Laundry list systems librarians

Posted on Tue 26 September 2006 in Libraries • Tagged with Coding

On the always excellent Techessence, Dorothea Salo posted Hiring a systems librarian. The blog post warned against libraries who put together a “laundry-list job description” for systems librarians:

Sure, it'd be nice to have someone who can kick-start a printer, put together a desktop machine from scraps, re-architect a website …

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BEARS! BEARS IN MY NEIGHBOURHOOD!!!

Posted on Mon 25 September 2006 in Family • Tagged with Personal

Every once in a while I'm allowed to get hysterical, okay?

According to CBC Radio in Sudbury, there's a 150 kilogram black bear prowling around our neighbourhood, tearing apart garbage and causing great concern for residents. We've brought it on ourselves, though. Apparently my neighbours are so filthy that they've …


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Why quasi-open source doesn't work

Posted on Tue 19 September 2006 in misc • Tagged with Programming languages

A few minutes ago, I gave you some examples of how open source works. Now I'm going to give you an example of how quasi-open source doesn't work.

Looking for a tool to help visualize the development of our library's new Web site, I came across a reference in the …


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Why open source works...

Posted on Tue 19 September 2006 in Software Freedom • Tagged with PHP

A couple of recent examples in the PHP community have reaffirmed my faith in the open source development model: the PEAR proposal process, and the delay in the 5.2.0 release.

Example #1: PHP's PEAR project

Over the past month I've been working on a couple of PEAR proposals …


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Another day, another 5K

Posted on Sun 10 September 2006 in misc • Tagged with Personal

Lynn and I ran a 5K (the Ramsey Lake Tour) this morning with Amber in the stroller. The route was pretty much the same route I take to work, so we opted to walk over to the University for the event. Of course, we were running late thanks to Missy …


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AfterMARC: Morphing, murdering, or massaging the MARC format

Posted on Fri 08 September 2006 in Libraries • Tagged with Libraries

Update 2007/01/02: The wiki you are looking for is at http://futurelib.pbwiki.com/ -- sorry for not updating this earlier.

Update 2006/09/10: I have been informed that while my effort was appreciated, Karen and Eric Lease Morgan are working on setting up their own wiki instead …


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File_MARC and Structure_Linked_List: new alpha releases

Posted on Fri 25 August 2006 in Libraries • Tagged with Coding, PHP

Earlier in the month I asked for feedback on the super-alpha MARC package for PHP. Most of the responses I received were along the lines of "Sounds great!" but there hasn't been much in the way of real suggestions for improvement. In the mean time, I've figured out (with Lukas …


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Cultural influences: young child's fragile eggshell mind

Posted on Wed 23 August 2006 in misc • Tagged with Amber

Amber watched her first film in a real theatre(*1*) this morning. She had slept straight through You, Me, and Dupree two weeks ago, but insisted on paying attention to today's showing of Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby. Maybe it was the NASCAR action, maybe it was the …


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I'm not as sore as I thought I would be

Posted on Tue 22 August 2006 in misc • Tagged with Personal

Although my fingers are pretty sore after writing this entry.

Over the weekend, our household participated in the Orillia Triathlon, Duathlon and Try-a-Tri. A couple of weeks ago, Lynn decided that she was ready to jump back into the triathlon waters with a Try-a-Tri (350m swim, 10k bike, 2.5k …


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Super-alpha MARC package for PHP: comments requested

Posted on Mon 14 August 2006 in Libraries • Tagged with Coding, PHP

Okay, I've been working on this project (let's call it PEAR_MARC, although it's not an official PEAR project yet) in my spare moments over the past month or two. It's a new PHP package for working with MARC records. The package tries to follow the PEAR project standards (coding …


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