Side Note: Get OpenOffice2. Now.

Don't delay, just go download it, and enjoy. Even if you only do it for the integrated print to PDF function.

Channelling My Inner Patron

I'm getting in touch with my inner patron today. Patrons don't experience things the way we do: classification is a joke (especially LC or NLM--at least Dewey makes some kind of visual sense); databases and the citations they contain are obscure; IT restrictions keep them from doing the things they need or want to do. Libraries are full of barriers and hoops, and librarians aren't always the gentle guides they need to be.

I want to print a 48"x36" document across multiple 8.5"x11" sheets (tiled printing). I've done it a million times before, as it is a cheap way to print large documents which you then trim and glue together. The results are of decent quality, especially for a 30-minute non-competitive poster presentation for which you are essentially filler because no one else signed up. Plus, I get to cut and paste for a while, which is remarkably fun and soothing.

An aside: this is both the volunteer gene and my procrastination tendency (mentioned previously) getting to me at once. The issue here is that I got myself into this, so there's no one to address to alleviate the anxiety and get over the procrastination. I guess I'll have to have a stern chat with myself. I'll do it later.

I have tried every workaround I can think of to get this to come out. The issue appears to be a setting on the color printer that when the memory buffer gets full, it just stops printing. Yes, I could call the IT staff, just like a patron could ask a librarian, but it just seems like it should work. No offense to our IT staff, but they are hard to find, always "busy," and always question what it is I want or what I am doing. Just like we do when a patron asks a question, right? And just like a patron, I am definitely trending towards taking the easy way out (I'll print out handouts and take a projector and shine my poster up on a wall) instead of asking for help.

I sincerely hope the next time a patron comes up to me with one of "those" questions, I can draw on this experience and look at them with soft eyes.

WDT

The Kind of Geek I Am

Just a quick note I thought this audience would appreciate: I have lost the entire day playing with my tablet and GoBinder. It's work-related, so it's a legitimate use of time, but I just have to smile--give me a toy and give me a new way to organize information and I can disappear for hours.

I feel very fortunate that the things I get to do are also the things I like to do; I get paid to get into the "flow" state where task and focus become one. Lucky me.

Ongoing Quest for True Personal Information Management

One potential HUGE perk of the tablet: it came with access to GoBinder, which seems on the surface to do a lot of the things I want my personal information management product to do. It's a matter of finding the time to really get it working, but it appears I actually could have tasks, notes, project plans, documents, etc., etc., all in one place and all searchable. Hmm. My counterpart here is more interested in OneNote because it has better audio and video integration, but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. I need more darned time!

Guilt item: what do I do with my recent $70 purchase of Franklin swag if I really get into GoBinder? Put 11 months of planner out on EBay?

Also, I have no idea where I stumbled across the reference, but for time management/personal planning/"life hacks," I am completely onboard with the 43 Folders folk. In my original perusal of their content, I really liked Patching Your Personal Suck.

The best part: "You can’t just turn it on and instantly be the thing you wish you were. It takes reflection, thought, iteration, and a personal commitment to facing the stuff at which you suck. And we all suck at something. You totally suck at something, and it secretly drives you nuts every goddamned day."

There's a lot of stuff I suck at, but one of the worst is that I put off doing things that I somehow feel pressured into doing; not stuff that I don't want to do, because there's a lot of that, and I generally just deal and get it done. But, if there's a project or a task that I feel I've been somehow coerced or cornered into, I will delay and delay and delay.

Somewhere else on 43 Folders they talked about dealing with the anxieties that keep you from getting stuff done, and I guess the anxiety here would be "dealing directly with the person who annoyed me by dumping crap on me instead of being a passive-aggressive procrastinator."

Now, THAT'S a task worthy of the GoBinder task list.

WDT

A Quick Tablet Update

Good things:
1. Very high coolness factor
2. Note taking is easier than I thought it would be
3. Darn speedy machine, with darn speedy wireless
4. If left on chair, makes an excellent seat warmer in cool weather

Not-so-good things:
1. Too heavy with additional battery (regular battery life seems to be about 5 hours)
2. Lopsided with additional battery
3. Tablet-specific features are not intuitive and I just don't have the time right now to explore things in depth

To make it my main machine, I need a port replicator which is not forthcoming from any budget stream I can see. This makes it difficult to really be at one with my tablet.

I like the concept of the tablet, but what I want is all of the same functionality in a package the size of a paperback. That would be TRUE portability; get a port replicator and even something tiny could be a main machine.

I can say that a tablet with ubiquitous wireless access eliminates any need for a PDA. I'm willing to lug the extra weight to get full PC functionality.

WDT

Revisiting My Past Life

Many of you know that I play string bass; from the time I picked it up in 5th grade until I was about 19, my one and only desire was to be a musician. As I was pretty darn good, this was an excellent possibility, but life intervened and here I am beating out my librarian blog instead. We never know what path we'll take.

However, music has been on my mind recently, and I finally took a deep breath and took my bass out of its case after almost two years of not playing. The news was not so good; the fingerboard and saddle have loosened, I have two seams open, and the neck warped a little bit. Mercifully, a local shop is going to be able to fix her up for me for a lot less than I thought.

The question then becomes, if I'm going to pay (to have it fixed), am I going to play? I've got to find a new group, make it a priority, yadda, yadda, yadda, and I just don't know if this time I'll be able to get over the ghosts of the past and just enjoy the experience of making music, at whatever level that might be.

I'm just not sure I can do that. We'll see.

WDT

My Kingdom for an AccessMedicine Class Script

So, I'm in the middle of AccessMedicine Promotion Month, and I realize that if I'm supposedly teaching an "AccessMedicine Power Hour" on Friday, by golly, I probably ought to do more than stand up there and say, "Um, this is, like, um, AccessMedicine, or something."

This is where I begin to pine for a single source of librarian education resources. I know someone else out there has already done this; I'm sure their class script would be just fine for my needs. Why do each and every one of us have to continually reinvent the wheel? Gaah!

I guess I'll send a message out to MEDLIB-L and see if anyone is willing to pony up what they've got. And education librarians, I'm looking in your direction with narrowed eyes. Surely there's got to be a better way.

Lessons Learned from _The Nightmare Before Christmas_

My husband and I love the movie The Nightmare before Christmas, and we watch it every year around this time. The plot is a little thin, but the details in the film are just fantastic. There are gags nesting within other gags, like Russian dolls, and they are smart, funny little jokes, too. Overall, it's just a jewel of a film.

Usually I like the movie because Jack (The Pumpkin King) realizes that happiness can't be found in work, and instead is available in the arms of a good woman. A fine message about priorities, in my opinion.

However, this year I took away something else: stray from your core service, or your core message, at your own peril.

You see, Jack and the denizens of Halloween Town decide to take over Christmas, with monstrous results (kids get severed heads instead of presents, the toys attack the recipients, etc.). Jack nearly dies and realizes that he should stick with what he and his fellow flok in Halloween Town are best at: scaring the daylights out of people.

I think the message is important for libraries: there's a lot we can be doing in this day and age, and there's a very real push away from core library services as we struggle to "redefine" ourselves. I'm as pro-progess as the next person (maybe too much so for some), but I think Jack teaches a valuable lesson. A Pumpkin King is a Pumpkin King, not Santa Claus. A library is a library, with exceptional skills in acquiring, organizing, and disseminating information. We're not (usually) instructional design experts or (again, usually) hard-core IT people, or a million other things.

This isn't coming out the way I wanted it to; I guess I need to think on it some more. If libraries are equivilent to the Pumpkin King, then what is the Santa Claus we're trying to become? I can't quite put my finger on that part of the analogy. Still, doing what you are good at and building a team of experts to cover the areas where you're not so hot is always a good idea.

Tablet. Woah.

I've been given a tablet PC as part of my work for the Office of Medical Education. Bob and I have been harping about how the machines are too big for practical, long-term, one-arm use, but now that I have one in my hands... I can see a lot of potential. The main issue is that they ARE too heavy with the addon battery and regular battery life alone is only abou tthree hours.

I'm going to try to use it as my main machine for a while and see what I can see with it.

Oh, ya, it's a HP Compaq tc4200.

WDT

30sec Forever?

There's some sort of karma thing going on here--the name of my blog has come up three times in three different conversations over the last few days. I always intended to change it each year on my birthday, which would then make it the :31 Second Librarian this year, the :32 Second Librarian in 2006, etc., etc. The URL wouldn't change, as I used my screen name (whitneydt) instead of the name of the blog in the location as I was anticipating this little artifice.

So far, the votes are three for three against changing the name annually. Although I realize that the :31 Second Librarian just doesn't have quite the same ring as 30sec, I think it both recognizes the passage of time in a small way and encompasses my desire that someday I really will have an extra second, or an extra 30 seconds when I'm sixty, or an extra sixty seconds when I'm 90. There's some kind of hope tied up in the name change, and I'm unwilling to give that up.

Also, I promised when I got started that I would write about why my age is such an important descriptor for me right now--I'll make that my birthday post.

WDT

Bloggin' Bennies

So, if a blog gets written in the forest, and no one reads it, was it really ever written at all?

When I talk about blogs and blogging, someone invariably asks, why write it if only a handful of people are going to read it? The past week has brought out a couple of excellent reasons:

1. Writing helps clarify content in your own mind. Why are you posting that link? Do you really think that most medical librarians deserve to lose their jobs? Once it's posted, it's out there for everyone to see, and that's a powerful incentive to be sure what you are writing really makes sense.

This benefit of blogging came up while Teri Hartman and I were writing an article on blogging for the Plains to Peaks Post.

2. Someone you don't know might come up to you at a conference and say, "YOU'RE WHITNEY [insert your name here]! My friend and I LOVE your blog." This actually happened to me, and I was just pleased as punch.

3. You might find out that people you do know and like read your blog. Turnabout is fair play, and here are links to Tim Rogers and Erica Reynolds. You may even find readers you don't know very well but like anyway are reading what you write.

Carve a little community out of your corner of cyberspace, and start a blog. Send me the link, and I promise I'll read.

WDT

PS--I'm not into Moby Dick like Erica is, but my favorite tale of all time, of any length, is Bartleby the Scrivener. It doesn't matter how much noise we make; is it a "difference that makes a difference, or a silence like that of the tomb?"