he had found called mygazines.com, a site where users can upload, share, and archive magazines. According to the mygazines.com's website:

Mygazines is a place to browse, share, archive and customize unlimited magazine articles uploaded by you, the Mygazines community. We at Mygazines take great pride in providing a platform for people and businesses to share articles and magazines in an interactive and fun format. Mygazines is not just for magazines - you can upload catalogues and product brochures too! So don't hesitate - start sharing - it's free!

I took a closer look at mygazines.com and saw that users had actually scanned entire magazines and had uploaded them to the website where other users could easily search, find, and read popular magazines within a slick Flash-based viewer. Immediately, I was struck by two things:

1) Mygazines.com reminds of Napster, the on/off again notorious mp3 sharing site that single-handily transformed the way music publishers and musicians distribute their artistic work and, in turn, inadvertently gave birth to legal music download services such as iTunes. With magazine and newspaper publishers scrambling to secure readership in this digital age, I sense mygazines.com could be the 'Napster' that they need. I defend this view with the second thing that struck me: Mygazines.com's simple and intuitive viewer.








2) While the website is still in beta, and in some parts, particularly search performance, the beta label really shows, I am nonetheless impressed by the Flash-based viewer. The Flash-based viewer is very intuitive with a clean navigation bar set on top featuring such tools as comment, favorite, email to friend, and social bookmarking in addition to stardard page turning and searching features.

As I flipped trough the magazines, using the keyboard's cursor keys and "z" to zoom in, I thought about the digitization work I had done--that we as a community have done--and wondered if we were delivering our scanned content in a simple and intuitive manner?

Personally, I have scanned historical photographs of all sizes, scanned and indexed textual documents, but rarely have I felt I had given the end-user (i.e. the expert researcher, the novice researcher, and everyone in between) a satisfactory tool to comfortably read and enjoy the hard work I had put in digitizing these materials.

Since we are scanning photographs, let's give the end user the feeling of fliping through a digital photo album. Since we are scanning text, let's give the end user the feeling of reading a book or report. Maybe those viewing tools already exist (and maybe I am showing my ignorance) but I am far too familiar with sites employing static jpeg image scans that are fine but cumbersome.



Now I am no copyright expert, but I am also no dummy. There is clearly something fishy (i.e. illegal, wrong) with mygazines.com and its user base scanning magazines in their entirety and uploading them for others to view for free.

Again, reminds me of Napster - but look what Napster did for the music industry. Mygazines.com is clearly breaking some rules, but I noticed it is extending its hand to the publishing industry, perhaps in an effort to legitimize its service.

What's your take on mygazines.com? Check it out and let me know.

UPDATE 09/16: Read the press release on mygazines.com's launch.

UPDATE 12/22: Mygazines.com is closed. Must have happened a few weeks ago.

September 11, 2008

Seven years ago on this day, I woke up with a jolt. I was in bed, mentally preparing myself for the day ahead. It was to be a normal day, I assumed. I had a few errands to run in the morning before heading downtown to my part-time job at the McGill Archives. As my thoughts drifted over these things, the phone rang. It was my aunt asking if I was watching TV. Her voice was panicky, out of breath.

"Do you have the TV on?" she asked.

"No, why?" I asked in return.

"Turn on CNN. America is at war. This is war." Her voice was shaking, nervous. "Turn on CNN."

I rushed downstairs and saw my grandfather sitting by the radio, his head tilted toward the speaker. He looked up and said, "Some problem in New York. A plane hit a building."

I turned on the TV and for the next few hours, I sat there with my grandfather watching in horror. Breaking News. The Twin Towers. The Pentagon. Planes. Aflame. Smoke. Helicopters. Sirens. Emergency vehicles. Police directing traffic. FBI Agents with guns drawn, circling evidence on the New York streets (a plane tire here, unknown bits and pieces there). People jumping from the buildings to escape the terrible flames. Some held hands and jumped. People on streets running, coughing, soot caked around their noses and mouths. Men in business suits, women in dresses and average joes and janes; no matter the gender or status, there was palpable terror in their eyes.

There were the street reporters asking questions to those fleeing, attempting to get a sound bite. But the sight of quivering lips and pale faces spoke louder than any sound bite.

Then the unthinkable. The Towers collapsed. The Towers were gone. The spirit of the Towers, that what made them World Trade Centers, was smothered into dust and debris. Like ghosts, the dust and debris haunted the blocks of Manhattan worming their way through the streets. CNN reporter Aaron Brown, standing on a rooftop across the city watching the towers crumble, said in eerie voice: "My God. There are no words."

Seven years later, and still there are no words to describe what happened. There are no words to comfort those who lost friends and family. There are no words. There are some, however, who seek comfort in believing that the attacks were an inside job, a conspiracy. There is some solace in thinking this way, I suppose, because we can believe that there are no faceless enemies out there. Only the enemy next door, the one we know. That is more comforting, I suppose.

The attacks changed the world. From the way we travel to the way we see the world.

But as I sit and type this, a blue jay calls out, the wind shakes leaves from trees, and a lawnmower is heard in the distance.

When there are no words to say, it is best just to listen. The good in the world will be heard again.

[Thanks to Jill for her nice 9/11 post]

Google News Archive Search: History Becomes Content (with ads)

Google has launched Google News Archive Search, a new search tool that searches through historical archives from sources such as newspapers that Google and its partners have digitized or through existing online archival material that Google has crawled. For some, access is free, others fee-based.

But perhaps the most impressive aspect is how Google has taken historical archives and transformed it into accessible content.

I remember the days (and nights) sitting in the library in front of a big, bulky microfilm machine, squinting at the screen, and cursing under my breath as the film got tangled in the spool or when I simply could not find what I was looking for.

Ah yes, the good old days.

But in spite of those drawbacks, there was something wonderful, perhaps even magical, in turning the spool and watching all those images from newspapers dating back to the early 1900s (or even earlier) pass by, reading headlines that still have as much impact as they did on the day when the paper was printed.

Now, Google News Archive Search provides a similar experience via the Web.



Without a doubt, I am impressed. I am impressed by the digitization workmanship and the delivery mechanism. In the past, I performed large-scale scanning (historical photographs) and coordinated imaging projects (documents) and I know how difficult these projects can be, particularly in achieving high scan quality (readability) and searching (optical character recognition). It is difficult to achieve respectable results in both of these critical areas, but Google has managed to create very good quality output.

The delivery mechanism is equally impressive. After selecting an item from the results page, the new webpage divides into three windows: A large primary window to display the section of the newspaper with the searched keywords or article headline; a smaller window displaying a macro view of the newspaper; and below another small window displaying related links and (by God, no) Google Ads.

The large, primary screen is equipped with several useful page navigation tools, including Zoom In/Zoom Out, Full Screen, and Fit to Height. Meanwhile the small screen reminds me of another Google service, Google Maps. Imagine the newspaper is a map. The smaller screen has a little blue highlight box that can be moved around the page, magnifying the location in the large, main screen. The related window pane offers some helpful related links and a few ads.

Seeing Google's ads leaves me with mixed feelings, I must admit. Is historical content but another platform upon which Google can append its ads?

As a proponent for making content (historical or otherwise) more accessible (Lord knows, I've done my fair share of work in this area), I definitely support Google's initiative and urge people to test and evaluate the service for themselves.

But I want Google News Archive Search users to experience the magic in viewing the past, the stories that defined and continue to define our world, without seeing the sight of crass consumerism (i.e. Google Ads) on the screen. My only consolation is that the ads are not intrusive.

The Self-Interview

In Conversation with Myself
BY DKEMPER

DKEMPER: Hi, Dave. How are you today?

Dave: I’m doing okay.

DKEMPER: Doesn’t it feel strange that you are interviewing yourself?

Dave: It doesn’t feel strange at all. Not at all. And, I don’t mind you interviewing me, or should I say me interviewing me. Anyway, I think it’s great. Let’s go, let’s see where this takes us. Go ahead.

DKEMPER: What have you been doing lately?

Dave: Since returning home from Washington, I’ve been keeping myself busy. I’m taking a few night classes at a local university in hopes of completing a certificate in Multimedia. I’ve already completed several courses already—I’ve been working on this certificate since 2003, taking courses on Photoshop, In Design, and Illustrator in addition to web and graphic design theory courses. I’ve also been busy with The DIGITAL Archive, trying my best to write daily. I haven’t been so successful on that front, I must admit. Blogging is tough, man, especially if you don’t want to hack out mumbo-jumbo. [Pauses] Besides all that, I am looking for work [Laughs].

DKEMPER: Speaking of work, you had an interesting year last year, right. Tell us about it.

Dave: Yeah, what a year! As you know (well, you should know, you were there with me), I lived and worked in Washington, DC on contract with the International Monetary Fund in its Archives unit.

DKEMPER: Wow! The International Monetary Fund! Isn’t that like two blocks from the White House? That’s pretty awesome!

Dave: I know…but I’m humble about it, really. I’m still this guy from a small ‘burb in Montreal.

DKEMPER: Who just so happened to have worked in Washington! So what did you do there?

Dave: I was hired as an Archives Records Officer, but on my business card, it read Digital Archivist. I was responsible for evaluating and selecting a new archives management system—a complete processing and web search software package—and for establishing a digitization workflow for a large-scale imaging project to scan historical IMF country files. Furthermore, I wrote procedures, quality control steps, things like that. I also wrote several reports and even corporate communication stuff that senior admin read and approved.

DKEMPER: Not so archivist in nature, eh?

Dave: I think I am part of the changing nature of archival work. As technology evolves and mixes with the profession, we’ll be seeing new and very different professional roles for archivists.

DKEMPER: Like what?

Dave: I suspect the changes will revolve around access—accommodating better access to archives material.

DKEMPER: Explain?

Dave: Meh, let me save that for another blog post [Grins].

DKEMPER: Good idea, if I do say so myself. So, let me get this clear: you finished the contract—it was a contractual position, right? You had a chance to stay on for another year, correct? What happened? Didn’t like Washington?

Dave: There’s been a fair bit of confusion over the whole thing. Let me explain. First off, the position was contractual, yes, and I was part of a larger, long-term processing project. I worked on the technical and systems portion of the project. Not processing. In that year I accomplished much. We selected a software package, scheduled training, and I was there to see an early install of the software. I was indeed offered a contract extension, but I declined.

DKEMPER: Why?

Dave: I underwent a profound transformation in Washington. I started feeling an increasing desire to switch directions in life, in general, and away from Archives in particular. In Washington—by the way, an unexpectedly vibrant city rich in American history, a city where American social, cultural, political, and military history has coalesced—I believe I reached a peak, a zenith, if you will, and I knew I needed to change. I was grateful for the offer to work in Washington at the IMF. [Leans in close] By the way, the world still has a few decent managers, thankfully. But at the same time I knew I had to change and declined the contract extension. I wrapped up as much as I could before I left, and I believe I left the Archives, and the IMF by association, in better shape.

DKEMPER: Any regrets?

Dave: No, none. Like I said, being in Washington, being surrounded by the history I had read about in history books during my university days, filled me with something I had not experienced before. I discovered something about myself and about the world. And I learned something that I now cherish more than ever, it’s a simple word Americans are fond of saying but perhaps have lost its true meaning through overuse.

DKEMPER: What word is that?

Dave: Freedom.

DKEMPER: Freedom?

Dave: Yes, freedom. Freedom is one of the most amazing things we have. We have the freedom to choose, freedom to live our lives as we want, freedom to make our decisions, even though we know we may end up failing or succeeding. We are free. Whether blessed by God, if you believe, or promoted by the State, freedom is wonderful; however, freedom is not free, as they saying goes. Freedom has a price. We pay a lot for it. As kids we pay for it by standing up to a bully and still getting shoved into a locker. But we pay the price because we want freedom. As adults, as citizens, we must remain free in life, love, vocation, or whatever. In everything we need freedom, and we must remain vigilant, steadfast, and prepared to fight for freedom.

DKEMPER: Getting political here? Are you voting Obama or McCain?

Dave: First, I cannot vote in the US because I am not American. I have my political opinions, however. Let’s leave it at. But I do believe this is an important election in which Americans need a leader with vision more than a president. Know what I mean?

DKEMPER: Okay, moving along now. What are you listening to nowadays?

Dave: You mean music? [Nods] Yeah, I’ve been listening to SomaFM, an ambient music Internet station. Cool sounds, man. Glad Oasis is releasing a new CD, same goes for The Verve. Been also listening to classical music and jazz. Nice and relaxing.

DKEMPER: Classical? Jazz? You turning soft on me?

Dave: Hey, I balance things out with a daily dose of Foo Fighters and 30 Seconds to Mars. So there!

DKEMPER: Recently, you wrote a long blog post on “Why I blog.” Wasn’t that a little narcissistic?

Dave: No, I don’t think so at all. At least I hope no one took it that way. I just wanted to be honest with my readers, some of whom have been reading The DIGITAL Archive since day one. I wanted to tell that The DIGITAL Archive is no longer the same “archives and archivist” blog as it was when I started, because its author is no longer the same archivist as he used to be. As I concluded in Part 3, I am more an archivist advocate, believing in the value of institutional archives and wondering how technology can transform the field and profession, than an archivist processing materials or debating the latest controversies.

DKEMPER: You mentioned before that you are changing directions. Isn’t that a difficult task?

Dave: It is hard! It’s easier said than done. Believe me. It elicits both excitement and sheer terror. But, alas, and you are not going to believe this, but I was received Zen tweet a second ago that said, and I quote: "Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life." Confucius

DKEMPER: Wow!

Dave: Yes.

DKEMPER: Summer’s almost over. Saw any good summer blockbuster?

Dave: Watched Iron Man and loved it.

DKEMPER: Saw anything else? Wally-E or Dark Knight?

Dave: No, unfortunately, not. Just Iron Man.

DKEMPER: You need to get out more often, young man!

Dave: I know, I know. Listen can we wrap this up soon?

DKEMPER: How is the job search coming along?

Dave: You had to save the toughest for the last, eh.

DKEMPER: That’s my job.

Dave: I’ll give you the sound bite version. It’s moving ahead but slowly. More slowly than I had expected. But that is life. Full of the unexpected. Transitioning from one career into another is difficult. It requires risk-taking on both sides; the employee and employer need to take a risk. I hope to find such an employer soon.

DKEMPER: No offense, Dave, but that is about as much deep thinking I can handle for one interview. Let’s eat.

Dave: Sure. What do you want?

DKEMPER: Don’t ask me that!

[This blog post was inspired by Stephen King's recent blog post.]

A Blog Day Thought

Blog Day was held on August 31. Bloggers celebrate this day by listing at least five other interesting blogs that they read.

This year I was thinking: Since I did not post anything on Blog Day (shame on me, I know, but please read my blogroll for several good reads), I will make it up by suggesting we do the following next year:

Let's help five people start a blog.

That's right. Let's help five people--friends, family members, your choice--start publishing a blog.

But, hey, why wait until next year. Start today.

Dawn of Location-Based Information

In the real estate business, there are three words that determine the value of a property: location, location, and location. In social networking circles, where user mobility has become a standard with cell phones and the new iPhone 3G coming equipped with GPS, the same words apply, with a little modification. In order words:

• location-based micro-blogging: Blogging on the scene


• location-based social networking: Presence awareness by friends


• location-based information: Contextual information based on immediate surroundings

For the longest time, I have been a Map Geek. I love maps. Road maps, old maps, new maps, Google Maps, Live Maps, and even treasure maps (don't see too many of those nowadays, though). I guess I love maps because they provide their users with so much valuable information in a very clear and precise manner. A basic highway map, for example, which one buys in a pharmacy or orders online through a department of transportation office, are extremely valuable to the weekend traveller hitting the highways.

Navigation solution providers, such as Garmin and TomTom, whose street navigation products use global positioning satellites and digital maps to provide drivers with accurate driving directions and even in some models current traffic conditions, are very popular. Case in point: I recently took a taxi from the airport back to my home. Rather than providing the taxi driver with details on where to exit the highway or where to turn right or left, he simply punched in the destination address (or the closest match) and listened to a smooth female computer voice advise him on driving directions.

As usual, upon seeing this, my brain started thinking.

While these navigational devices target automobiles, trucks, motorcycles, and boats, I want to focus on personal navigational systems in a social web context.

With the launch of the Apple iPhone 3G and its Assisted GPS technology, which connects the iPhone 3G to the closest orbiting global positioning satellite, I believe Apple will make GPS, mobile maps, and geographic information systems mainstream and consumer-friendly.

The Apple iPhone 3G (and other advanced phones to come) will be the device on which the following applications will take life.

In the location-based micro-blogging space (a term I made up that has yet to solidify until the A-list bloggers coin a better one), there is Brightkite, "a Denver startup, [that] gives users tools to post about what's going on at a location, meet up with friends, and even, if you want, meet new people in the same place," according to a news article on ars technica. So far, Brightkite is invite-only, so I can add no hands-on knowledge other than to say I like the concept of on the spot location blogging and connecting with friends in the immediate area, but I still would like absolute control over the dissemination of my location to others. For more information, read Brightkite's blog.

In the location-based social networking space, there is a piece of software called Loopt for mobile phones. I never heard of this before until Michael Stephens, the author behind the Tame the Web blog, twittered and eventually posted a screenshot of Loopt in action. Using his iPhone's location (longitude/latitude), the iPhone calulated how far away his friends were from him. Pretty neat. For more information, read Loopt's blog.

In the location-based information space, there is the little-known but impressive-sounding Fire Eagle by Yahoo. According to Yahoo, "Fire Eagle is the secure and stylish way to share your location with sites and services online while giving you unprecedented control over your data and privacy. We're here to make the whole web respond to your location and help you to discover more about the world around you." If Yahoo can deliver on this promise, this location-based web service would be a very interesting development. Like Brightkite, Fire Eagle is invite-only. There is more information available on the web, however. A blog called Pointbeing.net has an interesting post on Fire Eagle.

In the not so distant future, when all the above have matured, I envision the following scenario. I am walking downtown, in a big city, and I want to know information about my surroundings based on my immediate location. Using my cell phone (could be an iPhone or another advanced phone), I open a location-based application (software or web-based) that shows me a dynamic map. On this map, I see my avatar blinking at the exact street location where I find myself. I activate the map's shopping layer and, based upon my preferences, the map blooms with store locations dotting my surrounding area. The information would be tailored to my needs. I then activate the map's food layer and, based once again on my preferences, the closest restaurants appear on the map. I then I activate the map's friends layer, and lo and behold, I see that there are two people I know at a coffee shop two blocks away. Maybe we could meetup and have supper at a Thai restaurant. It's only a phone call away. And this would only be the tip of the iceberg.

It is clear we live in an increasingly mobile world. Laptops are outselling desktops; cell phones are becoming more advanced; communication among people on the move is proliferating. The next frontier is to deliver actionable information to people based on none other than those three magic words: location, location, location.

Fail Whale, Epic Fail, and Other Stories of Missing the Mark

Web_Guy: You know about Twitter, right?

Girly_Love: The micro-blogging site? Yeah, sure. Use it a lot.

Web_Guy: Yeah, well, the site's been down so frequently--and I mean, so frequently that the folks over at Twitter post a picture of a whale being lifted by the little Twitter birds to notify users that there are problems. So that's been happening so often, that we now say Fail Whale to represent anything technical that fails.

Girly_Love: Fail Whale. Poor thing. Poor Twitter.

Web_Guy: Yeah, I know, it's rough being Web 2.0. Users are in control. What they want is what they get, 24 hours a day, 7 days week, even if the site's infrastructure cannot handle the load. It's gotta be running or else. :P

Girly_Love: You'd think they would have anticipated these things. :D

Web_Guy: Yeah, you'd think. But, man, nobody thought Twitter would fly. Seriously.

Girly_Love: Oh my God. I see what's wrong. They forgot to add beta to Twitter. Look, see? No beta. ;-)

Web_Guy: You're right. [LOL]

Girly_Love: Hey, check it out. I got an iPhone 3G. Isn't he so cute? I call him iPhoney Maloney.

Web_Guy: Sweet. Too expensive for me, though. What did you say you called it...?

Girly_Love: iPhoney Maloney. I used to call him iBrick because that's what it was after I bought it and could not download the updates to the firmware. It basically became a brick. An iBrick.

Web_Guy: Rough. What happened?

Girly_Love: You know, the iTunes servers crashed and burned. They couldn't handle the demand of thousands and thousands of users.

Web_Guy: Epic Fail.

Girly_Love: Totally Epic Fail. So horrible. Sigh. But I so love my iPhone. He's so touchy. [grin]

Web_Guy: Oh puh-lease. Listen, I gotta roll. Gonna try and download Firefox 3. Rave reviews, but on download day, the...

Girly_Love: ...the servers crashed and burned. Yep, I heard. Good luck.

Web_Guy: Thanks. No more Fail Whales or Epic Fails--

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Unemployed? Archivists Take Note

Kate Theimer blogging over at ArchivesNext revealed the results of her survey question "Will you be attending SAA this summer?" While the complete results can be viewed on her blog, the majority of respondents (48%) said Yes, they will be attending SAA and that their employer will be paying all or part of the expense.

On the heels of this survey question, Kate is launching another: "Does your job title have the word “archivist” in it?” Be sure to take a few minutes to respond.

Speaking of job titles and jobs, I conducted a survey back in May asking people in the fields of libraries and archives what was their employment status. The results revealed that 66% of respondents had a permanent position with a benefits package.

Now, taking Kate's survey on SAA attendance, which I will categorize in my mind as professional development, and my own survey on employment status, something clear emerges. At least it does for me.

Unemployed and underemployed archivists or other records related professionals should demand more from their future or current employer. First, if having a permanent position is important, then unemployed archivists should seek out permanent positions. I know, there are bills to pay now, but short-term contracts without benefits simply short-change us professionals in the end. As I often remind myself, "Short-term gain, long-term loss."

Second, if professional development and attending conferences are important, then archivists should request and make it clear to employers that professional work is a two-way street. A professional cannot give and give and receive nothing in return. There must be opportunities to learn.

These requests are not pie-in-the-sky unattainable. Hardly. Look at the survey results again (here and here); as small a sample as they were, relatively speaking, they still revealed evidence that permanence and professional development are elements that unemployed and underemployed archivists can no longer set aside.

Should We Abandon Twitter for Greener Pastures?

In the past couple of days, while I nursed a virulent strain of something or another (no more tomato and mayo sandwiches for me, thank you), I was busy following the happenings and going-ons at the 2008 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, courtesy of my Twitter peeps Michael Stephens, David Lee King, and Robin Hastings, as well as others who attended and sent 'tweets' from the conference. All did a fine job, by the way, and I recommend readers of mine should subscribe to them.

One caveat: I was able to follow the minute by minute reactions and observations as long as Twitter remained stable.

Sadly, Twitter was acting a little flaky, as in sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I would not go as far and say Twitter suffered a massive outage, like other times, but the service was and remains unstable.

I'm calling Twitter's recent woes growing pains. The Twitter infrastructure is new and clearly cannot handle a 24/7 onslaught of messages from thousands and thousands of users across the globe every minute of the day.

In the aftermath of these recent reliability issues, there is a small but growing movement among the micro-blogging community to switch to new, more reliable services that offer the same and perhaps even more features and functionality. [Read the TechCrunch article.]

One such exodus is to FriendFeed, a social media aggregator that allows users to post messages and comments, befriend other users and grow social networks, and link to photos and videos. Furthermore, FriendFeed aggregates (or shares) content from popular online services such as Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, and from your personal blog. In total, FriendFeed can aggregate content from 41 services. If one has an account with any one of these services, one can add content to his or her FriendFeed feed.

Not too shabby!

But is it worth leaving Twitter?

When the hype surrounding FriendFeed started with a few high-profile bloggers, I decided to create a FriendFeed account.

What I immediately liked about FriendFeed was its ability to aggregate content from my other social media/networking sites, such as my Flickr photo stream, The DIGITAL Archive and ar.ch.i.vi.us blog feeds, Digg, as well as my Twitter tweets, and present them on a clean dynamic page to be shared with everyone, including friends.

Another feature I like is the ability to comment on people's postings. In my opinion, it's a lot more cleaner and streamlined than Twitter. Finally, I can create virtual rooms in which other users can join and discuss and share items of relevance to the room.

So, that said, should we delete our Twitter accounts and move to greener pastures? No, I believe we should not delete anything just yet. Twitter is still tops in my book because it introduced an innovative communication tool. The brain trust that concocted this must have more plans in mind, but putting out infrastructure fires is placing a huge strain on creativity. Twitter must become more stable and reliable--and introduce new features--lest it end up in that great heap called "great ideas, poor execution."

In an ironic twist, the exodus to other micro-blogging services such as FriendFeed may help alleviate the pressure on Twitter, as Jill-Hurst Wahl commented in a recent tweet, and allow the company to resolve its problems and re-energize its creative juices.

Of Facebook and Friends

A few months ago, after several promptings by colleagues, I decided to join Facebook, the hugely popular social networking website. I was hesitant to join because I had seen another successful social networking website, MySpace, and was repulsed by its noisy layout and design. However, Facebook seemed different—more streamlined, more accessible, I guess you could say—and for the not so easily impressed critic inside me that was enough reason to take the plunge.

Besides, I thought, I could connect with a few old friends.

But my introduction to Facebook was more sobering than anything else.

In a matter of minutes, I discovered two friends who had been my best friends when I was a kid. These two guys were the best. We were all roughly nine years old, give or take a few months between our birthdays. We’d go bike riding around the neighbourhood from dawn ‘till dusk; we celebrated birthdays; we’d set out for adventures downtown, where we’d catch a few movies; and we’d play sports, like street hockey or parking lot baseball, on the weekends and during the summer when school broke for holidays.

The summer sun was endless, the fun was endless, and life was sweet. We enjoyed this life for many, many years until circumstances, such as college, work, and family relocation, slowly took us into different directions. We lost touch, for the most part, only seeing each other briefly at university (in the halls) or on the bus or train.

But I never forgot those guys or those days. How could I? Can one really forget those days, when one was nine years old? I loved them; I loved us, those crazy kids on their bikes, innocent, without a single care in the world other than finding out the time for our favourite cartoon show and the release date of the latest Nintendo video game.

On Facebook, however, I barely recognized their faces. The oldest member of our trio was–let me call him “Big T”—was the sports fanatic and music lover. He introduced me to baseball as well as to hip-hop music (KRS-One, Boogie Down Productions, remember them?). As a kid, “Big T’s” dream was to become a professional baseball player and a rapper. He had a passion for both.

In checking out his Facebook profile, and in chatting with him, he had become an occupational therapist by day and a Deep House music DJ by night, hosting his own late night/early hours show on the Internet. His passion for music never waned, only transformed into something different. His passion has made him widely recognized and well-travelled. Awesome!

Meanwhile, the youngest member of our trio – let me call him “Lil L”—was the book reading, D&D playing, adventure-seeking free spirit. He introduced me to role-playing games (D&D, AD&D, RIFTS) and to the then still embryonic world of PC games (the hilarious Space Quest series). We’d bike a lot together, through forest paths, getting bitten by mosquitoes, and to the outer limits of our neighbourhood, which was very far for our little kid navigational senses. His mother would take us to baseball games and museums and his grandmother would serve us lemonade and share her air-conditioned apartment on especially hot and humid summer days.

As a kid, “Lil L,” much like myself, loved role-playing games. We loved conjuring up stories for our role-playing characters. The more stories we made up, the more fun we had. Personally, I found making up stories and watching friends become engrossed very satisfying, as I often came up with one story after another. Some good, some duds, and some with the right mixture of mystery and action that I even surprised myself. At one point, during one of those tension-filled story moment, “Lil L” asked me, “How do you come up with all these stories?” It was a question I could not answer. I was afraid to answer. I didn't quite know; they just came. But the question stuck with me for many years. My imagination, it seemed, was rearing its newborn head.

On Facebook, I honestly could not recognize “Lil L” because the profile image I saw was that of a man carrying a baby. The shiny kid face I had known was replaced by a glowing fatherly face, complete with goatee and sunglasses, and in his arms he held his child. “Lil L” was married with two young boys and worked with a large telcom company. His wife was not the girl who he had an endless crush on as a kid, but someone else. His two boys had their father’s free spirit look (in a few short years, I thought, they will be biking around the neighbourhood from dawn ‘till dusk).

Sadly, I also learned that his mother, who had set up birthday parties and trips to baseball games, had died a few years back. I could not swallow that revelation. I had known her, and now she was gone. Not sick or ailing, but dead. I was stunned, shocked, in disbelief. And as clichéd as it may sound, I felt something die in me.

This is not what I expected from Facebook. I expected connecting, social networking, old friends, new friends, super walls and super pokes. Instead, I experienced sad, painful nostalgia.

The faces I remembered were from a different time; the faces I now saw on Facebook were changed by time and circumstances, for better or for worse. And the time we had known together, that I had known so thoroughly and enjoyed immensely, which I kept tucked away safely in a protected memory center, to be retrieved every so often, had moved on.

I clicked logout, something I would often do in the months after I joined Facebook. And I never bookmarked the website.

Nowadays, I hardly use Facebook. That’s not to say Facebook has no value in the future. But for me, at this time, I am content with the social networking websites and tools I use and the online friends I have. I do not wish to allocate any more time to Facebook.

If one of Facebook’s purposes was to assist users reconnect with old friends with a few clicks, it certainly succeeded. Though not its fault, Facebook simply failed to mention that a few clicks can also mean opening doors to the past that, in retrospect, should be approached cautiously and in some cases sometimes remain closed.

The Birth of the Web Ego-Maniacs

I am noticing a troubling trend among the user-created content set. Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong supporter of user-created content, particularly when it is well-produced, entertaining, educational, and engaging and exhibits the fundamentals of Web 2.0 (social).

There are numerous websites (and more on the horizon, I bet) that enable users, like you and me, to publish our thoughts and ideas. There are blogs, naturally, wikis, photo-sharing sites, and, as broadband surges forward, the proliferation of podcasts and videoblogs.

Equipped with a laptop, web camera (or a camera-enabled cell phone), and a high-speed Internet connection, one can record shows or even broadcast live across the Web. There’s Youtube, of course, and there is Y!Live, Ustream.tv, Viddler, Vimeo, Qik, Kyte.tv, Flixwagon.com, and many more. All worth checking out, if you like.

But I am seeing a trend that I do not like among these websites:

First, I am seeing the same user faces across all these websites. It’s as though a dozen or so of these pro-bloggers or pro-vloggers are taking up much of the space and sadly with some less than stellar material. I don’t want to name names, although I assume some would not mind the additional attention.

Secondly, the material that is being produced, while "live" and "dynamic" (yeah, crossing the street, yeah), is for the most part pointless and trivial. Enough with the crap! You’re clogging up the arteries of the Internet with these narcissistic, self-indulgent videos.

Mind you, I am not condemning these top bloggers and vloggers, these shameless pluggers, because they are largely friendly folks with good intentions and some have found a recipe for success, being able to make a living off this new media lifestyle. These top vloggers have their good moments, true, but they should save their ramblings, pontifications, and walks through their basements and their freak-outs for their personal hard drives, not the Web.

How Blogs Can Save Your Career

Earlier this week I had lunch with a friend, a fellow library school grad. We had a conversation about professional development…or the lack thereof. We both graduated in the same year and we both had a roller-coaster ride during our first years in the library and information field following graduation.

While he has found himself as a librarian in a documentation centre and I continue to carve out a new career path altogether, we both agreed that professional development in the field (or any field, for that matter) had to improve.

“Aside from attending a few local conferences,” he explained, “I haven’t done much or learned much. I just do what I have to do at work. That’s it.”

I was shocked by his indifference. “So what do you do to stay current?” I asked.

“I read a few journals, but that’s about it.”

I told him that I had attended roughly 4 conferences / seminars / workshops in my 8 year career. And I bemoaned the fact that I had I wanted to attend more to learn, to connect, to meet with my peers, but was thwarted by a number of setbacks, including the usual limited budget.

Placing the blame on the usual suspects, such as limited funds, indifferent employers, or the limitations imposed on contractual positions, can often alleviate the frustration, but it does not erase the truth: professional development is a must.

In 2002, Barbara Quint, editor of Searcher Magazine, wrote a very insightful column in the July/August issue of the magazine. In reflecting on her career path, and offering advice to her readers, she stated boldly:

“When an information professional stops learning, they start dying, or at least their career does. And any information professional in this day and age, with all the changes upon us and more coming, who does not or cannot allot a significant portion of their work time to learning and study will not be able to perform well the job they have now for much longer, much less the future jobs they should have.”

I agree 100% With contractual positions, as I have been in over the years, the employer’s interest, for better or for worse, is to ensure the work he or she has planned gets done, not necessarily to support the professional development of the person hired.

So what should one do?

As I walked down the bustling streets, I was caught in my thoughts, wondering how I have managed to stay current (more or less) despite being on contracts or, more recently, unemployed.

One word kept surfacing: blogs.

Seriously, if it were not for the many library and archives, Web 2.0, new media, digitization, digital preservation bloggers and social networkers on the Web, I would be far, far behind the curve.

It is thanks to those who, in the spirit of sharing, write and talk about their work, projects, ideas either daily, bi-weekly, weekly or monthly that I have been able to stay current in the field.

I hesitate to list the blogs I read, so as not to alienate anyone, but my blogroll is to the right, and I continue to add to the list.

I believe in the power of blogs, their immediacy, their intimacy, and their uncanny ability to auto-generate communities, because I know I have benefitted from them and learned from them. And continue to do so.

For example: How did I find out about Twitter? Through a podcast I heard. How did I find out about the latest happenings in education and libraries? Through several bloggers whose daily commentaries are food for thought. What prompted me to be concerned about blog preservation? The many mil-blogs out there whose posts chronicle the story of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are many more examples.

Professional development involves participating in several areas. Make sure the blogosphere is one of them. You never know who you are helping.

5 Things I Want in My Next Job

Being unemployed after successfully completing a contract fills me with a sequence of emotions: pride, reflection and conflict.

I feel pride because I am satisfied with having achieved the objectives of the contract. Whether 6 months, 12 months, or 24 months, I feel pride with my accomplishment.

Then I enter into a state of reflection when the last day of work arrives and I must, albeit reluctantly, start planning my next step.

And, finally, more often than not, I feel conflict, inner conflict, that is, an uneasy, nagging sense that the hard work and excellent performance I have thus far produced and delivered are not coalescing into a structured, developing career path of satisfaction and professional growth, like many of my library school peers and former colleagues now seem to enjoy.

In an effort to resolve these repetitious mixed feelings (and perhaps help others in the same situation at the same time), I put together a list of wants and needs, professionally speaking, that I want to see in any future job offer.

The list items are personalized, in some ways; but feel free to tailor them to your needs, if necessary.

Moreover, I want to hear what you think about these items. Am I too idealistic? Am I missing the point? Or am I hitting the nail on the head, so to speak?

Here they are:

1. Hired as a Professional, not as a Jack-of-all-Trades

2. Work in a University or other well-funded Institution

3. Attend Conferences, Seminars, Training Sessions

4. Work with a Team, and in a Healthy Environment

5. Work / Life Balance


1. HIRED AS A PROFESSIONAL, NOT AS A JACK-OF-ALL-TRADES

I have a BA in History/Religion and a MLIS degree, plus I have close to eight years experience working in this field, focusing on web design and content development, digital preservation research, and digitization projects. As such, I want to be hired as a professional (no, I am not the department’s “web guy”). I want to be hired because of my skills and abilities, and not because the employer needs a Jack (or Jane) of all trades who will act as a warm body in boring meetings, pitch in when there is a huge backlog, fill in for the front office administrative assistant, or troubleshoot that virus-infected, spyware-saturated public access computer workstation. No, I have heard from enough colleagues to say this practice needs to stop.

2. WORK IN A UNIVERSITY OR OTHER WELL-FUNDED INSTITUTION

An academic setting seems ideal for someone in the library and archives profession. The edenic campus grounds, the quiet library buildings, the youthful energy of hungry minds. But positions in academic settings are not easy to find. While I believe the academic environment would be perfect, I am still willing to accept a position at a well-funded institution. By well-funded, I mean an institution with sufficient resources to fund people and projects, and not just talk about them and sound hip.

I know the usual line in the library and archives field is that there is no money, there is no funding. But ironically there is money to pay for salaries of senior level staff and to fund a project or two that will make the department look good and therefore increase visibility and perhaps boost further funding prospects next fiscal year.

Listen: There is money; it is time to start using it wisely. Good professionals want to contribute, but also want good compensation (and benefits).

3. ATTEND CONFERENCES, SEMINARS, TRAINING SESSIONS

I want to attend conferences, seminars, and training sessions. I want to do so because I want to come in contact with other professionals, share and discuss ideas, form connection and perhaps fuel future collaboration. I want to be part of a greater community of professionals to learn, contribute and grow as a professional.

I want to attend training sessions—to learn something new—because there is nothing worse than professional stagnation. Any professional, regardless of field or years of experience, needs to be fed and supported by his or her institution. There are no excuses.

[Interestingly, there is a blog post by a librarian at Princeton University Libraries that discusses the issue of attending conference and giving speeches and who should cover the costs. The Princeton librarian also cites Meredith Farkas’ recent blog posts on the same topic, here and here.]

Many of us will never attain the frequent flyer miles as some of the more prominent professionals in the library field, or the opportunity to attend gaming and education conferences, or the technological ticket to attend a conference in Second Life. But as an optimist (or simply to stupid to know when to quit), I will never say never.

4. WORK WITH A TEAM, AND IN A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT

Some of us like to work alone, while others like to work with a large team. I fall somewhere in between, preferring the solitude in times of project planning and welcoming a team when the time comes to execute the plan. I do not want to work any more in isolation, carrying the weight of a large-scale project. It is neither good mentally or professionally. We need each other to support our strengths and overcome our weakness. We need each other to get the job done correctly.

I also want a healthy work environment. Sadly, far too many archives offices are located below ground, in basements, in windowless rooms with poor ventilation systems. No more. Been there, done that. I need windows, sunlight.

5. WORK / LIFE BALANCE

I work hard, I put in the time required to complete the task. I know work is something we all do that consumes a large of amount time on a weekly basis. But at the same time that does not mean I wish to have my life outside the job to suffer or be limited. There is a line between work and personal life. I need to draw that all important line early on.

There it is.