Vast Active Library and Information Science blog. From a recent library science graduate in Wellington, New Zealand. A focus on reference and current awareness tools and issues, especially free, web-based resources.

 
The BBC reports that a "new school funded by a Christian charity is to put closed circuit TV cameras in every classroom to clamp down on rowdy pupils." Another school set up by the Vardy Foundation apparently teaches creationism.

Great. Another step along the path to having CCTV in our houses (it's the logical conclusion of this process, given that most violent crime etc occurs in the home). Paging Mr Orwell.....

| posted by Simon at 1:46 pm

 
Seen on TVC Alert an article from the Globe and Mail, suggesting that there's a downside to ICT - we no longer find it easy to concentrate on one thing at once, we have shorter attention spans and prefer to multitask. (Actually, I find this article reassuring - I thought I was bad because I'd never watch a TV programme without reading a book at the same time, but the author is in a whole other league from me). Worth thinking about though. (I think it was Schenk in 'Data Smog' who said that over-reliance on ICT is giving us all ADHD.)

| posted by Simon at 1:41 pm

 
Finished this one ahead of time....I have to work fast because I've got two assignments due while I'm in the US. There is a certain satisfaction in knowing that I've spent today just polishing it, rather than frantically rushing to get it written by Tuesday. (Evaluation of an electronic journal, and how it takes advantage of the potentials of the electronic medium, since you asked - I chose Athletic Insight. It's not a fantastic essay, but it's a solid pass.

| posted by Simon at 1:26 pm

 
I'm belated commenting on this article from Slate, on "Googleholes". The author considers "skewed synonyms" to be a major problem on Google (e.g. search for 'Apple' and the first 50 results will be for the Apple computer, not for the fruit). Now, I don't think this is a problem, but I'm noticing some weird results from searches that suggest Google's ranking needs tweaking.

First up: complaining that you get poor results from Google when searching on 'apple' is like complaining that you looked up Smith in the phone book, dialed the first number you found, and were disappointed that it wasn't the Smith you wanted. You have to be a bit cleverer than that, use the advanced search, or at least use more than one keyword. I don't think that's really a problem, if you take some time to think about what you actually want to find out ('growing apples' gets good results on Google, even 'apples' gets relatively good results compared with 'apple').

What I've noticed, though, is the way Google is elevating blogs in its search rankings, ahead of mainstream media. For example, recently there's been stories in the news regarding the 'blanket man', a well-known homeless man in Wellington. But the only Google results for a search on "'blanket man' wellington" are various weblogs. Same for a search on "Rob Jones" homeless Wellington (another homeless man who died here recently. My blog entry comes up in Google, but the articles I link to don't. Even though they're from a major news website. Why is that?

Why does Google priviledge what I have to say, ahead of what the mainstream media are saying? Isn't this a bit worrying? The only explanation I can think of is that Google hasn't spidered the stuff.co.nz website since that story was posted (5 July 2003). But it spiders my blog within a day or two....is this because Google owns Blogger? What implications does this have for web searchers, if Blogger-powered weblogs are turning up in web searches higher than, or instead of, mainstream news sources?

| posted by Simon at 1:24 pm

 
My home PC is on the blink, so I can't get online there (not a big deal as it was 3 1/2 years old and approaching the point where it was going to be given to charity, but inconvenient). I'm house and cat-sitting for my friend Mary, I've got huge amounts of work to do before I go to the US, and I'm trying to fit regular physical activity into my day (the theory that exercise helps your mental state is true, I think). Which means that I have almost zero time to post at the moment, which is frustrating, because I do have a few things I want to talk about (like why this blog shows up so high in so many Google searches - not actually a good thing to realise that my reposts of news stories actually rank higher than the original stories - something's not right there).

All I will say right now is: the combination of Hubmed (http://www.pmbrowser.info/) and Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com) is working wonders for me in terms of current awareness.

| posted by Simon at 5:18 pm

 
For reasons which are way beyond my powers to explain, I've been given permission to attend a conference in the US, hosted by the vendors of a new virtual reference/knowledge base programme we've started using. Naturally, I'm taking some holidays at the same time, so I'll get to visit New Orleans and New York, and meet up with some friends of mine. I still can't quite believe it....meantime I've started back at university, and have to finish 6 weeks of work in 3 weeks, to make sure it's all done before I head to the US. Things are going to be busy for the next few weeks.

And my p___t__e hunting friend is still at it - you would not believe the number of variations on prosti*e, Ind*a, Bangalo*e etc that are turning up in my referrer logs.... - P in B, P B, P (B), over and over...give up, my friend. They aren't online.

| posted by Simon at 1:22 pm

 
Seen on Research Buzz a link to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Book List Site. It's not pretty, but it looks incredibly comprehensive, with cross-referencing and links to official websites.

| posted by Simon at 1:17 pm

 
The BBC reports that a UK think tank is arguing that e-literate people should be forced to go online to use public services. "Savings from making the middle classes do things like file their tax returns online can help improve other services for those uncomfortable with computers, says the Work Foundation."

Heh. I used to work for the Work Foundation, and I didn't even click that it was their report until I'd posted this.

I don't recognise the author's name, but I like the way he's thinking.

| posted by Simon at 1:10 pm

 
Seen on Infomuse, a link to The Researching Librarian. No doubt very helpful for anyone planning on taking a research methods paper. "This site was created for librarians--new or experienced--who find themselves needing to perform research for purposes of publication, promotion, tenure, or other reasons. I hope that it also might be useful for other audiences and needs."

| posted by Simon at 9:41 am

 
Sometimes, things happen that make you think the world isn't so bad, that the people who think and behave decently are still in the majority. Right now is one of those times. A few days ago, Rob Jones, a homeless man known as the Bucket Man, died in Wellington. He was a familiar figure to many people here, and apparently never begged, or took more than he needed (to the point of taking only one sock from an offered pair, becuase he already had one good sock).

In death, Rob has become even more well-known. First our local paper devoted an editorial to him. Then, today, his funeral was the main news item on the newspaper billboards around town, and received front page coverage. The whole town, even those who didn't know him, seems united in grief. Grant Buist had a touching cartoon in the Capital Times, who also carried an article about the film being made of the life of the Blanket Man, another well-known homeless figure who covers himself only in a torn blanket, because of his disdain for possessions.

And then there's the other side. On the same day that Rob Jones died, the City Council announced that it is considering banning the homeless from the city - effectively making being homeless illegal. In what is perhaps the most unnecessary newspaper article ever, the Dominion-Post reports that Auckland mayor John Banks supports this move.

As one of the middle class liberals who are supposedly threatened by the homeless I'd just like to say - I ain't. Live and let them live, Mr Jones and the Blanket Man never bothered me.

| posted by Simon at 8:10 pm

 
My big toe has been hurting for the last few days. Monday evening I came home to find it was bleeding from what looked like a small blister or cut. So I put a plaster on it. It's been two days, and it didn't seem to be improving much, so I took a closer look at it, and realised that what I thought was a bit of callused skin, along the edge of the cut, was in fact a shard of glass. Which explains why the cut wasn't getting any better, and why my foot hurt like hell whenever I stood on my toe.

Anyone wanting to point and laugh is most welcome.

On a brighter note, I got my RSS essay back, and I got an A. So I've (unofficially) completed my first paper, with an overall A+. I'm happy (well, obviously).

| posted by Simon at 7:55 pm

 
Search Engine Watch reviews Vivisimo, a metasearch engine. It's killer app comes in the advanced search feature, which allows you to search specific news sites (BBC, New York Times), as well as specialised search engines (Pubmed, first.gov). (Note: Vivisimo doesn't seem to work if you de-select all the standard search engines, and select some of the additional ones such as BBC or Pubmed). It's also got a very useful clustering feature. Search on "physical activity" and you'll get links for that subject, but also for related subjects grouped under headings such as sports, physical education, fitness, health benefits, measuring physical activity, and school.

Very cool, and very useful, I think.

Seen at about the same time on Freepint and Open Stacks.

| posted by Simon at 2:43 pm

 
usr/lib/info asks the question "what will happen to the principle of fair use when Microsoft, as it intends to, builds DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) technology into Office applications such as Word and Excel?". Microsoft will be "providing users with a technology that, as its primary function, infringes on fair use." And worse, what happens when IE becomes the front-end of the system?

Sobering stuff.

| posted by Simon at 1:36 pm

 
Salon carries a story on the shifting public perception of Google, from plucky underdog towards dangerous monopoly.

First link via Phil Bradley's Blog.

| posted by Simon at 1:33 pm

 
A great list of 10 ways to improve Google searching, including using the * as a wildcard (to replace a whole word). In other words, typing "Bush *** Iraq" would return results like "Bush announces war on Iraq" (or whatever). In other words, proximity searching. Nice. Very, very nice. Still, Google suffers from its lack of internal wildcards, and truncation - it would be very helpful to be able to search on "behavio*r" to pick up on American and non-American spellings of the word, or "librar*" for anything to do with librarians. Sure, there are ways round this for those of us with at least basic search skills, but the majority of people don't have these skills. (I really need to put up links to the NZ Prostitutes Collective and to the Google 'Weapons of Mass Destruction" joke, because I'm getting a lot of hits from searches for those sites. For that matter, if anyone wants to help me set up a website for prostitutes based in Bangalore, please let me know, because I'm getting a lot of hits for that one too - latest 'good prostitutes in Bangalore').

Link via Sitelines.

| posted by Simon at 1:25 pm

 
A US Court has ruled that webloggers cannot be held responsible for libel in information that they republish. One more reason why the First Amendment is one of my favourite pieces of legislation, anywhere.

Via Technobiblio.

| posted by Simon at 1:19 pm

 
The internet is shit.

Via Metafilter.

| posted by Simon at 1:15 pm

 
Thanks to Steven for pointing out Bloglines, a web-based RSS aggregator. I like this a whole lot - it's incredibly simple to use, nice simple design, and best of all I can access it anywhere. Which means I can check it at work. Newzcrawler was good, but our firewall meant I couldn't use it at work. And I'm not online often enough at home for it to be much use for me there. There's already a whole lot of library and information weblogs listed with Bloglines (thanks in a large part to Greg). I can see myself with a window to my Bloglines account pretty much open all the time.

| posted by Simon at 1:13 pm

 
...and I still haven't got final grades back. But I've been doing fairly well, just got a paper back and I got an A for it. Not bad considering I was arguing something that I didn't wholly believe in ('that librarians are professionals'). Looking forward to getting my teeth into the Management and Electronic Publishing papers I'm taking next semester.

| posted by Simon at 10:02 pm

 
Saturday sees me in bed till the early afternoon, not wanting to deal with either the cold or the cleaning up. Eventually, my sense of duty overcomes my desire for comfort and I join in the cleaning process. Which is fairly painless, really. And results in us scoring the beers as mentioned below.

While I'd rather spend the day in bed, I've arranged to accompany Mary to Desdemona, a re-telling of Othello from the female characters' perspectives, put on by the students at the school of drama. Worthwhile, with some great physical drama, but some of the dialogue was hard to catch for deaf me. Impressed though that the actors managed to play loud, physical characters without overacting.

I should really have gone to bed, but Lou Barlow was playing at Indigo, and as the number of American indie-rock heroes who pass through town in any given month is usually zero, I figured I needed to drag myself down to see him....and it was worthwhile, though I was hoping he'd be playing some Folk Implosion stuff, and it was basically just his solo songs, acoustic love songs and 10 minute anecdotes about stray cats. Lou tells a good story though, and he got a lot of laughs, especially when suggesting that he didn't need a therapist because he wrote songs, so we were like his therapist - and WE paid HIM. He also managed some sharp pastiches of Napalm Death ("sadfggqweadfaaararhaffarghdfhgo. Cheers. Thanks a lot. Aasd234fdsdfasadfksaypbarrfgiasdqefgfgty;ghghj cheers. Thanks a lot") and Guided by Voices ("the mystery is in your handbag").

By the time the encore came round I had blurred vision even though I'd only drunk two beers, so I cut my losses and staggered home.

| posted by Simon at 9:55 pm

 
Winter has hit Wellington full force, with a very nasty southerly bringing snow to the Rimutakas, though not to the city itself, which the forecasters thought possible. This flat is one of the coldest I've lived in - it seems to take much more effort to heat than normal. Naturally, we'd chosen today as a suitable day for our flatwarming party. We'd specified fancy dress with a heaven and hell theme, which Laurie interpreted uniquely by turning up as Darth Vader. I came as the Pope, and the 'so are you heaven, or hell?' jokes got old quickly.

Decent-sized turn out, about what I was hoping for. Hoping for more from class, but a good crowd from work, who got introduced to the delights of absinthe - I think I may have created a monster there, although if they feel anything like Drake and I did the morning after, they will be vowing never to touch the stuff again. Anyway, we nearly polished off my whole bottle, of which I had precisely three shots, so someone was enjoying it. On the plus side, we finished up with about twice as much beer as we started with, nothing got broken, no-one punched anyone, and not much got spilt. So overall a success.

| posted by Simon at 9:47 pm

 
The tiny Pacific Island nation of Niue (population 1700) has installed a WiFi network which will cover the entire island, the BBC reported last week. Niue is basically a New Zealand dependency, with the majority of the population living in this country. The network is funded by the Internet Users' Society Niue, a charitable group who fund ICT in the country through the sale of .nu domain names, working in association with the Internet User's Society in Boston Massachusetts.

I just love this story - it's fantastic both to think of how technology can be deployed in a third world country, and how the internet has opened up new sources of incomes to countries such as Niue and Tuvalu (.tv). Also, my favourite website in the world is hosted on .nu, so I have a soft spot for the country generally.

| posted by Simon at 10:06 pm

 
Go to Google and type weapons of mass destruction then hit the 'I'm feeling lucky' button...funny....hope this lasts longer than the link for 'go to hell' that linked to microsoft.com....

| posted by Simon at 9:43 pm

 
Nice to see that some people are actually reading this - welcome! My new favourite referrer log entry is the Yahoo search for male prostitutes Bangalore that somehow turned me up. I hope s/he wasn't too disappointed...(though I do wonder, would male prostitutes in Bangalore have a website, given the illegality of both prostitution and homosexuality in India?

Meantime Steven is asking if I'm the only New Zealand librarian weblogger (which mention got me a few extra hits - thanks!). This inspired me to try a Google search, but I haven't managed any confirmed sightings yet. I hit this blog three or four times in the top 20 (and this post'll add another one). I did manage to find Malpractice which looks to be an entertaining read - made slightly weird for me by the fact that one of the authors has the same name as me, is the same age as me, and works across the road from me, or at least used to. He works *in* a library, but I'm not sure from the context if he is a librarian, and the blog doesn't really relate to libraries much.

Danielle appears to be a librarian too...and I found another one that looked promising, but can't now remember where it was....looks like I'm the only one so far.....

| posted by Simon at 9:41 pm