ulo.tricho.us

Library Camp is coming up at AADL on Friday, April 14th. This event is an unconference using the open space format, which throws several much-needed wrenches into the typical conventions of, well, conventions. First, instead of suffering through a dull or irrelevant session, looking for a polite chance to ditch, you are encouraged — even required — to walk out of any session you find unproductive or uninteresting. Also, no pre-arranged agenda. One of the first things we’ll do at the event is propose some sessions and put together the schedule for the day based on who’s there and what they’re looking for.

In the meantime, I’ve thought of a few things that might be interesting sessions for the event. There is a great group of people coming, and I think it’s a great opportunity to actually produce some things. So, here are my ideas for sessions:

• Library 2.0: Threat or MENACE? (What does it mean, what’s to come?)
• Tags in the OPAC: the roles and balance of taxonomies and folksonomies
• IM applications in Libraries, current and potential
• Reclaiming Serendipity: Lost Features of the card catalog that OPACs should offer
• DRM and the future of library downloads
• Gaming in the library: thinking big
• Library Podcasting: Projects and Possibilities
• Netflix and other alternate circulation schemes
• Stats and metrics: new ways to collect and analyze use data
• Online community building: starting points and brainstorming
• hackfest?
• collaborative authoring of a document, maybe a guide to library 2.0 tools?

The idea is that sessions are interactive, more of a collaborative effort than a presentation, and I think we’ll try to make sure that there are bloggers in each session, and that posts are tagged accordingly. I’ve posted these ideas on the Library2 wiki, so please add to and modify this list.

Also at AADL on the 14th is the first-ever AADL-GT Retro Octathalon, an olympic-style event for all ages where all competitors will compete for overall and single-event high scores on 8 vintage (pre-1990) video games, with a championship for the highest scorers at the end of the night. Adult qualifiers start at 6, so you can attend Library Camp all day, and then give your thumbs some much-needed exercise.

These are going to be two very cool events, and a very busy day!

What better evidence could there possibly be of the natural compatibility of videogames and libraries than this short video of a couple of college kids dressed up as videogame characters, running through a library, screaming? Even better, it takes place at the University of Michigan UgLi and Fishbowl, just down the street. I wish they tried this at AADL, although the security staff would probably not be amused.

[Via Kotaku, previously at Boingboing]

You may remember Nemo as the winner of Kotaku's Halloween Costume Contest. Well, as his birthday rolled around, and we started discussing what he wanted for his party, the very first thing he said was that he wanted a King Bob-omb cake. As his party got closer, we kept having fun ideas, and by the time the day arrived, things had gotten a little out of hand, and turned into a full-on Mario Party, complete with koopa-shell invitations. The cake was a bit of a structural challenge: Twinkies, as it turns out, are not intended to be load-bearing.

Of course, Nemo wanted to wear his Luigi costume, sans mustache and Poltergust 3000. Everybody got to try DDR Mario Mix. We only put out 1 pad to halve the occupied floorspace, as well as the mayhem. One of the best things about Mario Mix is that its easy mode only uses right and left, which is a much easier place for a 4-year old to learn to play DDR. Nemo has since moved on to Normal mode, and loves to play real DDR, too. His favorite song is 'Speed Over Beethoven' on DDR Extreme 2.

We wanted to have a pinata, but with 4-year-olds, nobody's got the strength to breach the um, containment unit, so some grown-up usually has to rip it open surreptitiously while pretending to 'examine' the darn thing. Instead, we took a square cardboard box (I can't believe we had a perfectly sized and proportioned one in the basement), cut off the lid, and decorated it with construction paper to look like a classic Mario Question Block. We attached it to a string tied to the bannister, and let the kids jump and bop the bottom of the box.

When they hit the bottom of the box hard enough (or if we yanked the string for a little extra oomph), out popped their treat bag, which contained some turtle stickers (not koopa troopas, but close enough), a dumdum and a fruit leather (we figure they cancelled each other out), a real noise-making noise maker (sorry parents), and a Japanese Mario figure, the kind where you don't know which one you got until you open it, and that includes a tiny packet of 6 tasteless white candies. We got them at Wizzywig, where they also have a tissue cozy shaped like a Famicom. I covet it. Anyway, this worked beautifully, and turned out to be a great alternative to a pinata, with the extra advantage of avoiding the mad scramble, which can be a mess, particularly when kids of several different sizes are involved.

A good time was had by all, especially by Nemo, who got a new Mario Kart DS bundle from my parents. And Nemo's papa, who doesn't have to share his DS anymore.

John’s brilliant post skipped over a critical gulf-spanning technique, one that I would have thought he would have included, as he has personal experience with the approach:

Make a movie.

One of the challenges IT departments can face as they grow, especially in the library world, is muggle staff not understanding what all those geeks actually do. Often, the borders of IT responsibility could make a gerrymanderer blush, and since most IT work is done in our dank recesses, far below the hustle and bustle of the patron-filled surface world, delivering a clear understanding of who does what can be complicated by the fact that some staff may not know who these people are that, summoned by a submit button, emerge, blinking, only to immediately disappear under the table. That leads to unfamiliarity, and you know what they say about unfamiliarity: it breeds discontent. Wait, that’s not right. But it sounds good.

So, to address this unfamiliarity, we produced the IAS Television Showcase (quicktime) in the Fall of 2002, to be shown at our annual staff day. While it was intended to give a little information about what we do, I really hoped that it would help the rest of the staff feel more personally familiar with all of us. We shot it on a Friday, and I edited it over the weekend, getting a precious copy rendered and printed to tape just in time for the opening bagels Monday morning. I remember that we were missing a cable we needed when it was time for the premiere (first thing after lunch), so we had to tie a dv camera to the pole above the projector. We couldn’t find the remote for the camera, so I introduced the movie, and then stood on a chair to push play and roll the tape. Sort of a live juryrigging demonstration, if you will.

The audience loved it, and I think it really did help them know us a little bit better. That was a long time ago already, and it’s amazing how much things have changed since then. Just seeing the server room during Joe Harris’ System Spec, or some of the hot new acronyms showcased in Modern Major Geekerel, makes me slightly damp with nostalgia. The gadget rundown, somewhat obscure then, looks positively archaic now. We should do Television Showcase 2.0. I should also find the DV tape that has the finished version and capture a better copy, as Premiere eating the source file for this project was one of my last straws with Windows.

While something like this will take a little time to produce, the potential return on your time is probably far better than even the most productive bilateral committee meeting. Plus, it’s fun. Libraries should be fun. Enjoy!

This is one of those moments the internet was made for: I wish to lodge a complaint about the new Long Haul puppet on Cartoon Network Fridays. I am not ashamed to admit that I watch, and enjoy, a show intended for 7-10 year olds, although I do, er, watch it primarily for the Foster’s. For the uninitiated, Fridays is Cartoon Network’s friday night block, including their most popular cartoons, and usually a new episode or two. Between the shows, a couple of vapid, forgettable hosts make awful jokes amongst a carefully ethnically balanced studio audience of screaming kids.

However, in addition to the cringeworthy, chemistryless patter of the two human hosts, there are a number of segments mixed in that are truly funny. One of the standouts is Whiskers, the kitten who can name fruit, who is simply a live kitten that appears to say ‘Plum’, or ‘Honeydew’. Also, there’s Mr. Baby and Baby, a baby puppet in a suit who is a ventriloquist for a smaller baby puppet. However, the true star of the show is Long Haul, a trucker bear who acts a co-host and injects a lot of life into the live action bumps. Long Haul is performed by the completely amazing Andy Merrill, a producer responsible for some of CN’s very best shows (and also Fridays), and the voice of some of CN’s funniest characters including the inestimable Brak, the bavarian alien Oglethorpe of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and the gone-but-not-forgotten nancy-locust Lokar of Space Ghost Coast 2 Coast.

The picture of Long Haul that appears above is the before. It’s fluffy and goofy, with perfect sunglasses, a big, big contrasting nose, a gaping, alligatory maw, and a voluminous, Rowlf-like neck. He’s unique, and he’s got character. He could be a muppet if he wanted to be. Recently, a new creature, who sounds like Long Haul, and is wearing some of his clothes, has replaced the one true Long Haul. This new Long Haul, this imposter, is a very plain-looking, unremarkable dark brown creature, with a short, whiny snout, off-the-shelf eyes, and a demeanor not unlike that of the cloying and alarmingly ubiquitous Baby Bear. Plus, fake sunglasses.

This will never do.

What’s interesting about this is that Merrill, as the producer, ought to have some say on these sort of things, which means he either approved of Long Haul’s new look, or was overruled, probably by someone in a suit. At any rate, it’s not a positive change, and now, having vented sufficiently, I can get on with my life.