Thursday, June 5th, 2008
I came into possession of an orphan kitten on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I live in graduate student housing on the University of Arizona campus and pets are not allowed. I would love to find a good home for the kitten and a responsible and caring owner.
The kitten is approximately 5 to 6 weeks old and is of undetermined sex. I plan to take him/her to a vet soon, to find out if it's a he or a she and to make sure he/she is free of parasites and diseases. I will update this blog post when I get the results.
He/she is very playful and loves to explore my apartment. He/she loves attention and, when tired of playing, enjoys cuddling on my lap.
Please e-mail me at sho.ikeda@gmail.com if you are interested and live in the Tucson area (or Phoenix if you are willing to drive here to pick him/her up).
More photos here.
Wednesday, April 9th, 2008
Nexus is an application for Facebook that analyzes your network of friends and acquaintances and presents it in a visual web of connections. It was interesting to see my social network, where there were many connections amongst my Oregon friends, and then smaller, separated islands of Tucson friends. If you're on Facebook, I suggest you check it out.
(via Information Aesthetics)
Wednesday, April 9th, 2008
I find Twitter to be a fun social tool for keeping in touch with friends both near and far. Others have found it to be an effective method of distributing information. Those I know who are skeptical of Twitter usually don't see the purpose behind it or see how it can be useful. I've been sitting on this great video for more than a month now and it lays out what Twitter is all about "in plain English."
(via Librarian in Black)
Sunday, March 9th, 2008
Boing Boing contributor and sci-fi writer Cory Doctorow wrote an interesting article for Locus magazine on why hardware e-book readers, like the Amazon Kindle, are bound to fail–at least for now. His reasoning cites competition with other entertainment products and a limited supply of manufacturing facilities:
It's fine to be a medium-sized small fry in those areas where the capacity is nigh-unlimited — say, Internet hosting, xeroxing, offset printing. No one's going to tell you that there's no room for your e-books website because the Internet is full. You're not going to have a hard time sourcing programmers to hack together your neat little social book-recommendation system. The world has lots of these commodities.
If, on the other hand, your cool idea requires that you outbid other would-be artists and entrepreneurs for resources, your success requires more than being right and passionate and smart: you also have to have deeper pockets than the competition. When your plan hinges on something scarce — say, high-quality manufacturing capacity — you need to be able to win the inevitable bidding war.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
Ever since I caught the reference to Édith Piaf in the lyrics to the Decemberists' "My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist" and curiosity drove me to look her up in Wikipedia, I've had a growing appreciation of her music. Though I haven't seen La Vie En Rose, the recent movie based on her life, I've read enough to know that she led an interesting–and sometimes difficult–life. Apparently, one accomplishment from her life was left out of the biopic: During World War II, Piaf often performed for the German military, an act considered treasonous by many. However, according to her sister-in-law, Piaf gained permission to have photos taken with French POWs in Germany and then took the photos back to the French Resistance to have them enlarged and used for passports. Weeks later, she returned to the POW camp to smuggle the passports to the prisoners.
Her sister-in-law said Piaf once explained to her why she risked her own life to save others: "She said, 'It's nothing. It was the normal thing to do, and I was one who could do it.'"
Here is a link to a quiet scene from Saving Private Ryan featuring Piaf's "Tu Es Partout."
(via Boing Boing)
Monday, February 18th, 2008
The latest issue of Wired magazine has an entertaining feature on 33 things that suck including air travel, junk mail and the nigh-indestructible plastic packaging that has a nasty tendency to slice fingers. (There's also a somewhat apologetic article on the suckiness of magazine subscription cards, which I noticed only after I had ripped the aforementioned cards out of my copy of the issue.)
However, Wired also lists 34 things that don't suck, including Guitar Hero, ice cream, and the first half hour of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Also included on the list: Public libraries!
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
I received this bit of news yesterday from the UA Library Student Organization mailing list: According to the US News and World Report, the librarian occupation is one among 31 careers that have bright futures based on factors such as job satisfaction, job market outlook, and salary. Special librarians, like corporate and law librarians, are the fastest growing occupation in the field, which is good news for me since I'm focusing on working in the private sector. Other information-specialist careers that were listed include systems analyst and usability/user experience specialist. Among the most overrated careers: Teacher, physician and attorney.
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
One thing about switching from a quarter system to a semester system is that the term feels pretty durn long. It's going to feel even longer if you add in the fact that each of my classes meets only once a week (granted, 2.5 hours at a time). Not that this is a bad thing. It's a nice change of pace to go from having midterms in Week 4 as an undergrad, to having to do a short paper and some reading homework now. So I'm not complaining. We'll see how I feel about things near the end of the term, considering that that length of the term allows from bigger projects and papers that you would usually see in a ten-week quarter.
So far, my classes seem to be shaping up to be fairly interesting. They are all core classes, meaning that they are required for graduation. I think this isn't a recommended course schedule for a student in their first term, but so far it isn't bad at all. Obviously, it helps that I'm currently unemployed, so it gives me plenty of time to focus on all things academic. I'm trying to fix that by applying to some campus jobs at the library and state museum, but nothing seems to be coming up in my favor right now.
Anyway, I think the tough one is supposed to be my Organization of Information class (recommended to be taken after one's first term), which focuses on concepts related to metadata, HTML, and XML. It's not too bad so far, as I'm pretty comfortable with HTML, and having a grasp of HTML coding really helps in figuring out how XML works. I'm actually able to help out a few other students in class during labs, so it's nice to know that all that basic website design in my free time is paying off now.
Ethics of Library Science is intriguing because it tackles philosophical matters in the profession, such as issues surrounding censorship and freedom of information. Currently, I'm reading about utilitarianism, Immanuel Kant, and other philosophical schools of thought and attempting to apply it to library matters. I didn't take any philosophy classes during my undergrad studies (with the exception of an ethics in journalism class), so I look forward to seeing what else we'll talk about in class.
Lastly, my third class is Research Methods. Now, at first I thought this would be a pretty dry class concerning the best ways to find the journals and books you need for writing papers. It turns out that it's actually on how to develop research experiments, from conducting large surveys to interviewing small groups of people. It's actually a pretty interesting topic, especially when you get down to trying to figure out the best way to solve a problem or mystery that you're facing. The class has pretty good discussions, led by a professor who is pretty passionate about research and researching in a scientific, and objective, manner.
Anyway, those are some short and simple thoughts on my classes so far this term.
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
As of last night I wrapped up my first class, IRLS 504 Foundations of Library and Information Services, here at the School of Information Resources and Library Science (SIRLS) at the University of Arizona.
It was a busy first week, with classes beginning at 8 AM and completing around 5 PM. The classes were composed of modules focusing on four different categories: orientation, content, technology, and professional development. Orientation covered all the things we needed to know to register for classes, get our student ID cards and the requirements for graduation, among other things. Content involved topics relevant to the readings we were assigned before arriving in Tucson including understanding classification systems, the types of libraries, and the major themes in information science. The technology modules gave us instruction on how to use the online class management system (similar to Blackboard but not as clunky), writing HTML, and introducing us to Web 2.0 concepts. Finally, for the professional development modules we got the opportunity to listen to several librarian guest speakers, including the head of the Pima County Library.
We did a number of different assignments ranging from group presentations to web scavenger hunts. Some seemed a little more unnecessary than others, while others were challenging because of the limited time we had to finish them. For example, we only had about three days to work on a 20-minute Powerpoint presentation. However, all of the groups pulled their presentations off successfully, and I think it was a very productive week for everyone. After the class ended last Wednesday, we still had to complete a few more assignments, including a paper, by last night.
The incoming class this term was larger than I thought it would be. Where I was expecting maybe 20 to 30 students, instead there were 48, the majority of whom were female. I think I was one of only seven guys in the class. The average age of the group appeared to be in the early to mid-30's with many people coming to the school with several years of library experience. It seems as though many were library assistants who wanted the MLIS degree to advance upwards in their careers. There were also about ten younger people who had just finished their undergraduate degrees and were ready to jump into graduate school, which according to the professors leading the class was a growing demographic. There seem to be more young people every year who know they want to be librarians early in their undergrad studies.
The class seemed evenly split between people who would stay in Tucson to attend classes and those who will take the majority of their classes online (those distance-education students were in Tucson for this class to fulfill their residency requirements). A good majority of these online students were from the Phoenix area or elsewhere in Arizona, and a few were from the East Coast and other parts of the states.
So, as an introductory class IRLS 504 taught me a few new things, but also covered some concepts that I'm familiar with. Since I've had very little work experience in libraries, it was nice to learn all the basic things one should be familiar with like the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress Classification systems, the variety of information-related jobs, and the kinds of issues that affect libraries ranging from censorship to internal bureaucracies. The things that I could have skipped over were lessons on HTML, RSS, and Web 2.0 because I am pretty familiar with these topics; however, I think they were still a valuable part of the class.
All in all, it was a good class where I got to meet other students and make a few connections before starting spring term classes later this week. I'm looking forward to the upcoming term and really getting into the thick of things.
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
There's not too much to say about the last couple of months. Or rather, I guess there is a lot to say but I don't have much time to say it. I leave for Tucson in about eight hours. I finished working at my student job, said my goodbyes to people in Eugene and Portland, and started work on my first class. By tomorrow afternoon, I'll begin living outside of my home state for the first time ever. In a little more than 24 hours, I'll be in my first face-to-face class session of my grad student career. I don't think I've felt this jittery since the night before my freshman year of high school. I'm excited, and I think I'm ready.
