Get rich slowly have some really powerful pictures of poverty. Here are just a couple:

Banned book week makes me happy!

Lifehacker has a good article on reading well. I think it makes some good points on making time in your day to read. I wicked disappointed that the author didn't talk about the library. You don't even need to purchase a book and often times people don't have the room to keep purchased books.

You can read the Lifehacker article here: On Reading Well

But don't forget the best place for books will ALWAYS be your library.

According to the Gulf News if you eat or drink in public in is considered a crime and you can be fined a maximum of 2000 dhs or spend time in jail. Apparently the UAE government does not mess around when it comes to Ramadan. According to the article a man reported the two people to the police that were drinking in a Enoc fuel station. This is interesting because I have talked to several people that say those that are not fasting should not go out of their way to hide eatting or drinking.
If you would like to read the article you can at Gulf News: Ramadan violators penalised Dh1,000

Wow do I dislike this woman. Not only does she not deserve to be in this race but now I read she wants to take the polar bear off the endangered species act. Good lord how can the people of Alaska vote this woman in??

Big Oil and Other Interest Groups Join McCain VP Palin's Lawsuit to Reverse Polar Bear Listing

Can't beat Lewiston Maine for rediculous library stuff. This has been going on for awhile now and I'm glad to see the Lewiston courts are actually making this woman return the books.

Judge orders woman to return two library books or go to jail

I'm really liking this map of the US Military presence in different countries. Its pretty interesting some of the locations the US troops are stationed. Found it over at Boing Boing.

US Military Bases

This is a great idea, sort of like a book vending machine. It will be interesting to see how patrons use this machine and when, and I bold when because you know it will happen, it goes crazy and starts killing everything, because you know that is exactly what all robots will do eventually. IE Terminator!
Wheatland introduces 24-hour automated book dispenser

I'm speechless, although the responses are great!

I live in georgia wat do i do?

Katy Perry single smacks of controversy in UAE

By Kevin Scott and Siham Al Najami, Staff Reporters Published: August 18, 2008, 23:21

Dubai: A new music single receiving airplay in the UAE has provoked controversy for containing lyrics that depict sexuality, lesbianism and promiscuity. US singer/songwriter Katy Perry's recent hit I Kissed a Girl, criticised by several activists and social commentators around the world for its content, has been met with disapproval from residents and intellectuals living in the UAE. Dr Mouza Ghubash, an Emirati sociologist, on Monday expressed her concern at the song's arrival in the UAE, saying it formed part of a wider problem facing youth culture in the Arab world. She told Gulf News: "This song reflects the kind of relationship and behaviour that is common in Western societies and that can also be found as a new phenomenon in Arab culture. Of course, we refute such ideas and songs but at the same time we cannot avoid them. We must ensure our youngsters concentrate on their education - with the help of their families, teachers and lecturers, to protect them from imitating other Western cultures. "UAE society is so open these days and great pressure is placed on the country's decision-makers, such as the Ministry of Education, to preserve our national identity." The lyrics of I Kissed a Girl, the current UK number one and third in the US singles chart, include: "I kissed a girl and I liked it, the taste of her cherry chap stick; I kissed a girl just to try it; hope my boyfriend don't mind it." Several radio stations in the UAE have been playing the song during their broadcasts over the last few days but others have decided to err on the side of caution. Fiona Winterburn, Head of Music at Gulf News Broadcasting, said: "We've listened to the song but have so far decided against playing it because we realise the lyrics are quite sensitive to local culture and could offend some of our listeners." Gulf News spoke to several UAE residents yesterday to see what they thought of the song. Abdullah Julfar, an undergraduate student of UAE nationality, said he found the song very offensive towards his cultural and religious values. "I think there should be some sort of social responsibility in the media to stop such ridiculous songs from being played," he said. Mona Mezzel, a Palestinian undergraduate student, said she hated the song: "Avoiding music, books, and movies should always be a personal choice and not an enforced rule. I just find the song utterly useless." Ahmad Saed, a Jordanian salesman, said he thought it was "absolutely pathetic and disgusting" that such lyrics were made into a song. "Songs, unfortunately nowadays, contain excessive sexual undertones. I don't find it offensive to my values but I find it offensive to my intellectuality and to the art of music," he said. Gulf News Link

Treehugger has some really good pictures of the Burj in Dubai. Check it out:

This is a really fascinating article, that I found on Boing Boing, on digital manipulation in photography. On top of that the guy who wrote the article interviews a Dartmouth professor, even better!

Photography as a weapon

I started our Millennium upgrade yesterday, which is a pretty big upgrade and the first one I have done. The upgrade consists of two phases, the first phase is the preparation phase which is what we started yesterday. I started running it a 3 p.m. and immediately ran into a problem, our system would not read that we had done a full back up in the last 24 hours. This was just a glitch, however, and an email to III fixed the problem. So from 3 until 6:30 I watched little dots moving across the screen until the system had fully backed up our software and had begun downloading the new software. After it had started downloading I decided to go home for dinner which took about an hour. When I came back it still had not finished downloading (curse Etisilat and its slow speeds) so I sat and waited another 40 minutes until it finished. After that the system began installing the software which is where it sat. The friggin upgrade froze at the installation part how annoying is that. However, at 9:45 I found out that it had in fact finished as III sent me a message saying that they had completed the upgrade for us. In all it took 7 hours to complete, hopefully the conversion phase doesnt take more then 2 hours and an extra hope that it doesn't crash the entire system. That would not be fun.

I must be back in the UAE

Olympics could cause ill health

I haven't written in my blog for awhile do to the fact I've been on vacation back in the US for around six weeks. Excellent vacation and a much needed one as I was starting to burn out. A few things have changed since we left, for starters they have slowly started to tile our building. If you didn't know already our building was in a sad state of affairs. Apparently before we arrived the building owner decided they pink tile was ugly and ripped it all off (breaking windows and damaging cars in the process). The building sat with no tile for several years and they have only now started to work on it. Ah well, in the end it should help with the sun.
Another change is that its gotten incredibly hot. I checked the weather report after getting in my car and having trouble breathing. According to weather.com at 1 p.m it was 117 and felt like 126, no wonder I had problems breathing!
Finally, the contractors have finished the first wave of the Corniche expansion and I must say it looks incredible. I drove by the other day and they have done a great job adding a resort like feel to a public area although I hear it cost 10 dhs to go down to the beach. UAE has also separated the beach into a family and bachelors area, probably because there are so many problems at the public beach with people gawking.
HCT is about the same, I'm currently getting things ready for our update to millennium 2007. I talked to our IT department about it yesterday and have some serious concerns. Here is how the conversation went:
Me: So we need to back the current configuration up on tape in case anything goes wrong.
IT: Do we need to do this upgrade, can't III do it for us?
Me: It looks simple they provide us a full list of instructions
IT: OK
Me: So you will back up the system on tape?
IT: Sure we do it anyways, but what if something goes wrong?
Me: Well that's why we are backing it up on tape
IT: Ok but how do we get the data off the tape if something goes wrong?
Me: *hand to face*

Are you kidding me? IT is backing up our system but has no idea how to get the data off the tape back up...that's not good.

Besides that little slip things seem to being going smoothly at work. I will be adding a link to the new catalog soon as well as updating several things that need to be done.

Well its been a busy few weeks and I haven't had the chance to post on here as much as I would like. We have a new front page set up, with a new banner which I'm pretty happy about, ties the page together a little better:

New Banner

Old Banner

I also have been working on the new style sheet that III has given us. I like the layout much better and have added a couple of effects that are nice and not too intrusive. For example on the bib page there are now reflections on all the images. I have also added a sliding bar for the librarything additions, cleans up the page I think. You can see that here:

BiB Page

Otherwise I have been doing the daily chores, fixing things that break, doing database renewals, so forth and so on. Ill be happier in a couple of days, though, when I'm on my six week vacation.

This is a bizarre article and one I'm not actually surprised about. I just love this line:

The decision to withdraw the advertisement came after right wing bloggers in the United States criticised the chain for supporting terrorism by dressing Ray in the scarf, which one blogger called “jihad chic”

Only in the US could a bunch of right wing bloggers dictate how a company advertises. I'm sure D&D is the biggest supporter of terrorism ever.../sarcasm. I think its sad and pathetic that D&D pulled the article because a bunch of right wing "experts" on terrorism decided that they now support Palestine, but thats how things work in the US a small group who have nothing better to do cause a stink and companies immediately change their attitude.

Read the article here: US chain in region 'not to blame'

According to IQ League:

Position	Name	IQ Score
1.	Mozilla on MacPPC	109.08
2.	Mozilla on Unknown	106.55
3.	Firefox on UNIX	105.85
4.	Mozilla on UNIX	105.80
5.	Firefox on MacPPC	104.35
6.	AppleMAC-Safari on Unknown	104.30
7.	Firefox on Unknown	104.08
8.	Opera on UNIX	103.65
9.	AppleMAC-Safari on MacPPC	103.65
10.	Firefox on Win2000	102.84
11.	Firefox on WinXP	100.88
12.	Firefox on WinNT	100.65
13.	Opera on WinNT	100.51
14.	Opera on WinXP	99.69
15.	Firefox on Win98	99.09
16.	AppleMAC-Safari on WinXP	97.80
17.	Mozilla on WinNT	97.38
18.	Mozilla on WinXP	95.79
19.	IE on WinNT	95.01
20.	Opera on Win2000	94.86

21.	IE on WinXP	92.56
22.	IE on Win2000	91.82
23.	IE on Win98	91.26
24.	Opera on Unknown	89.79
25.	AppleMAC-Safari on WinNT	83.44
n/a.	Opera on MacPPC
n/a.	Opera on Win95
n/a.	Mozilla on Win2000
n/a.	Firefox on Win95
n/a.	AppleMAC-Safari on UNIX
n/a.	Opera on WinCE
n/a.	Netscape on Unknown
n/a.	IE on Unknown

This is a great idea to revamp the current MP3. I would love to have the ability to turn down the vocals on a track so I can just hear the beat.

Read the story here: New MP3 Revolutionizes Way You Listen to Music

This is an interesting campaign. I'd like to know what others thought of abandoning DRM in the library? I for one can not stand DRM and simply think its another way for companies to control different forms of media.

Here is the letter (credit to Boing Boing):

We call upon public libraries around the world to remove the unethical Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technologies currently locking down many of their digital collections. DRM compromises public trust for the sake of providing limited access to popular works to some in the short-term. As concerned patrons, we request that libraries immediately establish policies against the use of DRM technologies.

DRM requires users to cede control of their computers to third-party corporations, so they can restrict when and how they may access "checked out" books or audio files. This is an inappropriate and unethical requirement for a public library to impose on its patrons. The notion of checking something out is based on physical scarcity -- to be manufacturing scarcity where none exists is entirely contrary to a library's mission.

Libraries that use DRM are submitting patrons to the onerous and unethical legal terms involved with purchasing, installing, and using software such as Microsoft Windows and the Windows Media Player. In the case of Microsoft Windows, this entails agreeing to terms that allow Microsoft to delete software and data that the user legally owns and has created or installed on their own machines. For a library to require their patrons to agree to such End User License Agreements as a prerequisite for gaining access to its collection is an injustice.

These software requirements drive the sales of DRM technology vendors, such as Microsoft and OverDrive, providing an incentive for patrons to discontinue using software and materials that do not impose DRM. The common argument that DRM and proprietary software are necessary because publishers require them becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the library is using its own market power to encourage their use, hurting the emergence of competing alternatives in the process.

Random House, the largest publisher of eBooks and audio books worldwide, recently announced its decision to drop DRM from the vast majority of its catalog. Random House made this decision after doing a study which found zero cases of DRM-free works being shared illegally. They found that it was ONLY the DRMed titles that were being shared.

The fear, uncertainty, and doubt used by the software industry to convince publishers and distributors to use DRM has blindsided the public and institutions of public trust. Little consideration has been given to the ethical and long-term implications of accepting and encouraging the use of DRM. Defending the public interest means thwarting DRM.

For these reasons, we ask that libraries immediately embargo the use of DRM on their collections and establish formal policies against it. There are undoubtedly many challenges facing libraries today that need to be considered, but few can be as timely or as important as the way the library defines itself and its role in our digital age.

If you would like to send this letter to your public library then you can do so here:
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/LetterToLibraries

ManBabies

Sorry about the lack of posts recently, I've been busy working on a couple of things. First I did a slight redesign on the library homepage. I've added a couple of new elements including a did you know, featured books, and featured database. These additions should give the students the ability to review the featured books and see databases that they may not know about. The last step that I would like to do is add some pictures of actual students with quotes underneath saying why they like the library. I saw another library do this and I thought it was a great way to personalize the library homepage. I'll bring it up at the upcoming library meeting and see what the reaction is.
Yesterday we took a trip to UAE University Zayed Central Library. Its sort of a strange set up with the library several miles away from the main campus. Amrita and I went to help them with their circulation and WebBridge set up. Unfortunately there wasn't much I could do with WebBridge as they are missing their Conversion Spreadsheet rules text file so they have to put in a request with III to get it added. Other than the slight problems with WebBridge it was a lovely day and nice to see another schools library.
So thats whats going on here, I'll be working on some of the web pages in the next couple of days so who knows if Ill get to update this thing.

Wow now this is bizarre. We woke yesterday and it had rained a little, which was odd since it usually doesn't rain during the summer. What was even more bizarre was the dark clouds and the 113 degree temperature. Usually when it rains it cools down which it didn't. Today I found this story in the Gulf News

Cloud seeding tests to continue

This could be an interesting add-on for Firefox.

Organize tabs by color! This simple extension allows tabs to be 4 different colors. To change a tab color you have two options. Double-click to quickly rotate through the colors. Or use your context menu (Right-click) to select a color.

I currently have the ColorfulTabs add-on but I'm not that big of a fan as its randomly generated. This add-on should allow me to treat my tabs like my email messages in Outlook.

Check it out here: FlagTab

Hmm I may consider taking him up on his offer. Although who knows if it would actually be put on the shelf here

Free Little Brother for librarians, teachers, etc -- a tipjar alternative for people who loved the free ebook

If you have never been to Cairo let me clue you in, its dirty, really dirty. When I rode through the streets people were throwing trash from their car windows, there is junk along the sides of the roads and the cars are incredibly dirty. Don't get me wrong I love Cairo but the trash is mind boggling. So while going through my daily RSS feeds I came across this post on Cairo Recycling School and I must say that this is a fantastic idea! Any steps that can be made to clean up Cairo are steps in the right direction. Next hopefully there will be some education on why you shouldn't throw your plastic cup out the window while going 80 km! (who am i kidding you could never reach 80 km in Cairo you can barely reach 20km!)

Cairo Recycling School

Congratulations DOT you are finally doing something right. Now start treating your contractors the same as your federal employees and I will feel much better.

US Department of Transportation Gives $153 Million to Chicago to Reduce Traffic Congestion

This is something we were just talking about the other day. While checking our monthly statistics from CrazyEgg I noticed that a few people have accessed the catalog with a mobile phone. I also noticed that Abu Dhabi Men's is doing a campaign geared towards learning anywhere i.e through your mobile phone, hence why we probably got several people accessing the site through their mobile.
Anyhoo check out the Maine State Libraries mobile phone page here : http://www.maine.gov/msl/mobile/

A food shortage is a scary thing. There have been several articles in the Gulf News about rice prices doubling all because several countries that export are facing sever shortages. Reuters has an excellent interactive map on why certain countries are facing food shortages. Don't forget to check out the slide show showing how many countries make rice!

Agflation The real costs of rising food prices

I found this post over at LibrarianinBlack and I have to say it is quite intriguing. Carnegie Melon has developed a free program that teaches students how to do computer programing in a 3D environment. Here is some information from their web site:

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.

In Alice's interactive interface, students drag and drop graphic tiles to create a program, where the instructions correspond to standard statements in a production oriented programming language, such as Java, C++, and C#. Alice allows students to immediately see how their animation programs run, enabling them to easily understand the relationship between the programming statements and the behavior of objects in their animation. By manipulating the objects in their virtual world, students gain experience with all the programming constructs typically taught in an introductory programming course.

This is a very interesting piece of software and I love that it is free. This will be great for teaching students who have never programed before. Check out the Alice website here: Alice

I do not like this story one bit. Not only does China have zero regard for human rights they have even less (if thats possible) for animal rights. This article is disturbing to no end and lowers my respect for the political powers in China. I bring this article to light as the UAE has a large population of street cats which are being "cleaned up". I can only imagine the mistreatment that goes into capturing and disposing of unwanted street cats. Here is the article from treehugger: Beijing's Cat Death Camps

Now to offset this depressing article here is a picture of super cute kitty courtesy of Icanhascheezburger.com

Here are some amazing images of a group on Indonisian tree people. These people have lived in the trees for thousands of years. These images are the first of their kind. Check them out here:
Tree People

Yikes, here is a scary thought! I'm glad I live in an oil rich country right now but its a scary thought going back to the US with the economy in the shape its in now.

Gas prices to double by 2012: economist

I will always be partial to Firefox. I think its a great browser with a ton of add ons that really improve the functionality. Switching from IE to Firefox to was a breeze and actually improves my searching. My main problem is that my work is a Microsoft addict so I need to develop pages that work with IE as it is the supported browser, talk about hassle. I don't care what any of the experts say IE is a crappy browser, its slow, there are no add ons and it crashes a lot.
Anyway this post wasn't to slam IE it was more to talk about Safari, Apples browser. I decided to try it out for the first time yesterday, although I used it all the time when I had a Mac several years ago. I have to say the Safari is WICKED fast (wicked is a Mainer term, if you ever take a trip to Maine you will definitely hear people saying wicked). I downloaded it and installed the newest WebKit addon (which buy the way gets a perfect score on the Acid 3 test!) and the speed of my surfing seemed to double (probably didn't but it was still wicked fast). I also love that it uses some CSS3 such as box-shadow and border-radius. Why is it that none of the other browsers (sans Firefox for border-radius) implement this? If you don't know what either of those are just check out our staging port in Safari: Higher Colleges of Technology
So why don't I advocate for use of Safari, well it sucks hardcore in other areas. For instance there are almost zero plug ins for the windows version. I'm not really surprised as it was designed for OSX but come on, zero plug ins? I also hate their tab system, whenever you click on a link it opens in a new page instead of a new tab. In order to get it to open in a new tab you need to do "CNTRL-Click", also incredibly lame. It does have a developer tool, which is initially turned off you need to go to the advanced tab under preferences to turn it on. Its better than the developer tool in IE but its still pretty week compared to the Firefox one.
I like Safari but not enough to change from Firefox. It certainly is faster loading pages but the lack of plug ins kills the who experience for me, its one of the reasons I enjoy using Firefox so much.

Now this is an excellent idea. If I ever take a trip to Japan I will certainly be visiting this place!

Product Service Systems: Japan's Cat Cafés

The Grid will now be taking over. Coming soon: superfast internet

THE internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.

At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.

The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.

David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could “revolutionise” society. “With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,” he said.
How do you sell free products?

In a world of free digital content, what’s actually worth paying for?
Q&A: Chris Kelly, chief privacy officer of Facebook

Facebook's man in charge of privacy talks about the challenges of China, identity theft and child protection

* Facebook: parents are responsible for child safety too

* Home Office calls for better security on social networking sites

Related Links

* Broadband deals 'will include unlimited music'

* MySpace announces plans for iTunes rival

* Second chance for Second Life

The power of the grid will become apparent this summer after what scientists at Cern have termed their “red button” day - the switching-on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the new particle accelerator built to probe the origin of the universe. The grid will be activated at the same time to capture the data it generates.

Cern, based near Geneva, started the grid computing project seven years ago when researchers realised the LHC would generate annual data equivalent to 56m CDs - enough to make a stack 40 miles high.

This meant that scientists at Cern - where Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web in 1989 - would no longer be able to use his creation for fear of causing a global collapse.

This is because the internet has evolved by linking together a hotchpotch of cables and routing equipment, much of which was originally designed for telephone calls and therefore lacks the capacity for high-speed data transmission.

By contrast, the grid has been built with dedicated fibre optic cables and modern routing centres, meaning there are no outdated components to slow the deluge of data. The 55,000 servers already installed are expected to rise to 200,000 within the next two years.

Professor Tony Doyle, technical director of the grid project, said: “We need so much processing power, there would even be an issue about getting enough electricity to run the computers if they were all at Cern. The only answer was a new network powerful enough to send the data instantly to research centres in other countries.”

That network, in effect a parallel internet, is now built, using fibre optic cables that run from Cern to 11 centres in the United States, Canada, the Far East, Europe and around the world.

One terminates at the Rutherford Appleton laboratory at Harwell in Oxfordshire.

From each centre, further connections radiate out to a host of other research institutions using existing high-speed academic networks.

It means Britain alone has 8,000 servers on the grid system – so that any student or academic will theoretically be able to hook up to the grid rather than the internet from this autumn.

Ian Bird, project leader for Cern’s high-speed computing project, said grid technology could make the internet so fast that people would stop using desktop computers to store information and entrust it all to the internet.

“It will lead to what’s known as cloud computing, where people keep all their information online and access it from anywhere,” he said.

Computers on the grid can also transmit data at lightning speed. This will allow researchers facing heavy processing tasks to call on the assistance of thousands of other computers around the world. The aim is to eliminate the dreaded “frozen screen” experienced by internet users who ask their machine to handle too much information.

The real goal of the grid is, however, to work with the LHC in tracking down nature’s most elusive particle, the Higgs boson. Predicted in theory but never yet found, the Higgs is supposed to be what gives matter mass.

The LHC has been designed to hunt out this particle - but even at optimum performance it will generate only a few thousand of the particles a year. Analysing the mountain of data will be such a large task that it will keep even the grid’s huge capacity busy for years to come.

Although the grid itself is unlikely to be directly available to domestic internet users, many telecoms providers and businesses are already introducing its pioneering technologies. One of the most potent is so-called dynamic switching, which creates a dedicated channel for internet users trying to download large volumes of data such as films. In theory this would give a standard desktop computer the ability to download a movie in five seconds rather than the current three hours or so.

Additionally, the grid is being made available to dozens of other academic researchers including astronomers and molecular biologists.

It has already been used to help design new drugs against malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that kills 1m people worldwide each year. Researchers used the grid to analyse 140m compounds - a task that would have taken a standard internet-linked PC 420 years.

“Projects like the grid will bring huge changes in business and society as well as science,” Doyle said.

“Holographic video conferencing is not that far away. Online gaming could evolve to include many thousands of people, and social networking could become the main way we communicate.

“The history of the internet shows you cannot predict its real impacts but we know they will be huge.”

Here is an interesting webpage for finding books you like. Basically Booklamp recommends other books for you based on the pacing, density, dialog ect. Its currently pretty small and only looks at SciFi and Fantasy but its fun to see what kind of books it recommends. Here is some information from their FAQ:

What is BookLamp.org?

BookLamp is a book recommendation system that uses the full text of a book to match it to other books based on scene-by-scene measurements of elements such as pacing, density, action, dialog, description, perspective, and genre, among others. In other words, BookLamp.org is a Pandora.com for books, based on an author's writing style. If you match against multiple books, the self-learning system adjusts your formulas to make the match specific to your tastes. As the system moves out of beta, it will also incorporate human feedback into the recommendation systems, blending the strengths of social networks with the strengths of computer analysis. Ultimately, we want users to be able to create and share their own formulas, creating a community of book lovers that have tools to discover and share books in a way never before possible. Because the system matches books through objective data from the text itself instead of relying solely on social networks to generate recommendations, the recommendations are impervious to outside influences such as advertising or author marketing. It also allows you to match to a far greater detail than alternative systems. With BookLamp, you can request a book similar to Stephen King's The Stand, but half the length, first person, literary mainstream fiction, with slightly more dialog, less description, and a rising action level across the first 10 scenes. If that's what you're looking for. For a video describing the details of how BookLamp determines this information, return to BookLamp.org and watch the video on the front page.

Check out BookLamp here: BookLamp

has to make this post. I have to say that I absolutely love the new Doctor Who. I grew up watching it with my mom and grandmother. My father hated it but thats besides the point. My point is that I was leary that new version of the Doctor would be crappy but I have to say I have really enjoyed watching the episodes so far. I would have to say that this and Breaking Bad are my two new favorite shows right now, along with Jericho but it got canned again. Anyway check it out its super fun to watch!

Here is an interesting book on internet filtering by different countries. I checked out the UAE page and it seems to be pretty accurate. Check out the UAE one here: United Arab Emirates and the entire book here: Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering

We took a trip to the Center for Documentation and Research yesterday which is sort of the UAE's version of a National Archives. Really interesting place with lots of history of the UAE. Apparently the center works with several other countries to find data related to the birth of UAE. For example they had several maps from Spain showing the countries use as a port during trips to India. There were many hand written notes from various Sheiks including one stating they had abolished slavery years ago, the note being written in the 60s. After a tour through the archives we were treated to a 3D movie explaining again how the UAE can to be. Lots of interesting details such as Qatar and Bahrain belonging to UAE at one time.
Our final stop was the Center's library , which is why we went in the first place, were we sat with the director and discussed where the Center was heading in the next few years. They would like to be a national archive for the UAE, however, the difficulty is that there is no system in place for sending documents to them. After documents have exceeded their life span they are sent to Musafa where they are thrown in a storage facility. Staff at the Center is minimal(we are talking four people here compared to thousand at LC) so they can not keep up with the backlog.
However, they have lofty goals, they would like to catalog half a million documents in the next few years, difficult but not impossible. Its nice to see the UAE taking some steps to preserve their documents is some shape or form. Hopefully they will iron out the problems and start moving in the right direction as an archive is necessary for an country.
One final note, the Center is moving towards a full BA and Masters program in library archiving. An excellent decision on their part as there are not nearly enough Emiraties working in the library.

Nescafe has got to make the WORST coffee in the world. Yesterday I had a cup and had to force it down it was so bad. I don't know what the heck they are putting in those glass jars marked "delicious coffee" but it is neither delicious nor coffee. My theory is Nescafe doesn't actually use coffee beans instead they have all their employees walk through dirt and scrape it off their boots when they return, cuts down on grinding costs. The plus side of this is that my lovely wife bought me a thermos so I can bring our delicious extra bold Starbucks coffee into work. Now I wont have to drink the liquid crap again!

I'm always amazed by the innovation taking place in the Middle East. Check out this building in Bahrain. Apparently the blades will provide 10 to 15 percent of the buildings power. Super Cool!
Bahrain World Trade Center

Its nice to see that UAE is doing its part to help libraries modernize. This article is especially great because the library is not in the UAE and is instead in Turkey. Read the story here: Mohammad helps revive Turkey library

Boing Boing has an article on information black holes. According the individuals working on the project:

"There's an assumption that if you have a working Internet connection then you have access to all of the Internet," said Ethan Katz-Bassett, a UW doctoral student in computer science and engineering. "We found that's not the case."

Its an interesting read and the map is facinating. Here is a link to the Boing Boing article: Discovering the Internet's "black holes" and one to the project at UW Hubble: Monitoring Internet Reachability in Real-Time

NPR has a story on the changes of the Patriot Act and how it affects the librarians. They interview Michael Gorma, head of ALA as well as Joan Airoldi who was subpoenaed by the FBI. The most alarming thing I find is that currently if you are subpoenaed under the Patriot Act you are effectively placed under a gag order. The Senate decided to add some leniency to that gag order so you can now appeal the subpoena....but only after a year. A year!! come on. Listen to the story here: Librarians Wary of Patriot Act's Implications

Heres an excellent news report on one mans work on rebuilding Iraq's library system:

Link: Librarian helps restore some of Iraq's civilization

Here is an excellent Firefox addon for those that do their studying on the internet. Here is the description:

*What is Wired-Marker?

Wired-Marker is a permanent (indelible) highlighter that you use on Web pages. The highlighter, which comes in various colors and styles, is a kind of electronic bookmark that serves as a guide when you revisit a Web page. The highlighted content is automatically recorded in a scrapbook and saved. To use Wired-Marker, you simply drag and drop the selected sections into a scrapbook folder. You can highlight not only text but also pictures, tables, and selected portions of the screen. You can even add notes to the highlighted items.

You can view the highlighted items, their associated URLs, their position in the page, and any user notes at a glance in a tabular format. The view can also be exported as an XML file, thus making it possible to exchange scrapbooks between users and to parse a large scrapbook.

*Use as "indelible highlighter" on Web pages
By using the highlighter settings in Wired-Marker, you can customize the color and style of the highlighter (with which the compiled and saved sections in a Web page are highlighted) associated with a folder. These highlighted sections remain visible on the page when you revisit it.

*Use as electronic bookmark
You can use Wired-Marker to bookmark specific positions in a Web page by using XPath instead of using only the URL. Often, the information that you require is a single phrase or a single keyword, even in an important document. By using Wired-Marker, you can directly jump to the position of interest in a long page or paragraph.
Since you can create an infinite combination of highlighter colors and styles, you can categorize the compiled information according to the color and style in a manner similar to the use of multicolored bookmarks.

*Use as scrapbook folder
Sections and pictures are automatically copied when they are highlighted. Thus, a scrapbook is automatically generated without any additional operations. Unlike the usual copy-and-paste operation, the URL and coordinate in a page are also recorded; thus, the source of the item in the scrapbook is clear, and this facilitates the organization of the collected data. You can also add notes to the scrapbook items.

*Use as structural organization tool for information
You can increase the number of highlighter colors and styles corresponding to different themes to suit your needs. You can also create hierarchical folders corresponding to each type of highlighter and display the scrapbook information in a hierarchical list view. By specifying a stylesheet, you can switch to a user-defined viewing style, and you can also edit the notes and other user-added information directly from the hierarchical list view.

*Other useful functions
Export
Template creation
Image capture
Concordance functionality
Define highlighter properties

Download it here: Wired-Marker

This has to be my favorite article of the week. Apparently John McCain likes to state that D.C. is the city of Satan. Dan Morse of the Washington Post has now proven that theory correct. I love the map and from the looks of it my wife worked in the pentagram of Satan. Don't forget to check out the map at the bottom, I think its way more important then the map of the pentagram. Read it here: McCain and conspiracy theorists agree that Washington is Satanic

A co-worker sent me an article tonight on the future of the Emirati workforce. According to this study there will be less than 4 percent of Emiratis in the workforce in 2020. Thats a stagering number and one that should be quite alarming for those that are UAE Nationals. As of right now there are less than 8 percent of Emiratis in the workforce, meaning 92 percent of the those employed here are expats. You can read the article here: Less than 4% of workforce Emirati by 2020

I must admit that as bizarre as the UAE is sometimes that do take the environment seriously. My wife recently hosted a tree week which was an attempt to promote the environment. I was also told by an ex-coworker that the company she works for is investing seriously in renewable energy and hopes to have the first fully "green" building in the near future. One of the largest discussions I have seen recently is the talk on plastic bags in grocery stores. The are a large environmental problem and it looks like the UAE is attempting to solve it by using a new technology named Ecocycling. Read about it in the Gulf News : New German technology could rid Dubai of waste

Infobib has a collection of Library Bloggers from around the world. Each one has a write up on why/how blogging became important in their country. Perhaps if my library blog ever gets popular I will write one up on blogging in the UAE.
Countries include Iran, Finland, USA, Canada, Netherlands ect.

Check it out here: LibWorld

Treehugger has a great article on Clothing Libraries.

We love libraries here at TreeHugger. They’re a perfect example of a Product Service System (PSS) where you get the service of an item without having to own it and all the cost and upkeep time that requires. In the past we’ve discussed Toy Libraries and Tool Libraries. But it seems we’ve forgotten to mention Clothing Libraries.

The ones I’m familiar with are like the Belmont Clothes Library in Western Australia. A volunteer run organisation with over 1,500 fashion garments on its books it loans out, for free, male and female apparel to unemployed people, so they can look smart for crucial job interviews. We were reminded of this when reader Joe F. left a message on our Q&A post on Green Business Suits. Joe is offering his collection of pre-loved business suits to a worthy organisation, like Belmont. Anyone know of something similar in the USA that Joe can donate his suits to?

Belmont also worked with a men's retail chain, Worth's Menswear, who helped the library through a scheme “whereby customers buying suits from its stores were offered a $ 50 trade-in on an old suit that had been dry cleaned.” These trade-ins were then donated to the library. For other clothing libraries, elsewhere in Australia, have a look at their list.

Also of interest in this vein is the Maternity Clothes Library run by the La Leche League in the UK. For a tiny fee of about £2 expecting mothers can borrow maternity clothes for the duration of the pregnancy. They too would welcome benefactors willing to donate their oversized ‘bump’ clothing, no longer in use.

I just realized that I didn't do an update on what happened last week. The big event for the week was LIWA (Inn-Reach) meeting at LRS. This meeting was well overdue and a lot of really good things were discussed. For example we agreed to extend the loan period for borrowed books (thank god as two weeks is really short) as well as a much need discussion on the current policies in place. Bookbands were discussed, and my friend Peter can attest to this, I hate it when people don't use bookbands. In fact at Dartmouth I redesigned the way bookband were done because I couldn't stand the inconsistancies from library to library. So now each library here knows they are supposed to be placing bookbands on any LIWA request going out.
Besides the LIWA meeting we had some LexisNexis training. Although the training was good I simply do not see the point in having this database here. Not only does it cost a lot of money but its barely used, quite frankly I think it may be over the heads of many of our students and probably faculty. I also find it extremely difficult to work with. Since its more of a robust database it requires some actual searching knowledge. Not only that but it sucks trying to get WebBridge to work with it.
On a non work related note my wife and son took a trip to Egypt and had a lovely time traveling down the Nile (or is it up the Nile?). They visited lots of temples, saw the sound and light show in Karnak, and did lots of shopping. My wife got me the newest Egyptian National Team jersey which I love. Nice way to spend a week I would say.

Hey heres something I have never heard before. A Dubai man was held at Atlanta International for six hours because he was flying in from Dubai. My favorite part of this article is the quote from the TSA at the end:

"TSA does not conduct ethnic or religious profiling, and employs multiple checks and balances to ensure profiling does not happen."

Isn't that the biggest joke you have ever heard. If my wife and I can be stopped for flying to Egypt (and we are American) because her last name is Arab then its no surprise someone from an Arab country would be detained without cause.
Read the story here: Dubai resident detained for six hours at US airport

PS I used to speak with the TSA on a weekly basis when I worked for the Department of Transportation. They are the most difficult people to deal with. They want information from you on the spot but when you try to get any answers from them they will deflect your questions and pass you around on the phone until someone "accidentally" hangs up on you.

There is this couple that walks around Abu Dhabi that my wife and I have been trying to figure out. For the longest time I thought they were homeless while my wife claims that they are rich. She has seen them on one side of Abu Dhabi and then several hours later on the other side of the city. Apparently people have seen them sleeping at the local Starbucks which further supports my story that they are homeless. However, the Gulf News "investigative" team has uncovered the truth. (I realise this probably makes little sense, however if you have seen this couple you will get it.) Internet watchers follow foreign couple around Abu Dhabi city

I have to say that I find LookyBook to be a very interesting site. LookyBook allows you to preview children's picture books so you know exactly what you are getting before you buy it. There aren't very many books but they hope to improve their collection very soon. Heres some information from their website:
I highly suggest you check it out: LookyBook

Journal Star has an article this morning on the fear of Republican students speaking out in class as their crazy, mouth foaming, democratic teachers might argue with them or lower their grades because they are Republicans. This article is about as biased as you can get, it portrays the Democrats as bullies that push poor little helpless Republican students around. My favorite line of this article is when a student says John Bolton, the US representative to the UN, came to visit and his teacher bad mouthed him the whole time.

The day before John Bolton, U.S. Representative to the UN, came to campus last year, then-freshman Randy Woster of Omaha sat in his international relations class with then-Professor Bill Avery. Woster said Avery “bad-mouthed” Bolton for the entire class period.

“It was very unfair for him to discount everything Bolton has done in his life,” Woster said. “Students didn’t have time to learn anything about John Bolton, so I thought they were filled with bad information.”

A political science major didn't have "time to learn anything about John Bolton". For gods sake he is the representative to the UN and you didn't have time to learn anything about him? The man was one of the worst representatives we have EVER had in the UN. Not only did he obviously have an vendetta against some key countries in the Middle East, he also constantly spun reports including those on Weapons of Mass Destruction. Your a political science major you couldn't take two seconds to look that up?
The article goes on to say that students are cowed and tend not to speak out because of fear of retaliation. Please, give me a break. I went to a school that was entirely Republican yet some how students and teachers managed to speak out. This article represents the worst kind of journalism, its spins educators and students that aren't with the majority as heroes, spreading the word of a political party that is misunderstood. If you are that aligned with the Republican party you should stand up for your beliefs and if you are not then its time to think about changing your Political Science major to something else.
Read about it here: Some students say professors express their views too much

I found this excellent post on Lifehacker for a Pocketmod. This is excellent as I have been looking for a way to keep information in something small and portable like this. Heres some information from their website:

The PocketMod is a new way to keep yourself organized. Lets face it, PDAs are too expensive and cumbersome, and organizers are bulky and hard to carry around. Nothing beats a folded up piece of paper. That is until now. With the PocketMod, you can carry around the days notes, keep them organized in any way you wish, then easily transfer the notes to your PDA, spreadsheet, or planner.

The PocketMod is a small book with guides on each page. These guides or templates, combined with a unique folding style, enable a normal piece of paper to become the ultimate note card. It is hard to describe just how incredibly useful the PocketMod is. It's best that you just dive in and create one.

Check it out here: PocketMod

There is an interesting article in the Gulf News on Emiratis who have grown up in the UAE and prefer not to speak Arabic. One woman mentions that she speaks primarily English at home and doesn't want to speak Arabic because she feels as though she might make mistakes. This reminds me of my wife's stories growing up in Saudi Arabia. Her father was Egyptian and growing up in Saudi I immediately thought she could speak fluent Arabic, however, she explained that her father never spoke Arabic at home which made it difficult for her to pick up the language.
You can read the story here: Sorry, I don't speak Arabic

There was an interesting study published in the Gulf News on the freedom of the media in the Arab world. I'm surprised at several of them, especially Egypt being so low to the bottom. Here is the ranking:

How free is the media in the Arab world?
Rank	Amman Centre for Human Rights Studies study	Reporters Without Borders study
1	Mauritania	Mauritania
2	Kuwait	Kuwait
3	Qatar	UAE
4	UAE	Qatar
5	Lebanon	Lebanon
6	Morocco	Morocco
7	Jordan	Palestine
8	Bahrain	Bahrain
9	Iraq	Jordan
10	Palestine	Algeria
11	Sudan	Sudan
12	Yemen	Yemen
13	Algeria	Tunisia
14	Egypt	Egypt
15	Tunisia	Saudi Arabia
16	Syria	Syria
17	Saudi Arabia	Libya
18	Libya	Iraq
Source: Amman Centre for Human Rights Studies

You can read the full story here: Kuwait scores high on media freedom

Gulf News Awards

Since its the end of the week for us (holiday Thursday, yes!) I thought I would post what was happening at LRS this week. This week was once again spent working on some additions to the LIWA page. I have to say I really love Scriptaculous it makes javascript so easy. This week I added a script for blind effect for the right side tool bar, probably completely worthless but I'm trying to see what I can do with this catalog. I should also check out JQuery as I hear its a lighter version of Scriptaculous.
After weeks of waiting III also set us up so Google Scholar can crawl our holdings. Next week I'll spend some time setting up WebBridge so it can work with Google.
The big event this week came to a skidding stop yesterday. If you remember from my post last week we were supposed to be having a LIWA meeting today. Well that failed after UAEU called and canceled. I have to say I'm a bit disappointed and slightly annoyed at the last minute cancellation, especially considering the reasons given. However, things are better now as we have rescheduled the meeting for March 25th at 10 a.m. Hopefully everyone will be able to come to this one.
My final note for this week is a question. What makes a Power User? I've heard this phrase used several times in the last week or so and I'd like to know what it actually means. Does it mean that your patrons use many library tools at once or does it mean they order an abundance of material? It like to hear how people perceive this phrase.

I hate Abu Dhabi traffic, its not quite as bad as D.C. traffic but it still sucks. What drives me nuts is the time limit on a lot of the lights. I'm sorry but if you are on a major road like Elecktra the light should last longer then 5 seconds. Anyways, I've come up a with a super simple way for the RTA to fix it.
Lets say I'm driving on the Corniche, right now if I'm headed up the Corniche and I have a green light I can do two things, make a U-turn or go straight. Those that are going down the Corniche are SOL because they have a red light and can't go anywhere. So here we go the easiest way to fix this is have the lights green if you are going straight, that way both up and down can be moving. After a few minutes of those lights being green they can turn red and the lights for making U-Turns or turning can turn green. When the time limit is up on those the lights for turning onto the Corniche can turn green. HOLY CRAP I just fixed the stupid traffic on the Corniche.
This isn't just for the Corniche either, this method can be applied just about anywhere. I do hope people for the RTA contact me and tell me how awesome I am. Oh and by the way if you are not in the lane to turn right or left (that being the lane farthest to the right or left) don't frigging turn. The lane second over from the right or left is not a turning lane, if it was it would have a little arrow that says "Hey fool you can turn here".

There is a follow-up today about the librarian being fired last week for reporting a man that was looking at child pornography. Apparently there were "legitimate business reasons" for firing her. According to the Tulare County Board of Supervisors “The fact that these two events occurred within a short time does not mean they were connected, However, we appreciate that the public perception may be to the contrary.”
What the heck does that even mean, we appreciate that the public perception may be to the contrary. That has to be the dumbest statement I have ever read. Not only did they blatently fire a woman for reporting someone who was looking at child pornography but they now are basically saying the public is stupid for backing this woman because she was going to be fired anyways. Read about it here: Supervisors back library in firing

Its that time of the year again. Here are my picks for the 2008 NCAA tournament, I've made some bold choices this year, including Stanford making it to the championship. Ill update my bracket to show who won and lost as soon as the scores are in.

Here are some pictures from my sons recent trip to the falcon hospital in Abu Dhabi. See if you can find my son, I've added a subtle hint. You can see the full collection, courtesy of Brandi, on Shutterfly. Falcon Hospital

Lovely Abu Dhabi

Now I'm all for protection of patron's privacy, but come on if someone is looking at child pornography there is no reason you shouldn't call the police. Last time I checked it was illegal, and the excuse that there is a "solid business reason for not calling the police" is total crap. Read it here: Librarian fired after reporting porn incident

Here's whats happening at LRS this week, at least what I'm doing. This week was spent working on another version of LIWA. I just finished the other one but that was basically to get it up and running and get rid of the "out of the box" feel. So this week was spent working with the Script.aculo.us javascript. I've got to say that its a really cool set of scripts that might work well with our catalogue, currently I'm working with the Drag and Drop features in hopes that I can make a more"web 2.0"style catalogue.
Most of the week was spent doing that, otherwise I went to a meeting on Sharepoint so we could figure out whose doing what. I have to say that I was a tad confused when I left the meeting as I really have no idea how an internal web page can be used for academic accreditation or how the standard layout will apply to the library but who knows maybe there is something I'm missing.
Besides the Sharepoint meeting I also had a meeting with Gale/Bowker in which we discussed some addons we might want to purchase. They did happen to bring a long some information on AquaBrowser (yeah!!) which I love as well as some information about adding table of contents to our current catalogue which I don't really love. We also discussed SFX a little during the meeting and everyone laughed when it was mentioned HCT will never purchase SFX. (Here's a small hint, SFX is a product of Ex Libris which is a Jewish run company).
So thats about it for this week. We will be attending a hockey game tonight, NHL all stars vs UAE all stars (yep you read that right). Oh and I finally got a liquor license, came though internal mail today (whooo!).