I'm in the Austin, Texas, airport -- having just left the closing session of the Re-Think It conference -- and I'm wondering what the heck is happening to my chosen profession. When did we turn into an exclusive member's only club with unrealistic demands on professionalism and a secret handshake?

The closing …

I came across Jen Simmon's call for a #newwwyear by way of Eric Meyer:

Ok, here’s the deal. Tweet your personal website plan with the hashtag #newwwyear (thanks @jamiemchale!):
1) When will you start?
2) What will you try to accomplish?
3) When is your deadline?

Improve an existing …

Putting this here because I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere and it might be useful for others. Thinking about the history of the Islandora solution packs for different media types, the Basic Image Solution Pack was probably the first one written. Displaying a JPEG image, after all, is -- well -- pretty …

I'm bringing this blog out of dormancy to add my voice to the chorus of people defending net neutrality. It isn't the first time; we've been here before when the rules were first adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015. New president, new people in charge, but the reasons …

Earlier this year the STM Association -- a trade association for academic and professional publishers -- started a project called RA21: Resource Access in the 21st Century. The project is a renewed approach to moving past network address recognition and proxy agents as a way of authenticating access to licensed content. I …

This has to be among the weirdest pieces of unsolicited mail I've ever received. Nigerian prince? That is so yesterday. Virtual pharmacy? Too much effort. No, what we want to sell you is a can opener!

Hi Sir/Madam,

Glad to hear that you're on the market for can opener …

Today I was privileged to present to the 6th International Congress of Technological Innovation, Innovatics 2016, organized by Duoc UC Libraries, Library of Santiago, and University of Chile Libraries. The conference was simultaneously translated in English and Spanish. To aid the translators, I wrote out the text of my presentation …

Index Data posted an announcement on their blog about how I will be joining them next month. Confirmed! I'll be working on the open source library service platform that was announced by EBSCO last month, and more specifically in a role as an organizer and advocate for people participating …

Alan Stanley taught me this trick at an Islandora Camp a few years ago, and when trying to remember it this morning I messed up one critical piece. So I'll post it here so I have something to refer back to when I need to do this again.

The Drupal …

Nuts. I added and committed a directory to my Git repository when the directory itself was another separate Git repository. Now Git thinks it's some sort of submodule, but it doesn't know how to deal with it:

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$ git submodule update
No submodule mapping found in .gitmodules for path …

So I had an idea for a Twitter bot I would like to see. Occasionally I'll be listening to a story on NPR and I'll want to know more about it. Sometimes the host will say something like: "come to npr.org for more information and click on..." Other times …

This is the text of a talk that I gave at the NN/LM Greater Midwest Region tech talk on January 29, 2016. It has been lightly edited and annotated with links to articles and other information. The topic was "Emerging Technology" and Trisha Adamus, Research Data Librarian at UW-Madison …

One of the features of Jaspersoft Reports is the ability to include static graphics -- logos, for instance -- in the completed reports. These graphic files are normally listed in the JRXML configuration file by reference -- meaning that what is stored in the configuration is a file name and not the graphic …

For the past few months I've been working on a project to migrate a museum's collection registry to CollectionSpace. CollectionSpace is a "free, open-source, web-based software application for the description, management, and dissemination of museum collections information." ((From the answer to the first question of the CollectionSpace frequently asked questions …

[caption id="attachment_KkOCeAtKHIc" align="alignright" width="210" caption="Me and my Jester's Cap"]

Closing out #nisoforum w Peter Murray as disruptive tech jester! pic.twitter.com/TvRb8UEY0T

— Lettie Conrad (@lyconrad) October 6, 2015

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Last week I was at the NISO Forum: The Future of Library Resource Discovery with a …

Helping patrons find the information they need is an important part of the library profession, and in the past decade the profession has seen the rise of dedicated "discovery systems" to address that need. The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is active at the intersection of libraries, content suppliers, and …

[caption id="attachment_26113" align="alignright" width="232"] Cover page from the NISO white paper "The Future of Library Resource Discovery"[/caption]
In early October, NISO will be hosting a two-day forum on the future of resource discovery in libraries. This is an in-person meeting to extend the work of Marshall …

Two articles in each of two threads this week:

• If Strong Encryption is Outlawed...
• Allocations of IPv4 Internet Addresses Now Restricted; It's a Good Thing IPv6 is Finally Here

Feel free to send this newsletter to others you think might be interested in the topics. If you are not already …

I'm just home from the American Library Association meeting in San Francisco, so this week's threads are just a brief view of new and interesting things I found on the exhibit floor.

• Book-Donations-Processing-as-a-Service
• Free Driver's Ed Resources for Libraries
• Free Online Obituaries Service from Orange County Library

Note! Funding for …

This week's threads:

• Where should you keep your data? Your library can help with that answer!
• Use index cards for your next presentation's question and answer session -- it'll make for a better experience for you and your audience.
• What's that bird? There is an app for that! Give it your …