I’m lucky.

Growing up with a wide range of technology gives a perspective that the Millennials missed and the Boomers didn’t fully understand. I’ve seen the progression from a mostly analogue world to a very wired and digital world. This instilled an appreciation for the ease, the simplicity, the complexity, and speed at which information is now passed. It also provides a great basis on organizing information so that both Boomers and Millennials can find what they’re looking for.

In music formats, I’ve used 33 and 45 RPM records, 8 Tracks, cassette tapes, CDs, minidisks, and now digital formats. In addition to that, my great grandparents had some 78 RPM records that I knew about, even if they couldn’t be played. I learned how to edit sound on a reel to reel — complete with fresh straight blade and tape — and also used one of the first commercially available sound editing programs for the computer.

Computing? I’ve used an electric typewriter, word processor, and computer. I used mainframes, terminals, towers, laptops, Palm Pilots, and tablets. Screens were once large, monochrome and heavy, and now they’re thin, full-color, and lightweight. Data storage has gone from punchcards to 5.5″ disks to 3.25″ disks, Zip and Jazz disks, CDs, DVDs, SD cards, thumb drives, external drives, servers, and now the Cloud (in the 80′s & 90′s, the Cloud was known as the Internet: same concept rebranded for the new millennium).

Phones at one point came big and black with a rotary dial, then touchtones, pagers, Nokia 6160, Razr, Blackberry, VoIP / Skype, iPhone / Android and other smartphones. Cameras had external flashes and used film (120, 110, 35mm, Polaroid…). Pictures often discolored due to the chemicals degrading. Slides and black and white film was still common. The first digital cameras hit the scene when I was a junior in college. In my senior year, I started to experiment with digital video, which meant recording it on VHS, encoding it, editing it, and then dropping it back to VHS. The school had one computer that was equipped for digital video editing. Now it’s everywhere, even on your home PC with digital in and digital out, and cell phones with the ability to upload it immediately to YouTube.

About that time, I also started playing with multimedia production. As a kid, I was really into drawing and animation, creating flipbooks because it was fun. I learned HTML my freshman year and could display pages on Mosaic. I took that and experimented with HyperCube. I did 3D animation, starting from wireframes that would take 5 days to render 15 seconds worth of a basic movement. And I figured out how to combine them.

I remember a time without cable where you had to get up and go to the TV to change the channel. Then the channel box on a long cord that snaked through the room, and finally the hefty infrared controllers. MTV was just beginning. And the cable company had a public access channel, didn’t dabble in phone service, or deliver your internet service (that was left to the phone company and dial-up modems!).

Libraries still used card catalogs. Each book had a card that was stamped with a due date. We scoured through large paper tomes and volumes to find the necessary data for research papers, often trading the index for scholarly publications that were obviously used quite often. Microfiche was common. In the 1990s, computerized OPACs were commonplace but often terminal based and a pain to use. Now they use the same technology that websites use coupled with RFID, self-checkout, email notifications, and online renewals. Scholarly indexes are now electronic databases, often displaying PDFs of the articles within one or two clicks. Microfiche is being transferred to digital formats.

And that’s just in 30 or so years. Imagine what the next 30 will bring!

Photo: Old Technology by Robin Kaspar and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0) license.

The month of November is almost half over, if you can believe it. Which also marks the halfway point of NaBloPoMo.

It also means that the Occupy Wall Street movement is almost 2 months old. I’m sure most of you have heard that the New York occupation was evicted from sleeping in the park. Everything went. Tents, sleeping bags, personal items, the library.

Amazingly, the media has been covering the loss of the library’s 5,000+ books with great interest. What I didn’t know before today was that it was organized and cared for by a volunteer staff of around 15 people, and one of the first community-like features to evolve in OccupyCity. Which is quite a feat outdoors. Kinda cool when you think about it.

Having just opened a membership-driven community tech library, I love to see how it pulls everyone together and centers the community. Not only is a library a place to read and gain information, it’s a place to gather and share information. It’s an inexpensive meeting place for the entrepreneurs. It’s a place for established businesses to share information or meet potential employees or clients. It’s a place that encourages the melding between programmers and hackers (think the people who dismantled their radios by the time they were 10 years old and made something else from the parts just because they were curious).

A library levels the metaphorical playing field. People use libraries to find information that they seek. Everyone is there for that reason. It’s a keystone to understanding your community and engaging the local community. The curious high school student may attend a talk or class by a top business leader and ask a question that’s the catalyst for the student’s life work. The business leader may encounter another person who helps her have another perspective on a problem he’s been pondering. The library is the core of a honeycomb that holds these chance encounters and serendipitous relationships in place.

Photo: Occupy Wall Street Library by Spaztacular (Flickr user name) and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license.

Hmm… using today’s NaBloPoMo prompt, and it’s about passions.

What is your secret (or not-so-secret) passion?

This is something that I’ve been thinking of a lot lately. At work, one of the core values is Be Passionate and Determined. Many people know what they’re passionate about.

Me? Well, that’s a bit harder to pinpoint.

I’m passionate about organizing stuff. I’ve been passionate about organization since I was a kid. What 7 year old places all of their books on their shelf in alphabetical order? And it gets better from there. As a teenager, all of my cassette tapes needed to be in alphabetical order, too. Which meant shifting all of the tapes every time I purchased a new one (which was often!). My hats were organized by style. Shirts separated by solids and prints, long sleeves and short sleeves. Shoes in a certain way. Even down to how things were placed on my dresser.

But I’m also passionate about community. It’s in my blood, with my grandparents being involved with the town I grew up in by opening the public swimming pool. My mom was always volunteering for church or community events, either by baking or taking turns manning a table. I enjoy volunteering for the local library system. I like helping out CCFA’s Team Challenge to get the word out and make their events go smoothly.

Art, too. Art takes many different forms, from words to photos to paintings to music to theatre. Especially a combination of these items. I love poetry readings, and wish there were more hours in a day so I could attend the local events. I wish I had more time to write and paint and create.

Can’t forget about technology, too. Technology is my gateway to knowledge and learning.

So… combine all of those and you get me. Which is why I’m glad to be a part of the team opening up /usr/lib. A bit of funky art, combined with a space to support the Vegas technology community where I could organize books? I’m happy as a clam!

Photo: Can the open source way help nurture passion in classrooms? by opensourceway (Flickr name) and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) license.

Many hands make light work, and it’s no different when trying to open /usr/lib. About 20 people showed up tonight to unpack the books, catalog them, place them on shelves in order, finish last minute programming stuff, construction work, clean up… and generally anything else that needed to be done. The grand opening is on Friday, and rumor has it that there’s going to be quite a bit of media coverage there. For Pawel — the guy who took the lead in this project — it’s been quite a labour of love. The first semi-coworking space in Las Vegas. A library to support the burgeoning tech community, hackerspace, bike co-op, and various other geeky endeavors. It’s a funky little space on the second floor of a coffee house / artist studio space repurposed from a former medical building — about as quirky as Vegas itself. The old sits among the high-tech again.

Right where it should be.

Photo: Library Under Construction by William & Mary Law Library and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.

Never achieved in classification.

There’s always that one odd item that sticks out like a sore thumb. Tonight I classified over 150 books for /usr/lib, and found what I created to be swiss cheese. Which does not make the information architect side of me happy as everything needs a place. But the other part of me really likes knowing about the grey areas and seeing the interconnectedness of all of the topics.

But it’s there. And right now done is good. Cleanup will come later. Along with tweaking the classification in Protege (ontology editor).

Photo: UF Library Shelves Book Place Books Here Sign by Christopher Sessums and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license.

It’s November, which is always a busy time of year. Holidays approach, relatives’ and friends’ birthdays…

Training for and running half marathons…

Creating content for the Vegas Tech site…

Opening a library…

And now NaBloPoMo.

Yep. I want to have my cake and eat it, too.

Bring it, November.

Been training to run three half-marathons in ~60 days. Three days of running, three days of cross training / stretching, and a day of recovery.

I have some writing to finish about the Vegas Tech scene for a new site. Due date: sooner than later!

Created a new cataloging method for the tech/business books for /usr/lib, which is now being put to the test while I classify approximately 400 books. It’s Swiss cheese, and there’s a lot of work to do in the next two weeks!

And I’ve also taken on writing a blog post a day for NaBloPoMo. See the three topics above? Chances are the blog posts are going to revolve around one of them.

So enjoy, and hope you enjoy the wild adventure that will be November!

Photo: Gas Pump by Brian Mitchell and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.

I am an information architect with an MLIS. Not a librarian per se, but I’m still creating a taxonomy, classifying items, and presenting them to our users. Instead of books, I’m in eCommerce and sell clothing, shoes, accessories, housewares, sporting goods, etc. If you want a good rant on ‘being a sell-out librarian,’ read this post. The IA group is part of the larger Ux group, but we deal with the semantics of the site while the UxD (user interface designers) design the visual parts of the site. As an entire team, we take the business and turn it into something that the site’s users can understand.

Anyhoo, on to the events of Monday.

Meetings! Meetings! Meetings! Pretty much solid meetings from 8:30 a.m. until 11 a.m. It’s the start of the week, so most of these involved progress reports and coordinating the week’s releases. Received some news from an employee today, and I started looking over applicants for the team’s open position. That took me right up to my…

Lunch break! Which really wasn’t that exciting. Unless you call heading to the doctor’s office for allergy shots exciting then… meh… whatever floats your boat. Back to work after a stop for an Arby’s classic Roast Beef. Oh, Arby’s, my guilty pleasure. No fries, though, because Arby’s fries suck.

In the afternoon, we found a bug in one of our tools. Coordinated with the friendly developers to get that fixed. Then it was off to a leadership meeting to find out about different aspects of our company. They’re already talking about the holidays. ACK! I was so not ready to hear those words: Holiday Season.

After that, a few quick taxonomy additions. Yay for faceting! These were easy changes that didn’t require the help of the back end (or front end) developers. Confirmed the time for the evening’s changes. Made sure everything was in order for the changes to go through smoothly. And that was the end of the office work day at 5 p.m.

But work was still not over!

Had a half-hour or so before heading out for my run (if anyone in Vegas is interested, I’m posting my runs as Training Mobs. Feel free to join them!). Two miles down, but only ran about a half mile because Las Vegas is was 105º and extra humid today yesterday. Home for a shower, then dinner, and a bit of downtime before pushing the big taxonomy changes.

I’ve been waiting to get these out for the past three months!

At 10:00, with the coordination of another person to help with the links, the changes finally go live. It actually takes another 3 teams of people to finish these changes, since the taxonomy touches so many levels of the site. Wait for caches to clear, make sure the site looks acceptable, answer questions from the CTO, and now…

here I am. Finishing this blog post on what is technically Tuesday morning. I bid you adieu being as 7 a.m. is going to come awfully quick. See you tomorrow later today for Day 2 of #libday7.

Photo: Moody Furry Monday by Buntekuh and used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) license.

Things are good. Settling into my job at Zappos after the month long phone training — which I did survive, thankyouverymuch. My new mantra about taxonomies: If everyone in the company dislikes something about the taxonomy, it’s most likely effective and well-constructed. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for improvements or increased efficiencies, but that it’s a working machine. I’m still learning the ins, outs, and history of how this beast was created.

Yeah, the learning curve is steep. Have to figure out people’s names, their jobs, the command structure… the works! I’m looking at it this way: I can either do this now or deal with the consequences of inaction three months down the line. But isn’t that the same in every new job?

[ soapbox ]
Another thing that’s been on my mind: A few weeks ago I read something (I wish I cold remember where) that had the gist of the message that ML(I)S students that work for a business as information architects, user experience researchers, or knowledge managers instead of an actual library are sell-outs. Frankly, I feel that view is very short-sighted and only serves to segment the information profession rather than bring these different types of skills together. I use the same skills as a librarian cataloger when forming taxonomies. I need to consider similar users when constructing web site pages so that they can best find the information that serves their needs. We are all user-centric. Without patrons, a library closes. Without customers, a business closes. Businesses need librarian skills just as much as a public or school librarian requires highly skilled librarians. We need to evolve as a profession to stay viable and gain more exposure for the value of our skills.

[ /soapbox ]

I’ve also been tweeting less because — well, I just simply don’t have the time! Between training for another half marathon in 3 weeks, learning the job, and saying goodbye to friends that are moving on (sniff, sniff!), it’s been a madhouse. So, maybe I am ignoring you, but unintentionally.

Photo: Journey To The End of the Night 2010 by John Morrison and used under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

[Please ignore the fact I'm posting this on Saturday.]

The morning starts out with me not being able to get out the front exit of my condo complex. I forgot that they were sealing the through-ways this morning, so flip a U-turn and and go out the back exit. Decide that it’s a Starbucks kind of morning. Stop for an iced chai and an egg & turkey bacon muffin. Chai was good as always, but the muffin quite bland. I think it needed some cheese to make it better!

Got in to work to find out I need to update my boss on the restructuring project by the end of the day. It’s very fortunate that I received comments back from one department a few messages before I read that request. Look over the proposed structure for proposed department and find that this department would like to do one part of the structure different than all of the other departments. It’s time to pull out those marketing skills so that I can keep a basic file structure between the departments, and also find out why. That’s 90% of this restructuring. Why do you want this? Tell me how you would use this. How would you store x? I try to blow holes into the structure as much as possible so that I can defend the structure if need be.

Decided on common terms for the standard folders in each department since the departments were split in what they liked to call them. Also clarified some other needs in another department. That leaves all but two departments finalized. And it’s still a week late. Yay. I hate missing deadlines, especially when it’s out of my hands and due to poor timing.

Other than that, cleaned up the desk. Put away more binders and verified documentation for one smaller element. And that’s the week. Friday! Friday! Friday!

And if you get a chance to see Colin Hay, do it. Still has a great voice, and he still puts on a great show.

A note from Thursday: Had a corporate (partner company) IT guy looking for the OPM. Seemed very new and eager to please since he kept complimenting me on the color of my eyes. Apparently he was somehow quite smitten with me even though I didn’t say more than 10 words to him. I was not smitten with him because my first impression of him was too eager to please everyone and way, way, way too nice to the point of annoyance. As I was leaving for the day, the OPM asked if I wanted the IT guy’s number since he couldn’t stop talking about the blonde haired girl with blue eyes. <sigh> No. Thanks. I’m happy right now with whom I’m seeing. That added to the oddity of the day.