dave's blog

Reading about Billy Idol

2007-05-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

For some strange reason, I was just reading the Billy Idol entry in Wikipedia. Wow - a few things about him:

He's had a long, successful career
He got a lot of mileage out of being a punk

And a question: how does one go from being in Siouxsie & the Banshees and Generation X to recording a CD full of Christmas songs (in 2006)? From punk to yuletide cheer? From original alternative to yuppie stocking stuffer?

People change. People grow. Amazing!

Content of this blog

2007-03-25T06:36:00.001-07:00

This blog will be used for random thoughts, ideas, etc that I have and want to share. Also for occasional music-related stuff. Just fyi.

3-step Songwriting Technique

2007-03-25T06:31:00.000-07:00

Just something I want to remember - not sure where I found this!

3-step songwriting technique:

write down the title of the song. Write 1-2 sentences, explaining what that title means to you.
Write 1-2 sentences - write info that needs to be conveyed in 1st verse to clearly lead listeners to your title. Ask "then what happened/what else happened" and write down ideas to be included in 2nd verse.
Fill in details and lines of lyric.

Ta-da! You have a song.

Sugar (haiku #1)

2007-02-20T11:47:00.001-08:00

untitled
Originally uploaded by Dark-Angel.

Sugar is a kiss
Lightly tickling the tongue
Then longing for more

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-23T15:28:00.000-08:00

David King says: Merry Christmas everyone!

Don't forget to subscribe to davidleeking.com!

2006-12-11T20:45:00.000-08:00

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New RSS Feed, New Blog, New Domain: davidleeking.com

2006-02-27T08:33:00.000-08:00

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I have an assignment for all you readers: PLEASE go to your feed reader RIGHT NOW, and switch to my new feed: http://www.davidleeking.com/feed/

Why? I now have a new website: http://www.davidleeking.com/

Some of you will remember that I promised to do this ... well, I finally did. Yippie!

I will blog about all the same stuff I always blog about - just under my own domain name rather than Blogger's. So - stop what you're doing right now ... come on ... drop my feed into your aggregator, feed reader, etc...

Also - to everyone using the Feedburner feed - I'll switch that later today, so you shouldn't have to do anything on your end.

Thanks for reading!

The Future of Tag Clouds

2006-02-24T07:29:00.000-08:00

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This is an interesting article about the future of tag clouds (written by Joe Lamantia). Here's how Joe sees tag clouds developing over the next 18 months:

More people will recognize them and understand what they do (ok, that one's a no-brainer)
more support for "cloud consumers" to meet context needs (interesting...)
attached controls or features and functionality that allow cloud consumers to directly change the context, content, and presentation of clouds. (wow)

That third point is pretty interesting. Right now, tag clouds are basicallly a visual way to search for a tag - and to see what tags are either popular or heavily used at a site. But the idea of being able to manipulate the content and the presentation of a tag cloud? I can see some pretty useful stuff coming out of that.

Reading on... Joe says "In the future, expect to see specialized tag cloud implementations
emerge for a tremendous variety of semantic fields and focuses:
celebrities, cars, properties or homes for sale, hotels and travel
destinations, products, sports teams, media of all types, political
campaigns, financial markets, brands, etc."

OK - I look at Realtor.com alot (actually, my wife does more...). It has a normal, "traditional" search interface - you know - click a city, click the number of bedrooms, etc, etc. Integrating a tag coud-like search feature would be so much cooler, and probably more usable, too. For example - realtor.com allows you to "expand the search" for a house in a particular area by providing surrounding suburbs/towns to include. But if you're not familiar with that area, you don't really know what to choose. If you created a tag cloud feature to that search, you'd be able to see what most other people chose (assuming the tag cloud is based on popularity). Most likely, that popular choice is also a better area of town.

Now - think what you could do to our library services using tag clouds. Especially in our library catalogs! And not just on the end-user side, either. I'm thinking of a collection development librarian wondering which subject areas are the most popular. Instead of having to run a report and crunch some numbers, all the librarian would have to do is take a glance at the visually larger tags - then get more info if he/she needed it.

Hmm... I wonder what else would/could be useful in a tag cloud arrangement?

PDAs in the Classroom

2006-02-20T12:06:00.000-08:00

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I saw this article a few days ago, and thought I'd share... Basically, the article discusses a Kansas City-area middle school that is experimenting with PDAs - as in, 600 PDAs (the school district spent about $180,000).

Their goal? To prepare their students for the 21st century! The article actually says this: "Many educators think that preparing students for the 21st century goes beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic - students must be technologically literate."

How cool is that? A public school actually teaching kids skills that they'll need TOMORROW - rather than skills they'd need today, or yesterday. I applaud them!

Congrats, Michael!

2006-02-14T14:08:00.000-08:00

WordPress Installation on a local computer

2006-02-10T13:36:00.000-08:00

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UrbanGiraffe rocks! I just installed WordPress on my laptop (took me MUCH longer than five minutes, but what the hey - I haven't a clue as to what I'm doing).

My ultimate goal is to figure out how to create my own WordPress theme - and installing WordPress was an amazing good way to start. Now I can hack away knowing I'm not really going to break anything.

So if you want to play around with WordPress or with themes, check this guy's tutorials out.

Notes from the "Designing Library Experiences for Users" Webcast

2006-02-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

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I just finished listening to the Blended Librarian Live Webcast: Designing Library Experiences For Users. Aradhana Goel, Senior Information Designer at Maya Design, gave the webcast. It was good! I'd recommend y'all to listen to one sometime - they do a good job.

I took some notes during the webcast - here they are:

Wow - over 90 people/sites logged in - that's a large webcast!

Talking about the library's bookdrop - "The bookdrop is hidden/not prominent at all - this is pretty much the state of this library. Everything was a mystery at first and it begins to make sense after about 1 hr."

thought... what's hidden or a mystery about your technology? Your website, your public PCs? What can you make clearer to your users? />
Described a catalog search and explained how difficult it was to use.

"library jargon had permeated the space"

digital is part of the experience - there's also physical experience, interaction experience (both digital and physical interactions), etc.

Four components of the library experience:
1. users
2. organizers
3. materials/activities
4. Use/Participate

They focused on 9 core personas 9 (ie., non-user, searcher, active learner, teen, etc... ) and worked through "Use Scenarios," or user experience timelines, for each persona. It was sort of a "day in the life of a user."

Then they looked at breakpoints (bad stuff that happened)
during each Use Scenario to find patterns... things like like disorientation, catalog confusion, jargon, next steps,
etc. Then they figured out solutions to those problems.

"An experience really starts when the scenario persona gets up in the morning and decides they want to read..."

Other interesting points/quotes:

"The user's journey does not end at finding material..."
"the end of every customer journey should be the beginning of a new one..."
classification scheme includes action oriented signage - one physical sign changed from Reference Desk to Ask a Librarian
The sign also included "what I can do for you" types of snippets, like Find Information, Borrow Books, etc...
Emphasized having consistent language in both the physical and the digital space

That's all - hope you find it useful!

posting from my treo

2006-01-31T20:37:00.000-08:00

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Just testing out the Treo. Did you know you can actually reach blogger's web-based admin area using the Treo Blazer web browser?

Of course that also means that I'm hunched over and typing on a thumb keyboard... very slowly.

But a successful test, nonetheless.

Videoblogging with a Treo

2006-01-30T08:13:00.000-08:00

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I'm playing with my new Treo 650 - and discovered that it takes video. So of course, what do I do when I discover that? Immediately play with it... here's the result of my experiment.

Ok - very silly test video, I know. Nonetheless:

I can capture video on the go
It's poor quality video, so probably not useful for "professional" consumption
Great if I want to share an idea, capture a quick interview, or capture an event
Hmm... show management a particularly successful library event?

Reading all these, I can see a way to sum it up - cheap video is capable of capturing the moment - it will capture the relevant info, so you can use it later as supplementary material (for whatever you're doing).

Update: Gee, Dave... it helps to actually include the link to the video...

vlog, videoblog

I've Been Tagged...

2006-01-27T13:28:00.000-08:00

4 Jobs I’ve had in my life:

DJ at my undergrad college radio station
Consession stand worker at a little league ball park
Pizza delivery dude
freelance recording engineer (translation = unpaid coffee-maker / errand boy)

4 Movies I can watch over and over:

It's a Wonderful Life
Hmm... surely there's another one...
...somewhere...
nope. nothing...

4 TV Shows I love to watch:

4 Places I have lived:

Liberty, MO
Blue Springs, MO
Hattiesburg, MS
Nashville, TN

4 Places I have been on holiday:

Holiday? Not sure about that one, but - four places I have been:

Denver, CO
Washington, DC
Haiti
Branson, MO

4 of my favorite dishes:

Anything oriental
Most any seafood
Fazoli's breadsticks...
Lasagna at Mom's Italian Villa in Chattanooga, TN - it's AWESOME.

4 Websites I visit daily:

Bloglines
Kansas City Public Library
KCPL Staff Intranet
Google

4 Places I would rather be right now:

Home... in my basement
.. playing drums
Or on a hike somewhere
Or with my family

4 Bloggers I am tagging:

Queequeg's Content Saloon ('cause she's been in the "post about her life" mood lately)
LibrarianInBlack ('cause she likes to post)
blyberg.net ('cause I'm curious)
Stephen's Lighthouse ('cause I don't think he'll do it... but it's fun to ask anyway)

Gaming Taskforce at my Library

2006-01-26T12:16:00.000-08:00

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We now have a gaming taskforce at my library! The taskforce's goal is to create a gaming plan for our library system, and report back to our management group... then the management group will decide where to go from there.

So we now have a gaming taskforce group email account, and I have a couple of email and computer gaming folders... wow.

And I also did some brainstorming on gaming at the library today, and thought I'd share it. It's not neccessarily what we'll be doing - just my thoughts. But some of you might be interested in them, nonetheless... so:

David’s Gaming Goals

console gaming
- set up networked game system at each location
- it should be movable
- create programming around the equipment
  - game nights
  - parent/kid game challenges/learning
  - branch/location challenge tournaments
  - how to play types of training
  - health DDR programming
- train staff in use
- create web help guides for console gaming
  - how to play
  - where to play - highlight programming
  - cheats and other online pointers
online gaming
- create web guides for popular games
- i.e., Runescape
  - basics of play
  - cheats and other online pointers
- create programming around games
  - how to play
  - introduction to online gaming - what they are
Little Kid's gaming
- provide clear pointers to games like Neopets.com
- create web guides for popular games
  - how to play
  - cheats and other online pointers
  - where the games can be found
circulating games
- buy top 25 games in one format
- same format of equipment we purchase
- some for each branch
patron gamers
- books on games
  - game theory (everything bad is good for you)
  - how to play (Dummies guides, etc)
  - young adult novels with gaming plots
- movies?
- Magazines
phase two
- Challenge other libraries
  - challenge other library system to a tournament
  - see if they can be networked tournaments
- Teen Center in Central
  - "The Game Vault"
- Take gaming to the community
  - Set up mobile gaming unit
  - create school programming/learning opportunities
  - take it to community groups
  - take it to church youth groups in KCPL area?
  - have a library component, too
    - one idea - to play, you have to have a library card
    - or you have to sign up for a library card

Opera Mini Simulator

2006-01-26T07:30:00.000-08:00

Just poking around more on the Opera Mini site - and found an Opera Mini simulator! Pretty cool - I was able to test what Kansas City Public Library's website looks like using the Opera Mini browser.

What did I discover? Our way cool horizontal menu bar? Doesn't work. Normal links DO work, though. I was able to click through to an image and an article in one of our subject guides.

Thankfully, we're working on a redesign - we'll have to focus on STANDARDS... CSS, XHTML, etc. so the world can browse us. Even those using cell phones!

opera, opera mini

Opera Mini Browser is Out of Beta!!!!!

2006-01-25T18:05:00.000-08:00

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Seen on Bill Drew's blog - Opera just released their Opera Mini Browser that installs on most cell phones (Bill installed in on his Cingular phone)!

And like Bill says - this isn't WAP - it's real, live HTML (via some crazy magic java thing). From the Opera Mini site "Instead of requiring the phone to process Web pages, it uses a remote server to pre-process the page before sending it to the phone. This makes Opera Mini™ perfect for phones with very low resources, or low bandwidth connections."

OK - we all know that cool pricey smart phones like a Treos, PDA-enabled things, and Blackberrys get web. And some cell phones... but Opera? And not WAP? From this blog (the Toronto Palm OS Group) - "Opera Mini offers the same speed and usability as the renowned Opera mobile browser, and uses Opera's Small Screen Rendering technology to provide access to the Web. It has all the features expected of a browser, and more, such as bookmarks, browsing history, and ability to split large pages into smaller sections for faster browsing. "

If this works easily, and accesses the web quickly... we could be in for quite a ride in 2006.

David's First Webcast Presentation

2006-01-24T11:49:00.000-08:00

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I just finished my first webcast - it was a blast! The webcast was for the Education Institute, and was on creating library website subject guides.

For those of you who might venture into doing a webcast sometime, a few pointers:

If possible, have a backup phone. See the nice Polycom conference phone in the photo? I didn't use it because of some "ocean like" static. It worked great the day before... go figure.
Make sure you have a good internet connection.
Make sure to pace yourself - since you are, in essence, talking to yourself in an empty room (that's what it feels like anyway), you might ramble on, rush through slides, etc - just pretend you're in a room full of people. Not too much of a problem for me, since I've been a radio dj in the past - same concept.
Set up early. I set up everything about 30 minutes before, then went online about 15 minutes before the start of my presentation. Since I had "phone issues," I had to call in about three times on different phones. Last minute testing, well, needs time! (which I had, thankfully)
Have fun!

Part of all Three Places

2006-01-20T09:45:00.000-08:00

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Have you familiar with the concept of Third Place? As far as I can tell, the concept came from the book, The Great Good Place, written by Ray Oldenburg. His concept is this: most people have about three places in their life that in some way define them - usually home, work/school, and one other place (ie., the Third Place). Third Place can be many things, including church,
a bar or coffee shop, etc.

A Third Place can even be digital - here's a cool article discussing MMOGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Games) as a third place, and even mentions a paper (currently under review) written by Constance Steinkuehler called "The New Third Space: Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming in American Youth Culture." Wow.

Ok, so there's a very brief Third Place background. Obviously, the physical library space can act as a Third Place for patrons - and that's all well and good. But did you know that libraries can also infiltrate other Third Places, and possibly even people's First and Second Places? Think about it - home and work/school. If you tweak your thinking about libraries, websites, and virtual services just a little, you can then start thinking about how a library can offer library services in people's homes, at their workplaces, and at their schools - in essence, being available in people's First and Second Places.

One way to get in those places, short of a physical Outreach Services type of thing where we physically take books to people, is to focus on our digital services. What digital services do you have now? Do you offer services like virtual reference, IM reference, phone reference, useful and usable web content, RSS feeds, etc? All those digital services get our digital foot in the digital doors of First and Second Places.

Just a braindump/thought process of going where your patrons already are - at their first, second and third places... libraries can be there, too!

Library 2.0

Interesting Job Ad

2006-01-18T06:52:00.000-08:00

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Has anyone seen this job ad? The job title is NextGen Librarian - wow. It could also be titled the "Library 2.0 Librarian," I think. Look at some of the duties involved:

provide leadership and vision for “transformative technologies” in the provision of library resources and services
Creates communication venues and distributes content via digital tools such as blogs and wikis for the library system website
Develops and delivers library instruction through podcasts and multimedia webcasts
promotes community via new technologies within the library and virtually via IM and other emerging communication mechanisms
enhances the WSU Library System web presence with current content and methods for distribution such as RSS
investigates and implements new technologies that may enhance the Library System's web presence
provides training and support for other librarians on new technologies (this is gonna be a big one, I think)

And some of the qualifications:

working knowledge of blogs, wikis, online gaming environments, podcasting, RSS and other Web-related technologies

Just... wow. What a completely interesting job! I think hiring one person to tackle Library 2.0 is certainly one way to do it. Hopefully, the library ALSO plans to work on their mission, their strategy and goals - otherwise, one person won't make much of a dent.

Either way - should be a fun time for the person who gets the job.

Library 2.0, web 2.0

Rocketboom linked to me

2006-01-10T19:49:00.000-08:00

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Some of you will get a kick out of this. I just got a mention on Rocketboom, a techie, newsie videoblog (an extremely popular one, too).

Remember those Blogging Delivered billboards I posted about a day or two ago? The Rocketboom folks also found them interesting - and included one of my pics in their January 10 videoblog! They linked to my flickr account, too.

My wife just chuckled, and accused me of blogging about a videoblog that blogged about my flickr feed blogging billboards... that I blogged about... (ahem - sorry - just a little giddy with squeamish videoblogging delight).

Other "insert term here" 2.0 Movements

2006-01-10T14:41:00.000-08:00

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Got this from LibraryStuff - The Web 2.0 Revolution Spawns Offshoots...

Library 2.0 is a movement spawned by Web 2.0 - what others exist? According to this post, there are many, including Identity 2.0, Law 2.0, media 2.0, Advertising 2.0, and Democracy 2.0.

library2.0, web2.0

Confrontational Aspects of Library 2.0 Discussed

2006-01-10T14:08:00.000-08:00

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Better Update: Go figure. I post the update, check to make sure my update posted correctly, and find that everything's ok again... so comments are working again.

update: for some odd reason, direct linking to this post and to comments is down for this post... bummer. If it doesn't clear up soon, I might delete it and post again... we'll see.

I have read Walt Crawford's large piece on Libary 2.0; Jenny's and John's recent posts; and now Meredith's latest post. Wow - for a term that's been around maybe five months, there sure is A LOT of discussion going around about it!

Meredith, in her last post, says:

"And what Jenny Levine wrote about the “L2 opponents” who feel “confusion and fear” over Library 2.0 really surprised me. Jenny is a nice person, a rational person, and I was really surprised to see what looked line a line in the sand being drawn. I really hope that Library 2.0 isn’t a polarizing force in the blogosphere because we all need to continue sharing our good ideas and success stories."

Walt says something similar: "I find it hard to look at the term and not see confrontation, but that's me" (page 2 of his PDF).

I certainly can't speak for Jenny (or anyone else in this conversation), but here's what I saw at Internet Librarian 2005. Michael and I gave a couple of presentations on technology, staff, and training. At the end of the session, during the question-and-answer time, someone asked this question (swiping the wording from Michael's post about it): "I'm not interested in new technology, and I don't have time for it and i'm not one to play with technology..what about me?"

That was a hard question to answer for a number of reasons (and we did a fine job of it, too). But my point in drudging this up again is this: I don't think Jenny is drawing lines in the sand. I don't think the concept of Library 2.0 (however one defines it) is drawing lines in the sand. When I received that question, I wasn't trying to draw any sort of line - I was simply talking about how to hire techie staff. Michael was talking about training those staff. No lines there... but lines are being drawn nonetheless.

Where are those lines coming from? Let me illustrate: The person that asked Michael and myself the question mentioned above had definitely drawn a line in the sand, one that basically says "I would really rather not learn anything new, but would still like to be a librarian." I hear other questions when libraries are planning a "what's new at the library" blog that start out with "why in the world would my library ever want to start something like that?" - I see a line drawn in the sand when I hear those types of statements.

What's going on here? I think Library 2.0 is a library response to the larger social technology changes going on right now. I wouldn't be surprised if there's an Automotive 2.0, a Psychiatrist 2.0, or a Teacher 2.0 (update - see my short post on this). Some librarians are noticing the change and are trying to figure out how libraries can capture the good stuff of Web 2.0 and use it to further serve our patrons. They have added a library-centric name to a larger concept that is appearing in our libraries, in our cities, and in the world at large (check Howard Rheingold's blog for some of those mentions).

And yes - some individuals who don't "do change well" are probably not doing well right now with current technology changes. But then, my guess is those types of people have ALWAYS drawn lines in the sand, and will continue to do so. A worthy goal for libraries and librarians should be to embrace those staff members and help them along the sometimes rocky road to change.

Who's with me?

library 2.0, web 2.0

Blogging Delivered

2006-01-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

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Anyone else seen these signs around your community? I actually took a few pics (see them here, here, here, here, and here).

AT&T is doing some large publicity thing with billboards touting words like Productivity, Blogging, etc... The others are same-ole-same-ole marketing billboards, but the blogging one - I think it's pretty cool!

Why is it cool? How many people drive by those billboards every day ... how many will wonder "hmm - what IS blogging, anyway?" ... how many will check it out... etc.

I think 2006 will be a VERY interesting year for online services, indeed!