Rudy Rucker is famous for a few things, not the least of which is his Sci-Fi writing. His newest novel, Postsingular, is now available for free download. Rucker has released the novel using a Creative Commons License!
If that was not enough, he has also posted 300 pages of his working notes created as he wrote the novel. The novel is available in several formats including PDF, HTML, and PDB/PRC (Palm Pilot readers!).
I recently heard a fellow student ask a good question: “What exactly does ‘user-centered’ design?” The also asked, “Everything is designed for users so how could something not be user-centered?”
Wow, that is a great question! One of my favorite answers to this question comes from the book “The Psychology of Everyday Things” (P.O.E.T.) by Donald A. Norman. Norman says that user-centered design is “a philosophy based on the needs and interests of the user, with an emphasis on making products usable and understandable.” (ch. 7, p. 188)
Norman further states that
Design should:
- Make it easy to determine what actions are possible at any moment (make use of constraints).
- Make things visible, including the conceptual model of the system.
- Make it easy to evaluate the current state of the system.
- Follow natural mappings between intentions and the required actions; between actions and the resulting effect; and between the information that is visible and the interpretation of the system state.
In other words, make sure that (1) the user can figure out what to do, and (2) the user can tell what is going on.
The Psychology of Everyday Things is available from:
Note: The Psychology of Everyday Things was reprinted under the title The Design of Everyday Things. I am quoting page numbers from the 2004 edition but I believe they are the same regardless of title.
There are lots of great ways to find out if your library has a book you want, but what do you do when your library doesn’t a have a book? In the case of popular books that have been recently released, you know your library will get them soon, but you also know there will be a long waiting list. You probably want to put a hold on the item as soon as possible. Your library might even provide a webpage listing the newest items. But by the time you get around to checking, the list of holds will likely be very long. Some libraries will email you when a book comes in, and a few even have RSS feeds of new items. But even that isn’t perfect because for large libraries, the list of new items can be big.
What you want is an RSS feed that lists items that your library does not have yet. You want that RSS feed to be empty until the item is available. As soon as the item is in the catalogue it will show up in your feed and you can put a hold on it.
A year or two ago, I wrote a perl program that searches a Z39.50 catalogue, and returns the newest 20 items. I made the program so I could see the latest DVDs, Videos, and CDs. I recently modified that program so that it would search for books that my library does not have but I know they will get. In particular I was interested in the new, and positively scandalous, book by Peter C. Newman about Brian Mulroney. The book was kept secret until it was released and I knew the library would be ordering it any day, and I also knew there would be a long long line up for it.
Well, my program worked perfectly. I managed to get in the hold queue in position 50 (realize, that staff get to put in holds before patrons so you can never get in position #1. I’ve never managed to be any higher than position 8 at my public library for new items).
By this afternoon, mere hours after the item was ordered and added to the catalogue, the number of holds has grown greatly. While I am in position 50, there are 33 copies on order, so I should have the book about a month after the order arrives!
The nuts and bolts of the program works like this. I have a perl program that uses the Yaz Z39.50 library and an RSS library. I connect to my libraries Z39.50 server and perform a search for the item. I then generate an RSS feed as output. It contains some of the MARC fields from the Z39.50 search results. In the case of searching for non-existent items, I generate an RSS file with no items. The program is run hourly from cron on my webserver.
I choose to configure firefox to pick up the RSS as a “live bookmark” and when the item was available, it was right there in firefox.
Now you might say, wouldn’t it be better to get these kinds of notices by email? I agree, email might be better. Instant Message or Text Message (SMS on a PCS phone) might also be better. Lots of people read RSS feeds all day so RSS is also a good candidate.
It would be interesting to have libraries start offering something like this to patrons as a service. The patron logs in and enters a list of items they want to search and when there are no hits, they can request to be informed when the library gets the item. The patron gets to choose how they want to be informed: email, RSS feed, text message or just by checking back on the web page. This would have a side-effect of letting the library see the most in-demand items.
My public library has a “request an item” form, but when you use it, you get a prompt response. Usually, the response is, “sorry, due to budget limits we will not be adding this item to our collection.” Of course that is just non-sense. Just because they are choosing not to add it at this very minute, does not mean they won’t add it. For example, I once requested that they add the video Colossus: The Forbin Project. It is an ideal compliment to many other films they have and is required viewing for some studies of philosophy, technology, embodiment, cyberphilosophy, etc. They will add this item some day, they just do not realize it yet. I’d like an automatic way to find out without having to manually search for it from time to time. I also know that someday they will offer the TV series Six Feet Under on DVD at my public library. Maybe not for a few years, but they will get it. When they do, there will be lots of holds. I’d like to be first in line.
Someday soon, before the Access 2005 conference I will clean up my perl code and release it as open-source. Subscribe to my RSS feed to find it when it is available!
A new book by Peter C. Newman about Brian Mulroney, went on sale today: The Secret Mulroney Tapes. It is based on years of interviews conducted by Mr. Newman and media reports have picked some rather unflattering quotes from the book as examples of its content.
Members of the Edmonton Public Library can subscribe to a special RSS feed I whipped up to find out when the book becomes available. This feed will allow you to find out as soon as they have added it to their catalogue and you can place an hold even before it arrives! The feed is generated every two hours from a Z39.50 search of the EPL catalogue and converted to RSS (for those who care about the details).
For those, not familiar with recent world leaders, Mulroney was the Prime Minister of Canada for a long time. Americans might know him for clowning around and singing “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” with Ronald Reagan. Germans might recognize him as a friend of the famous criminal Karlheinz Schreiber.
Somewhat interesting are the headlines from Canada’s major media on the subject:
Conclusions regarding media bias are left as an exercise for the reader.
Getting good help for writing term papers or essays is not hard; good help is available from many sources. For example, style guides such as APA or MLA provide some good advice not only on style but also on the writing process. It is however, much harder to get concise help for writing. APA and MLA do not help the average undergraduate much when they are under pressure. Neil Sawer’s Ten Steps to Help You Write Better Essays & Term Papers (ISBN: 0-9697901-3-9) is concise but still extremely helpful.
Ten Steps lives up to its title; there are ten simple steps outlined and the author does not waste time embellishing. The steps are divided into three sections: The Basic Steps, The Clarifying Steps, and The Writing Steps. For each step, Sawers defines what is needed and why, and provides practical advice for completing the steps. Practical is the operative theme here. With the exception of steps 1 and 3, the ten steps are are activities not abstract ideas (#1 is “Be Proactive” and #3 is “Come up with the right topic” but the author provides practical advice on how to achieve these goals).
The book itself is short; just 127 pages. It has small narrow format, ideal for keeping open on your desk in front of you. Most of the book is formatted so that keep activities, advice, or tips are in large print on one page and the opposite page contains details. This format works brilliantly as you can flip through easily and leave the appropriate section open as you are working. This is a true handbook: keep it close at hand because you can and will use it.
The book is not costly. The Canadian price is CA$13.95 making it affordable to its intended audience (students). I am also happy to note that it was not only written by a Canadian but is published right here in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada by The NS Group.
Ten Steps is available from many libraries including the Edmonton Public Library. Libraries in the NEOS consortium (such as the University of Alberta) have copies but they are typically in reference and thus marked NO_LOAN. EPL does lend out its copies but it is a popular resource so put a hold it on it now!