Blogs
"Red Scare (1918-1921)" was a project I did for extra credit while finishing up my MLS at Queens College (CUNY). It must have been around 1997.
The online exhibit consisted of political cartoons with some photos from the period 1918-1921. There were over a hundred images illustrating the hysteria of the time -- most scanned from hard-bound copies of the Literary Digest, then conveniently housed in the stacks of NYU Bobst Library. The exhibit is hosted by Newman Library, Baruch College (CUNY) where I went after NYU.
Anyway, every once and a while, I get a request for permission to use one or two of the images. There was a lot of interest in them around the time of 9/11 but even afterwards, the requests still come in.
I usually explain that the copyright has long run out on the images and that they're free for the downloading. The latest request was from one of the College Prep Testing Services. They want to use one or two of the images for their section on U.S. History.
I guess, I'll have to upgrade the project at some point. Ten years is a long time for content like this on the Web.
Submitted by Leo Klein on Sun, 09/07/2008 - 10:56am.
Today was the first day of classes at UIC. It was a nice summer but I'm happy to see the students back.
They had people at all the entrances giving out information. You can just make out the "UIC Orientation" table in the distance.
Submitted by Leo Klein on Mon, 08/25/2008 - 7:27pm.
Tracy Sutherland gave us a sneak peek of the new site, then under development, at the Drupal4Lib BoF at ALA Anaheim in June.
Now it's been launched for the whole world to see:
https://www.amherst.edu/library
Nice job and Congrads to all!
Posted in Submitted by Leo Klein on Fri, 08/22/2008 - 1:18pm.
We're doing a 'soft-launch' of PLAspace.org -- the community website that I've been working on together with some very nice people from the Public Library Association as well as a number of volunteers.
It's open to the public but it won't be officially announced till sometime in September. Anyway, have a look:
http://www.PLAspace.org
Posted in Submitted by Leo Klein on Mon, 08/18/2008 - 8:56am.
Yea, the Parboiled Rice has come! For 10 years, I lived in New York City and for 10 years I ate Parboiled Rice from the Associated Supermarket either on 14th St. or 23rd St.
So what do I do when I start running out of the cherished grains? Why I send for 10 pounds more of course -- via Priority Mail.
Here's the latest shipment.
Submitted by Leo Klein on Fri, 08/15/2008 - 8:59pm.
First people, please don't mention the Kindle and the future-of-print in the same breath. That would imply that one has something to do with the other and why do Amazon's marketing for them?
But ignoring that for a moment, I think the whole concept of a dedicated "ebook" reader is somewhat dodgy. I mean, if that's all they do, why bother?
You can't copy out bits and pieces of the text, import them into something you're working on, share them with friends, blog about them -- or do any of the million other things you're used to doing on electronic devices that are increasingly just as small and inexpensive.
In other words, an 'eBook' reader completely sucks as an 'eBook' reader because it treats what you're reading as a complete digital dead-end.
Workplace environment: I've been on the receiving end of this from my co-workers since yesterday. From the most recent edition of The Onion:
ROCHESTER, NY—Reported sightings of Rochester's legendary "phantom diner," a mysterious restaurant that purportedly appears only to those in the most inebriated state of their lives, are often met with skepticism and incredulity. But for Leo Kline, 24, who claims he visited the diner this past weekend, the apparitional eatery is all too real.
Like I wear green?
Submitted by Leo Klein on Wed, 08/06/2008 - 9:29am.
I wish I could say my lack of posting for the last week or so is because of me 'gone fishing'.
Instead, I'm working on a site for the Public Library Association that, happily, is close to completion.
The thing's looking good but it's taken all my free time away.
I wanted to leave the following comment on an article about MillerCoors moving its headquarters to Chicago:
"Well, it's not the best but what the hell, reason enough to order another MGD for me."
Unfortunately, the word 'hell' appears to be too hot for the prudes over at the Chicago Sun-Times since I got the following error (in red no less):
"Please edit or remove the following word(s), then resubmit your content: hell."
Submitted by Leo Klein on Tue, 07/15/2008 - 9:22pm.
We've come a long way from the days of 'you must learn our system in order to use it'. From the Usability Guidelines at Yale University Library:
| Factor |
Examples |
| Simplicity. Scale back features and dramatically simplify the experience for initial use. This should reduce unnecessary distractions, excess information, from initial screens. An initial search screen should not include advanced features, such as search by publisher or call number. |
Avoid wordiness -- only show most necessary text, be concise. |
| Initial page should include only the most important and common tasks for this service with unobtrusive links to other advanced functionality. |
More here...
P.S. Remember the Yale site when the front page was one big graphic of nothing but a bunch of leather book spines?
