Hiya blog-reading peeps, so I’m headed out to drive to a conference in *three days* and I. want. a. new. phone. MPOW has an 18% discount with Verizon, so I’m a-lookin’ at Verizon compatible phones. My tweeps have suggested the crackberry, the enV, and reminded me to watch out for the Verizon features that only work when sending/receiving to/from other Verizon peeps.
What do I want in a phone? fully qwerty keyboard, good camera, bluetooth, that cool headset which uses your facial bones to filter out sounds, plays tunes with ~CD (or a little less) quality…
[edit] also, maybe a bluetooth (or other method) data xfer hookup for when the laptop isn’t in a wireless cloud? [/edit]
What other features do I need/ought I have? Do I want auto GPS/GeoTagging for pix?
What models have worked well for you?
I have no time to do srius research on this so looking for recco’s…
Thanks for the suggestions…
D’you live in Southern Cali or are you going to ALA this summer? The city of Laguna Beach is hosting Art-A-Fair, the city’s only international art festival. On the Saturday & Sunday during ALA Annual, Art A Fair will have live Jazz and eclectic violin performers. I’m sure you’re already busy, but hey, it’s Annual - go ahead and over-schedule yourself, I am…
Hm… two posts in a row with embedded gCals; maybe I’ll share the link this time for variety?
Lots of people wonder what ALA-APA (the ALA Allied Professional Association) is. Long story short, this is the group charged by ALA Council to “manage certification of individuals in specializations beyond the initial professional degree” and advocate for the “mutual professional interests of librarians and other library workers.”
Anyway, ALA-APA is sponsoring a bunch of events at Annual; hopefully some of which will interest many of you. Catch you in Anaheim, if you’re going…
People on several lists have asked for a calendar of Council related events at Annual 08. Here’s all the Council related events I found. (If I missed a few, please let me know in the comments & I’ll add them!)
Where in the World is Aaron the Librarian?!
edit: btw the “**” means I **must** attend the meeting & “*” means I sorta oughta attend
ok, a beef with the “Agenda” view: Why does only one meeting with the same start time show up?! I know I’m double-booked for at least three “must attend” meetings, but only the alphabetically 1st one shows up 
In case you didn’t know, I’m an ALA Council junkie. Back when I wasn’t a Councilor (all of 6 months ago as well as years prior) I would still attend the Council sessions and listen in, occasionally comment from the peanut gallery, and sometimes stroll through the Councilors’ seats talking to people I know or would like to know based on their comments on issues in which I was/am interested.
One of the things I noticed (aside from the coffee, which I don’t drink - blech) was there’s no way for a member (who wasn’t at the Council session) to know what kinds of discussion and other considerations
took place before any votes. Parliamentary procedure requires an opportunity for discussion before a formal vote is taken. The Council minutes and Councilor voting histories (not on the web) are all well and good, but which Councilors made cogent points or shared a good story supporting one action or another? What story might have been shared? All that community interaction is currently lost.
While wearing my (soon to be doffed) LITA Web Coordinator for Committees hat, I got involved in a process to draft up a resolution from the ALA Website Advisory Committee (WAC) requesting the already retained “rough draft” transcripts of ALA Council sessions be posted to a members-only web page. A no-brainer, for me.
Knowing the hive-mind will come up with more ideas and catch errors, etc., I wikified the the text of a resolution Billie Peterson-Lugo, George Porter, and I worked up at the end of the WAC meeting at midwinter. And, lo, there was much activity after it was announced on the WAC and Council email lists.
Finally getting to my point… Please take a look at the proposed resolutions (1 for Council Transcripts & 1 for Council Session Recordings/Streaming) and share any insights you have on them.
Heck, while you’re at it, leave a comment here telling me this is something you want or what you’d rather have instead.
The ALA Washington Office will host Virtual Library Day on the Hill at the ALA Annual Conference.
Virtual Library Day on the Hill will take place on Tuesday, July 1 from 8 a.m. to noon. Conference attendees will have the chance to both email and fax their Members of Congress on important library issues and learn how they can register to vote, using computer terminals located on the exhibit floor.
If you’re familiar with CapWiz, ALA WO’s Legislative web tracking service, please consider volunteering to help new CapWiz users — details about this on the District Dispatch post above.
In case you didn’t know, the EPA is putting on a “National Dialogue on Access to Environmental Information.”
The dialogue is an on-line discussion among EPA’s partners and the public to foster collaboration on information access. Everyone is invited to use the EPA Dialogue site to identify and share their best resources, tools, and ideas for improving access to EPA’s environmental information.
Their blog will only be accepting comments for one week - from June 9-13, 2008 - so be sure to visit and add your comments and ideas asap.
EPA has broken topics out a little to start the dialogue:
Understanding Information: Putting environmental information into context for our customers.
Finding Information: Making environmental information easier to find or access.
What Works: What is working for your organization?
Building to Share: How do we leverage our collective strengths and capabilities?
Going Beyond the Web: Reaching people who don’t have Internet access.
This is too good an opportunity to pass up for providing comments to EPA which will at least be summarized in a report and possibly acted upon…
For folks who haven’t heard, ALA started and will be continuing the ALA Ambassadors program at Annual 2008. I’ve been doing this since the last time we were in Chicago (2006?) and would encourage people interested in helping new conference attendees make the most of their first conference or two.
I’m squeaking in my two hour ALA Ambassador shift at the Membership Pavilion (on the Exhibits Floor) on Saturday right after Council I wraps up (~12:15). I’m not yet sure who the new conference-goers are who I’ll be contacting - I should know in a week or so.
If you’re a new conference attendee, feel free to stop me in the halls — not that you’ll likely recognize me.
If you’re not a new conference attendee, please consider signing up as a potential ALA Ambassador next year. I’m told 200+ conference-experienced people signed up for Anaheim & there is a waiting list already started…
See you in Anaheim!
So, okay, I’m meme-ing. I blame @library_chic for pointing me to @kgs’s Passion Quilt Meme “Reading Sets You Free” post.
The original image comes from Torcroft.com via a Google Image Search.
The caption is a touch on the small side, because often the important stuff is in the fine print 
Tagged:
@library_chic
@griffey
@librarian_mer
@cindi
@infosciphi
Have fun, kids
The original meme:
1. Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
2. Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
3. Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.”