Hi. Spam is weird, we all know that. I got what I think is a truly bizarre piece of spam in the postmaster@ box at my library today.

Effective immediately, your local library hours are changing to 9-5 Monday-Saturday.
If you are not currently using the library, please disregard this message.
Please do not respond as responses to this mailbox are not checked.

Thanks!
--Research Team

Hi. I try to update my about page every year or so. I've just updated it. This week also saw two checks in the mail. One from Powells for $45 or so for my yearly affiliate fees and one from my publisher with this year's royalty check for $200 or so. Revolting Librarians Redux has now sold over 1000 copies which makes me sort of happy.

Hi. Aaron's library and my library are now friends on Flickr. In other tech news, I have to apologize for not paying much attention to the newish podcasting craze sweeping the blogosphere out here, though I hear that Lessig has finally gotten on the bandwagon. In short, the reason I like tech tools like RSS and del.icio.us and feedster is that they allow me to take in news fast and scan-like, faster even than it takes to write it down. When I want to interact with information slowly, I'll read a book. I know many people listen to the radio recreationally and so podcasting probably works for them. For me, taking in information in a 1 minute=1 minute ratio actually slows me down. I don't mean to sound all "oh listen to me, I'm so busy" because I'm not. I have a lot of leisure time. I don't have information overload. I enjoy the amount of media I interact with. However, I usually listen to the radio, or new music, or silence when I'm working. My multitasking does not extend to the audible realm. I'm looking forward to reading what others have to write about podcasting.

Hi. I typed "I love the library" into Google to find something nice for you all for Valentine's Day and I found an entry from my own site as the number five result. My boyfriend got a valentine made up of words I had cut out of old catalog cards, lucky guy.

Hi. I've seen two small libraries that were not in libraries lately. One was in Bryant Park Reading Room originally called the "Open Air Library", outside of the main NYPL building. In bad weather it is enclosed in a plastic tent. It's a book and newspaper collection that was intended originally during the Depression Era to be accessible to everyone. No money, no address, no problem. It existed in the 30's and 40's [and closed once the wartime job surge put a lot of people back to work] and is re-opening this year. The second was at my local video store. They have a few shelves of books that relate somehow to the movies that they carry like the entire Lemony Snicket series, or the Simpsons episode guide. All the books can be checked out with your movies, for free.

Hi. I've returned from the scenic wonderfulness of New York City only to hit an all-day snowstorm here. I was pleasantly suprised that at least two of the films I got to review for the Media That Matters film festival mentioned libraries! If you're a librarian, you might be interested in the ways you can use Media Rights' films and videos as a resource for your library.

Hi. I'm heading to New York City tomorrow for a five day working vacation. Normally at this point I'd say "If you want to have a cup of coffee, IM me!" but my time looks like it's pretty well spoken for this time around.

Hi. The cost of health insurance at my library has gone up by double-digit percentages for the past two years. My pay has increased slightly, but nowhere near this much. As a result, I am now taking home less money this year than I was last year, even though I have one more year of experience. The taxpayers are paying the same amount, yet more of it is going to my insurers than to me. This is not sustainable. What do you think will happen?

Hi. I'm messing with my feeds today and starting to move more towards using the XML version of the feed instead of the RDF. In any case, Bloglines has been reporting some versions of this feed [they have several] as unreachable. However, this feed is very much alive, poke around til you find another one.

Hi. The reason I was curious about the things you can do without your gadgets is because my laptop broke while I was at ALA. I have a back-up laptop, but I learned in a hurry which things I do are laptop-specific. I had only an old copy of my postal-address book on my iPod, my "what I've read" RSS feed list was out of wack [I use Bloglines for back-up but NetNewsWire for regular reading], my IM client was ugly and my control key was in the wrong place. Otherwise, mostly not horrible which was good news. I try to have a set of tools that will work in a long power failure in addition to all the lovely blinky beepy widgetry that fills my office.

Hi, I'm back and testing the new server I'm on. After all that wifi whining and winning, my laptop's new logic board dropped dead on me Tuesday afternoon, so sorry no more local posting. I'll do some summarizing of Council activities once I'm home from work.

Hi. I'm finalizing my schedule for ALA and it's online here. I'll be doing a little presentation at the Radical Reference Skill-Sharing workshops which I think is going to be a nifty little worthwhile program. If you're interested in Radical Reference, there's a get together on Saturday night during the conference

Hi. Tom Robbins once dedicated a book "to all those whose letters I haven't answered" and I am feeling the same way around here. I've been away for a few days doing holiday stuff with family and friends. I've been slackerly about posting some of the great links I've been getting from you all. I've been reading fewer of my feeds because my laptop is in the shop and I much prefer NetNewsWire to Feedster or Bloglines for my RSS fix. I'm focusing on getting my schedule straight for the upcoming ALA conference and getting some presentations together for some upcoming talks. I was so nervous about the talk I gave this month to the new librarians that I really prepared the heck out of the talk I gave, and I think the effort paid off well. Anyone who is going to be in Boston for ALA or who reads this and is just in Boston anyhow, please drop me a line.

Hi and Happy Solstice. The days just start getting longer, starting now. I've been spending some time mulling over the various responses to the Google/Libraries news from last week, including Karen's reprinting of Mark Rosenzweig's comments with some of her own, Rory, and Chuck. While I don't have a manifesto-worthy response of my own, I just want to point out that most of the issues that are wrapped up in this one event -- issues like privacy, commercialization of information, ownership of information, copyright and the future of libraries -- have already been playing themselves out, in smaller ways, in libraries everywhere. The fact that one publicly-traded company has been able to use their vast resources to leverage co-operation with prestigious libraries just forces us to examine a lot of these issues together, and all at once. Learn why this issue matters, and then tell your collegagues and friends.

Hi. I'm back at my house finally. I'll be saving the big reunion with my boyfriend until he gets back from my place up North which has done some freezing during my absence. Last night I slept for 14 hours which I think was the first time I have ever done that without being sick, possibly ever. A lot has happened while I was away: blog ethics discussions, a neat blogging at ALA project [I'll be doing my same old thing here, fyi, I think Steven has the project well-covered and there was talk of a "be nice" agreement that wasn't my style], and my pals Dan and Jeremy are sending around a draft of a paper they're working on called Service Autodiscovery for Rapid Information Movement [check it out, I swear it's relevant]. I've been doing almost no blog reading or feed-checking in two weeks, so I'll be getting up to speed slowly over the next few days.

update: apparently I literally interpreted what was supposed to be a figurative [and off the record] statement by Steven, damned IM and its lack of shaded nuance. The so-called "be nice" waiver that he mentioned people would have to sign was more about preventing libel and less about content restrictions and doesn't exist yet in any case. My main interest at this point is working on an aggregator that will collate all the posts from any and all ALA attendees or interested parties who are blogging at the event or from home, sort of like how the DNC blog worked. IM or email me if you want to chat more about any of this.

Hi. Some pictures of my trip -- including a few of the local libraries -- are online if you want to take a look. No real updates until I get back stateside this weekend.

Hi. Boy is it nice here. The talk I gave this morning is available online now: Progressive Librarianship & the New Librarians: the personal [and professional] is political. Hope you enjoy it; it got a pretty good reception here. Special thanks to the library who sponsored me, The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Library, and for all the librarians who helped me plan my trip and made me feel very very welcome.

Hi. I leave for two weeks in Australia tomorrow morning. I'm just polishing my talk on The New Librarians that I'll be giving on Saturday morning, hopefully in a well-rested state. While I'm gone, do you think you could figure out how to get Google desktop to index your library catalog? Thanks.

Hi. The hardest thing about having a whole life and a whole blog is when you have to make choices between one and the other. I'm away this weekend at a wedding, I'll be back for a few days and then I'm off to Australia with indeterminate access for two weeks. Of course, these notices were more important in pre-RSS days to keep you from clicking through to my page, getting annoyed that I never updated, and then never coming back. In any case, there is always more to say and I think heading into what we affectionately call the "big blue room" for a few days can't hurt, can it?

Hi. I updated my Five Technically Legal Signs page with the addition of a reworking of one of the signs submitted to me by a graphic designer and some small formatting changes and an explicit Creative Commons License.

Hi. Sorry to be scarce, I've been reading a lot and working a lot. Today I taught some senior citizens how to use a word processor [hint: typewriter metaphors work well] and tried to find ways to do outreach to the convent. I'm also finalizing my plans for the Australia talk and moonlighting at one or two other things, including one fun library web site Movable Type upgrade/design assist.

I wanted to point out an interesting collaborative information gathering exercise that I recently witnessed in the online world. The question "Why can't I find photos of Abu Ghraib torture using Google Images?" When I ran into the issue, it had shown up on the group weblog MetaFilter where many interesting pieces of information came out fairly quickly

• try AltaVista, it works better for this
• Yahoo no longer licenses Google search results
• some other ways to search if you want to find those images
• making and testing hypotheses about how often Google Images updates its archive
• an actual email from someone at Google explaining the problem
• feedback from someone using the Google Search Appliance explaining what they found
• links to a larger Slashdot discussion
  
• a Google Answers question asking the same question of their "experts"

Hi. Michael McGrorty and I and Eli sat around talking politics in Los Angeles this past weekend. While I think the current administration will be marginally worse for libraries [and much worse for people] than the alternative, let's just rememebr that all John Kerry said about libraries in his big suck-up-to-everyone speech at the DNC was about putting one on a chip. Don't get me wrong, I feel bad for everyone who feels bad this week, but let's not act like the Great White Hope just walked out the door on us. The decline of libraries and funding for libraries in the US didn't start with Bush and while I suspect it won't end with Bush, I'd argue that it wouldn't have ended with Kerry either. Americans are changing their mind about how they feel about the public good, about sharing, and about other people in general. This election didn't cement that, it reflects that. So does the decline of libraries. Let's get started now, shall we, fixing it?

Hi. Are any librarians who are responsible for staffing public access computing facilities feeling some sympathy today with poll workers stuck with malfunctioning voting machines, lack of backup procedures, insufficient provisional ballots and grumpy support staffers and voters? Remind me what problem were these machines supposed to fix again, and at what cost?

Hi. I'm a little tired and have been taking bad notes, though I did see the Power of the Napkin Sketch work wonders this evening. Both Eli and Fred have some good commons-meeting-oriented notes on their sites. There may also be some notes on Peter Levine's site. There likely won't be any wrap-ups here because 1) Fred and Eli did such a good job I see no reason to be redundant 2) my big picture thinking about the whole commons issue sums up a lot of what people were talking about, unhelpfully, as "details" 3) I'm already halfway to Australia in my mind, even though I'm not going for a few weeks now.

Hi. I had a great time at the Dartmouth conference which has to go down in history as one of the best-run conferences I've been to. People stuck to time limits, were generally interesting and engaging, had stories to tell, kept to the topic and I saw a lot of informal talking and chitchatting during the two hour long lunch and poster session. I got to meet a contributor to Revolting Librarians Redux, meet some other new folks, talk to some folks I knew and learn a few things. I'm on my way to Cerritos California for the Workshop on the Information Commons that, alas, has no web site, but you can read the bibliography that we got [in print and online]. So, posting will be sparse and I'll likely not post much in any big way until after the election so I figured I'd leave you with one link and one quote that came over the Council listserv this week. The link is to Michael McGrorty's presidential poll results from his admittedly unscientific polling, plus his always insightful commentary. Lastly, this from Boston Public Library president and fellow Councilor Bernie Margolis

Hi. I received a very nice and sincere apology from the bad-review lady, in case anyone is wondering, and I'm sorry she decided to take her blog down, a move which I neither suggested nor desire. I wrote her back saying that while I admire people who speak their mind, in a small community like ours sometimes discretion is the better part of writing in a public forum. And, as someone who has gotten some serious hell for shooting my mouth off online, I certainly sympathize. I'm off to the Vermont Bloggercon, I'll let you know how it goes.

Hi. Welcome Seven Days readers! I'm taking my folks on some last-gasp foliage tours this weekend so don't expect to hear much from me for a few days.

Hi. I appear to be allergic to leaves, or something else about this wonderful weather. I've been home sick for a day or so -- sick like no-typing sick -- but I'm on the mend and have managed to toss up a few pictures from the Fall Tour of Libraries that Andrea and Corey and I went on this weekend.

Hi. I was invited to go to the ALA's Office for Information Technology Policy's Workshop on Libraries and the Information Commons today. It's in Cerritos CA at the end of the month and I'm going to try to make it. If anyone else is going or has some pointers for Info-Commons type stuff to read in the meantime, please let me know about it. I'll be starting with the Washington Office's Issues Page first of all.

Hi. I'm off for a long weekend. If anyone is interested in checking out the Fall Tour of Libraries next weekend, seeing Bernie Sanders grousing about the USA PATRIOT Act in the evening, and hanging out with me and bookmarklet co-conspirator Andrea, drop me a line.

Hi. I just wanted to toot my own horn briefly and talk about two things happening at my library. One of them is a fines reduction program that we are running with the local food shelf. They are having a Rock and Roll for Hunger food drive with some bands and a voter registration drive next weekend. We are one of the collection sites for food and, this is the good part, offer people twenty cents off of their fines for each non-perishable food donation they bring in, up to two bucks. Slick huh? The next project isn't mine but involves our library. The Department of Libraries Regional Co-ordinator has been trying to get the libraries in our region to work together more. To that end, she created the Rutland County Fall Tour of Libraries over two consecutive high-tourist weekends here in the Land of Amazing Fall Colors. The tour highlights the history of the library buildings, is self-guided, and offers refreshments at some stops. I'm out of town this weekend but may try to do it next weekend. It's the sort of thing I'd be doing anyhow, really.

Hi. I'm working on a short light-hearted article about OPAC improvement. I've set up a wiki for collective brainstorming. If you've got ideas for what you'd like to see in your OPAC [short and sweet please] email or IM me and I'll let you in on the wiki. Meanwhile, ironically, I'm in the process of gutting my librarian.net inbox which had reached embarassing proportions lately. I can always tell when I've been out of town because there's a spate of unanswered messages in those date ranges. If you sent me an email before August and you haven't heard back from me, you might want to ping me again. To those who requested postcards, I've found a novel way to fulfill your request which should be in the mail this week.

Hi. I gave my talk on "emerging technologies" to the Librarians of the Upper Valley [LUV] in Newport New Hampshire today and it went well. You can read my presentation here. You'll notice that emerging tech isn't really the same here as it might be in your locale. I was pleasantly surprised to see that all of the librarians I spoke with used email, and many of them had what I would consider to be a healthy skepticism for the licensing and marketing of ebooks and other tech initiatives even though I would consider them as a group "tech-friendly."

Hi. An update on my ALA status for anyone who is curious. I was invited to serve on the Membership Committee of ALA which sounded good to me. I found out that I had been appointed to this committee when I found myself subscribed to the email list without my knowledge or permission. Judging by the responses from other people who got signed on -- along the lines of "why am I on this list?" -- I wasn't the only one who found this an odd tactic. Upon further investigation, I discovered that I was on the committee as a "virtual member" or an e-member. This is usually a position reserved for people who can't make conferences where a lot of the committee work occurs. E-members can't vote. Since I do make conferences and in fact have to make conferences, I was curious as to why I had been assigned a non-voting position on the committee [though I have my suspicions, ALA is rarely as nefarious as I suspect they are being]. I asked around a bit and a few people mentioned that I was a virtual member because I'm good with computers and technology, which was an interesting non-answer but I think translated into "nobody knows." After some discussion with other councilors, I decided to resign from that committee [too late to keep my name from being printed in the handbook as a member] and took a position with the Committee on Membership Meetings, a newish committee instead. Sorry there are no links to what I am talking about, I can't bear to use the ALA web site search engine one more time.

Hi. The Wired article link has been doing some travelling and I am getting some very odd email in my inbox. My favorite email from today would have to be the one that said "The idea that there is a coterie of guerilla librarians running around this world demanding freedoms, and liberties too often taken for granted is enough to make me smile."

Hi. I didn't link the photos from my trip yet. There are a lot of nature shots but some good ones of the Haskell Library, the one that straddles the US-Canada border. You can see them here.

Hi. Permalinking is now a bit more functional and obvious. Let me know if anything isn't working like it should. I've added a few more dates to my sidebar calendar. I'm sending my registration today for the Dartmouth conference in October. I've also been invited to somehow give a talk at a New Librarians Symposium in Adelaide Australia in December. This will probably take place via some sort of teleconference, but maybe, just maybe, I can get some funding and go. If anyone has any creative ideas on how to raise funds for a plane ticket to Australia, please let me know.

Hi. In the interests of screen real estate, I've made the archives for month and category into pulldown menus and removed the counts from the category lists. If this breaks on any of your browsers, please let me know. The actual archival pages will still have the old lengthy list format.

Hi. I just got back from my trip and boy did I see some lovely libraries. The ones I went into included the Haskell Free Library in Derby Line [free WiFi, even when the library is closed] which had a wonderful librarian with one of those ALA buttons who gave us a free tour of the opera house as she went through to turn off the lights. Also saw the Alice Ward Library in Canaan which has unusual architecture and historical society exhibits upstairs. I have some pictures, they'll be online sometime soon. In the meantime, check out this little birthday web page that my Mom made me about the Monhegan Library on Monhegan Library in Maine.

Hi. At long last the "Ask A Librarian" issue of The Reference Librarian that I edited has been published and is getting some okay reviews. Since the issue was put to bed in the middle of last year, it's not really discussing cutting edge technologies, but since these things catch on in fits and starts perhaps it will teach people a thing or two.

Hi. Small change. If I'm thanking a source that I think maybe everyone doesn't already know, I'll try to include a link. So, today's link to the Web4Lib post, is from the Crafty Librarian blog, part of one of the best looking little web sites out there.

Hi. I'm back and exhausted. I hope you had an okay time reading my posts from the DNC and don't think I totally embarassed librarians everyplace. I got some nice feedback, some good media exposure for me and some of the political issues libraries have been dealing with, asked Howard Dean how to advance rural technology initiatives, and met some wonderful fellow bloggers. Please check out some of the posts and pictures if you haven't already. I'll be ramping up here quite slowly, since tomorrow is the all-day street fair in Rutland and guess who's signing people up for library cards?

Hi. I'm off to Boston for five days today. Updates here will be sparse after today. Updates on the DNC blog should be much more frequent.

Hi. If you are looking for the DNC part of this blog, I've put it on another page.
You can get to it here: http://librarian.net/dnc.
RSS feed is here http://librarian.net/dnc/index.xml.
Please update your links, thank you. I leave for Boston on Sunday morning.

Hi. Just a pointer, the DNC blog is over here, but I do have a library related anecdote to tell about the DNC that is really about librarians. The DNC is in the Fleet Center. They tell us that the Fleet Center will have wireless. While I am sure they have the best wireless intentions, all good librarians have back-up plans. My plan was to find the nearest BPL branch which has free wireless for people with BPL library cards, of which I am one. I go to BPL.org, note their spiffy MassAnswers logo and decide to communicate my favorite [and cheapest] way, online.

Please note the text, once you click through, says "Once you submit a question at the right side of this screen, it will be picked up by a Massachusetts Librarian from one of the MassAnswers participating libraries. If all are busy, or if it is off-hours for Massachusetts, a librarian from one of our nationwide cooperating libraries will pick up." I figured any librarian in the BPL system could answer my question quickly. My question was "Which is the nearest BPL branch to the Fleet Center?" My librarian was in Maryland. I wonder how often you actually get a librarian from Boston, or even Massachusetts? I had to make two connection attempts to stay connected. On my second connection, I was typing but the nice woman at 24/7ref couldn't, for some reason, read what I wrote. We swapped a lot of messages that went like this

her: Here is the page which lists BPLs branches. If you click the link closest to Fleet Center you will see their contact information. Your best be is to contact them directly to ask about wireless access. Does that resolve your question?
me: No. I don't know where the Fleet Center is. Can you help me?
her: It appears that you may have disconnected.
me: I'm right here!

etc etc. This took up 20 minutes of my lunch break and at the end, I still had no idea what the answer was. I called the BPL main reference line and the woman who picked up the phone said "Oh, that's the West End Branch, do you need their number?" Total time, less than a minute, plus no disconnects. I generally try not to take up a librarian's time when I'm capable of looking up the answer in an equivalent amount of time myself. However, this latest exercise has taught me a thing or two about knowing things versus knowing how to find them.

Hi. I've started a DNC blog that is different from this one because I'm sure not all my readers care about the DNC. It's linked over on the left with its own RSS feeds and slightly different look and function. If something particularly librarianish happens there, I'll cross post.

Hi. I hear that there are six "lady bloggers" at the DNC but like much else at this point, it's just so much hearsay. I plan to use this opportunity to, among other things, answer "reference" questions about the whole event in case anyone is interested. I'm overwhelmed even thinking about it, so back to the daily parade of links.

Hi. Just so you don't read it anywhere else first. It seems that I may have "blogger press credentials" for the Democratic National Convention in Boston in a few weeks. This is exciting but quite unexpected and I still don't have the piece of paper in my hand that says "You're in!"

Here's how it happened. Back in May I read over at Eclectic Librarian that bloggers were able to get press passes for the DNC. The Boston Globe - normally an okay source for good information - stated that "This summer, [the DNC will] grant some of their 15,000 coveted credentials to blogs, the online diaries that link to news reports, post comments from readers, and critique the political process with unrestrained abandon." Somehow I got it in my head that a whole lot of bloggers would be going, and despite the fact that I'm not reallly in the thick of blogger goings on, I decided to try my luck at getting credentials. I tend to be a lucky sort with this type of thing.

On this past Monday, I got a letter saying "Thanks but no thanks." turning down my application, which I didn't find too surprising. On Thursday, I got a call from someone at DNCC saying "Call me back," which I did. After a bit of phone tag, I got Francesca on the phone who told me they were giving me credentials, to ignore the previous letter, and to look for a letter this week explaining it all. Later in the day I heard that there had been a bit of a dust-up earlier in the week when the credentialling bloggers started announcing themselves and it became clear they were mostly [all? I have no idea] men. So, I figure I got in on an affirmative action plan, though really I have no idea. Maybe I'll get a letter on Monday, perhaps I won't.

In the meantime, I'm boning up on the convention process, adding blog feeds like crazy to my RSS reader, and writing lists of Democrats that I would like to have a word with, if given the chance [Zoe Lofgren for example]. My boyfriend Greg who is a local intern for Senator Jeffords is schooling me on what happens at conventions, and I'm debating if I can get through it all without a cell phone, blackberry device, or heels. I may set up a separate page for DNC news, I may not. And, just in case you're curious, I am not a Democrat, registered or otherwise.

Hi. Word on the street is that Mr. Marker is no longer employed by Flory & Associates. Yesterday's story may be a non-issue.

Hi. The big weekend BBQ went well with not one but two librarian guests in addition to all the other folks that showed up. I hear that 2300 people showed up to see Farenheit 9/11 at ALA last weekend, raising some serious cash for ALA-APA. In my life, I am thinking about applying for another part time job, managing a small town library for ten hours a week. Any idea what that might pay? I can't wait to find out.

Hi. Apparently, due to a screw up by somebody, the very clever "talk" I was to give at ALA didn't happen. A computer was ordered for the program and didn't arrive. Suckamo. I'll save the talk for later and not-so-secretly add this item to the "Reasons Not to Renew Membership After Council Term Expires" list. Hope the rest of you had a lovely time.

Hi. I'm heading to the wedding this weekend instead of ALA and, as with every conference I miss, it seems like this one will be the conference to end all conferences. Next weekend I'll be hosting an informal drop-in all-weekend BBQ up at my house in Central Vermont. Anyone who is anyplace nearby and would like to stop in and say hello, please consider yourself warmly invited.

Hi. Happy Solstice. Today I took a book-truckload of books over to the local senior residential center as part of a monthly Bookshelf program I've been trying to get started. 20-30 books, mostly large print, some books with normal type but lots of pictures [art books, gardening books], delivered monthly on a regular schedule. Books on tape coming soon and we take request. I generally get along pretty well with older people, but it was particularly gratifying to have some smiling older woman come right up to me and say "Hey this is a really neat idea, thanks for doing this." and then walk off with a book of Krazy Kat comics or a Learn To Use Your Computer book.

Hi. This just in, for those of you going to ALA. Fahrenheit 9/11 will be shown at ALA in the Auditorium at the Convention Center, Sunday night, June 27, at 10 pm, two days after it opens nationwide. There will be a $10 donation that will go to ALA's efforts in the areas of the First Amendment, Intellectual Freedom, and the struggle against the USA PATRIOT Act.

Hi. I just finished an article for Clamor Magazine about librarian activism and the PATRIOT Act which should be appearing in a few months. I have a few gmail accounts leftover -- if anyone in the library community feels they "need" one -- and I know at least one other librarian that does as well. AIM me at iamthebestartist today and I'll hand them out as long as I have any left to give.

Hi. Lots going on here in library-land. I made a GLBT display for the front entryway that has gone seemingly unnoticed [which is good in my community] but the books are disappearing. Let me know if you'd like a copy of my Lambda Awards flyer. Also saw my first patron looking at really raunchy porn yesterday. We have a "be cool" policy which means you're free to look at pretty much whatever you want, but if other patrons complain, we may ask you to work towards wrapping it up. I find that while I'm pretty anti-filtering, and even pro-porn, I was a little embarassed sitting near this guy while at the reference desk and seeing people see what he was looking at, look at me to see if I saw, see that I saw, and then wait for the inevitable beatdown they expected me to give the patron, a beatdown that never came. If they had bothered to talk to me about it, we could have had a discussion about our Internet use policies and freedom to read etc. Instead, at least once, I felt like I got that look that said "We all know what you're supposed to do now, right?" and that assumption, the assumption that we all think the same way, and all have the same standards of morality and the same values, is one that I'd like to work my way towards overcoming, for me and my patrons, even if it means looking at raunchy porn while I work

Hi. I decided not to go to ALA in Orlando today. I'm conflicted about this, but after looking at my workload at work and at home, talking to some more friends, and planning out all the travel, it just seemed like a lot of travel, air-time and couch-surfing in FLA for two Council meetings and one short post-conference talk. I changed my flights and now I'm only going to a wedding that weekend in Chicago. Contributing factors to this decision were:

1. lack of funding from work - with the exception of four hours professional leave and a gracious shifting of hours enabling me to attend at all this was going to be all on my own dime and it wasn't going to be cheap.
2. lack of low-cost accomodations in Orlando - I had two roomshares and was seeking one more but unlike Toronto there are fewer hostels and other cheapie places a public transpo ride away. Schlepping your laptop-laden backpack around through 90 percent humidity is hell on earth.
3. airline vagaries - because of flight schedules I was going to get to Orlando Monday night and have to leave Thursday afternoon which means I missed most of the stuff I wanted to attend in order to attend 2 out of 3 of the things I should attend.
4. responsibility issues - it was becoming clear to me that going through insane hassles to get to Council meetings was not what "You should go to all Council meetings" strictly means. People expect other people to be reasonable, I'm just unreasonable with myself sometimes.

So, since I'm an At-Large Councilor to at least some of you, I wanted to explain and somewhat apologize. All friends have been put on notice that there are to be no more weddings during my very important meetings. I will not only be in Boston during Midwinter, I live a few hours north of there, so please send all travel inquiries my way, or plan a side trip to my house in Vermont afterwards.

Hi. I've been updating my links page, removing links about books, adding links about blogs. It's still far from comprehensive [maybe I can get my RSS feed linked in there too] but it's neat to see people getting their own domains over time, and amazing to see old time blog-style sites like What's Gnu still at it.

Hi. I'm messing with spam filters this week. In order to staunch the tide of junk email to bogus librarian.net addresses, I'll only be accepting mail via the mailto form, or email at the domain-name-that-is-the-same-as-my-first name. Any mail going to cutsienamehere@librarian.net will go to /dev/null. I'm a bit sad, I liked the cutsienamehere game but until I get tougher spam filters for this account, I'll be playing it safe.

Hi. Changed a few little things here. If it breaks your browser or RSS reader for some reason, please let me know. I've been invited to speak at a Health Sciences Library Association meeting in December on a topic along the lines of the talk I gave a few weeks back. Would still love to hear any stories of librarians that have had to deal with HIPAA for any reason.

Hi. It's taken me a while to get back on track after travelling. I got some good feedback on my talk from various ALA members and others and am hoping to use it even more in the future. I have also been invited to give a talk on "Emerging Technologies" for a group called Librarians of the Upper Valley [aka LUV] which is the area I live in. I am planning to talk about "technologies" such as voice mail, email, and good signage in addition to more nouvelle tech such as IM, blogs and "ask a librarian" web site features.

Hi. I'm back at work and doing a bunch of things: preparing for doing some IM reference here [a lot of staff education], getting a GLBT display ready for next month, and finding more ways to get teens into the library, or get the library to teens. Anyone has useful advice, please send it my way.

Hi. I'm at a wireless cafe down the street from the MLA Conference. The talk went really well [I thought] and you can read my hyperlinked notes online here.

Hi. Busy week around here as I prepare to drive down to DC. I am currently waging a war against the people at librarymarketinglist.com who I can confirm are selling my email address to spammers. I just wrote them to ask how I could go about removing my email from their list, we'll see how far I can get.

Hi. I'm completely exhausted. We helped the Gilbert Hart Library in Wallingford reshelve their entire non-fiction section into their new addition. Five of us shelved a few thousand books -- only approximately in order, shelf reading comes next -- in four hours. Then our library director took us out for ice cream at the local filling station.

Hi. I'm spending the entire morning reading about HIPAA. Part of the talk I'm giving at MLA will be about this legislation and the affect it has on medical librarians. The rest is on the USA PATRIOT Act and CIPA. HIPAA is my weakest area so I'm reading up. If any health or medical librarians would like to send me words of wisdom about their personal dealings with HIPAA, I'd really appreciate it.

Hi. There's a part-time job at a nearby library here in Vermont. It's 14 hours a week with pay "depending on experience" at a library that is open 17 hours a week. I'm going to try applying for it anyhow. What are the chances that the hourly pay is in the double-digits? Incidentally, someone asked if I ever have librarian.net t-shirts using that little favicon lady that some of you may have seen. The answer is that I might. Stay tuned.

Hi. Yesterday was Greg's birthday. It was also the day the Movable Type version of this blog hit 500 posts. I am sure when I am someday holed up with a broken leg, I will go backwards and post-process all the pre-2003 content so it's searchable and keyworded and whatnot. For now, I'm just elated that it all works.

Hi. I taught 12 seniors how to use email yesterday. Then I taught a searching class on our Heritage Quest database. Showed a patron what an ISBN was and how it works. Sent out 20 thank-you letters to people who signed up for library cards last week. Got an IM handle for the library [add rutlandfree to your buddy list]. Learned how to change the colors on our ugly OPAC. Friday I'm on the reference desk all day. It's been a good week to be a librarian.

Hi. Today is a link-dump day because I've been getting so much good stuff in email I've been filing it, waiting for a free day. Today is that day. Less talking, more blogging. Oh yeah, and I have a Creative Commons license on this site now. Still fine-tuning it, but the upshot is: use what you want for non-commercial use with proper attribution and a similar license attached to what you make, and it's fine by me.

Hi. I used up all my hours at work early in the week so I have to stay home and do nice National Library Week things from home, like read! I reorganized my one real reading bookshelf today. See if you can see what classification scheme I used.

Hi. I'd love to chat but I have to be at the library early. I'm working with the kids from the alternative high school to teach them to use the online catalog. They'll be getting credit for filling out a worksheet about online searching. Then I go sign people up for library cards at the mall. One of the high points about the outreach session from yesterday was getting to meet some of Vermont's bookmobile drivers [and some of their bookmobiles]. Neat programs, run on shoestrings [one that quoted prices run their entire 13-town route on $40K a year including salaries] doing all sorts of wonderful things. I'll do a more thorough write-up once this damned holiday week is over.

Hi. Anyone who has not received some sort of ballot or ballot reminder from ALA and was expecting one, feel free to email me via the contact form and we can still get you an electronic ballot today or tomorrow.

Hi. Today officially kicks off National Library Week. I don't know about you, but where I live libraries are closed on Sundays, as are most liquor stores and about 90% of everything else that isn't church. I had a crazy weekend in a good way. Gave two talks [or one talk twice] met some excellent librarians and library students and went to BloggerCon. Jessica has a few good notes. I had a good time there & learned some things, but felt overwhlemed trying to have a "conversation" with 30-40 people in the room, even though I fend for myself okay in such situations. More fun was lunch with some folks afterwards where we rehashed and debriefed about how we felt about the session, and blogs in general. Most fun was meeting all the excited happy Simmons students, friends, professors and others who came up and said hi before and after my talks. It's great to see people so enthusiastic about the profession, and good to have some good things to say to them.

Hi. Lord help me, I'm posting from Bloggercon. They are singing the Star Spangled Banner with Joey Villa on accordian. Just FYI, the talk last night went really pretty well. Notes are here. Don't read them if you're planning to see me this evening.

Hi. Please pay your taxes so the government can continue to fund public libraries, at least a little bit. My blogging class at PALINET was cancelled for May which is a bit of a disappointment. I think I was a bit naive going into it. PALINET solicited me to teach the class, but perhaps they were also expecting me to aggressively promote it as well. In any case, people didn't register, the class will not be taught, I have a free weekend, plus one blogging/RSS class all ready to teach if anyone is looking for one. Please say hello if you see me at BloggerCon.

Hi. I'm working on finishing up my talk for the Simmons folks, so I've been a little scarce around here. This will probably continue for the remainder of the week. A few little notes. I have a Gmail account. This means I get advertised to even more than in the rest of my daily life. You can see what I mean here. The only messages in my inbox are about cheese, see my ads? Yes I'm concerned about privacy, having read the privacy policy, program policy and the terms of use. I'll report more when I've had it for more than half a day. In the meantime, read Mark Pilgrim's report on how accessible Gmail is [not very], and send your cheese-related email to jessamyn at gmail dot com. Here's an interesting quote from the World Privacy Forum's open letter to Google [pdf]

Hi. I've been down with the crud this week, sorry for the absence. I've also been preparing a few talks coming up [to say nothing of the "how to use the library databases/email" classes I teach] so any available brainpower I have had has been going to that.

Hi. In gearing up for National Library Week I have been courting the community relations folks at both Wal-Mart and the mall to see if we can put up tables for our library card sign up campaign. You can tell how much I like my job if I'm making nice with Wal-Mart for it.

Hi -- I went crazy with RSSing this weekend and set up Feedster feeds for my booklist and for my personal journal/blog thing, in case you're interested.

Hi. Last month at the library I taught an email class and 25 people showed up. This month my email class netted three people, two of whom had been at the last class. The vagaries of the library world still mystify me some days.

Hi. Back from New York. I learned a lot of neat stuff at Columbia and I really really hope that they will make the talks available online at the same time as I really really doubt they will do so. Crossing fingers...

Hi. I'm staying someplace in what I think is the "upper west side" here. I went to a meeting of the Progressive Librarians Guild last night which was really fun. Met some cool library students and librarians and said hello to some old friends. If you're interested in progressive issues and you'd like to know more librarians, look these folks up, especially if you are in the NYC area. A lot of good thinking going on there, dues are cheap and you don't have to be a member of ALA. [site hosted on Libr.org which as a new store up and running]. I got a Brooklyn Public Library card which may allow me to hassle smartie BPL librarians with "ask a librarian" questions in the afternoon hours.

Hi. My talk went well and is available in the very-slimmed-down slide format here. It was really exciting to get to hang out with a bunch of super-smart librarians who mostly "get" technology and hear what they had to say and what they were working on. I was the only public librarian in the room which I found quite amusing. People seemed to like my talk. The keynote by LoC librarian [and former private investigator?] Thomas Mann was unforgettable and I'll try to sum it up in some notes later. No WiFi at Columbia, though there is WiFi through the walls of my friends' Brooklyn apartment. Updates spotty for a few days.

Hi. With great power sometimes comes great responsibility. This was in my inbox today. "Dear ALA councilor-at-large, please tell the person in charge of designing these to stop looking at these. It's derivative and therefore embarassing." In other words, we're approaching National Library Week, aka the first anniversary of the ALA website!

Hi. I just got back from Massachusetts where I helped my sister clean out her office [what else are librarian sisters for?] and wished my Mom a happy birthday and taught her how to use RSS to read the Boston Globe. If you're in Manhattan this Friday consider poking your head in to the Columbia symposium. According to the symposium notes "We are extending invitations to librarians from Brown University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Rutgers University, and Yale University." That's eleven invites, but there's twelve people on the program.... hmm. Oh yeah, the other person is me!

Hi. The interview that I did with Jonathan Crowhurst in Free Pint about the USA PATRIOT Act and the war on terror is up today.

Hi. I am working on my ten minute panel presentation for the Columbia gig next Friday. My topic: "Honoring Tradition, Embracing the Future. How we keep current with evolving educational, technological, and cultural trends, while maintaining our traditional reference skills and our commitment to public service" [I did not write that] I'm planning something to do with collaborative information systems and maybe put in a few good words for sites like Web Junction. Or I may just focus on how "cultural trends" lately include turning the public library into one big place to check email and play games online. I am not suggesting that this isn't a good role for the library to fill, just that in Vermont we don't have staffing or systems or enough of a technology-aware culture to appropriately deal with it. There are many many reasons why giving someone access to an hour on an Internet-enabled computer is different than handing them a book. Maybe I'll just spend ten minutes listing them....

Hi. I resigned from the ALA Website Advisory Committee today, preferring to focus my website reform efforts from within ALA Council. I haven't been feeling that effective lately, and my personal threshold of "how long I think I should have to wait for change to come" is significantly shorter than most people who are used to working for ALA. This made me impatient and grouchy and not a helpful team player in the long path to getting the ALA website accessible, functional and user-friendly. As always, I encourage people to send feedback to the ALA webteam, as I have constantly done, they really are trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Hi. I got my royalty check today. I thought I would break it down for everyone, since many of you shared in the book-making or book-buying experience. First off, we sold 563 books. Yay! Then 39 were returned. Boo! Total sold, that stayed sold: 524. Now, as you all know, the cover price is an astonishing $35. So, $35 x 524 books gets us $18,340. Then there's this black box where we convert this number to the "net proceeds" which is, as my letter helpfully tells me, is gross receipts minus refunds. The letter does not explain "gross receipts." The letter does say that the amount of money I get is not a percentage of the list price of my book, because of discounts and so forth. Net proceeds are $14,659, roughly 80% of the cover price. Katia and I get 10% of this. I get 50% of that. Beers are on me next time you guys are in town.

Hi. I am realizing I don't have categories for anything tech-y except computers. I also launched the library website yesterday and it went well except for one thing that was my fault that went horribly wrong that is now fixed [think custom 404 redirecting to a broken link... yep]. I am also adding a faq to librarian.net as a result of a good question-and-answer email I got regarding the NYTimes link I used to have. If you think there's a question that should be there, ask it. As for the questions that are there, they really are frequently asked.

Hi. Made it to Yale, went to the Sterling library and went to the Beineke where I was able to look at the Voynich Manuscript. Apparently it's so popular that unless you're a really serious scholar [which I clearly wasn't] they just have one of the librarians [thanks Stephen Jones!] bring it out and show you through it. I was happy to see it. Also tried to get my parking validated at New Haven Free Public Library, but they're closed Fridays.

Hi. I'm on the road today heading to Mass. to see some family and then to Yale to see some Rebellious Lawyering and maybe get a peek at the Voynich Manuscript. Updates resume Sunday evening.

Hi. Does anyone but me feel that it is a bit facile to add high-scoring word qi and za to the Scrabble dictionary? Especially after they nixed all those slurs with the third edition.

Hi. It's been a weekend of e-housecleaning here at librarian.net. Some updates: links are now in bold to facilitate useful scanning and differentiation. Search box now searches using Google, which I think is an improvement. Date-based archives are now linked down the lefthand side of all monthly archives. Category archives have both date and category links in them. Special bonus for all you non-RSS folks... category archive pages will show you the RSS titles I've been adding to all these posts.

Hi. Someone wrote in response to my ALA-APA article that Vermont can't have much of a "staunch commitment to libraries" if it will pay its librarians $8/hour. And isn't this the rub, then? I know Vermont loves its libraries, and yet, I also know that in many cases Vermonters would love rooms filled with books and free Internet and no librarians if it would lower their taxes. I'm not sure if you can say that a desperately poor parent isn't committed to nutrition if they can't feed their kids better food. Can you always feed kids well for cheap? Can you always find the money to pay your librarians well? And, as is often the real choice: if you can't do both, what has to give?

Hi. Getting this website standards compliant is rougher than I thought. Thanks to everyone who gave me good feedback on the library website. It should be ready to go live next week. I just finished reading a prepub copy of yet another book-about-books, this one a rare book mystery called Codex written by Lev Grossman. I recommend it. Also, happy birthday Peter Scott!

Hi. Fixed the about link from yesterday.

Hi. I updated the "about this page" page on the site. My journal page is now categories by the SmartFilter people as "personal" which would seem okay until you read the description "This category contains URLs that are generally created by two main groups: students and subscribers to dial-up Internet service providers. " I am, of course, neither. And, by logical extension, if all personal pages are blocked [and owners of filter software can theoretically decide to block or not block this category] then all we have left is Pepsi, Coke and McDonalds. And maybe the public library. Guh.

Hi. I may have actually gotten SmartFilter to remove my journal page from their control list. They had it listed, oddly, as "chat". I sent them a note and they say it will be off the control list tomorrow. Now I'll start the countdown to see how long it takes me to get N2H2 to not classifiy it as "pornography". If you have websites that you would like seen in, say, the libraries and schools of Georgia, you may want to check and see if they're blocked.

Hi. I have the day off today which means that I can stay home, mess with cars, watch it snow and not have to shake my fist at the weather. I have been working on the library web site for the past month and it's almost ready to go live. If anyone would like to take a peek at it and give me some feedback, I'd appreciate it. My goals are to have the site use all CSS for layout, be accessible to people with low vision or who use screen-readers, be standards compliant [I am still doing some retrofitting to make this work, like closing my [li] tags] and have stuff be easy to find. On the back end, I'll be running Movable Type on Lishost so it will have a series of templates and stylesheets that can be ignored as content is updated. Things I could not control includes the inclusion of images, the boxy logo and most of the content, which came with it. Here's the old site and the new site. My goal is to improve on the old site which was not terribly bad to begin with, but hard to update and maintain, and to make it one of the best public library web sites in the state of Vermont.

Hi. Let me know if the category links to the left are giving erratic results. On to the inbox....

Hi. I saw my shadow so there's ten more weeks of Winter. It is Vermont after all. Thanks to some nudging and helpful email from Hilary, I have categories up and running after a fashion. RSS readers you'll have to come to the site to see what I mean.

Hi. One of the things I don't like about aggregated news is its tendency to sort of swim rootless in space and time. I'm adding a date in the title field of my first post of the day. This weekend I will wrestle with getting MT categories to be a way to browse posts on my site. Also, Greg and I went out to a nice dinner at AJ's steakhouse in White River Junction last night. AJ's is a cool 35 minute drive from our house and as such it is the closest steakhouse to where we live. I got a NY strip sirloin and Greg got a tuna steak. We both had dessert which is, of course, crazily profligate in our law-student and half-time librarian lives. Thanks to any and all who clicked through the Powell's link and bought stuff from that nice independent union shop in Portland.

Hi. A lot going on today. I feel like I've uncovered two separate areas of continuing interest with yesterday's posts. I'm also reading Sixpence House which is another one of those books for bookish people. Powell's Books sent Greg and I a check for "affiliate" money or whatever and it's just enough to take us out to dinner someplace nice [where nice=napkins]. I'll report back since librarian.net readers directly funded this meal.

Hi. I updated the page about the book. If anyone knows any other reviews of the book online [good or bad] please send them on. Also, if anyone else would like to write an informal review for Amazon.com, we'd sure appreciate it. There's been only one review there for forever. Thank you.

Hi. I just finished a 3,000 word article about the ibiblio digital library project that should be appearing in OCLC Sytems & Services, assuming it passes the peer review process. Many of today's weird links are from my research.

Hi. I'm working on an article for OCLC Systems & Services and I found a bunch of weird library links while doing research on ibiblio, the wonderful people who host this site for free. These links are the detritus from my work today.

Hi. I have just had another paid holiday. This job is the first time I have ever had a paid holiday. I even got a wee bit of time off to go to ALA. I like being employed.

Hi. I'll be tossing a lot of links up here over the rest of today and I'll try to include some information on what went down at ALA over the past four or five days. The conference was tiring but really informative. The book signing was fun [and McFarland says we've sold more than 800 books already!], and the travelling wasn't as rough as I thought it would be. Thanks to all the new folks who took the time to say hi or introduce themselves.

Hi. Wrapping up the last Council meeting. I'll return to freezing Vermont tomorrow and update you all on what has been happening. Serving on Council is, while not always super exciting, very fulfilling in terms of understanding how the association operates and getting to play a part in that operation. More tomorrow, thanks for tuning in.

Hi. Three notes from the keynote speak. Omar from BlackPlanet gave the talk before the "Life Post CIPA" panel discussion. He had several very good points that I wanted to write down before I forgot them. His basic premise [which will be online sometime in the next three weeks according to Carla Hayden] is that CIPA's legacy is less relevant than librarians working to reduce NOT the digital divide, but what he sees as the literacy divide -- people using the Internet as passive consumers rather than as creators. This creation of content was not as possible with TV for example, as it is for the Internet. Or, as he put it, people who are failing to use the Internet because of dispossession, not disposition. The line that I took away from it was "The future of libraries is helping everyone think like a librarian" that is, being critical thinkers and appraisers of information. I'm not sure I totally agree -- he did dodge the "what do we do NOW" issue -- since I see many more hurdles to this sort of access, but it's an appealing perspective.

Hi. I'm at ALA in San Diego. Boy it is weird, but sort of normal-weird, like a conference. Many more people than Toronto. If you're in San Diego, come to my booksigning at the McFarland booth tomorrow from 12-2. Also be sure to read the letter to the editor of American Libraries [no direct link, sorry, you know the ALA website] discussing my lack of props to the Web Advisory Committee in my last letter to the editor. I'm guilty as charged, though my impression was that my letter was about something entirely different. In any case, mad props to the committee, they are doing the best they can with what they have to work with, which is, to be fair, not terribly much.

Hi. I'm on my way to San Diego in a few hours. It is currently below zero outside with promises to be way below zero when I have to leave and catch my flight. I'll be staying with friends in San Diego but please swing by a Council Meeting if you'd like to get together during the conference.

Hi. I changed some of the stylesheets around a bit to make visited links a little easier to read. No progress on archives yet, but I'm working on it.

Hi and Happy New Year! One of my resolutions is to get archiving and category sorting up and running for librarian.net this month. After I get back from ALA I will likely have my chance. Thanks for bearing with me.

Hi. I did a little email interview for BUST Magazine that will be coming out sometime soonish. Please come and see me at ALA in a few weeks if you're going to be in San Diego. In the meantime, please carry your reference materials prominently no matter what the FBI might think.

Hi. I hope you had a wonderful holiday in whatever way you chose to celebrate it. Remember the days are just going to get longer and longer even as -- in Vermont anyhow -- the nights continue to get colder.

Hi. I have gotten many emails over the last week or so clearly in response to Nat Hentoff's columns in the Village Voice which have recently been about ALA's silence on the Cuban "independent librarian" issue. My basic response has been that ALA does nothing without consulting its members and the next chance to do that will be at the Midwinter meeting in the second week of January. ALA Council has been discussing the issue and I would not be surprised if there were a resolution passed about the issue. I think calling the ALA names because they are slow-moving and have not made this a top priority issue in a year that gave us CIPA and PATRIOT II may be a good way to get a lot of press but is not the most effective way of dealing with this extremely controversial issue.

Hi. I've been having a bit of trouble with my Movable Type install which means that posting has been troublesome and slowish. I'm working it out this week but updates may be sporadic. Plus the holdays and all....

Hi. I had to stay home from work today because of a crazy snowstorm. I dislike staying home from work so I did workish things here -- dealt with my work budget, looked at the website I am working on from a lot of different browsers, messed with this site. I got the bad news from our OPAC provider at work. They do not support Netscape. This was their response when I pointed out a really egregious formatting error that I had gotten when doing a routine query. Problem solved on their end, I guess "Oh, we don't support that." I wonder what other browsers they don't support? Probably all of them except Internet Explorer So, I may not be able to change what is already broken at my library, but I've been looking into Open Source systems again. LISnews had a link to a very informative pdf HOWTO discussing how to distribute Open Source software CD's in your library.

Hi. I have updated my ALA schedule to include my book signing on Sunday at 12:30 or 1. McFarland assures me they will have more than six books. Also changed the NY Times login link to the left. I will no longer be supporting librarian.net logins to the NYTimes though I will try to offer working links instead.

Hi. It seems like in response to my plaintive yowling the ALA voice mail system is now a) in order and b) includes all the numbers. If I achieve only one thing in my three year tenure as an ALA Councilor, it would be okay if this were it.

Hi. Back to our regularly scheduled library banter. Thanks for paying attention.

Hi. This year like many years past I am observing World AIDS Day. Please go see what lii.org has to offer in this category and spend a little time familiarizing yourself with this deadly pandemic which has not gone away.

Hi. I'm hunkered down with very little Internet this weekend, but I did manage to get some of the bookplates online that I saw at the SFPL exhibit. Be forewarned, some of them are more than a little racy.

Hi. I'm back from my exciting trip to California to make the world a safer place for standardized testing. Feel free to email me if you want details, it's too off-topic for librarian.net. I've got a stack of email to read and trade journals to peruse, feel free to put this site back in heavy rotation and keep those links coming.

Hi. Just popping in to say I'm still in California & have no real time to do serious updates. Please familiarize yourself with the links page and I will be back online on Sunday. Thanks.

Hi. My law school boyfriend went to a lunchtime presentation on the PATRIOT Act yesterday with the director of the local ACLU and the US Attorney for the District of Vermont. Two interesting things were learned from the attorney. One, the upshot of his discussion was "you people need to trust us. If you don't trust [FISA] judges, why are you in law school?". Two, he claims the DoJ only reads the headers of people's email to look for ne'er-do-wells. This isn't great news, but it IS news.

Hi. I'll be out of town for a week with very minimal Internet starting this Sunday, so updates will be few and far between after the weekend. Feel free to use this opportunity to check out the links page that I have been updating and sending me suggestions for other things to add. I'm especially looking for library school blogs or newssletters that are online. Also, I am getting more postcards printed. If you are waiting for one, it won't be too long now.

Hi. The talk went really well except for some technical problems which were outside of my control. The NHLA librarians were a great audience, more smilers and nodders than sleepers [one of these days I will not pull the after-lunch slot] and I felt like the information I had was not too tired and not too novel. The morning talk on increasing compensation was also really interesting and well thought out. Totally worth the 80 minute drive.

Hi. I am starting to make my ALA plans for San Diego. I'm staying with the fantabulous Laura Hudson who is able to use the words "radical" and "usability" together in a paper title. Fred from the Info Commons blog and I are planning some sort of bloggish get-together, leave a comment there if you'll be there and would like to hang out.

Hi. I've gotten one report that people can't see the links in the header above. If anyone else is having this problem can you drop me an email and tell me what OS/browser you are using? Thanks. Also, I am trying to add more library school resources to the links page. If anyone knows of a library school that has a newsletter or blog [not just a home page] please drop me a note.

Hi. I'll be speaking at the New Hampshire Library Association Conference next week, something about the PATRIOT Act, libraries and CIPA. Still working on it.

Hi. I made my reservations to go to ALA in San Diego. If anyone is going and wants to meet up for coffee or kvetching, drop me a line. I'll be at all the Council meetings, other than that, I'm not sure.

Hi. For your enjoyment, here are the copies of my letter to the New York Times as it appeared in my outbox, and as it appeared in print today. I'm pretty much done with this issue, but it's fascinating how, according to the Times, my very own originals are now just "variations" of what they printed. Also note the non-capitalization of their version of the Act's name, as if it really has something to do with patriotism, instead of being an atrocious acronym.

from my outbox

I was thrilled to see the text to three of my "Five *Technically* Legal Signs for Your Library" listed in a sidebar to Subversive Reading [Sep 28 '03]. As you know, the USA PATRIOT Act makes it difficult if not impossible to legally protect patron confidentiality. The associated gag order also means that librarians cannot inform their patrons if their personal information has been requested and provided. My signs are a way to end-run the gag order by allowing the library to provide the perfectly legal information that the FBI has not been there ... yet.

Variants of these signs are in use in libraries across the country. They have been sent as part of an intellectual freedom packet to every public library in Vermont. The ACLU has even come out with their own variety. While I think their impact is strengthened by their visual appeal over their raw text, I invite your readers to see them for themselves at

http://www.librarian.net/technicality.html

from the paper

I was thrilled to see the text to three of my "Five ‘Technically' Legal Signs for Your Library" listed in a sidebar to Margaret Talbot's essay (The Way We Live Now, Sept. 28). The Patriot Act makes it difficult to legally protect patron confidentiality. The associated gag order also means that librarians cannot inform patrons if their personal information has been requested and provided. My signs are a way to end-run the gag order by allowing the library to provide the perfectly legal information that the F.B.I. has not been there . . . yet.

Readers can see variations of the signs at librarian.net/technicality.html.

Hi. My rad landlady is now sporting one of the "Repeal the USA PATRIOT Act" stickers on her back bumper. This is, after all, the woman whose license plate reads DMOCRAT.

Hi. EFF got the money from the sale of the bumpersticker and Dan Greene will be getting the sticker in the mail. Thanks to Jason Pettis who made the sticker in the first place.

Hi. The anti-PATRIOT Act bumpersticker sold for $22, with all proceeds going to the charity of the buyer's choice. Thanks all who bid. I may have a second one for sale sometime soon.

Hi. I don't mean to whine, but I must be the most undercited blogger there is... here's a link to a piece in the Charleston Post & Courier. Who do you think that small town librarian is? [use the NYT registration if they require one]

Hi. I'm at the Vermont International Film Festival this weekend. No updates until Monday. Ebay auction is doing well and we'll have to see if my letter makes it to the NY Times Magazine this weekend.

Hi. I got a very nice email from the folks at the New York Times Magazine yesterday. They explained how they had come to reprint my content with insufficient credit and how they were very sorry. They offered me a chance to write a letter to the editor of the magazine giving myself proper attribution. We'll see how it goes. Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions on how to resolve the problem.

Hi. This is a linkless post so I thought I'd put it here. I have it on good authority that NYPL will be installing filters on their library terminals to bring them into compliance with CIPA. When I called their public relations office to check, I got something along the lines of "probably definitely" but that they hadn't selected a software vendor yet. Big news?

Hi. A reader of the site sent me some bumperstickers of the image I've been using in my header bar for the past few weeks [RSS folks, click here to see what I mean]. I have one on my car. I have a few extras. I am selling one via Ebay as a fundraiser for the anti-PATRIOT Act charity of the buyer's choice. I'll have another one available next week if this one goes well.

Hi. No word yet from the demons at the New York Times thought I did get a nice note from the author assuring me that she was not the one who used my content without permission or attribution. My boss today told the library board I had the librarian fire burning within me. I thought that wasa pretty nice thing to say.

Hi. So I've decided I'm a bit miffed at the New York Times for using part of my Technically Legal Signs page without asking for permission and without proper citation. Is it asinine to get hung up on proper citation? I have written to the Times and to the original author, and have yet to hear back. I will keep you posted. Also, I am aware that the Slow-Mo Library Crawl is somewhat stagnant. I will be working on that.

Hi. So far so good, you think? I have received no feedback that says the new site works or looks terrible. Please let me know if you see anything amiss.

Hi. Today I'm going to try creating more than one entry, using different categories, and seeing how that works. The mailto form is now fixed, in case you tried to use it and failed yesterday. I'm slowly converting older pages [not the archive pages but the other content pages] to MT format. Let me knowif anything looks weird.

Hi. Okay it's settled. Welcome to librarian.net using Movable Type and hosted on ibiblio's servers! Extra thanks to Blake for the little workaround while librarian.net was down and the ibiblio folks for getting it back up. I'm going to mess around with format a bit to try to get the posts into individual RSS nuggets, please stand by.

Hi. Okay so welcome to librarian.net at ibiblio! the reason this is not already at the new servers may be partly my fault. In any case, I said "come hell or high water" so I figured I'd add some content here. It's a funny thing about that New York Times article. They included the text of my signs, not the signs themselves, and they cited my weblog, and not my name. Weirder still is they changed where I had written "National Security" and hyphenated it? I mean I agree that any publicity is good publicity, but it was just so weird.

Hi. So I guess this site was mentioned in the New York Times magazine [in a sidebar that is not online and so I haven't even seen it yet] during the two-day window when I am switching to a new web host. The only time this site has ever switched to a new web host. Hello, I am Jessamyn West and this is my supreme being's idea of irony. Updates resume tomorrow, come hell or high water.

Hi. If you can read this, then my DNS has propogated and I am now on the ibiblio servers instead of the eskimo.com servers. And I am running Movable Type instead of coding and uploading by hand. I am aware that some things are not yet working. This week I aim to get archiving and all the templates straight so that Oct 1 begins an "all MT all the time" world here for me. Send major complaints to the usual place. Let me know if stuff is broken. Tips and advice are also welcome, I'm pretty new to this CMS stuff.