tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-220176012024-02-07T13:56:19.314-05:00475 Square Feet of IdeasRamblings, citations and "brainwaves" of a college librarian in Toronto. 475 square feet refers to the size of my home, not the size of my office or library.Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comBlogger906125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-60620603690941619962011-03-09T09:18:00.003-05:002011-03-09T09:23:34.311-05:00IT Seems to Not Be Living Up to Its Promises<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/business/06mers.html">MERS - bad data on mortgages</a><br /><br />I can't help but look all around me and see the dysfunction IT brings to our world. For every plus, there are many more minuses it seems. Paper records were bad because they sat in one building, could get lost, etc. Online records seem to be even worse...again the technology is not the problem but the corporations using it certainly is. Corners get cut and people have no recourse for being victimized by bad data. People's lives are being ruined by bad data...Ruined.<br /><br />I don't think Bradbury ever saw this coming...the Matrix looks less frightening than what we see going on in the U.S. foreclosure mess; online health records, etc.Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-27264630581125640662011-03-03T13:26:00.000-05:002011-03-03T13:27:53.081-05:0012 Ways To Make Bad Decisions<a href="http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2011/01/the_idiot_savan.shtml">12 Ways to Make Bad Decisions</a><br />via The Heart of Innovation by Mitch Ditkoff<br /><br />1. Selective Search for Evidence<br />2. Premature Termination of Search for Evidence<br />3. Inertia<br />4. Selective Perception<br />5. Wishful Thinking<br />6. Recency Effect<br />7. Repetition Bias<br />8. Anchoring and Adjustment<br />9. Group Think<br />10. Source Credibility<br />11. Attribution Asymmetry<br />12. Role FulfillmentJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-14238405636651438942011-03-03T13:20:00.000-05:002011-03-03T13:22:04.537-05:00Antifeatures! I Love This Guy!<a href="http://2009.r2.co.nz/20100118/50349.htm">Benjamin Mako Hill</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-16226705419333678522011-03-03T13:08:00.001-05:002011-03-03T13:16:50.411-05:00Book Vending Machines are Not New!<img src="http://www.boingboing.net/images/boing_vend1.jpg">Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-5899831877478567572011-03-03T13:07:00.000-05:002011-03-03T13:08:14.454-05:00Freebie Takes on Exclusive ISI Impact Factors Service<a href="http://eigenfactor.org/">http://eigenfactor.org/</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-27291960044708301652011-03-03T13:04:00.001-05:002011-03-03T13:06:51.726-05:00Course Hero.....IP IssuesSeems there are all kinds of issues right now around who owns/controls course materials. One example is <a href="http://www.coursehero.com/">Course Hero</a>.<br />You could upload a friend's course cheat sheet, that itself is full of insturctor supplied content...<br /><br />Houston, we have a problem...<br /><br />Open Education...bring on the lawsuits!Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-49515279434033750452011-02-16T22:21:00.001-05:002011-02-16T22:23:04.213-05:00Something Entertaining About Mapping Mistakes<a href="http://cartastrophe.wordpress.com/">Cartastrophe</a><br /><br />My new favorite blog...Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-72465407966408246252011-02-11T13:53:00.001-05:002011-02-11T13:54:57.237-05:00Ambiance AppThere are not many Desktop apps I'd recommend, but this is nice:<br /><a href="http://ambiance.urbanapps.com/">Ambiance</a><br /><br />Great for that ocean waves, burbling brook, etc.Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-86977036628464261212010-12-17T15:11:00.000-05:002010-12-17T15:12:08.748-05:00Turn Your Blog to a PDF Book<a href="http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/2010/turn-your-blog-to-a-pdf-book/">BlogBooker</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-18873473219553917402010-12-17T15:10:00.000-05:002010-12-17T15:11:08.486-05:00College Libraries Save Money By Ignoring Netflix Terms Of Use<a href="http://consumerist.com/2010/09/college-libraries-save-money-by-violating-netflix-terms-of-use.html">Consumerist</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-86003407887355639012010-12-17T15:09:00.001-05:002010-12-17T15:09:55.704-05:00eBook Devices Cheat Sheet for Librarians<a href="http://stephenslighthouse.com/2010/09/24/ebok-devices-cheat-sheet-for-librarians/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ebok-devices-cheat-sheet-for-librarians">Stephen Abram</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-28981924056992300432010-12-17T15:06:00.001-05:002010-12-17T15:06:55.123-05:00Two Decades of e-Reader Evolution<a href="http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/technology/1010/gallery.ereader_history/index.html">CNN Slideshow</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-14869708296327561442010-12-17T14:58:00.001-05:002010-12-17T14:58:45.646-05:00Libraries in the Cloud<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/ellyssa/cloud-computing-in-libraries">Ellyssa Kroski</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-14124143992057482862010-12-17T14:47:00.001-05:002010-12-17T14:48:24.883-05:003D Modeling From FLICKR Images<a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/02/unc-team-builds-3d-m.html">UNC Team Builds Model of Rome</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-45754171568753045052010-11-26T13:45:00.002-05:002010-11-26T13:53:03.361-05:00"Today, three years is an Eternity"<a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/05/robert-weissenstein-looks-to-the-future.print.html">George F. Will</a><br /><br />3 million iPods in 2.5 years<br />3 million Kindles in 2 years<br />3 million iPads in 80 days<br />3 million iPhones in 3 weeks<br /><br />2001 iPod arrived. Les than 10 years later the number of employees of music stores declined from 80 000 to less than 20 000....but now folks shop online so the jobs are up at FedEx, UPS delivering what e-shoppers buy....destruction then creativity in three year blocks?<br /><br />WWW killed the travel agent industry, is about to destroy Real Estate Agents, who is next??? Teachers?...I can see how technology can be used to teach more students with less teaching staff....at least at lower higher education levels...Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-77522246628101210692010-11-09T14:40:00.002-05:002010-11-09T14:55:54.665-05:00Degrees - Business Sense = ?Ian Cook, Director Research & Learning at the B.C. Human Resources Management Association was recently quoted (my paraphrasing):<br /><br />...it is easy to recruit people who have a degree, but they have no business sense. They're bright, intelligent people but you can't plug them in and have them effective on day one. They need to be shaped, mentored, they need time to learn and develop skills....but the pace, change, complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity in which business is functioning right now, employers want 110% on day three. The talent pool has not changed, employer expectations have....apprenticeship and mentoring programs have been withdrawn, though they are still needed for long term grooming of productive employees.<br /><br />Yup, employers want to take, they don't want to invest in their personnel assets. All the while higher ed. keeps pumping out more and more graduates, each cohort, having a lower success rate in finding meaningful employment. We focus on material waste in business, what about all the "human waste" being produced, by defective recruiting tactics? <br /><br />Pre-internet it was difficult to connect job offerings with qualified candidates, so companies invested in providing students with experience to get a career under way. Today it is easy to fill most jobs that are fairly spec'd, so companies stopped giving back because it has no consequences to them. I love those job ads that list so many skill sets that nobody internal has, and it is for an entry level position. <br /><br />"We want someone who can hit the ground running" is HR speak for we want to exploit someone who is vulnerable right now.Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-64652042437358064272010-11-05T15:54:00.001-04:002010-11-05T15:54:59.016-04:00Creative Commons Public Domain Mark<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/">Public Domain Mark 1.0</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-55956288740471724002010-11-05T15:52:00.003-04:002010-11-05T15:53:33.060-04:00eBrary Launches Patron Driven Acquisitions<a href="http://www.ebrary.com/corp/newspdf/ebrary_PDA_launch.pdf">eBrary Announcement</a><br />155,600 e-books for PDAJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-14536608425240131952010-11-05T15:43:00.001-04:002010-11-05T15:43:35.265-04:00Silly Space Shifting on Kindle<a href="http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_tfp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx1G2UIO9PJO50V&displayType=tagsDetail">Amazon.com Announcement</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-53086661499644303032010-11-05T15:40:00.001-04:002010-11-05T15:42:19.569-04:00Long Tail Feeds It Self". . . . the same forces that created Amazon’s Long Tail in the first place may continue to make it longer over time . . . . First, exposure to niche products could drive consumers to develop a taste for more niche products. Second, by gaining access to “long tail” markets to stock their products, producers could have an increased incentive to create more new niche products over time. Finally, technologies that can drive consumers to niche products — such as search tools, product reviews, product popularity information, and recommendation engines — could improve over time, and consumers could become more familiar with these tools."<br /><br /><a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1679991">Brynjolfsson, Hu & Smith Download</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-40874799927343223632010-11-05T15:38:00.001-04:002010-11-05T15:39:27.837-04:00Amazon Kindle SinglesNew Profiteering/Publishing From Amazon.com<br /><br />"Kindle Singles, which are Kindle books that are in the company’s words, “twice the length of a New Yorker feature or as much as a few chapters of a typical book.” Generally, Amazon characterized Kindle Singles as 10,000 to 30,000 words (roughly 30 to 90 pages)."<br /><br /><a href"http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/12/amazon-launches-kindle-singles-a-e-book-format-for-short-works/">Tech Crunch</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-56646437563108686332010-11-05T15:32:00.001-04:002010-11-05T15:38:06.569-04:00Science Blogging Directory<a href="http://scienceblogging.org/">scienceblogging.org</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-43475731865247201512010-11-05T15:27:00.000-04:002010-11-05T15:28:01.748-04:00Google URL Shortener<a href="http://goo.gl/">goo.gl</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-7655891854017859932010-11-05T15:26:00.000-04:002010-11-05T15:27:05.970-04:00Lauren Indvik About 23 days ago Lauren Indvik 19 URL Shortener Bit.ly Now Generates QR Codes, Too<a href="http://mashable.com/2010/10/13/bit-ly-qr-codes/">Here</a><br /><a href="http://bit.ly/">bit.ly</a>Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22017601.post-80364263286914269762010-11-05T15:18:00.001-04:002010-11-05T15:19:48.932-04:00William Germano: Books Are Holiness<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/What-Are-Books-Good-For-/124563/">Chronicle of Higher Education</a><br /><br />I don't buy that if books vanish our civilization will suffer.Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03243494208387718061noreply@blogger.com