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reading around last week, I loved:

"..if you enforce the intended purpose of something, it greatly reduces its use."
the effing librarian

______________________

"If you have the same problem over and over, maybe it's not a problem, maybe it's a fact."
Clay Shirky

quoted in a Blyberg twitter
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“don’t toss up a bunch of bibliographic citations when a decent URL will do. You’re online, act like you’re online.”
Jessamyn West

quoted at maisonbisson
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"Sports is to war as pornography is to sex."
Jonathan Haidt

TED blog
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"...it takes 100 crazy ideas to find 10 worth funding experimentally in order to identify 1 project worth pursuing..."
Eric Schnell
probably, likely, I think quoted at TameTheWeb



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Google Sketchup

Hey Hey Hey, thanks to Paul for pointing it out, no more core board for me:






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PayPal bust

file under "this is broken":

I set up a PayPal account for my library to directly collect fees and fines from the OPAC...
I create the account with PayPal, have it email me (and a few back ups) about deposits etc. The PayPal account is linked it to my employer's bank account.
Beside the fact that I was puzzled by the absence of a way to automatically transfer the $ from the PayPal account into the associated bank account, I now find out that all PayPal accounts have a $500/month WITHDRAWAL limit (yes that is what they consider that kind of transfer to be.) That limit can only be lifted by giving PayPal either a SSN or a CC#. Of course, MPOW doesn't allow me to use my SSN or CC for that purpose, and I now find out that PayPal cannot accept an Employer Identification Number in lieu of a SSN. Isn't that the SSN for businesses?
Anyway, I get the really stiff "nothing we can do" on the phone, "these are the 2 options for lifting limits", "can't you get a debit card from the bank?" la, la, la... There is only 1 level of supervisor you can talk to...

I really hope that bureaucracy does not force me to terminate this service before it even takes flight...

so bummed (did I already say that?) and now grumpy...
I miss Zappos!



technorati tags:library-20, library2.0, library 2.0, libraries, policies, customers,
PayPal, Zappo

tinkering

I love to tinker, we are expanding a library to add a youth services wing, and there we plan a lot of really really cool things. one of these is a wifi cafe where we want to offer power (A/C) right in the booths. We debated how to best have powe outlet in an eating drinking surface. I tried to draw up my ides but I am not that good at it. I turned to coreboard and made this:

note the funny photocopy of an outlet glued to the surface made from this phototaken with my cellphone, emailed to flickr so it could be printed pronto.
I had fun. Hope the booths turn out good. Furniture folks will probably laugh at me but hopefully they get the idea and come up with a real no crumbs no coffee solution.
note the "wave" line exists in many forms in the building and other furniture.




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of learning

I LOVE TED Talks
"...be very careful of what you put in people's heads..." so true...


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