Letting Go of the Words Writing Web Content That Works by Janice Ginny Radish.

Letting Go of the Words Writing Web Content That Works by Janice Ginny Radish.

This book focuses on how to write content for the web.  It is more than just writing content. Janice Radish describes how to write links, describe pathways between different parts of websites, include images with text, and write specific types of informational pages.

Writing for the web is different than writing on paper.  Communication occurs in shorter paragraphs with more concise language.  Because it is more visually oriented, headings are more important, and paragraphs are often broken down into bulleted or numbered lists.

The examples in this book are mainly commercial pages.  There are many full color diagrams, photographs, and web page captures with explanations . This makes the book very easy to follow.  There is also a bibliography and index.

I found some of the things she describes quite useful.  For example, she tells us how to create an ideal user profile, and break apart large blocks of written text into shorter paragraphs with bolded headings and links. 

If you are writing a commercial or informational site this book should be quite helpful.  There are discussons on how to write a frequently asked questions page, add text to images, and create easy to follow directions between home, pathway, and information pages.

I found this book because I was reading about content strategy. Content strategy is about planning for all the different content that will go into a website including words, images, sound, and other media.  It is an emerging field of practice in web development.  It is often aligned with information architecture.

Daily Thoughts

Doctor Livesey and Squire Trelawney inspecting the map of Treasure Island

Daily Thoughts

Libraries as part of the economic recovery. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6630256.html?desc=topstory

Library funds available through the economic stimulus package.
http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/ala-stimulus-funding-summary2.pdf

I took a walk up to my local library this morning. It is very cold and clear out today. There is ice everywhere on the sidewalks. But, there is no wind which makes it nice to walk around outside. The air is very clean and fresh. I dropped off a few books in the bookdrop then came right home. I have enough movies to watch and books to read right now.

I am reading some more of Getting Things Done When You Are Not In Charge. The first chapter is on the difference between leading and managing. The second chapter is about how to bring change about at any level of an organization. It is quite interesting to read. The author talks about an I, You, Want, and Is triangle diagram. Hopefully, it will help me make some interesting decisions.

I took some time and looked through Sourceforge.net, ZDnet, PcMag, and MacWorld to look for keywords on new and popular products. We have a huge amount of back orders on computer books, the publishers are not able to stock them quickly enough, so I have to figure out new varieties of things to look for or order them direct.

Some interesting new words were Android, Audacity, Bittorrent, Cubase, Digital Television, Evernote, Flickr, Gimp, Google Chrome, Google Docs, Twitter, Turbotax, Windows Azure (cloud computing), and Windows 7.

Sometimes, you don't even realize the obvious, Library Journal has a complete almost monthly review list for computer titles. It should make things much easier for me. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6608687.html?industryid=47113

For some reason, I have not been at my best today. I wish I was, but I'm not. Maybe, things will be much better tomorrow. I am looking forward to tomorrow.

Good Afternoon

An old clipping from the New York Times.

Good Afternoon

Good afternoon. I was reading the New York Times Book Review this morning and I came across a very interesting title; James Galbraith The Predator State How Conservatives Abandoned The Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too. It seems to have very strong mixed reactions. We need to read something different than what is happening now. James Galbraith is John Kenneth Galbraith's son. Maybe we will get a little wind too blow away the smoke and mirrors. I put the book on hold.

Also, Too Many Curses by A. Lee Martinez came in for me to read. I cracked the book today.

A. Lee Martinez has a website for his books. http://www.aleemartinez.com/ . I am definitely a fan of his work having read Gil's All Fright Dinner, and The Automatic Detective. I find him to be a humorous but versatile writer. I would compare him to Terry Pratchett or Robert Asprin.

Life keeps on going doing the usual things. I weeded a bunch of books in social sciences again this morning. I cleared off the 9/11 display and put up a display of current computer books that are coming in right now. I am trying to include books on devices as well as computers, cell phones, ipods, blackberries, game machines, digital cameras, and all the peripherals (or tethered devices) that go with computers.

I hope I get a chance to do more of the law looseleafs as well as ordering annual reports. None of this is easy.

I did a brief time putting looseleafs in the law books. I always pace myself when I do this. I try to do a little bit every day for an hour a day so it does not overwhelm me. It is impossible to finish most of the tasks I am doing in one sitting. On that note, I also ordered more annual reports. It is a long task once it starts. I ordered one book oriented annual report today, The New York Times Company.

I also placed a short list of social science books to order.

I am going to order more computer books tomorrow. They are literally flying out the door. There is a tremendous demand for computer books. The most popular computer books are photoshop and digital photography books. After this, we get requests for web design and blogging. We could probably never order quite enough computer titles.

On a less solemn note, I did some more writing exercises from Writing Begins With the Breath by Laraine Herring. This is a short poem from one of them.

Writing

Pen moves rolls and dips

Releasing black ink on the page

Nouns verbs form stories

I like to think of writing as a metaphor of a ship sailing on a sea trying to reach a distant land. The oars write on the sea moving the ship forward towards its destination. I am not sure where this came from, but it is a recurring theme which I experience when writing short poems.

Car Troubles, Queens Library

Postage Stamp of the National Library of Faroe Islands.

Car Troubles

Like many of you, I have car troubles. I had to take my car in for an inspection. They told me that it hadn't been driven enough, I had to take it out and drive it around for at least an hour on the freeway or else the inspection equipment wouldn't pass the car. It has been quite an annoyance.

My car is still in the garage getting maintenance done. They have to change the oil, rotate the tires, change the battery, and a bunch of other things to get the car in proper shape.

Right now, I am sitting at the main library in Queens, New York. Queens Library has the highest circulation of any library system in the United States. In other words, more people use it than any other library system. In some ways, it is laid out very differently than most libraries I have been to.

First of all, the library is heavily merchandised with lots of display racks for a variety of subjects including computers, self-help, mythology, new books, bestsellers, and any of a number of different subjects. You could spend a whole day wandering through the merchandised sections of the library. The bookshelves run along the walls, while the merchandised sections are in the center. Green and white signage hangs from the ceilings which is quite visible.

I went through and looked at a bunch of different subjects and wrote down a variety of new titles for computer books. They have more computer books than I have seen in most large bookstores. They also have a greater variety of subjects on computers. I still have a couple thousand dollars of computer books to order.

Sometimes when I go to libraries or bookstores I carry a small notebook to jot down titles which I am interested in. I have several pages of books jotted down after this visit. After walking through the computer books section, I walked through the social science section and noted down a few books that looked interesting. One title which really stood out was The Blue How To Profit By Investing In A Better World by Daniel De Faro Adams and Joe Andrew.

After I was done with the more serious works, I went to the manga and graphic novels section. There were a few things that interested me. Herge's Tintin can be quite controversial, but I think we might want to get a couple for the adult section. Some people consider them to be quite ethnically and racially biased. I also am going to probably order a few books by Goscinny who does the Asterix books. These in a sense are comics classics. I am also considering getting a few reprint volumes of Segar's Popeye.

Not everything in comics is about graphic novels and manga. We still have to get editorial cartoons and comic strips. Aaron McGruder is fairly popular at our library. We also don't have many popular strips. I intend to get a few of Scott Adam's Dilbert books for our collection after looking at the queens collection.

We have a very large African American population where we work. Three cartoonists which stand out who are African American are Lance Tooks, Aaron McGruder, and Kyle Baker. All do excellent work.

The computer station where I am sitting is very busy. There is a very large line to use the computers. It has a very large variety of people in the lines. Queens is also one of the most ethnically diverse places in the United States.

It is odd looking at the screen because they have set the standard type to very large to help the visually impaired. It is like reading a large print book. I don't particularly find it comfortable.

I have an hour to sit here before I go back to check on my car. I checked back on my car and it won't be ready until tomorrow. It is one of those things where unexpected things happen. I'll deal with it as I go along.

I don't really have to worry about driving it unless it is the weekend or I have a specific trip I have to make. I usually take the train to work.

Something I noticed about the Queens main branch is that it is not that effectively designed for reference work. Because almost all the collections are focused on high circulation and there is not as much reference material, there are a lot less people seeking reference questions.

People come in to check out material and use the computers more than anything else in Queens. There were no really identifiable special collections at all. I did not even see a multicultural collection. There is a very large Job Information Center collection. This seems to be the main specialized collection for reference in Queens.

It seemed that an emphasis on circulating material limits the amount of research being done. A research collection is structured differently than a circulating collection. In a more research oriented collection like New York Public Library there tends to be a lot more older material and much greater depth to the collection. It also is much more prestigious because of the depth of the collection. Most of the material in Queens was new material on the shelves. I did not find this particularly appealing. It reminded me too much of a bookstore model for libraries.

Evening Thoughts

Statue of Niccolo Machiavelli. Supposedly Machiavelli used to like to put on his court robes at night before he sat down to read so he could be in his imagination with the great thinkers throughout history.

Evening Thoughts

Today has been very busy. I haven't really had a chance to write the reviews of two books which I have read, The Public Domain, and A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective. I enjoyed reading both titles. I forgot to bring a pen on the train this morning. Maybe, I am making an excuse. I try to write a little bit on my blog every single day.

I tried to read the manga, Ruruoni Kenshin by Nobuhiru Watsuki a bit this morning, but found myself a little bored. It seemed a bit too formal in some ways to me. The little bits of history on the characters were interesting, but overall the story did not excite me that much.

When I read the history of Japan, I prefer to read about Japan before westerners came. This is just a personal bias. The setting in this manga is during the Meiji period. This means there are elements added like guns and other elements.

The volume I read was the Vizbig Edition, Volume 1, which compiles Volumes 1-3 into a single trade paperback volume. I think people who like more formal traditional manga will like this work. It combines sword fighting with romance and intrigue.

This morning I spent some time weeding the computer books. I am trying to thin out the collection of items that are not being used before more of the new books start coming in. We have to keep many of the older books because of the issue of legacy computing.

Underlying programs like c, perl, java and html remain the building blocks of newer programs like xhtml, c++, css, and other computer programs. Also many people still use older editions of windows, we still get requests for windows 95, 98, and XP. The same thing applies to things like unix and linux. Not everyone is hurriedly switching over to Vista or Ubuntu.

Books on the older programs are often no longer sold in the bookstores even though people are using them. They turn to the library because it is the only place where people can get the material. Not everyone wants to switch to a newer fancier system.

I spent several hours looking at computer books to see if we still need them. I also spent some time looking at some of the new books which just came in. I am going to wait and see what is coming in before I order more new books. I will probably also weed our current graphic novel and manga collection, both to reduce the number of books that are not circulating, and make the newer material look more visible. Very crowded, packed shelves make it hard to find new material. I like to have around 6 inches to one foot at the end of each shelve.

Tomorrow, I also have my poetry open microphone. We moved it down from four o'clock to five o'clock to have a chance for more adults to come. Hopefully, we'll also get a new microphone. I think, I will be ready for the program. I also usually pick out a variety of poetry books for people to look at which I bring down on a book truck. In addition, we will be serving light refreshments. I like to serve water and juice. I don't like serving soda, especially when little children are around, it makes them very jumpy.

I picked out a few books from the new books to look at. One is a manga, Tekkon Kinkreet Black and White All In One by Taiyo Matsumoto. There is a parental advisory on the cover for content. Also, there is a label which says now an animated film. Another book which looks interesting is Don't Make Me Think, A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition, by Steve Krug. The final book which I plan on reading is The Future of The Internet And How To Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain.

Once again, I am starting to pile up books to read. Oddly enough, I didn't really have any magazines to read today. I read the paper this morning with my coffee, but that is an almost ritual thing.

Driving Miss Daisy, Ordering Computer Books, Random Thoughts

Driving Miss Daisy

We showed Driving Miss Daisy, starring Morgan Freeman in the auditorium. The film was nominated for nine acadmey awards. It was kind of sad, only a few people came. The film was beautiful to watch. I haven't decided what the next film we are going to show is. One of the patrons wants us to show Angels With Dirty Faces starring James Cagney. I think we are going to go back to more classic noire films. They seem to do better than newer films. Dashiell Hammett films or Alfred Hitchcock films do well. In a way, I like the classic films much better than the new films. Many of our patrons say the same thing. They want classic actors like Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, or Gregory Peck.

Ordering Computer Books

I spent quite a bit of time this morning selecting computer books. I tried to get a lot of books with lots of visual instruction in addition to text. Peachpit Press and Teach Yourself Visually are good for libraries because they include a lot of screen captures and photographs of computers. The computer books with visual instruction are often even more popular than the For Dummies series of books.

I also looked at a bunch of different publishers, O'Reilly Media-- especially, the missing manual series which seems to be functional. I reviewed Facebook The Missing Manual earlier on this site. I also reviewed Clear Blogging. I am ordering both of these books for our library.

Just so you know, I didn't forget blogging. I made sure we had books for Wordpress, Blogger, Facebook, and Myspace. I also ordered the new Darren Rowse book, Problogger Secrets For Blogging Your Way To A Six Figure Income.

Random Thoughts

I still haven't had time to review Hot Text. But, you might have noticed the style of my post has changed slightly. This is the result of having read Hot Text. Also some items are labelled more clearly in my sidebar.

One book came in for me today that was on hold, Farewell My Subaru An Epic Adventure In Local Living by Doug Fine. This is a book about experimenting with living a green lifestyle. I hope it is entertaining and educational.

Although, it has nothing to do with books. I am happy with my choice to invest in Capstone Turbine. They recently had a very large order for hybrid electric vehicle turbines for DesignLine city buses.