The Truth of Bill Belichick's Genius Revealed

We all know the Head Coach of the New England Patriots is hiding something under that sweatshirt, but we never knew that what is under there is the true mastermind of the Patriots:

It Might be Yummy but I'm not Sure if its Del.isio.us

Welcome to Meta Tagging 2.0. As with many of the Web 2.0 products this needs to be used to be appreciated. At first it is waaay to random and scategorical to be of any worth.

But like that earthy 95 California Pinot Noir, it has a lingering after taste that is not half bad.

I can see utility with it but it requires effort, like exercise, when overtime it becomes noticably beneficial.

RSS Feeds

Generally, when I use them I gravitate to the topics of interest, and they are usually the usal suspects with me. Favorite websites or newspapers.

What is of value to these types of searches is knowing if people are using them. If they are then it is more a marketing tool than a personal research tool.

Bloglines

It is nice once there but it is getting there. Bloglines Account

Is Listening Really Reading?

I would love to download some audio books but my paranoid wife has our MAC locked down tighter than NORAD.

She forgot her own password last night though. HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!!!!! I laughed, the laugh of the DAMNED!

Podcasts

The Web, Streaming Audio and now Podcasts have allowed me to not only to continue to follow my hometown team but to follow it just as though I never left town.

God Bless the web for this. Podcasts have simply provided time shifting for my favorite shows much like a DVR.

So, nothing really new in this regard other than the Podcasts allow a little bit of "Public Access TV" to the mix.

I Have Wikied

I Have Danced with the Devil in the Pale Moon Light.

http://plcmclearning.pbwiki.com/Favorite%20Blogs

The Wiki Wiki Shake

Wiki's, Forums, Blogs, Static Web Pages. What to do with them? What to make of all of them? How will the Library use them?

The utility in all these applications comes down to the mission of the library, the overall scheme of any library website and ensuring cohesion. A Wiki is just another piece of the puzzle. And naturally, until the strengths, weaknesses and finally the identified application trying to piece all these tools together is not much different than working on a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle titled "Sky Blue".

When used properly all these utilites add context and value to a website but their integration needs to be fairly seemless. Libraries need to not only draw people to their sites, but they need to KEEP them there. As branches if all we were pushing were books, then we wouldn't need chairs and tables. We invite people to come and sit a spell. Our web experience should be similar. The sites need to offer more of an experience than just helping people get information.

Wiki's offer not just staff to contribute but the overall community as well. We sell fundraising bricks when we build new branches or additions. People contribute not only because it goes to a good cause, but they are putting their name on the building itself. There is a sense of legacy that goes beyond just contribution when that $100 check is handed over.

Wiki's, Blogs, and Forums are ways the Library can ask not only staff but the public to put their "stamp" on the Library.

Technocratic Technorati

Okay, first thought in scanning the site was a link at the top of the Technorati page titled simply "WTF". Well, "progressive" I'm thinking. I click it and it takes me to a page and apparhently, WTF stands for "Wheres The Fire".

Okay, can we please get a ISO Standard for the acronym for "WTF"!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I don't know what it means anymore! Is it "Work Time Fun"? Is it "Wheres The Fire"? Or does it mean what I think it means while online chatting and you don't want the censorship overlords to kill your account?

Either way, I added some things. All Hail Technorati!

Rollyo is Whack

Call me old fashion but I remain loyal to Alta Vista. I know all the kids think "Google" is old and Rollyo is the wave of the future, but for me, I'll stick with Alta Vista.

What? you really wanted my opinion? Fine.

My first impression is, I don't need a search engine of my "most trusted sites" since I GO to my most trusted sites. And if I use my RSS successfully then another layer of things to search for is stripped away.

Is there use for it? Yes, but it is best served by a very defined role within your website.

My Web 2.0 Award goes To:

Free Online Games brought to you by Arcaplay

I think this speaks to where I stand on the earlier discussion about "Is Play Important To Me" from our earlier 71/2 Habits, Play.

ZoHoHoHooooo

ZoHo, I love you. I don't care that Cnet.com only gave you 5.7. I don't care that I can't download a single thing that I have stored on your server. I simply don't care about that, I love you.

Sure, Flickr and I had some good times, but its over and they weren't the same, they meant nothing to me. But you, you were different. Right from the start you were easy going. You were approachable. I didn't have to compete for my username when I registered with you. You accepted me for who I wanted to be, not the phonetic monster of a username others wanted to make me into. It was as though I was the most important account to you, and right off the bat, I felt special, felt..... felt at home.

I didn't have to read any any lengthy commitments or agreements to get to know you. You just greeted me with open arms and your cute little logo. You are simply there for me when I need you the most. When my hard drive is down, or my flash drive is missing. And when we are together, I don't have to share you with pop ups or other advertising.

I know you lack some features, but hey, don't we all. Your features alone are not as important to me. What I really care about is a little deeper than superficial features, and something I'm willing to wait for with you. You are potential. And in the deep, deep ocean of Web 2.0 options, you offer something real, something meaningful, something I can use.

And your commitment to me seems almost boundless. Sure, I expect you to be there for me on my work pc, my home pc. And of course, we can meet up on my laptop at a coffee shop. But no, you are willing to go places with me that I never dreamed you would follow.

If I asked you to meet me on my Wii, would you? .........Yes! How about my PS3?....... You'll meet me there too! How about my PSP in a coffee shop?.... No, not yet. Well thats okay, in time.

I still love you.

Dr. Phils Magic Touch

On Library 2.0

I can be a geek, I can be a nerd, that is why when I was a kid I used to always read "Popular Science" and "Popular Mechanics". Before the Internet those two magazines were my "geek fix". Now, I have CNET.com for that.

But what I loved about those magazines was their unabashed optimism for the future. They would always give me a glimpse at what was coming next year, ten years from now or a hundred years from, which I was going to live to see because of the medical advances that they told me was coming in fifty years.

I no longer read these magazines as much anymore, except perhaps at the barbers or the doctors office, both of which give me the opportunity to grade their predictive prowess because the magazines are always no less than ten years old in either of these places.

The whole Web 2.0 experience has allowed all of us to play with some "new" web tools out there and more to the point has given us the opportunity to reflect a little about our profession/service future. And the five perspectives, as represented in "Thing 15", has put some of the lessons learned into some level of focus.

So now it is time to "look into the future, yes into, THE YEAR 2000!"

In the Year 2000, ASIMO will pull our Holds List:



Well that is great, but what about the other functions and besides, according to Rick Anderson we aren't to be focusing on books as much anyway. While I enjoy reading some of these predictions I do find them a little off base or vague like a fortune cookie or horoscope. And some of the observations are made without much regard for the past. Mr. Richardson states ;

"Reliance on user education Libraries are poorly equipped and insufficiently staffed for teaching. Ask yourself what your patron-to-librarian ratio is (at the University of Nevada it’s about 680 to 1) and then ask yourself how you’re going to train all those patrons. We need to focus our efforts not on teaching research skills but on eliminating the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need, so they can spend as little time as possible wrestling with lousy search interfaces and as much time as possible actually reading and learning."
Away from Icebergs

Hmmmm. Is this a new problem? Eliminating the barriers is fine, but teaching is a core value. Barriers is another word for "borders" and now more than ever we NEED to teach and be able to map out where these borders are. An essential research skill is recognizing not only what but that borders exist. To the young student or the returning researcher the "Map" to these borders is drawn with concepts such as Ethics, Peer Review, Authoritative.....

Many of the barriers have been removed and those that are left, well, you simply need the "Plug-in" in order to go through them. The problem lies in teaching the skills necessary to recognize "Authoritative" material vs. the very convenient Web 2.0 public authored Wikipedia.

But this is not new, remember when we had to teach people that there was a difference between "Whitehouse.gov and Whitehouse.com? This was an awkward lesson for the media specialists out there to be sure.

And while the wistful dreaming of our futures predictors would be laying down the idealistic Bullet Train Track of our futures infrastructure right now, the reality is that the road to our future is paved and it comes with potholes and traffic jams. The potholes are the numerous Web 2.0 applications that seem to be made simply hoping that Google comes along and buys them out before they are sued for copyright infringement. The traffic jams come unexpectedly when consumerism rears its ugly head. Want to download an audio book? Great! I just hope you weren't planning on using your Ipod to listen to it, but here is a list of Windows based "Plays for Sure" mp3 players for you to choose from. "What is that? Say again? You don't have broadband? Sure it will still download via dial up, just start it when you turn your dishwasher on before you go to bed. It will be done in the morning, just like your dishes."

To carry things on further to the Library 4.0 commentaries;

"The library as aesthetic experience will have space for all the library’s incarnations: storage (archives, treasures); data retrieval (networks—reference rooms); and commentary and annotation (salon). Available as physical places in the library “storefront,” they will also be mobile, as AR overlays we can view (via glasses, contacts, projections) anywhere. Both virtual and augmented 3D reality will enable us to manipulate data via immersive, visual, metaphorical, sculptural, holographic information theatres: the research and analytic experience will merge with drawing, dance and drama.5
But Library 4.0 will add a new mode, knowledge spa: meditation, relaxation, immersion in a luxury of ideas and thought. In companies, this may take the form of retreat space for thought leaders, considered an investment in innovation; in public libraries, the luxurious details will require private partners as sponsors providing the sensory treats. Library 4.0 revives the old image of a country house library, and renovates it: from a retreat, a sanctuary, a pampered experience with information—subtle thoughts, fine words, exquisite brandy, smooth coffee, aromatic cigar, smell of leather, rustle of pages—to the dream economy’s library, the LIBRARY: a WiFREE space, a retreat from technohustle, with comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt. You know, the library. "
To a Temporary Place In Time

Makes me want to run out of there like Charlton Heston screaming "LIBRARIANS ARE PEOPLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!
So fine, I have mocked and I have been critical but what answers do I bring to the table? Some, none. But I know this, technology and its effects are at times to random to predict their overall effect or outcome.

Lets take a look at an example of technology and perhaps the most invasive media currently in our lives, TV. HDTV has been a federal mandate for over a decade, meaning that there has been on the books, a date to turn off analog signals. That date is in the near future, it is coming. Network television and their affiliates have turned on their digital signals, so if you have properly equipped HDTV you can view any number of the 32 version of CSI in glorious Hi-Definition.

Nobody asked for this, and while it is all very nice it isn't quite the same as going from black and white to color. So now people need to upgrade their TVs. Many don't want to, many don't think they need to. So how does technology and the marketplace work together to solve this problem? Plasma, LCD, DLP and other new technologies that make your current TV look like a Edsel. Not the picture quality mind you, that is what the digital aspect does and honestly a good old Tube (CRT) that has a HDTV tuner in it is still technically the best possible picture you can buy. But you don't feel as good about replacing your big bulky box with yet another bulky box. So the "flat panel" saved the day. For anyone that has ever moved a 36 inch tube TV the mere thought of HANGING a 50 inch TV on the wall is just to novel to ignore. "Do you get any HD channels?" Answer, "No but it's HANGING ON THE WALL!"

I assure you, ten years ago the FCC did not plan on hanging TVs to save their digital broadcast endeavors, because until flat panels came out, NO manufacturer was budging on making HDTVs. The reality is, some other serendipitous force was at play in regards to moving TV 3.0 forward. But, the question remains, has the overall experience changed? Have lives been altered? No, in reality at last count, there are available some 20 HDTV channels, there are still near 200 possible channels available through subscription through your local cable or satellite provider that are NOT digital.

So is the digital age going to completely rewrite the library and its profession. No, technology will be adapted to serve as a tool. Much as it has always been. I'm sure there were plenty of arguments flying around once the reference desk got a telephone. Dire predictions that people would stop coming to the library because they could now simply call. In reality, it is just another method of how we serve.

Libraries will do what they have always done, provide information, entertainment and community for a reasonable price. Will libraries need to carve out some space on "Second Life"? Yes, but much of what we do is in as much the "How To's" as it is anything else. And one thing that technology has never been very good at is teaching how to even use it. Our "How To's" will change but we will still have them.

Our roles may evolve into providing "Techno Literacy". Trouble shooting is going to be our bread and butter. Lets say in the near future we provide a reference service called "online voice chat." There is bound to be someone with a new Imac and a brand spanking new bluetooth headset. They try in vain to connect and use our service but can't. The librarian of the future had better know how to register a bluetooth device properly, and configure a router's ports and to enable UPnP.

With as many things, even refrigerators, becoming more web enabled we will not be running out of "How To's" anytime soon. Our opportunities to serve only expand.

So I'll take all the lofty or dire predictions with a grain of salt and set my sights a little lower regarding the evolution of our profession, at least until a Flying Car is parked in my driveway, as was predicted in Popular Mechanics.

Thoughts on Web 2.0

As I near the end of the Web 2.0 project I can't help but reflect on "what does this all mean"? Surely I have played with some neat tools and I currently have more online accounts than "Carter has Pills" but what did I learn? What will I use, what will change the landscape of the future of my career and the library profession?

All of it, some of it, none of it?

So in looking for an answer to this ongoing question, most of my "Learning 2.0" was spent "lurking". I have read most every ones blogs. I find my answers in the Devils Advocate. So I looked for meaning in everyone else questions, criticisms and praise.

Probably the universal phrase that sticks in my head the most is this, "cool, but what will I use it for?" or something along those lines. Did I find many of these points valid? Yes. Did I find many of these points somewhat jaded? Yes. Was this all for a MP3 player?

It wasn't all like that. I did read PLEANTY of praise for many of the lessons and the resources but that is preaching to the converted. Reading unbridled enthusiasm wasn't as interesting to me.

Reading the posts that questioned or criticised some of the lessons were what stuck with me the most. And I must confess I experienced some of these same questions myself. While my posts avoided any praise or criticism of the resources, I took the approach of simply "using the tools for my own entertainment." I was more interested in "incorporating" the tools into my blog than I was concerned with "evaluating" them. I had a few reasons for doing this in the beginning, but the biggest reason didn't really resonate with me until I started to read the other participants evaluations of the tools and the process in general.

Which brings me back to why the criticisms of the tools bothered me. Why they stuck in my head. Surely there really weren't that many of them. And a good quantitative analysis of everyones blogs would prove that the overall experience was positive. Was it just the side of me that likes to play Devil's Advocate? No.

It occured to me what the 2.0 Exercise was all about. We weren't evaluating databases for inclusion. We were charged with the mission to take a fresh new look at where the internet is today. To many younger users this may not seem like much, but to those of us who were using the web when Netscape was King we hadn't been faced with a good hard look at what has changed online. We forget those moments when "Ebay" and "Amazon" where all new. These things were as fresh an innovative as when MTV actually played Music Videos. But the web had seemed to grow stale on us. And in reality the web had evolved. Not dramatically. And certainly, these tools aren't quite moving from primordial oooze to walking erect in one step, but they are showing a direction, a shift the web is making.

Many of these tools are mearly sticky ideas that you can throw at a wall. Some will stick for a while and some will fall and land on the floor with a resonating thud similar to the crash of the tech stock boom. Many of these sites and tools appear to be more interested in becoming the next YouTube, hoping to cash in on that big Billion Dollar Deal from Google while hoping to sneak out just in time to avoid the copyright lawsuits.

But it is our job to find application when and where we can. We now have a Web 2.0 Toolbox to look through. You don't stare in the hardware store and think "boy I could use a 'impact driver'". But when the day comes when you strip a screw you now know that there is a tool for the job.

A Couple of LaLaLaLaLaLaLaFontaine's!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanksgiving at My House

I call it "Horizontal"

The "Library Thing" has given me my first "What About Bob" moment. You know the scene, Bill Murry is tied to the mast of a boat and with wind and sun in his face and he can't help but be overwhelmed and overjoyed by the fact that he is "SAILING!"

Well, "I"M CATALOGING!!!!!! I"M REALLY CATALOGING!!!!!!!!"

View my Library Catalog called "Horizontal"

http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=bmason1270

The Cult of Covey Strikes Again

Earlier in this Blog I tore the cover off of the Covey Cult and their goal of making every man, woman and child drink Ovaltine. Well recently on a once popular TV game show the levels of influence and endorsement have reached chilling depths.

Who at the highest levels have not been reached?

My Flickr Obligation

Here is my obligatory Flickr image.

I think this speaks to our consumer driven culture.

A Good Read

Well, now is the time of year when people are looking to get out of town for a few days and get away from the cold. Inevitably they find themselves coming to the Library, looking for "A Good Read". Something light and something fun. Good Beach Books like 'The Devil Wears Prada" or perhaps a thrilling Grisham novel.

But sadly, many quality books are left behind, never getting the opportunity to also, "go on vacation." No these books are considered "Classics" and are assigned as Homework. Sure, it has its perks, their words are the Canon of our culture, but once, just once they want break out of their shackles and prove once and for all that they too are just as fun as that "Best Selling Thriller".


So I decided to take a classic on my vacation a couple of weeks ago. I chose Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" as my companion and together we were gonna have fun.


Here are some pictures:


Here, Charles and I are taking in a Florida Panthers game. The Panthers beat the Washington Capitals 7-1 that night and Charles loved the game. He even danced to the "Ol Hockey Game" song.

On the right Charles playing Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz on his Nintendo Wii. He really loved the simplicity of the new motion sensitive controller. Especially the fact that he doesn't need two hands to play it either, which of course leaves the other hand available to hold a frosty beverage.

Charles meets a girl. She seems nice, Not exactly who I pictured Charles to go for, but to each his own.

Here Charles and Sidney are enjoying a Romantic Evening out together. I have to admit, that while I'm happy for Charles and all I'm starting to feel a little left out right now. I mean I know he has been homework for so long now that he really needs to losen up and enjoy life. Carpe Diem! and all that, but I'm a little resentful of getting the "Third Wheel" status.

WELL NOW THAT JUST TEARS IT! YOU TRY AND BE NICE TO A GUY! I just hope he can live with the consequences of his actions!

SPAM! SPAM! I DON"T LIKE SPAM!!!!!

With so much information, so many things to sell and so many media and communications outlets vying for our attention it is crucial, now more than ever before, to be able to discern quality, reliable information quickly and with ruthless judgement. To those entrepreneurs who fight for my time and hopefully my dollar I give my praise. The following are the Subject Lines of Spam that I have received that were so elegant, so enticing that I had to read more:

You Want It? We've Got It!
If I want it, I can't get it, If I can't get it, then I don't have it, If I don't have it then I don't need it, If I don't need it, then I've allready got it, If I've allready got it then I don't want it, If I don't want it, you can have it, If you can have it then I wouldn't want it,.....I suspect before opening this email that they are selling Old Spice.

Smoking Survey: $100 for your time
I don't smoke, but thank you.

Smokers & Non-Smokers, Earn 100 dollar for taking our short Tobacco Survey
All well, okay then.

RE: Get a Free PS3 system
Finally, they got back to me!!!!

Lose 12 pounds in 2 days
Reminds me of the old joke, "Hey, you know how to lose ten pounds of ugly fat?.................... Cut off your head!"

Get 10 Bonus Ringtones!
I use them all at the Library!!!!

Men are from Mars/Women are from Venus, My Blog on Technology

Cost of 3 Geostationary Satellites: $2.85 Billion Dollars

Cost of Garmin Nuvi 350 Pocket or Vehicle GPS Navigator with Intigrated MP3 Player and Photo Viewer: $442.00

Never having to get out of the car because my wife wants me to ask for directions when "I'm not really lost": Priceless.

For those of us who want to take the simple and make it way more complicated but cool, there is Technology for everything else ask a gas station attendent.