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OpenID plugin

I installed VerseLogic » WordPress OpenID Plugin for my various WordPress blogs. Now my numerous readers can login to comment using OpenID: an actually distributed identity system.

Notelets for 2007.02.17

Sites such as Gliffy.com – Create and share diagrams online makes it easier to work with others online.

ACM Transactions on Information Systems has a call for papers for a special issue on “Keeping, Re-finding, and Sharing Personal Information” (due June 15, 2007)

I recently installed the Firebug extension and want to show it to my students.

Google’s Moon Shot brings up the good point that Google and the publishers might settle out of court in a way that effectively monopolizes the whole arena of making putting library books online en masse.

Positions at the Center for History and New Media at GMU

The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, the folks behind Zotero, is hiring. They are doing wonderful work — check out the following list if you have any interest in the intersection of history and digital technology You can find the listings at

http://chnm.gmu.edu/news/archives/job_openings_postdoc_.php

which I quote here:

February 08, 2007

Job Openings – Post-Doc, Digital History Associate, Summer Intern

The Center for History and New Media is growing, and we are currently looking to fill positions at several levels:

Post-Doc in History of Science & Technology and/or Digital History: This is a one-year position (with possible renewal) at the rank of Research Assistant Professor at the Center for History and New Media (CHNM), which is closely affiliated with the Department of History and Art History at George Mason University. A PhD or advanced ABD in History or a closely related field is required. We are especially interested in people with some or all of the following credentials, but they are not required for the position: 1. experience in digital history or digital libraries; 2. strong technical background in new technology and new media; 3. administrative and organizational experience; 4. background in the history of science, technology, and industry, broadly defined; 5. background in post-1945 U.S. history. Please send letter of application, CV or resume, and three letters of recommendation (or dossier) to chnm@gmu.edu or Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive MS 1E7, Fairfax, VA 22030. Electronic submissions encouraged. Please use subject line “Digital Historian.” We will begin considering applications 15 March 2006.

Digital History Associate: The Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University is hiring two “Digital History Associates.” We are seeking energetic, well-organized people who take initiative and work well collaboratively. We are especially interested in people with some combination of research experience, administrative experience, and web development and programming experience. These exciting, grant-funded positions are particularly appropriate for someone with combined interest in history and technology, but the only specific requirements are a BA by June 1, 2007, and a demonstrated interest in both history and the web. Please apply for position #10384Z online at jobs.gmu.edu and attach both a resume and a cover letter. We will begin considering applications on 3/15/07 and continue until the positions are filled.

Summer Intern – Humanities Computing: The Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University is seeking creative, energetic, well-rounded, and well-organized college/high school students for 8-12 week paid summer internships in 2007 at a leading digital humanities center. Ability to work in a team is very important. Strong grades are essential. Preference will be given to those with working knowledge of one or more of the following: web-database development in PHP and MySQL; JavaScript, XML, CSS, and other technologies critical for Firefox development; and command-line Linux system administration. This is an especially good opportunity for someone with a combined interest in computing and history. Please send resume and cover letter with subject line: “humanities computing internship” to chnm@gmu.edu. We will begin considering applications on 2/15/07 and will continue until the position is filled.

About CHNM: Since 1994, the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University has used digital media and computer technology to change the ways that people—scholars, students, and the general public—learn about and use the past. We do that by bringing together the most exciting and innovative digital media with the latest and best historical scholarship. We believe that serious scholarship and cutting edge multimedia can be combined to promote an inclusive and democratic understanding of the past as well as a broad historical literacy that fosters deep understanding of the most complex issues about the past and present. CHNM’s work has been internationally recognized for cutting-edge work in history and new media. Located in Fairfax, Virginia, CHNM is 15 miles from Washington, DC, and is accessible by public transportation.

A Berkeley bioinformaticist on developing her own software

If I want to learn more about how researchers in bioinformatics develop software, a good place for me to start would be to talk to Rachel Brem, whose interaction with software is described as follows (in MCB Fall 2006 MCB Transcript):

    To mine data-sets, Brem nearly always writes her own software. “I have a pathology where I don’t like to use other people’s software. There are people who build their own microscopes and other lab hardware. I’m that way with software.” It’s a common refrain from bioinformaticists. If you want to understand how the program is treating the data, you had better understand the code. But reading someone else’s code is as challenging as reading someone else’s lab notebook, Brem says. So it’s often faster, not to mention safer, to build your own.

Volker Wulf on communities of practice

Friday’s talk by Volker Wulf at the “Friday afternoon seminar on designing for specific communities of practices prompted me to look up a number of concepts and people, including:

Call for Proposals: Academic Library 2.0 Conference at UC Berkeley

There is a call for proposals for what promises to be a highly intriguing future-of-the-library conference on the Berkeley campus:

The LAUC-B 2007 Conference Planning Committee is seeking proposals for break-out sessions for the upcoming LAUC-B conference on the theme of “Academic Library 2.0”. The conference will be held November 2, 2007 at the Clark Kerr convention center in Berkeley, CA.

The theme of the conference encompasses, but is not limited to the following, as they relate to academic libraries:
* blogs and vlogs
* wikis
* podcasts
* RSS
* photo and videosharing: Flickr, Picasa, and YouTube
* social bookmarking
* tagging and folksonomies
* user-driven comment, rating, and recommender systems
* the “wisdom of crowds” and/or “radical trust”
* new user habits, behaviors, and expectations
* user-centered, socially-driven services
* user-created web content

Break-out sessions will be an hour and a half, and should engage their audiences with interactive components. The committee is particularly interested in proposals discussing practical projects, and in those offering hands-on experience to their audience.

To submit a proposal, complete the form at the following URL by April 1, 2007:

http://laucbconf07.wufoo.com/forms/laucb-2007-conf-cfp-academic-library-20/

You may submit more than one proposal, but please use a separate form for each proposal submitted.

Best wishes,
Karen Munro

Karen Munro
E-Learning Librarian
University of California, Berkeley
Doe/Moffitt Libraries
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
kmunro AT library.berkeley.edu
510-643-1636

Foolish to continue hoping for Chandler?

I’m looking forward to reading Scott Rosenberg’s Dreaming in code : two dozen programmers, three years, 4,732 bugs, and one quest for transcendent software. I remain optimistic about Chandler, a next-generation Personal Information Manager (PIM) integrating calendar, e-mail, contact management, task management, notes, and instant messaging, though it’s hard to do so after reading Joel Spolsky’s The Big Picture, a quasi-review of Dreaming in code.

Web 2.0 in instruction; a book on digital humanities; UIUC folks

Two words from the second half of Spotlight on Web 2.0 12-8-06 1-5-07 FridayLive! TLT Group Online Institute resonated with me:

  • self-service
  • disaggregation

In the session, I also learned about the course ETEC 527: Technologies for Instructional Delivery.

To dig deeper into digital humanities, I will read A Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. I will note that there are so many great faculty at great faculty at the UIUC Graduate School of Library and Information Science studying scholarly work.

Learning about “mass collaboration” from Wikinomics

I’ve been inspired by reading Wikinomics over the holidays to engage in a much broader range of collaboration. For a taste of the book, read the series of excerpts in the Globe and Mail (for example, globeandmail.com: Part 7: ‘Us’ power) or keep up with the weblog.

ERP

In doing some basic thinking about ERP at universities, I found the following references helpful:

university context