Stories from my Life as a Technologist
We got a tour of the Seattle Public Library Central branch. It’s interesting that people still think of it as new because it’s been talked about a lot, especially in design classes, but it’s actually 8 years old now.
Warning: It’s 23 pictures so it may take a little time to load.
These pictures only got a rough edit. Proper edited versions will come later on my flickr account.
So the first half of the tour was the non-disclosure, confidential part but the group that I was part of basically got information on how Microsoft research trends and some of their results. We then got to play with some of the prototypes they have been working on, which is technology they see as coming into the market in 5-10 years. To get a general sense of what might have been included, take a look at the Future Productivity Vision video they released recently:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0
The research division focuses on core computer science research of fundamental aspects of computing. A lot of the products of their research include papers, patents, and prototypes. They supplement staff and resources with scholarly research by partnering with academia. The focus is mostly on applied projects.
Example:
There was more, but I honestly couldn’t copy that quickly and didn’t understand every detail, but if you’re interested you try F# through a browser which includes an interactive tutorial, or download it from tools and resources. To learn more about what people are doing with it, take a look at F# Snippets.
While 2.0 excels at analytical programming, solving computationally complex problems, 3.0 is an accelerator for data-complex problems by bringing information to your fingertips.
Basically, you can load a database (through URI) and while you program, you can see a full list of all the data elements that are available.
For example, after defining a type by loading the netflix database, in typing “netflix.” you would at this point get a list of the fields (e.g. Movies) from the database
Great for library and archives in order to pull content from digitized audio and video of formats becoming obsolete or degrading.
This strikes me as Google Scholar but with more functions, visualizations, and linked data. Right now, not a lot has been indexed, but I can see this as a much better version of Google Scholar.
Finally, at the end of the night, one of the staff presented on why he’s anti-swag, so instead of giving MS swag away, we got the opportunity to take home an epiphyte complete with care package. Unfortunately, I can’t take it home across the border so I found someone to adopt it.
Yesterday, I got a chance to visit the Burnaby LAC office as I worked with a couple of the archivists there while at NRCan. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures, but the tour wasn’t the focus of my visit.
The office is made up of about 5 staff members on the archives side and a few more for the records management side of the facility. The warehouse is pretty big, but stores mostly inactive files still in the custody of the originating department, managed by the records side of the office.
Apparently, the big area of interest for researchers and the public are the Indian Affairs documents including residential schools records.
While the building and facilities are much less impressive than the Ottawa ones, it was really nice to see that everyone knew each other and considered the team their “little family”. I must admit that there are always pros and cons to working in any work place, but it seemed like a more inclusive environment.
We went to visit the new UBC Law Library as part of our planning and design class, and the librarian involved with the building project was also kind enough to give us a talk on the process.
It was great to see the new law building, especially having visited the old one. The old building was called a “Concrete Bunker” because it really did look like one. The building was in such poor state. The roof was leaky, the water would run on the inside walls, and the building was famous for having buckets lining the halls! So, a new law building has been a long time coming, and it’s definitely a big improvement.
Moving is always a good opportunity to weed. Other than weeding, the staff also took on the big project to reclassify a lot of the material that was not already in LC classification.
Some might consider shelving boring, but the details that goes into making such a simple choice is quite interesting. For one, a careful choice was made on the type of compact shelving to use. The chosen one is very easy to use, manual, and seems to be magnetic (and having used electronic ones, I prefer manual). Careful measurements were also made since they were smaller than regular shelving (33″ as opposed to 36″) in order to accommodate all the books with fill space.
The open stacks shelving was the standard 36″ in a nice wood with lighting that went across (perpendicular) instead of in between (parallel) the shelves. The shelves were also filled with approximately a 50% fill, but of course it differed depending on the section from 20-70%. You can see how neat it looks right now because of the careful calculations done by the librarian.
The reference area also has shelves with a built-in mini-table at the end of each end for convenience.
There are various areas for reading and studying. There is the big reading room and each floor also has a couple of smaller areas with lower reading love-seats. The top floor primarily has study carrels, but the open type instead of the closed ones (divider on three sides). On the second floor, there is a computer lab area with a print room, next to the teaching room. The reference room also has long tables with chairs where you can study.
A lot of what I liked about the library was the pleasantness of it. The lighting was nice (it points towards the ceiling so it’s not direct), the high ceilings with the stained glass, the stairs (are kind of a shiny granite) and the artwork. There are no paintings or sculptures, but there are the stone backgrounds to the signs for example. My favourite piece was the donor “wall” just in front of the entrance which was actually made of glass balls with names written on them.
Overall, it was just a very pleasant space with some nice views whether looking back in the building or to the outside.
This week’s tour was to the Canadian Police College Library at the RCMP compound and college campus.
As you would expect, the collections are focused on law enforcement, particularly the investigative component with only a minor amount of materials on criminology. Other than books and journals, they also have microfiche (most has been weeded though), audio/visual materials, theses, studies, and reports.
Standard services of reference, ILL, specialized bibliographies, training are available. It’s not a very big library, but is specialized in supporting all police agencies and organizations across Canada (and some international) as well as the students attending the college. It’s a nice, quiet space with a reading and working area open 24/7! Reference and A/V are only available during regular hours naturally.
Sorry, no pictures this time. Camera ran out of batteries and out of spares! The website has a Virtual Library Tour though.
As part of our tour of the library and campus, we got to go on the stables tour. Having seen the musical ride, it was interesting to learn about how things work behind the scenes. Sadly, they only tour Saskatchewan and east of it. The most interesting part was learning that they have 8 months to train (that includes learning how to ride if they have no experience!) and then get to stay for (usually) 2 years. No touching the horses unfortunately, but for anyone who has any interest in horses and/or the ride, I would encourage them to go. It’s a public and free tour.