July 22nd, 2008 Brian Herzog
I noticed this interesting juxtaposition of the difference in the way the Democratic and Republican parties are approaching technology at campaign events.
The Arizona Star reported that the GOP wanted to prevent any attendees of a Tucson fundraiser from recording the event, out of fear of what might show up on YouTube. Bush himself asked the attendees to turn off all recording devices, and was quoted as saying
I don’t know a lot about technology…but I do know about YouTube.
On the other hand, an email from the Obama campaign goes in the exact opposite direction. The email mentioned an upcoming rally in Massachusetts on August 4th (Obama’s birthday, incidentally), and read in part:
…remember to bring your camera and snap a few photos! You can share them with us at eventsforobama@gmail.com. We’ll start posting photos soon!
Not that there is any one right way to approach technology, but I did find this contrast telling. The Bush Administration has a long reputation of trying to suppress and control information and keep things behind closed doors, whereas the Obama campaign has embraced modern technology and has put effort into learning it to use it to their advantage.
Politics is politics, but I am all for being encouraged to participate. Besides, I like misunderstanding or fear.
Tags: democratic, democrats, political, political parties, politics, republican, republicans, social networking, Technology, web 2.0, web2.0, youtube See Also
Posted under Random, Technology | No Comments »
July 8th, 2008 Brian Herzog
I had family visiting me for the July 4th weekend, and something they did that I never do was buy a Sunday paper.
I read the local weekly papers, but never buy a big Sunday paper. The travesty of this is that I don’t get to read the Sunday comics - so of course that was the first section I grabbed when I saw the paper sitting on the breakfast table.
I only bring this up because a comic strip I’ve never seen before was very relevant to library work. Check it out, because it’s funny, and true.
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Posted under Library, Random | No Comments »
July 5th, 2008 Brian Herzog
I really like answering reference questions using print resources. But I also get just as much satisfaction answering a question using a tool I read about on someone’s blog.
In honor of the Fourth of July this year, a patron was doing off-beat research into things that have happened on July 4ths past, to develop a trivia game for his cookout.
I knew of plenty of “in this day in history” type resources, but he had already found a lot of that kind of information. Happily, I remembered reading a library’s blog post mentioning a website listing #1 songs for a given day in history.
With just two clicks, we had a list of the Billboard #1 song for July 4th for the past 100+ years. The patron was very happy with this, and proceeded to our CD collection to get as many July 4th #1 songs as he could to use as music for his party. It’s rare to see a patron walk away giddy, but this was one of those times.
This website will also be handy with a annual cub scout project. To earn one of their merit badges, the scouts have to find out what happened on the day they were born. Not that knowing the #1 song will make them better scouts, but it does add a fun new dimension to the project.
Also, I would like to point out that in my birth year of 1974, the #1 song was “Rock the Boat” by The Hues Corporation. That’s a good song title for a holiday celebrating revolution and independence (even if that’s not what the song’s about).
Tags: #1, billboard, birthday, history, libraries, Library, music, number 1, number one, on this day, public, Reference Question, song See Also
Posted under Conferences, Library, Personal, Random, Reference Question, Resources | 1 Comment »
June 19th, 2008 Brian Herzog
This is worth repeating: Kate over on Adventures in Library Land highlighted an AbeBooks article that listed a few examples of things that were found in used books:
- Forty $1,000 bills
- Piece of bacon
- Credit cards
- Valuable baseball cards
- A diamond ring
I’m sure most libraries have a collection of odd things, too - just this week I found a Pokémon card (in a book about dealing with bullying). I tend to use receipts myself, or whatever random scrap of paper is handy at the time. Perhaps there should be a Where’s George?-like program for bookmarks, too.
Tags: book, bookmark, bookmarks, Books, found, mark, marker, markers, marks, Random, used books See Also
Posted under Library, Random | 5 Comments »
June 5th, 2008 Brian Herzog
If there’s the least glimmer of money to be made, I suppose anything is susceptible to being corrupted. I recently got a spam comment on one of my flickr pictures.
I’ve heard of IM spam before, and get spam comments here all the time, but this is the first time I’ve seen it on flickr.
I deleted the comment (preserved in screencapture form) and won’t link to the flickr user or his website. I wonder if this is automated or just someone commenting on any photo that mentioned “web designer” just to promote his business.
Oh well - just life on the internet, I suppose.
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