Today’s news of Amazon acquiring the popular book social networking site GoodReads gives one pause. That is because Amazon already owns Shelfari, and also has a 40% stake in LibraryThing — arguably three sites that offer the same basic value proposition. Allow me to speculate. And let’s be clear, that’s all this is — speculation. Why [...]
On Being Weeded
By on March 21, 2013 7 Comments
It finally happened. Someone confessed on Twitter that they were weeding one of my books. It had to happen at some point, and likely already has but remained unconfessed. I mean, this book is ancient history. It talks about Gopher and WAIS for crying out loud. And the very first edition (finished in 1992) barely [...]
Google Drive as an Institutional Repository
By on March 18, 2013 3 Comments
Innovation comes in many guises. When we hear the word we probably most often thinks it means creating something new. But innovation can also be using something that already exists in a new way. Innovation of the latter variety was recently exhibited in an interesting post to the Code4Lib list. The message, from Chris Fitzpatrick, [...]
Data Recovery From Corrupt MS Office Files
By on March 13, 2013 2 Comments
Anyone who follows me on Facebook knows that recently I experienced a corrupted Microsoft PowerPoint file. I still don’t know what caused it, but the upshot was that a file that I worked on for an hour (and saved!) would no longer open after several different attempts. Finally, in frustration, I set out to recreate [...]
How the Web Reinforces My Worst Tendencies…And How You Can Too
By on March 11, 2013 Leave a Comment
I’m impatient. Just ask my family. I hate to waste time — so much so that I obsessively shave minutes from almost everything I do. And then I multi-task. As I back the car out of the garage I am buckling my seat belt, hitting the garage door opener, and turning on my headlights. I [...]
The Top-Cited Recent Sources for Current Cites
By on March 7, 2013 1 Comment
Why You Should Not Learn HTML
By on March 5, 2013 40 Comments
It pains me a great deal to write this post, since at one point I advocated that librarians learn HTML, and not just as a lark. I was quite serious, and I even wrote a book to help librarians learn how to do it. The sales figures for that book should have been a clue. You [...]
Being Different, Part 9: How Not to Die on the Plain of Suckitude
By on March 1, 2013 1 Comment
In parts one through eight I first introduced, then explained and summarized my Topography of Skill Acquisition. But as I made clear in Part 3, the absolutely essential event to ever add a skill to your resume is to not die on the Plain of Suckitude. Because if you do, you are never coming back. [...]
Being Different, Part 8: A Summary of the Topography of Skill Acquisition
By on February 27, 2013 Leave a Comment
In Part 2 of this series, I formally introduced my Topography of Skill Acquisition. It is comprised of five distinct parts, which I described in the following posts: Part 3: The Plain of Suckitude — “When acquiring a new skill, everyone begins on this plain. It is flat, since when you are on the plain [...]
Being Different, Part 7: The Plain of Mastery
By on February 25, 2013 Leave a Comment
In Part 6 of this series, I described how one becomes a true master of a skill — by putting in around 10,000 hours (or nearly five years of full-time work) using that skill. Obviously, few of us ever achieve this, so if you have reached the 10,000 Hour Crest for any given skill you [...]
