Friday, September 05, 2003

Friday Notes 2.  An on-line resource for NEILSA Librarians EDITORS NOTES: Material in fine print has been published at least once before.  With a few exceptions new material will be in this size print.  Color is something I really think you should have a look at, except URL blue for links. Other Library blogs:     SWILSA House blog at: http://www.swilsa.blogspot.com     Blogs for Libraries [WebJunction]     http://www.webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=1432 DEADLINES & DATES: I'll try to list all the upcoming dates of importance here, you will have to mine for the details.      FORMS DUE/UPCOMMING: ANNUAL SURVEY  The survey is due 10/31/03. To access the online survey go to http://www.silo.lib.ia.us, click on For and About Iowa Libraries, click on Annual Survey. The survey is due October 31, 2003. Public Libraries with Internet are required to submit the survey online. The link to Web Collect is also on the Annual Survey web page. Upcoming Grant Application Deadlines 1. The State Historical Society of Iowa has had the HRDP funding restored and is inviting applications for preservation projects in documentary collections, museums, and historic preservation. Deadline is January 15, 2004. For details see (categories of acceptable projects are under the eligibility bullet): http://www.iowahistory.org/grants/shsi_grants/hrdp/hrdp.html 2. Upcoming IMLS Deadlines Conservation Project Support grant applications for FY 2004 funding must be postmarked no later than October 15, 2003. For more information about this grant program, including applications and guidelines, please see: http://www.imls.gov/grants/museum/mus_cps.asp All deadlines for FY 2004 IMLS grant and award program applications can be viewed at: http://www.imls.gov/grants/dedln/index.htm Categories include: National Leadership Grants for Museums, Museums in the Community category; National Leadership Grants for Libraries, Continuing Education, Curriculum Development, and Training category; and Native American Library Services, Basic and Professional Assistance categories. 3. a couple sites with information on funding opportunities are: http://www.silo.lib.ia.us/for-ia-libraries/funding-info/ http://www.collectioncare.org/funding/funding.html All IMLS grant and award program deadlines can be viewed at: http://www.imls.gov/grants/dedln/index.htm     County Meetings Scheduled: If your county meeting is not on the schedule please contact NEILSA      Allamakee County Meeting      Black Hawk County Meeting - When called - seldom      Bremer County Meeting - October 21 at 7:30 Sumner      Buchanan County Meeting - Oct. 28 at 7 PM in Independence      Butler County Meeting  - October 7, 2003, in Allison. CE      Chickasaw County Meeting      Clayton County Meeting - Oct. 14 9:00am at Strawberry Point - CIPA WS Change      Delaware County Meeting - Hopkinton Library on Nov. l8 at 7:00      Dubuque County - DALINC -      Fayette County Meeting - Oct. 23, 2003 @ 1:00 Haweye PL      Grundy County Meeting - 9:00 am 10/27 @ Reinbeck      Howard County Meeting   - Lime Springs on Tuesday, October 7, at 7:00 p.m. CIPA WS     Winneshiek County Meeting - November 6, 2003 @ 7:00 Decorah CE:     SPECIAL WORKSHOPS: One & two hour workshops at Fall county meetings, CIPA Classes. County Meeting Format:    CIPA/NCIPA Requirements - 1 Hr. CE         and        Review of required policies - 1 Hr. CE For the 2nd session you will have to have your Internet policy & AU or other computer policy(s) with you.   Bring note taking materials there will be no handouts since there are no fees for the county association CIPA workshops.     CLASSES in NEILSA: Town Meeting – Sept 10 at Water Art & Rec.[Same as last year] There is still time to register for the 2003 Town Meetings which take place September 9-12 and 16-19 (8 locations) September 10th in NEILSA. This year's topics include: Survivors in the Information Age (featuring the Town Meeting Players in a TV show format), Leading Book Discussion Groups; Library Shopping Network; Main Street Partners: Libraries and Economic Development; updates on the State of Iowa libraries, Iowa Library Association and the Iowa Center for the Book. We are looking forward to seeing you there. For details and to register, see http://www.silo.lib.ia.us/for-ia-libraries/continuing-ed/cecat.htm Library 101 for September and December. We have dates now that we hope will work for everyone, since we received no requests we will be tentatively reserving  Manchester. Other sites by arrangement     September 30th 9:00--12:00     December 18th 9:00--12:00 IF you wish to attend contact  NEILSA to register.  Summer Library Project workshop dates and locations for 2004!  Feb 6 - Fayette Public Library,  Feb 13 - Fisher Community Center - Marshalltown, Feb 19 - Music Man Square - Mason City,     OTHER CE: You must register with the listed provider.  "Learning Activity Written Summery" may be found at: http://www.silo.lib.ia.us/for-ia-libraries/continuing-ed/online-learningactivitywrittensummary.htm We have a go on all of the Summer Library Project workshop dates and locations for 2004! They will be as follows:  Feb 4 - Methodist Church - Mount Pleasant, Feb 5 - Coralville Public Library,  Feb 6 - Fayette Public Library,  Feb 9 - Everly Community Center, Feb 10 - Arthur Public Librarym Feb 11 - Elliott Public Library, Feb 12 - Urbandale Public Library, Feb 13 - Fisher Community Center - Marshalltown, Feb 19 - Music Man Square - Mason City, Feb 20 - Fort Dodge Public Library Preservation 101: Keeping collections safe ICN sessions will be October 21 (Storage) ,  2-5 pm, the hands-on session will be November 14. ICN sites will be Bettendorf, Boone, Cedar Rapids, Charles City, Clinton, Decorah, Dubuque, Ft. Dodge, Grinnell, Hudson, Iowa City, LeMars, Marshalltown, Mt. Pleasant, Pella, Spencer, Vinton, Urbandale. The hands-on session will be at the Murray Conference Center, Living History Farms. Disaster Recover Workshop to be held at the University of Iowa on Sept. 15-16, 2003. Upper Midwest Conservation Association and the University of Iowa Collections Coalition are cosponsoring "Disaster Response: Salvaging Museum, Library and Archival Collections," a two-day workshop, Sept. 15-16, 2003, that will stress hands-on participation in salvaging collections after a disaster (primarily water and fire damage). Iowa Arts Grant writing Workshop held September 23, 2003. The workshop is designed for artists, educators, communities and organizations who are seeking funding support for arts-related activities at benefit Iowans. This particular session will be directed at public libraries. Hear directly from grant program managers for the Iowa Arts Council and the Department of Cultural Affairs on what review panels expect to see in grant proposals. Learn about developing powerful grant proposals, the new E-Grant application system, new granting programs and changes to program guidelines. Tuesday, September 23, 2003 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon Contact Hours: 3  Iowa Communication Network sites. Instructor(s): Iowa Arts Council staff,  No charge Sponsor: Iowa Arts Council and State Library of Iowa   Online registration form:  http://www.silo.lib.ia.us/for-ia-libraries/continuing-ed/cecat.htm#September If you have questions about the content, contact: Judy Jones, judy.jones@lib.state.ia.us Complete details about re-certification are available at http://www.silo.lib.ia.us/for-ia-libraries/continuing-ed/recertification.html Self-Directed Learning Opportunities: http://www.silo.lib.ia.us/Certification/alternate.htm ANNOUNCEMENTS: All libraries - Public, K-12, and academic - can take advantage of discounted prices on PBS Videos and DVDs through pricing negotiated by the State Library of Iowa. Discounts are 20% and 25% on items in their fall catalog. Orders must be sent to Jim Garner in Illinois. For more information and order form check out the State Library web page. http://www.silo.lib.ia.us/for-ia-libraries/Discounts/index.html Special Offers/ PBS. The form is in pdf format, but if you are interested in a Word document, contact me. Judy Jones, State Library of Iowa     New LINKS of interest: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename= thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid= 968332188492&c=Article&cid=1062195014474 Why boys avoid school reading [The Toronto Star] The successful future of the librarian: bookman or knowledge worker? [Australian Academic & Research Libraries] Herbert S White "Abstract: Peter Drucker's description of a new profession of 'knowledge workers' and Andrew Osborn's call for 'bookmen' offer very different career directions for professional librarians. Knowledge workers are individuals who take the responsibility not only for informing end users about what they ought to see, but even more importantly what they need not bother to look at. This field, involving not only evaluation of information but filtering is now gaining its predicted strength, but there is no indication that librarians desire to compete for any part of it. Osborn's bookmen, by contrast, concentrate on the acquisition and bibliographic analysis of important materials, and it must be assumed that the term 'book' must now be broadened to include all types of information formats, both printed and electronic. However, librarians are now doing much less bibliographic analysis, transferring this work to the eventual end user. If librarians are then left only with acquisition, however defined, it is essential that they perform at least this task as effectively and rapidly as possible. This includes not only how materials are obtained for permanent future use, but increasingly how we request what was not originally selected and is now wanted, either for permanent retention or for temporary one-time use. " http://alia.org.au/publishing/aarl/34.1/full.text/white.html New Low Bandwidth Denial of Service Attacks "A paper from Rice University appearing at the 2003 ACM Sigcomm Conference presents a new denial of service attack where the attacker only needs to send at a low rate to shutdown TCP flows. The trick exploits the retransmission timeout mechanism in TCP. By sending small bursts of packets at just the right frequency, the attacker can cause all TCP flows sharing a bottleneck link to simultaneously stop indefinitely. And because the attacker only needs to burst periodically, the attacker will not be distinguishable from normal hosts. The presentation, and other presentations from the conference, are available online (live streaming)."  http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/28/1526230 Is the Internet dying? "... between spam, anti-spam blacklists, rogue packets, never-forgetting search engines, viruses, old machines, bad regulatory bodies, and bad implementations, I fear that the open Internet is going to die sooner than I would have expected. In its place I expect to see a more fragmented network - one in which only "approved" end-to-end communications will be permitted." http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/28/171248 Dave's Quick Search Deskbar. This Windows utility adds a multi-functional search gateway to your taskbar (at the bottom of your screen). You don't even have to have a browser open to get Google results, currency conversions, stock quotes, and more -- it'll open a browser window if it needs one. http://www.dqsd.net Computer Game Improves Children's Hearing "The BBC is running a story that claims children who play video games increase their hearing skills. There have been several studies over the last few months extolling the virtues of games and education. For example, Wired News ran a  roundup of college programs, and USA Today published a recent story on Daphne Bavelier's findings that playing games could help children develop hand-eye coordination, in addition to Professor James Gee's Slashdot-covered video transcript and article on 'games that teach'." Things have come a long way since the time when schoolkids were dumped in front of a computer and left to play Oregon Trail. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/29/019241 An ID Number for Everything "A group of academics and business executives is planning to introduce next month a next-generation bar code system, which could someday replace with a microchip the series of black vertical lines found on most merchandise." http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/29/1352229 New Dell Clickthrough Software License Dell is installing a new mandatory click-through software license at first boot. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/29/1629244 CONSORTIA:      DISCOUNTS: SLD has still not approved our Form 471 application and until that is approved I can not send in the Form 486 so you can start getting your discounts.     CIPA –  One & two hour workshops at Fall county meetings. County Meeting Format:    CIPA/NCIPA Requirements - 1 Hr. CE                             and        Review of required policies - 1 Hr. CE For the 2nd session you will have to have your Internet policy & AU or other computer policy(s) with you.   Bring note taking materials there will be no handouts since there are no fees for the county association CIPA workshops. PLEASE plan on attending the county Workshops . END PLATE: Long Announcements, Supporting Documents, & other "stuff" The New York Times August 29, 2003 Failure Is Always an Option By HENRY PETROSKI DURHAM, N.C. — Scientists seek to understand what is, the aerospace pioneer Theodore von Kármán is supposed to have said, while engineers seek to create what never was. The space shuttle was designed, at least in part, to broaden our knowledge of the universe. To scientists the vehicle was a tool; to engineers it was their creation. With the release of the report of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, there is a new focus on the "culture" of NASA. Engineers have played a prominent but not a controlling role in that culture, both in the design of the shuttle and in the planning of its missions. When the report speaks of NASA's "broken safety culture," the particular failure it cites is "a consistent lack of concern" that Columbia may have been damaged by debris at takeoff. But perhaps NASA can be better understood by examining the culture that arises from the inevitable — and healthy — tension among scientists, managers and engineers. A common misconception about how things such as space shuttles come to be is that engineers simply apply the theories and equations of science. But this cannot be done until the new thing-to-be is conceived in the engineer's mind's eye. Rather than following from science, engineered things lead it. The steam engine was developed before thermodynamics, and flying machines before aerodynamics. The sciences were invented to explain the accomplishments — and to analyze their shortcomings. The design of any device, machine or system is fraught with failure. Indeed, the way engineers achieve success in their designs is by imagining how they might fail. If gases escaping from a booster rocket can lower efficiency or cause damage, then O-ring seals are added. If the friction of re-entry can melt a spacecraft, then a heat shield is devised. Much of design is thus defensive engineering: containing, shielding and fending off anticipated problems on the drawing board and computer screen so that they cannot bring down the design when it flies. Obviously, total success can only come if every possible mode of failure is identified and defended against. Engineering is also very much about numbers. O-rings must be sized; the thickness of heat shields specified; the weight of insulation calculated. Often, the numbers work at cross purposes, as when increasing shield material decreases available payload. Engineering design is ultimately the art of compromise. What results from the design process is a thing that has unique characteristics. It can withstand the conditions for which it was designed as long as it maintains its integrity. There is usually some leeway allowed, for engineers know that operating conditions cannot be predicted with absolute certainty. Until it fails, how far beyond design conditions a system can be pushed is never fully known. But engineers do know that nothing is perfect, including themselves. As careful and extensive as their calculations might be, engineers know that they can err — and that things can behave differently out of the laboratory. On the space shuttles, O-rings got scorched, heat tiles fell off, foam insulation broke free. To engineers, these unexpected events were incontrovertible evidence that they did not fully understand the machine. Engineers do not feel comfortable with things they do not understand. It is at this point that they begin to act more like scientists. In the case of the scorched O-rings, the engineers studied burn patterns. They looked for a correlation between damage and temperature, and they warned about launching when the temperature was outside the bounds of their experience and scientific study. If engineers are pessimists, managers are optimists about technology. Successful, albeit flawed missions indicated to them not a weak but a robust machine. When engineers and managers clashed over the 1986 Challenger launch, the managers pulled rank. In the case of Columbia, engineers who worried about damage that the spacecraft may have suffered during launch were ineffective in getting it properly inspected before reentry. No one knows a machine or its failure modes as well as the engineers who created it, and even they know it only as well as it reveals itself to them. Because they are so humbled by their creations, engineers are naturally conservative in their expectations of technology. They know that the perfect system is the stuff of science fiction, not of engineering fact, and so everything must be treated with respect. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board has recommended that NASA establish an independent Technical Engineering Authority. This would put responsibility for technical matters where it rightly belongs — with the engineers who, because they know how the space shuttle was designed, also know best how it can fail. Without that knowledge, another fatal accident is inevitable. Henry Petroski, professor of engineering and history at Duke University, is author of the forthcoming "Small Things Considered: There Is No Perfect Design." The fine print stuff blogs - Friday Notes 2 AT -  http://radio.weblogs.com/0108327/ NOTICE   DISCLAIMER - pick one, any one will do. MY disclaimer: Basically my opinions are my own, shared by no one else (sometimes), and are not the opinions of my agency, my board, my co-workers, my parents, siblings, relatives, my dogs or most any other know life form.  Except, of course, those very bright concerned, sensitive, perceptive &, in general, well educated, widely read and cultured individuals who wish to share this peculiar road to ruin, as well as a couple of down & out drugged out beatniks from the good old days. OK?  The "Prime Directive" applies. Edited by: Ken Davenport - NEILSA Consultant davenport@neilsa.org COPYLEFT NOTICE 2002: THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt   COPYRIGHT Please note: material found on the web should be assumed to be under copyright and is presented here for purposes of education and research only. NOTE: If credited [via ???] or [from so & so] it is their material and not covered by my "Copyleft" notice.  Ken SOURCE: {Consultant} D:CorelwpdocsFridayNotes0613.wpd  August 2, 2002 BOILER PLATE FOOTNOTES: 1. WARNING: I will be able to give you about a 5 working day warning on deadlines (by e-mail, less otherwise) I have 10 days to reply, if I miss the deadline, well I won't miss, if you miss  ... I'll send it in late but .... NORTHEAST IOWA LIBRARY SERVICE AREA BOARD MEETING ICN Sites: Fayette Community Library, AEA 1 - Elkader, Hawkeye Community College - Waterloo September 8, 2003 – 3:00 p.m. Agenda 1.    Approval of the Agenda 2.    Approval of August Board Minutes 3.    Approval of August Bills 4.    Open Forum 5.    General Business      a.    Plan of Service FY05-06      b.    Other 6.    AEA Report 7.    Community College Report 8.    Administrator's Report      a.    Phone system      b.    Other 9.    Consultant's Report      a.    Update      b.    Other 10.    Meeting Dates, Time and Location      a.    October 13, 2003 2:00 p.m., AEA 1 – Elkader ??? 11.    Adjourn 11:27:14 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Ken Davenport. Last update: 10/3/2003; 12:38:10 PM.