I’ve been recruited to perform a pre-conference workshop at the Atlantic Provinces Library Association Conference in May. Here’s the draft description I’ve come up with for my session, titled tentatively The Wearable OPAC: An Extended Improvisation on Open Source:

For me, the greatest innovation in library technology in recent years has been the miniature public library card that clips to my key chain. This small innovation has completely changed my relationship with my library card, and thus my library: what was once a revered object, a sort of “golden ticket,” is now a ubiquitous extension of my person. It’s wearable.

Taking this innovation as a jumping-off point, we’ll consider how the library catalogue could make a similar conceptual leap: what if we could wear the OPAC.

Clip it to our key chain, or slip it into our pocket, or throw if over our shoulder. What would a ubiquitous personal library catalogue look like, feel like, and how could it change our relationship to the library?

Such an approach — decentralized, cheap, omnipresent, connected, social — demands an open approach to technology, moving the focus away the deified, proprietary, impersonal, behemothic and toward the commonplace, open source, personal and disposable.

What if we wore our OPAC like socks, rather than visiting it like church?

Over the course of an afternoon we’ll engage in real world experiments to actually create such a thing.

Using small bits of cheap technology together with open source tools, databases, and programming languages, we’ll stitch together a proof-of-concept wearable OPAC. And in doing so we’ll ruminate on open source and its potential application in libraries, both in terms of its ability to free libraries from the tyranny of technology vendors, but also, and perhaps more importantly, in the hope that it offers to mutate the relationships between the institution, its technologies, its librarians and its patrons.

Participants are encouraged, but not required, to bring a wifi-enabled laptop or handheld device. No experience with open source, programming, or library technology is required. An open mind, and a willingness to suspend any latent fears of or reverence for technology is recommended. This is neither a speech on open source nor a training session; think of it as an interactive performance piece.

Non-librarian civilians are welcome to attend; you can register on the APLA website. The cost is $50.

By the way, before this blog post, Google showed no results for the search wearable OPAC. So I’ve coined a new phrase.

Try this: go out and get a Mars Dark chocolate bar (in a pinch you can settle for a regular Mars). Take it home and put it in the fridge. Wait a few hours. Eat. It’s a completely transformed chocolate experience.

There’s a Vespa Ape for sale on eBay today, in Tacoma, Washington. Neato.

Just noticed that there’s now an official RSS feed of new titles for the PEI Provincial Library. Cool.

The LilyPad Arduino is “a set of sewable electronic components that let you build your own soft, interactive fashion.” Among the various (very) helpful introductions and tutorials for the device is a very simple introduction to the C programming language. It’s the least intimidating introduction to programming I’ve ever read.

The Backyardigans, it says here, were supposed to play today in Charlottetown. Except that they’ve been stuck on the MV Caribou ferry from Newfoundland since Tuesday at Noon. The Cape Breton Post interviewed Backyardigans technical director Jackie Easton by mobile phone:

It’s been fine. It’s more the aggravation of being stuck out in the ocean. We’ve had all the comforts of home, we just couldn’t go anywhere.

For any parent familiar with the Backyardigans and their annoying yet addictive theme song, the notion of being trapped at sea with them is, well, very very frightening. I wonder if, in addition, they are trapped in costume.

Meanwhile the children are sad and Guardian readers are flaming each other about whether this is Breaking News or not.

Now that the CBC has broadened the accessibility of its archival material I couldn’t resist the opportunity to try my amateur hand at making a mashup. So I present The Spirit of the People Themselves (Angus MacLean Remix). Source material:

• Music is Djiz Funky Instrumental from funkyremixes.com (NonCommercial Sampling Plus license)
• The Million-Acre Farm, CBC News, April 24, 1978 (educational, non-commercial use)
• Stunning upheaval: Alex Campbell’s victory, CBC News, July 12, 1966 (educational, non-commercial use)

Prepared with the greatest of respect and all due reverence. I’m not a journeyman mashup artist by any stretch, so please consider this a tentative toe in the water, or a proof-of-concept, not a polished effort.

The CBC Archives website relaunched this week. What was once a treasure trove is now a cavalcade of earthly delights. Including Charlottetown considers cameras to curb late-night rowdies from 1994. The video of late-nite Charlottetown in the piece make it look like New York City.

You’ll also find Life in the ferry slow-lane from 1968 and The Million-Acre Farm from 1978.

I’m not sure whether this is new or not, but the television clips, or at least the ones I’ve seen, appear to be WMV files that can be downloaded, saved, and then mashed up in Quicktime (which they would appear to allow).

Dear Globe and Mail,

I have been a happy subscriber to your Saturday edition for many months now. I enjoy having the Globe on my doorstep every Saturday morning when I wake up (even if I don’t find the time to read it until Sunday!).

So last week when you left a “as a special offer to you, a Saturday-only subscriber, we’re going to give you a daily subscription for the next six weeks,” I really looked forward to it. It’s a good marketing effort: I’m already primed, and if you expose me to the daily wonders of the paper, there’s a good chance that I’ll upgrade my subscription.

Except that since you made this offer two weeks ago, I’ve only actually received the Monday to Friday edition of the paper twice — in other words, you’ve been batting about 25%.

Needless to say, your marketing effort has backfired, and I am now less prone than ever to upgrading my subscription: why would I want to if I’m only going to receive the paper one day in four?

Sincerely,
Peter

Until yesterday, I didn’t know that Sana‘a’ was the capital of Yemen. Truth be told, I didn’t actually know where Yemen was (it’s next to Saudi Arabia, across the Red Sea from Eritrea). But I’ve been reading a lot about Sana‘a’ this week, and while I’ve been intrigued with tales of fresh mango juice, I’ve been most interested in the punctuation issues involved. The name of the capital of Yemen, in Arabic, looks like this:

There are many approaches to the Romanization of Arabic.

Looking at each of the letters in the Arabic word using the BATR Character Mappings, for example, you get (from right to left): SnEaa.

The name of the capital ends up in English in a variety of ways; I prefer Sana‘a’ simply for its typographic symmetry.