tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71627982010-03-08T14:00:26.973-05:00My site complete with blog, pics, links, tools, changes, words, and wonders beyond belief. What? Don't you believe me?Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.comBlogger479125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-87824393796482967072010-03-07T21:53:00.002-05:002010-03-08T14:00:26.980-05:00

Being a librarian, I often hear comments like, "Why doesn't this (insert information searching tool here) work like Google?" I recently came up with a snappy but sarcastic retort to this: "Because Google doesn't work." Although the Google interface (or rather the single-box keyword-searching text box that has become synonymous with Google) is very attractive in it's simplicity, users pay a

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-8780726506954088442010-02-26T16:59:00.003-05:002010-02-26T16:59:00.403-05:00

From an article in The New York Times recently, "Macmillan, one of the five largest publishers of trade books and textbooks, is introducing software called DynamicBooks, which will allow college instructors to edit digital editions of textbooks and customize them for their individual classes." Although the article describes it as "a kind of Wikipedia of textbooks", it seems like it's more like

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-89510047088445903302010-02-12T14:59:00.000-05:002010-02-12T14:59:11.535-05:00

Despite longstanding employment equity policies and practices, women and First Nations continue to be under­-represented in Canadian higher education...I fear that when we read something like this we tend to see discrimination and unfairness inherent in the process or the people involved. That may be true but it is not necessarily true. I am a male librarian. The vast majority of librarians

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-80248260868202645432010-02-11T13:42:00.000-05:002010-02-11T13:42:15.565-05:00

Some people think that Sarah Palin is playing the simpleton role on purpose. Or at least Alec Baldwin does: She reads her palm in order to send a message to her anti-Eastern establishment, Obama-hating, OK-You've-Had-Your-Black-President-Experiment, Tea Party types. That message is, "I'm just one person, doing the best I can with what God gave me. Like all y'all out there."Now, I'm sure that

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-48748428315337436602010-01-22T16:18:00.002-05:002010-01-22T16:20:09.432-05:00

Just read John Barnes' (Executive Vice President, Marketing & Business Development, Gale) "Open letter to the library community" describing how: "...EBSCO, persists in a practice that drives up costs while limiting access to information...", that "...vendors should support libraries with advocacy efforts and sponsorships..." and that "If you worry about information costs going up, we ask you [

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-77413278891261297802010-01-14T12:53:00.000-05:002010-01-14T12:53:40.736-05:00

I've had the item "Consider how to contibute to the organization of global goods (primarily information)." in my RTM to do list for quite a while but I keep postponing it, not knowing exactly how to accomplish such a task. Some of the more popular ways the general public find information (such as checking Google or asking their friends) don't really allow for such outside assistance. The

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-48440007588633333212009-12-08T15:04:00.002-05:002009-12-08T15:10:57.826-05:00

Haven't posted in a while for one primary reason: I've been looking for a new job, found one and moved to Thunder Bay! Whew!Although the move is technically completed the new (town)house is still filled with boxes to unpack and sort out. (The kids have build a fort out of them in the living room... I should post a picture of that... lol) We don't even have internet access at home yet so I

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-6830012808330820802009-10-01T12:55:00.002-04:002009-10-01T13:11:21.405-04:00

Listened to another Age of Persuasion episode again today. This one was called "Old Media, New Media, Borrowed Media, Blue Media" and was about the fall of television and the rise of, well, other things: events, the web, viral video, and other wacky things. This was a very entertaining episode. You should listen to it.Of course, I had to listen to it with my librarian-ears. This is what I

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-725823368747411802009-09-30T13:00:00.004-04:002009-09-30T13:18:37.277-04:00

I like listening to Terry O'Reilly's radio show on CBC (http://www.cbc.ca/radio/) called "The Age of Persuasion" (http://www.cbc.ca/programguide/program/age_of_persuasion). But the latest I heard (not on the radio but rather from a blog for CBC podcasts - http://cbcpodcasts.wordpress.com/) was called "The Sport of Persuasion" (http://cbcpodcasts.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/episode-2-

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-19430932559928502152009-09-29T13:42:00.005-04:002009-09-29T14:10:17.236-04:00

I have subscribed to a great blog called Lifehacker (http://lifehacker.com/) for some time now and although it's a veritable avalanche of entries in my feed reader every single day that I can barely keep up with, I do continue to keep up with it because it's got a lot of great ideas.Now, I've recently come across a blog called Parent Hacks (http://www.parenthacks.com/) and I'm thinking that if

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-29308564711753805352009-09-28T22:18:00.004-04:002009-09-28T22:51:19.708-04:00

I spent a lot of today trying to fit in all the chores and responsibilities I have to do into a coherent and workable schedule, one in which I can get what I need to get done done but also not go absolutely bonkers with no time for myself, my kids, or the unknown.I THOUGHT I had achieved a rock solid schedule but of course, it has cracked in a few key places already: forgot to include my

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-76916647864889318482009-08-11T16:30:00.003-04:002009-08-11T16:47:58.970-04:00

A little over a month ago, I said I was going to learn French. Well, I took longer than I expected to prepare, started later than I expected, postponed it more than I should have, and changed my strategy too often.But that's ok. I have certainly learned more French than I ever have before. I am still slowly working on it but, what with traveling and preparing for interviews and their

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-28420999947732552412009-08-11T15:53:00.007-04:002009-08-11T16:21:45.053-04:00

There was an online presentation and q&a period on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009, about the proposed redesign of the primary PubMed pages. This was scheduled to be released this summer but is not up at this time yet.My overall impression is certainly an improvement. It's a much simpler, streamlined and current design, which should ease public use and enjoyment of the product, both of which are

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-88030343938984884762009-08-10T12:22:00.003-04:002009-08-10T12:44:01.795-04:00

I like Twitter. It's another easy way to get to know what's happening in other people's heads, what they're reading, what they think is interesting. And I get to share those things with the world too: special events, what I think is important, what I want to share with people. And it certainly doesn't hurt to be in the middle of all those swirling ideas and communications. I may even get a

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-85717883704282636432009-07-25T20:44:00.002-04:002009-07-25T20:48:31.292-04:00

There was a recent article in the Library Journal about the dismissal of the head of the public library system in Lexington, Kentucky. Without much information, which is kind of the point of this article, it's hard to really take sides but there are two points that jump out at me when discussing something like this.Firstly, the CEO makes some pretty strongly negative claims about the behaviour

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-24839827073052362272009-07-25T10:15:00.001-04:002009-07-25T20:50:17.403-04:00

The New York Times online has an interesting article about "Animal Farm" and "1984" being deleted from Kindle users after Amazon realized they did not have the right to have sold it in the first place. This is interesting in two ways, IMHO:"Owning" something digital is not always clear cut: This is something that librarians have come to realize with the advent of online content. In the past,

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-59590009621216717112009-07-24T21:24:00.001-04:002009-07-24T21:29:09.474-04:00

Any librarian having spent more than a month or so at a reference desk in a public library (or any library really) has had to deal with questions with too little information to really answer. Seattlepi.com published a short piece with an excellent real example of such a transaction. Here's a taste:Librarian: ...Would you have any idea the name of the author?Caller: No. Oh, wait a minute, wait a

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-72229625182722502432009-07-24T20:54:00.002-04:002009-07-24T21:02:05.361-04:00

Library Journal has reported on a new deal between the University of Michigan and Amazon where hundreds of thousands of digitized public domain books will be made available through their print on demand business.Sounds good. Hopefully UMich is getting tons of moolah for the deal. And it's good to see efforts made to support the interests of the long tail, those people looking for works

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-28626556509002641972009-07-23T14:36:00.006-04:002009-07-23T15:06:28.476-04:00

world mosaic: a tribute to flickr portraitsOriginally uploaded by pardeshiAlthough it seems to be going in that direction whether we want it to or not, it certainly can't hurt to get a little push in the direction of thinking about our big problems on a global scale and to work together to solve them. That's basically the point of a recent talk UK prime minister Gordon Brown made at the

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-88349851870423501392009-07-23T13:54:00.003-04:002009-07-23T14:35:52.577-04:00

M, concentratingOriginally uploaded by henrybloomfieldI have two young children so I know all about distraction. I joke (or more accurately, STATE) that I can't get any work done at home and that going to work is much more relaxing and therefore productive. One of the writers over at Stepcase Lifehack wrote 10 really good tips on creating an environment and the tools for staying focused on your

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-16526314523283745772009-07-15T00:19:00.004-04:002009-07-15T00:40:18.798-04:00

Want an story detail that everyone will get? Want a good laugh? Want to use up about 30 hours of your life in one go?Then you need to check out tv tropes, or "Television Tropes & Idioms". This is a wiki chock full of pieces of "literature", mostly from movies and television, that are well-used enough to be recognized in a number of works. For example, the article on "The Hero" describes the

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-40081797273020259122009-07-14T22:37:00.005-04:002009-07-15T00:05:29.223-04:00

A major U.S. government agency utilizing Web 2.0 methods and tools. It warms the heart.The CDC is hoping that the next Surgeon-General's 2009 report on tobacco will "go viral" through using such tools as "Facebook, Twitter and MySpace" and RSS and devices like "iPhones, BlackBerrys and other personal digital assistants", and are going to try to make it possible for the public to share the

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-42737763499418287842009-07-12T22:05:00.003-04:002009-07-12T22:26:19.218-04:00

I have been playing World of Warcraft for a while now. Just as with everything in my life, I try to tie it somehow to librarianship. I've thought about ways that I could look into and write about the information seeking behaviours of WoW players, what a service providing information in-game would or could be like, or the imagery and perceptions of books, libraries and librarians that exists

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-88348464024507991322009-07-11T23:18:00.002-04:002009-07-11T23:43:09.907-04:00

So as some of you may have noticed, I've been using Twitter for a while now. Everytime I mention it in conversation to a person not twit-lightened (lol), they shake their head violently and laugh about reading about whenever people go to the bathroom (and it's not because I used the word "twit-lightened"... I swear, this is the first time!).I really like it actually. I find I'm thinking up a

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7162798.post-79480423381883989392009-07-10T08:50:00.003-04:002009-07-10T09:30:10.302-04:00

This is a rather atemporal story of a Jewish man grieving the death of his wife and son from the April 1989 issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction magazine. I say "rather atemporal" because there are a series of what seem to be flashbacks that possibly turn out to be actually time loops or some kind of spiritual (for lack of a better word) bifurcation and release. To make up your own mind,

Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11382637543517859063matthew.james.thomas@gmail.com0