Recently I reported on the director of the Penn libraries, who was under investigation for charges of child pornography. Apparently, he is not alone (except in the creepy loner pedophile mode). How can professional librarians, of such high stature, have such poor discretionary skills? I mean, come on, using a library computer to traffic porn? Kiddie porn, no less. And these aren’t random support staffers either. These are directors. How does their judgment get so clouded? And as I mentioned last time, what does it say about other decisions that they’ve made?

The wonderful photoblog of the Urbana Free Library’s construction project has been syndicated. The RSS feed can be found here.

Madonna wins War on Iraq

OK, so let’s say you’re working on a regime change. Purely hypothetical. You’ve taken over the capital city and are preparing to institute a new government. What should be high on the priority list? Power struggles…economic development…health care? Why bother with those non-essentials when the opportunity exists to shape intellectual property policy in the new Iraq. And who do you think is at the forefront of the copyright legislation effort? The RIAA’s Hilary Rosen, of course. The Register provides more details:
“With the effective collapse of the UN’s food program, it’s nice to see Rosen’s humanitarian impulses remain untarnished by war.”

Are you familiar with the endangered Arabian Oryx? Jack Hanna brought one out on Letterman. According to Jack, the Egyptians tied the two horns and they grew together, forming the so-called unicorn. Not everyone agrees. Some photos from the reintroduction program. The photo in the 11th row, 2nd column shows how easily one could mistake the oryx for the unicorn.

This is an article about a young man who died of mad cow disease. They call him a vegetarian, although he apparently ate beef occasionally. Doesn’t really fit my definition, but of course the media seizes the opportunity to remind you that a vegetarian diet is unsafe. The article suggests that gelatin may have been the culprit, so if gelatin isn’t already on your avoid list, consider putting it there.

I’m staring at this blog-in-transition and realizing that from an accessibility standpoint, it’s a disaster. For example (I’m sure there are many), some folks who have visual impairments might want to use IBM Home Page Reader to have my page read aloud for them. Unfortunately, the way the page is set up, the reader would probably read the whole sidebar before getting to the blog content. I’ll have to think about switching the columns or something similar. There’s definitely not enough people thinking about this stuff. I’m as guilty as anyone, but it’s never too late to consider. This is an outstanding resource on usability in general, with a specific link for web sites:
Designing a More Usable World, courtesy of the Trace Center at the University of Wisconsin.

In honor of my more focused effort, I’ve decided to rename this blog altogether. So welcome to Open Stacks. I hope the name conveys the appropriate message, however you wish to interpret it.

I finally got Movable Type operational on my home server, so I’ve started a second blog. That will allow this blog to focus on more librarian-friendly content. Those of you in RSS land don’t have to read my Friday Five anymore. Unless you really want to. If you’re one of the two or three people world-wide who would like to be reading my more random remarks, email me at planetneutral [at] hotmail [dot] com and I’ll send you the link (syndication available). Expect a migration of this blog in about a month’s time.

1. What was the last TV show you watched?

I caught the last 15 minutes of the Michael Jackson special, but before that, Mr. Personality.

2. What was the last thing you complained about and what was the problem?

I’m interpreting this to mean complaining to someone else, as I complain to myself constantly. The last known complaint dealt with the difficulty of setting up Movable Type on my personal server, but last night at about 1 AM, I made that happen. The main problem turned out to be accurately identifying path names in the configuration file. Once I put this computer in a more permanent location (post-graduation), I’ll probably migrate over to that system.

3. Who was the last person you complimented and what did you say?

I try to tell my fiancee she does a great job at least a few times per week. I also told Aaron Schatz that I liked his Lycos 50 blog.

4. What was the last thing you threw away.

Last night’s dental floss.

5. What was the last website (besides this one) that you visited.

Right here at my blog. Before that, I was looking at the myriad job boards I check on a daily basis. Nothing new.