Science Fiction SHORT Short Short Stories.

When I was 10 or 11 one my favorite books to check out of the public library was an anthology put together by Isaac Azimov called 100 great science fiction short short stories ISBN: 9780385130448. It was a variety of very short (often just a couple of pages or even just a single paragraph) stories. I loved it. I could breeze through a dozen or so really cool ideas, themes, plots in little more than an hour.

It started my life-long love of short stories. I still love them however there doesn't seem to be as much of a public outlet for short stories now-a-days. Go to any book store or, what the heck, maybe a library and you will see shelf after shelf of never-ending multiple volume series. I hate most multiple volume novels series. I usually find them bloated, meandering and in bad need of good editing. What ever happened to less is more? A good short story has to be well written; when you have fewer words to choose from, you have to choose them far more carefully.

But this is the sort of thing that people will come back to over and over again. The industry follows the money and it's getting harder and harder to find anthologies and anthology magazines. This is a far cry from the way it was a century ago when many to most novels were published in serial form in newspapers and magazine publications.

A few years ago Wired Magazine decided to ask some of the biggest writers in the field to tackle the very, very short story; just 6 words. Here are the results.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html

Texas 23 Parts #6 & #7

Well originally my Blog post this week was going to be about how something like a Blog Reader and an RSS feed really weren't all that useful to me. I only really keep track of a few sites on a weekly or daily basis and they are simple enough to scroll through using my browser bookmarks first thing in the morning.

Then of course I realized that I was a coordinator and was put in charge of checking 15 other blogs to make sure they were updated on a regular basis. Suddenly these tools seem INVALUABLE.

Thing #5 (posting from home)

TAKE THAT IT department!

I'M the BOSS?!?

Well I've been named one of the project coordinators for North Texas 23. I guess this means that I should get off my butt and actually DO some of the assignments for a change.


THING #2 Learning 2.0

Pardon me while a voice a somewhat negative view here for a second. I see the biggest obstacle for library’s adaption of Library 2.0 to be the librarians themselves.

Historically librarians have been taught to value those things that have static and unchanging properties: standards, authority records, peer-reviewed sources, call numbers, etc. Before, it had always been in the best interest of the librarian to use the same tools that have stood the test of time. Many librarians’ entire work load consists of archiving and conserving. Also librarians have always been told that we are the gatekeepers; we are Prometheus bringing fire and knowledge to the people.

Unfortunately these are exactly the wrong set of values with which to implement Library 2.0. The whole “bottom-up” “grass-roots” system where the people bring knowledge to the librarians and where resources and knowledge is a dynamic ever-changing process is anathema to historic role of the librarian. It goes against the grain of many of the core values imparted by Library Schools of the 20th Century.

The very fact that a program like 23 Things exists says a lot about the mindset of the Baby Boomer and Gen-X generations of librarians. Many of the younger generation don’t need to be told about these tools; they are already using them. It’s the kids that are in library school now or those that will be graduating in the next 10 years that will drive the change in core values of librarians in the future. It is those generations that fully and truly embrace the new values and new tools.


Hopefully with a project like Texas23 some of those tools will be in place when they get here.


THING #3 Flickr

OK confession time…

I have never owned a camera of any sort. I think I can count the number of times I’ve taken a picture throughout my life on one hand. Heck I can count the number of times I’ve had my picture taken in the last 10 years on one hand.

That being said I have scanned, phototouched and indexed next to 10,000 of my father’s digital pictures in the last 5 years. I guess the next step is to ask him if he wants me to put any of them up on Flickr.

Here’s a pretty pic from a place just down the road from me.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/d2cool/2034509638/


THING #4 Flickr mashups
Heh,

I keep seeing this sort of thing A LOT




Most folks response has been “Well then try and do the assignments from home.”

OK time for a second confession…
Until a couple weeks ago I didn’t have internet connection at my house. And it’s the first time I’ve ever had any internet connection at home. That probably doesn’t shock any readers out there as much as it shocks my co-workers as I’ve been the site master for our libraries webpage and the e-mail and chat-line contact for any library questions.

It’s probably genetic. Until they retired my father was a systems engineer who wrote the guidance programs for missiles and the auto-pilot systems for military fighters and my mother telecommuted to work for a telecommunications company that was located over a thousand miles away.

To this day they don’t have any internet connection either.


But I guess I should try and do the assignment from home.

EDIT: Jeffery Bond pointed out that I didn't have a Mashup listed here

I guess