Group items tagged

A fairly concerning article about how a student taking a course with his wife didn't see the need to buy a second textbook for the class. However, with the textbook came a mandatory access code for supplementary materials and also to get access to the online discussion board and homework submission system. The student was unable to purchase the access code itself. This highlights an ongoing problem with software and digital access; publishers may legally be in their rights that every user is only granted access to a work and then to only one person, but users expect to be able to buy used books, old software, and so on. By essentially and artificially eliminating the secondary market of used/older materials publishers may increase their revenue per user but also increase user dissatisfaction and distrust.

Interesting look at QR codes. There's even a website dedicated to bad QR codes! My only big question is do I still have to respond to RT tickets dealing with QR codes since its an almost dead technology :)

Interesting project in Austria. They placed 70 QR codes around the city each leading to a particular ebook or mp3 that can be downloaded for free.  The blog states, "This project is in effect giving digital content a finite location, thus removing one of the key aspects that separates paper books from ebooks". 

I wonder if the posts are in places with literary or historical significance-- e.g., a QR code near the former home of a famous author, leading to excerpts or readings from his or her books. I can see a huge potential for museums here, actually. For example, at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis, a QR code can be posted to information or collections on the Dred Scott Decision. Or here in Columbia, QR codes posted in the Red Campus can pull up copies of historical documents on the 1892 fire.

Free kits for teachers to help students learn to code and hopefully generate interest in coding. This is a really neat program I'm interested in how teachers like it and how they fit it in to their busy schedules. I imagine there is a lot of collaboration between teachers and librarians, since often times librarians are in charge of the school's computer lab.

This is the one.

Major privacy issues that everyone should pay attention to in 2013: transparency, data sharing, and dodgy QR codes.

This is why we can't have nice things...

An article that makes some good points about copyright, namely that the information we need to access, repair, or modify equipment we own is often copyrighted in itself. Which means by virtue of copyright we are unable to access the service manuals, error codes, or diagnostic tools we need to do anything with a technological device. The author makes a point that while works of art may be restricted by we own a performance right to it, physical objects we own outright.

I love the idea of automatically pushing to production after a new commit is made to master.

This works amazingly well. The javascript we use to send text messages in the webpacs went from 8.5k to 4.3k. Also this works to combine multiple scripts and optimize them all together.

This is an awesome tool I saw at the Evergreen conference. I used it on the Merlin git repo which was cool to see but since everything is in a flat directory structure and it's mostly Jessica (and a little bit me) committing it's not nearly as cool as some of the videos from other projects.

If you don't already know what 2 factor authentication is - it's the use of a second out of band communication channel that is used in addition to your password. In the case of Google it means that when you go to log in they will send you a text message with a 6 digit numerical code that you'll type in as well. This means that would be hackers would need to not only know your password but also have physical access to your phone.  I've already enabled this feature for Google apps @mobiusconsortium.org - if you'd like to enable it for your account (it takes like 10 minutes to get set up and fix your applications) just let me know. 

The burgeoning presence of ebooks on library catalogs is producing an unexpected problem-- what if the patron wants a print version of a book as opposed to an ebook version? How do you tease that out of MARC? RDA's GMD appears to be helpful, but not a useful as the Leader, 007, or 008 fields.

"The main floor looks more like a sleek Apple showroom than a stuffy library. And instead of a Genius Bar, there's an Ask Me alcove, where you can get help on everything from laptops to flash drives. Rather than the Dewey system, color-coded walls, stairs and elevators help you find not just books and research papers, but also media rooms, video game collections and even a 3-D printing lab to create plastic models. But the best part? Built with state funds and private donations, it's open to the public. Welcome to the library of the future."

An article that mainly repeats many current trends in libraries but is notable for appearing in a mainstream publication (Time Magazine) and being surprisingly aware of some new developments such as maker culture.

Considering we own more than 1 copy of CS5, this is annoying.

That's really cool! I wonder if he would work for MOBIUS? Ha ha!