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Category: General (Page 24 of 135)

Signs, signs, signs

First there was my horoscope on Facebook with this warning: Working with computers will cause you some problems. This is not because of the technology but more because of the people you’re involved with. Opt for an old-fashioned way of doing something during this cycle rather than relying on inventions and modern gadgets, or worse still, people who promise a lot but deliver nothing.

Nice message to wake up to before giving a talk.

Then the storms. We have quit having rain in North Carolina. Of course I didn’t bring rain gear. Heck, I can’t even remember when I last needed rain gear or where I left my rain gear. I have no mental picture of rain gear. Another sign I was sure.

Then the set up of the room was too easy and too quick. I had kept my slides low tech and simple to be sure but it was all too easy. Now that’s a disturbing sign!

I met the former governor of Kansas who was also the Archivist of the United States. That was I think a good sign or was it a sign of how badly I was about to embarrass myself and my host?

As it turns out, the talk went well. I started and ended on time — always a good sign ;-> — and we had great questions and discussion afterwards.

On to meetings around campus for the next two days.

Kansas City – Free Wifi, tolerable bbq

Long layover at MCI, or is that KCI?, where I’m enjoying the free wifi. Thanks KS and MO! I visited the airport Arthur Bryant’s BBQ originally looking for eggs, but who would pass on the famous KC BBQ? Well, it’s beef. Not so dry but not like chopped pork. The sauce is brown catsup with a few flavors to help the bland beef pass for more than overcooked slightly smoked stuff. Forgetable slaw, called cole slaw here, as a side.

Jessamyn West in Chronicle and at K-State Libraries blogs

“Young Librarians, Talkin’ ‘Bout Their Generation”, a link that may given the ways of the Chronicle of Higher Education go away shortly, features interviews with 8 young librarians including Librarian.net’s Jessamyn West (her blog is hosted on ibiblio.org) who talks about the relationship between libraries and publishers. Jessamyn is handed a loaded gun when the Chronicle asks “Should the relationship between libraries and publishers change? If so, how?” and later (in audio) “What are libraries doing right? Doing wrong?” Jessamyn toasts Free Culture and disses libraries resistance to embrace rapid change.

Thanks to Jeff Pomerantz for the link to the Chronicle.

Jessamyn’s talk at Access 2007 gets reviewed on the Kansas State Libraries blog. In return, she links to bogs and feeds there at K-State.

I’ll be at Kansas State tomorrow through Friday (as I mentioned in an earlier post) and I’m looking forward to talking to the library folks there especially now that Jessamyn has pointed out their blogs to me and I’ve been able to read a bit about what they are up to.

Go in Indy and in Chapel Hill?

The Independent has a story about the rise of the game of Go in the Triangle over the past few decades. As part of the story, a list of a few places where Go is played is included. Somewhat vaguely, we learn that “There are also weekly games played on the campuses of UNC and NCSU.” When you go to to the Triangle Go Club website, you once learned that weekly games were held on Sundays at UNC. I wrote the webmaster and asked “Where?” Err. No one knows. Now the website says Regular games were previously held at various locations at UNC and NCSU.

If you know of any Chapel Hill Go gaming, please let Bob Bacon of the Triangle Go Club and me know of them.

History of Franklin Street

Franklin Street

Just back from last night’s opening of the “History of Franklin Street” at the Chapel Hill Museum. It’s well-worth stopping by the Museum, itself on Franklin Street in the old (but not oldest) Chapel Hill Library. The show contrasts the current shops on Franklin with pictures of the street in the 1940s and visits each of the older shops as you stroll through the exhibit.

One pleasure in attending the opening was that many of the folks there had been in the shops in the 50s if not the 40s. The side stories, the old rumours whispered as if they were still fresh, the sudden look on peoples’ faces as they remembered businesses long gone made the exhibit all the more live.

Lyceum 1.0 Released!

Lyceum
JJB and ibiblio are “extremely proud and excited to announce Lyceum 1.0. We’ll be talking more about the larger Lyceum landscape [on the Lyceum blog] over the next several days.”

For now, here’s a list of improvements since 0.34:

* Synchronized with WordPress 2.0.11
* Even greater plugin and theme compatibility with WordPress
* Improved and expanded search functionality
* Vastly improved interface for assigning permissions to users
* More complete set of system-admin tools for managing users and blogs
* Ability to restrict number of blogs a user can create
* Refined admin interface layout
* Performance optimizations, some of them very significant for large installations
* Bundled plugins: Lyceumified Akismet, Creative Commons wpLicense
* Dozens of bug fixes

University Distinguished Lecturer

That’s me. Pure vanity in this post so be warned.

I’ll be in Manhattan, Kansas next week as the University Distinguished Lecturer at Kansas State University and speaking about “Keeping It Free from Code to Content” an appropriate topic for ibiblio’s 15th year. Reprising my topic from my 2001 Communications of the ACM paper I say and will say that I “advocate[s] for open source[s], saying that libraries and collections must be open, must be collaborative and must be loud.”

I should not be confused with Paul Jones, fallen mayor of Ravenna Ohio for whom a building at KSU (Kent State not Kansas State) was recently unnamed. NO NO Different KSU and a very different Paul Jones.

ibiblians in the News!

Stutzmania continues! If you missed Fred’s talk “Do You REALLY Know Facebook?” you can see it now at the ibiblio speakers page or directly here. Thanks for Cristobal for making this available.

Speaking of Cristobal. He and Doug Whitfield of COSI (Carolina Open Source Initiative) give good ink as they explain Open Source Software in today’s Daily Tar Heel as they talk about “Finding Freedom with Open Source.”

Dave Mason of INTRAHealth Informatics is blogging about global Public Health in an article called “The emerging open source health community.” There he notices my wiki of Open Source Software for Public Health. Thanks Dave.

Jazz Deals of the Century – Following Monk

Aaron Greenwald of Duke Performances is offering a jazzy peaceful outreach to UNC and NCCU students and to community members in the form of reduced prices for some upcoming concerts in the Following Monk series.

NCCU, UNC, DPS & Triangle Jazz Society Friends:

Over here at Duke Performances, we’re looking forward to three exceptional, upcoming performances in the next month celebrating what would have been NC-born jazz legend Thelonious Monk’s 90th b-day. We would like to offer you, your students, your members & friends a special deal on tix for these monumental concert events:

Half-price tickets for community members and Duke employees.*
$5 tickets for all students, an extension from the usual Duke student exclusive offer.**

Charles Tolliver, Andy Bey, and Jason Moran, extraordinary artists, deserving of a full house, will each give a rare performance for the Following Monk Festival.

:::
CHARLES TOLLIVER ORCHESTRA

Exclusive Concert Event
THE THELONIOUS MONK ORCHESTRA AT TOWN HALL, 1959: REVIVING A LANDMARK
Saturday, 10/13/07, 8 pm, Page Auditorium

For the “Following Monk” festival, the man who’s played with Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, and Max Roach will lead his critically acclaimed orchestra through Monk’s legendary ’59 Town Hall tenter concert, start to finish— the first time this storied section of the Monk catalogue has been played in nearly 50 years.

Tickets were: $38 • $30 • $22 • $5 (Special offer: price applies to all students)
Special offer: $19 • $15 • $11 • $5 (Students)

:::
ANDY BEY TRIO

Exclusive Concert Event
CARMEN SINGS MONK: A NEW INTERPRETATION
Thursday, 10/18/07, 8 pm, Reynolds Industries Theater

For this special “Following Monk” festival show, this “ferociously talented” singer-pianist (“New York Times”) interprets selections from Carmen McRae’s iconic album of Monk arrangements, “Carmen Sings Monk,” 14 tracks of of Monk’s iconic tunes given voice.

Tickets were: $26 • $20 • $5 (Special offer: price applies to all students)
Special offer: $13 • $10 • $5 (Students)

:::
JASON MORAN OCTET

A World Premiere
IN MY MIND: MONK AT TOWN HALL, 1959
Saturday, 10/27/07, 8 pm, Page Auditorium

In this world-premiere performance, a prodigy pianist, gifted composer, and heir to the Monk tradition debuts IN MY MIND, a full-length original piece based on Monk’s legendary 1959 Town Hall concert, W. Eugene Smith’s documentary work, and Moran’s 2007 pilgrimage to Monk’s ancestral home in North Carolina. The piece incorporates live performance by an eight-piece ensemble, video projections, and recorded samples of Monk rehearsing his band for the Town Hall performance.

Tickets were: $38 • $30 • $22 • $5 (Special offer: price applies to all students)
Special offer: $19 • $15 • $11 • $5 (Students)

:::
To purchase tix, visit dukeperformances.org, or call (919) 684-4444 and let the box office representative know you would like to take advantage of this deal.

When purchasing the tickets online, you will see the discounted price once you have added tickets to your basket.

*Four half-price tickets per purchase.
** Two $5 ticket per valid student ID.

Dancing with Art – Jane Filer Show

Saturday night amongst our social stops was a wonderful art opening at Tyndall Galleries in UMall of new work by Jane Filer, one of our favorite artists and one of our favorite people. The show itself was a delight. The gallery was crowded with great people. There was a drummer/percussionist playing and that seemed very appropriate — especially later when the paintings came to live and danced through and with the crowd.

Jane Filer has up a video of the dancing figures here. It’s a must see.

Sally has some great still shots of a different mask with its owner and with its creator.

Two years ago, some pioneer maskers invaded the Mall itself. They’re seen here, and here, and here and here with gallery owner Jane Tyndall and artist Jane Filer.

Greene-mania at Festifall

I usually don’t write about Sally and politics. This Sunday, we spent the day at Festifall giving out balloons and talking to people. And despite the heat, unusual for October, we had a great time. Festifall wasn’t overcrowded and the mood was relaxed. Lots of kids with their grandparents and at least once with their great grandparents. We did an interview with the Daily Tar Heel which hit the paper today. We also learned that Sally had gotten the important Sierra Club endorsement.

Friends of ibiblio

Last night I got a Facebook note asking me if there was a “Friends of ibiblio” group there. Hee! Not then but in about 2 minutes there was one. Within an hour there were 50 members. By noon on Friday only with the group only about 12 hours old, there were about 125. Just now there about over 160 members. Wow! That was a surprise to me and a nice surprise too.

If you like ibiblio and would like to share the love of the love of sharing, jump on over and join up. There is discussion and announcements and I’ll use the group to message you about upcoming ibiblio events such as the Bob Young talk, the North Carolina Science Blogging Conference and a visit from DJ Spooky.

Free Yourself and Your Stuff from Blackboard with bFree 2

Uncle Dave alerts us to content-freeing software, Version 2 of bFree, the Blackboard Course Extractor.

The popular bFree application has been revised to extract far more material from a Blackboard course archive, and to make your exploration and use of that material easier.

The program now extracts Announcements; Discussion Board entries, archives, and attachments; and Digital Drop Box and group File Exchange uploads. It continues to extract wiki entries and attachments, Staff Information and attachments, and Content Area pages, including folders, descriptions, links, and attached files of all kinds. Tests, Gradebook, Surveys, Assignments, and Pools are among the content items not yet supported.

bFree will quickly create an independent web site for a course. The site can be placed on a web server or CD, or even loaded into Sakai. The web site mimics the structure of the original Blackboard course.

The interface now displays previews along with the course outline, and provides a larger area for previews. All texts, titles, names, and descriptions can be searched to locate materials of interest.

All the features of bFree are documented within bFree itself.

bFree is available, free of charge HERE.

A document detailing version changes is here.

(The bFree application is Copyright 2006-2007 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License. Your suggestions and comments are welcome; send them to David_Moffat@unc.edu.)

Fred-mania in print and in person

Steve Outing of Editor and Publisher’s Stop the Presses asks newspapers “What’s Your Facebook Strategy?” But before he gets an answer from the papers, he asks friend and Facebook expert Fred Stutzman what a newspaper’s Facebook strategy should be.

Fred’s talk, “Do you REALLY know Facebook?” will be opening the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center’s free Current Science Forums at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 4, 2007 in MPSC’s Banquet Hall. Enter through the east entrance doors (near the Coker Arboretum) and come to the second floor.

What Bob says Bob Young will say

The connection between Ibiblio, Open Source, Lulu, and the number 42. will be the title of Bob Young’s talk on October 30 (details below).

And here’s a summary of how he’ll be making those connections:

Entrepreneurs can be found in all fields of human activity, not just business. The common characteristic of Entrepreneurs, and most humans for that matter, is they eventually get tired of just listening and throwing things at the television set, or the pompous Professor at the front of the room, or their software supplier, and instead decide one day to do something about it. This explains Paul Jones and Ibiblio, it explains Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds of the free-software-open-source-gnu-linux movement, and it explains Lulu. It also explains the number 42.

Bob Young
WHO: Bob Young, founder of Lulu.com, Lulu.tv and Red Hat
WHAT: As seen on Facebook!
WHEN: Tuesday, October 30, 2007, 3:30pm – 5:00pm
WHERE: The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History Pleasants Family Room, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC (moved to a larger room)

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