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I’m working on explaining and getting people to feel/understand MVP as minimum viable product. We need this because the UF Digital Collections include components that are on older technologies, so old that UF will cease support in 2023. That means we have to move before 2023. With a firm deadline, we cannot be flexible on features, so we have to work from MVP. I’ve been explaining this in a quicker (and incomplete) manner with bridges, but now we need a longer story to deal with more of the actual complexity, and we still need it to be a story that peopel can visualize-see so thatRead More →

In the Libraries at UF, we’re getting ready to move from local SAN folders for people’s person file spaces to OneDrive. This will provide the exact same functionality (looks like a mapped network drive, secure for user files) plus a whole lot more: can access with any web connection (no need for VPN+remote desktop or UF machine), can share files/folders if wanted, supports added functions like tips and reference files in Outlook. In speaking with folks about the planned move to OneDrive, we received interesting questions on the general nature of OneDrive and cloud storage. Also, we learned that many people think that cloud storageRead More →

For this month, newly loaded items include: dLOC guides in French, by Stephanie Chancy: https://dloc.com/contains/?t=%22Chancy%2c+M.+Stephanie%22&f=AU More newspapers continue to load with the current CLIR grant: Port of Spain Gazette (Trinidad), now 1900-1921: https://dloc.com/UF00094730/05733/allvolumes Many new issues of current newspapers: https://dloc.com/cndl/new US Virgin Islands materials from Wallace Williams: https://dloc.com/contains/?t=%22Wallace+Williams%2c+Digital%22&f=AU ========================== CLIR newspapers noted from last month: The Independent Press, 1843-1844 (Saint Lucia): https://dloc.com/l/AA00079431/00001/allvolumes The Voice of Saint Lucia, 1885-1924: https://dloc.com/l/AA00079434/00001/allvolumes The Trinidad Gazette, 1820-1822: https://dloc.com/l/AA00079432/00230/allvolumes San Fernando Gazette (Trinidad), 1850-1881: https://dloc.com/l/AA00079373/00958/allvolumes The Nassau Times, 1874-1894: https://dloc.com/AA00079430/00001/allvolumes The Royal Gazette and Bahama Advertiser, 1804-1837: https://dloc.com/l/AA00079433/03171/allvolumes The Bahama News, 1899: https://dloc.com/l/AA00079435/00001 The Bahama Herald, 1849-1863: https://dloc.com/l/AA00079017/01030/allvolumes Dominican, 1842-1907:Read More →

Fried, Jason and David Heinemeier Hansson. It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work. London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2018. Pages: 8:  “When we say crazy, we’re calling situations crazy, not people.” 56-58: “Office hours” 57: “Imagine the day of an expert who frequently gets interrupted by everyone else’s questions, The may be fielding none, a handful, or a dozen questions in a single day[…] You can’t plan your own day if everyone else is using it up randomly.” Covers that people with questions must wait (not email, not call, wait) for office hours for questions, and it works fine. 71: “writing monthly ‘heartbeats.’ Summaries of the workRead More →

We’re continuing to work on planning for strategic retreat sessions for this summer. We’re still in the research phase for Digital Partnerships & Strategies. For Library Technology Services, we are open to change, but we have a plan! The plan is to have 2 meetings, with the first to be unit-level and then the second with all four units together as a department. We’re planning to use BINGO as the structure, and details are below. I’m hoping that this is fun and effective in our zoom meeting world. It is always useful to share terminology, map to local (unit) practices, and then re-map and shareRead More →

With many virtual conferences and events this year, we’ve seen great successes thanks to the many folks working hard to wield a virtual format in support of event and communication goals. That said, I think we’ve been lucky: lucky with the tech and lucky with compassionate folks who have been generous and forgiving of technical issues. In my experience for technical changes over the past decades, at some point, we collectively normally run out of runway on the compassion and forgiveness for the technical, and people get frustrated. I am so thankful that this hasn’t happened yet, even though I would argue that the techRead More →

Yesterday and today, I was chatting with people, again, on past post on remembering being taught that as a kid in Jax that the “St. John’s River in Jacksonville was one of only 2 in the world that flow north” which is both false and so commonly held in Jax that there’s an article by a retired professor in Jacksonville to debunk this, based on the professor hearing this falsity so often. And, it turns out that this is not just taught in Jacksonville, but that folks from across Florida learn this! I’ve heard from folks in central and south Florida that they were alsoRead More →

I’m reading widely to help prepare for strategic planning sessions this summer with the Library Technology Services and Digital Partnerships & Strategies Departments. My notes below are on A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload by Cal Newport (Portfolio/Penguin, 2021). Early chapters are on email’s impact on business and communication practices with so much unplanned and un/understudied. Terms new modes of operating as “hyperactive hive mind”. Notes many studies of email as distracting and how often people check email/move off task. 36: email and stress levels 37: “predictable time off” as time blocked/off email that helped productivity/people 56: Getting ThingsRead More →

I’m in the first cohort of the new Next Level Library Leadership Institute (NLLLI), which is a statewide leadership program that builds on the also fantastic Sunshine State Library Leadership Institute (SSLLI). The program follows a graduate course sort of format (more on the format/operations), and just places us all in position to have great conversations and learnings with the cohort, NLLLI team, and our coaches. In one of the sessions with Linda Bruno (fantastic Institute Facilitator), I shared on some of my bigger picture/longer term needs, and she shared about scenario planning in libraries. I love learning new-to-me processes that position our larger groupsRead More →

I try to remember to share terms/concepts that I find helpful in illuminating and understanding the world. Two that I apparently haven’t shared and need to share are: Triangle of satisfaction Contributive justice The triangle of satisfaction is simply a way to explain how we get to satisfaction for something, acknowledging that it includes 3 parts: result (or outcome), emotion, and process. For tech work, we often talk about acceptance criteria (super important to agree on what the outcome is) and this also builds into the process (agile, iterative, how we get to the outcome), which also supports the emotion on how all of thisRead More →