as discussed in class yesterday, tuesday's homework for digital media production is as follows:

READ: Gabriel Cohen's You Talkin’ to Me? New York's Brash, Boisterous Blogosphere; Malia Wollan, The Big Draw of a GPS Run; and Rex Sorgatz's A Data Point on Every Block: An Interview with Adrian Holovaty.

LEARN: google maps. this part of the assignment is optional: you have the option to learn google maps now or later.

LOG OFF: a) visit one place, restaurant, park, bar, store, water fountain, lake, cafe, bookstore, bus line, church, alley, or any other thing or place in the city of san francisco; b) soak it in; and c) collect, compile, and create a flickr set that includes the following information:


(be sure to tag your photos dmp09mapproject)

have a nice weekend.

On the voting ballot for Senators, students were asked what addition they would have as a student service. I personally did not like many of the options.

Some of the proposals were:

-Hair salon and barbershop-Why in the world would we need to have this on our campus? Seriously. Go get your hair done at the mall or something.

-Skateboard and bicycle shop-A good idea in theory, in reality having a shop on campus would mean ridiculous prices for things you can just buy elsewhere for cheaper. I still don’t see too much relevance as to why this should be on our campus.

-Bicycle Sharing Program-Sounds interesting, unless you think about people with sicknesses and conditions touching all over the bicycle and then you ride it after. A good idea but not really great.

-Mail Delivery and Copy Center-This one is useful! However, there is a Postal Office right across the street from the Marshall Center, so is it really necessary? Can’t you copy things on campus anyway. While a useful thought, it might just be redundant to make something like this on campus.

My suggestion:

-Arcade-When the new Marshall Center game, the old Marshall Center arcade was wiped away. There really are not many fun things to do in the Marshall Center besides lounge around and play pool at Beef O Brady’s (which is limited). The arcade at the University of Florida is pretty awesome and I think that the University of South Florida should adopt one as well.

As previously noted, October is American Archives Month. Archives are an essential component of doing good library history research. We library history buffs are grateful to the library history scholars who have managed to locate and mine these treasures. Unfortunately, many valuable library history related archival documents have been lost forever. One of the most valuable collections of library history archives is the American Library Association Archives located at the University of Illinois - Champaign Urbana. A portion of the ALA Archives are located in the basement of the University of Illinois Library which is shown on the postcard above. The University of Illinois Archives maintains the ALA Archives under a contract with ALA. The website for the ALA Archives serves as a guide to what is in the archives, but an actual visit is required to take advantage of this valuable resource. There are some efforts to digitize photographs and postcards at the archives. Unfortunately, staffing is inadequate and much more could be done to make the archives more widely available. The ALA Archives has the potential for serving as the core of a National Library Heritage Center (library history museum) housing both archival materials and three dimensional artifacts. I've been able to make one visit to the ALA Archives but hope to visit more often. It is only about a 4 1/2 hour drive away. Happy American Archives Month ALA Archives!