It was very cute. The first additional baby raccoon we introduced to our little singleton this summer was a little girl that Steve had rescued from under someone's floorboards. These 2 were very bonded, as you would expect from to lonely little orphans. But his bond persisted over the months and they were still bonded upon release.

Our little bath boy was the most adventerous of the group, coming out of the kennel quickly and climbing up the embankment of the creek.

He was out exploring for a few minutes and none of the others had joined him. He started to get worried up there all alone, so he gave a call and right away the little girl came scampering out of the kennel and climbed up to be with him.

Then they took off up the tree together. We know which 2 raccoons they were because of the way we boxed them up and because some of the others had different-looking fur.

The rest slowly came out and then it was time for the humans to leave. I do hope they are doing well. We did our best for them, but in the confusion that follows a release there's usually one raccoon that heads off in a different direction from the rest. The last one out got spooked and headed off the wrong way down the creekbed. Raccoons are very smart and I think that, once we left and the coast was clear, the little guy would come back and call to the others to link back up, but I always worry anyway.

Still have 3 or 4 groups to release this winter, but at least I don't think we'll be hosting any more at our house this year.

As much as they fight getting put into them, newly-released raccoons are hesitant to leave the kennels once they are faced with the big, wide world. There are usually several minutes spent watching them explore the area right around the kennel, often running back into them if anything startles them.

Eventually, though, they warm to the concept and it isn't long before they head off and disappear into the underbrush.

Although I couldn't go on this one, there are at least 4 more groups that will still be released this year. Hopefully, I'll be able to go out on another release in a few weeks.

We went up on Sunday afternoon after our shift at WildCare, getting up there around 4:30. The accommodations are “luxury safari tents”. They are basically like cabins, but the walls are made of canvas; each “room” is its own separate building. Even though the tents have some distance between them, because the walls are made of canvas, it is possible to hear people talking in other tents, so you do need to be a bit careful to keep your voice down. But the place is so relaxing and quiet, with just the sounds of the animals for the most part. Our tent was off at the end of the road, quite a bit away from the main area. It was perfect, just across from the lake.

There were some tents just across the road from the first animal enclosure which would have had great views of the giraffes, but there were some Sarus Cranes in there that made this huge trumpeting noise. Apparently the trumpeting of this species of bird was used as the velociraptor calls in Jurassic Park. Steve and I quickly agreed that we were glad to have a bit of distance from these calls.

After getting settled in our tent, we headed down to the main area to peruse the gift shop and take a look at the animals in the immediate area. The cheetahs were in a great position for pictures and I’m very glad we saw them Sunday because they were a bit harder to see on Monday.

Dinner was very good, with grilled meats, baked mac and cheese, salad, etc and fresh blackberry cobbler with ice cream. After dinner, everyone headed out to the lake to watch the catfish feeding. Safari West put 500 catfish in the lake 8 years ago. They have no idea how many are in there now, but these fish are enormous. Finally, we headed back to the dining area and roasted marshmallows while one of the employees played guitar. It was wonderfully relaxing. Actually, it was kind of like being at camp.

Back at the tent, we discovered that it was freezing. Because it had been in the high 90s and our tent had been stifling that afternoon, we had decided not to pay heed to the detailed instructions of how to be sure our tent was warm and cozy when we got back from dinner. It had been so hot that the last thing we wanted to do was close up the window flaps and turn on the space heater. But it cooled off rapidly when the sun went down. I think it was probably in the 50s overnight, and we left the window flaps halfway down so we could hear the animal sounds. The bed was warm and comfortable, so it was only the occasional trip to the loo that was cold.

However, in the morning, I had a long debate with myself over whether or not a shower was really necessary. Ultimately, I decided it was all part of the experience, so I headed into the open-air ventilated bathroom and turned the water as hot as it would go.

After breakfast, we headed out for our tour. It is amazing how much land Safari West has; their web site says the preserve is 400 acres. The first 2 and a half hours were spent driving around the property looking at the animals. We started in the main enclosure which holds the giraffes. There were several baby giraffes, including one that had just been born a week earlier.

After this first area, we headed off through a gate into the rangeland. The animals have acres and acres of land to roam. Ultimately, for the animals out on the range, I think it is almost like being in the wild, except that they do not need to worry about food, water, shelter, or predators.

The 3-hour safari tours are conducted mostly on these old Korean War-era trucks. There is a seating area up on top of the truck, over the head of the driver. We definitely wanted to sit up there, but we had to wait our turn. I’m actually glad that we didn’t sit up top for the first part of the tour. We went up top second, just as we started to head off-road into the range. It was quite an exciting ride at times and you know how I like a good thrill ride.

As we headed up and over a few hills, I was speculating with Steve what animals might be out there as we passed fields and fields of poop piles. Over one last hill and we got our answer.

These Scimitar Horned Oryx were enormous and they had so much space to roam.

I guess you seldom see all of the species of animals that live at Safari West on the tour because they have so much space and they just aren’t always by the road. But we saw plenty.

Let’s face it. The animals out on the range were all prey species. The only predators at Safari West are the cheetahs and a serval and they are in enclosures in the main area. So, basically, as we rode around the property we saw lots of variations on the deer/gazelle type of species. But our guide pointed out something interesting that I had never really realized before. When watching nature programs, I have wondered from time to time how different species stayed together during a stampede when a pride of lions attacked. Our guide noted that each of these different prey species has a different pattern on its butt. He called them “follow marks”. So, one species had black stripes on each cheek,

another species had a white circle around its butt (like it had sat on a freshly painted toilet seat),

another had those white circles filled in so each cheek was a white semi-circle,

and so on and so on. So each species basically recognizes the butt markings of their family members. During a stampede, as long as they follow the right markings, they’ll be together at the end. Neat.

In addition to these animals and many more, we also saw zebra, cape buffalo, and wildebeests.

We were also "trapped" by a couple of very curious ostriches. Ostriches can be very dangerous and the guide couldn't get out of the truck to open the gate we had to pass through with the ostriches so close, so we had to wait for another guide to come over and open the gate for us. In the meantime, we got some up close and personal moments with the birds. The female even spent a few minutes pecking at Steve's foot. As I said at the time, them's good eats between the toes!

After the driving part of the tour, we took another 45 minutes or so for the walking tour around the cheetah enclosures, the serval, and the lemurs.

There was an adorable baby on the lemur island. He moved so quickly that there were times I thought there were two of them. I’d be taking a picture and he’d leap out of the frame in one direction and within the blink of an eye, he was suddenly coming back in from the other direction.

Before leaving, Steve and I had a great lunch from the on-site deli and then took one last walk around the tent area and the lake. I had an absolutely fantastic time. Staying overnight at Safari West was a great experience and the atmosphere of the place actually reminded us of our most favorite place ever: Silky Oaks (from our honeymoon in Australia). I think perhaps next year we might consider taking a little mini-vacation close to home and stay there for 3 nights or so, making it our base from which to explore the area. If we do, we’ll definitely pay attention to the instructions for keeping the tent warm overnight, though.

We have a little singleton raccoon who came in about 2 weeks ago. He's the guy we got the message about after we got back from Santa Cruz. Anyway, he has to be on quarantine for 2 weeks before getting put with other raccoons to be sure he doesn’t have distemper. When he came in, he was dirty and flea-ridden. We killed the fleas, but without a family to groom him, he was still dirty and covered in flea-dirt. So, he needed a bath!

Fortunately, he is still really small and easy to handle. Frankly, it was rather fun to get him all sudsed-up and then have Steve rinse him off with a little water from the hose. His fur felt so clean afterward and he hasn’t been scratching nearly as much as before.

He's scheduled to get a new sister this weekend. After our shift at WildCare last Sunday, Steve went to someone's house to rescue a baby raccoon that was stranded under the floorboards. Originally he thought he was going to have to cut into the floor to get her, which the homeowner was okay with, but Steve was fortunately able to squeeze his lithe frame under the floor and grab the little orphan.

Due to their respective circumstances, she's at a lesser risk of having any illness than our boy was, so she's coming to our house this weekend after a one-week quarantine. This is good because our little man needs a friend in a big way.

We got to Santa Cruz in great time, but didn't get to the boardwalk until just after the show had started because the service at the local Denny's was, ummm, good but laid-back. Anyway, this meant that we didn't have a great selection for planting our butts on the beach in front of the stage. We finally found an open area and sat down to enjoy the concert. Shortly thereafter, we discovered perhaps why this area had been empty as 3 drunk bimbos stumbled over to re-arrange their blanket. One of them (with the biggest, blondest hair of the group) said "hold this" to Steve and thrust her purse and beer can at him so she could get to work on their patch of sand, holding her blanket this way and that and effectively blocking the view of everyone behind her.

The guards rather quickly tossed her and her brethren off the beach. Apparently, their 40 oz of Bud Light were not allowed on the beach. I was a little afraid we were going to get tossed with them since Steve was still holding the purse and beer, but we were fortunately not mistaken as part of the group. So off they went and Steve and I thought we had lucked out. But their blanket was still there and they came back shortly with new beers in plastic cups.

Which the guards promptly told them they had to chug or leave the beach. With such an option, what do you think they did?

At any rate, with the beers gone there was significantly less chance that Steve would get a beer spilled over his head.

The concert was fun; the Gin Blossoms played all of their hits. And I was really impressed with the sound system. Remember, this was outside, on a beach. Honestly, the sound was better than the last concert Steve and I went to at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland (which was really disappointing).

Staying overnight in Santa Cruz allowed us to sleep in and still get to the boardwalk right when it opened at 11AM. The day started off overcast and there weren't many people there, so we hopped on the rides quickly. I rode the Fireball again and, like last time, had great fun.

Rides generally do not make me ill; I love the teacups, much to Steve's dismay. But I may have finally met my match. The Tornado is like the teacups, but the cups are suspended in mid-air making them rotate that much more vigorously and sway in 3 dimensions, not just on the linear plane. Steve refused to go on it. I knew I could never get the thing rotating enough on my own, so I found myself a strapping young lad sitting by himself and took the seat next to him.

We did get the thing going, and it was fun, but I didn’t feel quite right afterward. Steve and I took a 20-minute break while I regained my equilibrium, but I was a little worried I would spend the rest of the day feeling off. With a little trepidation, I agreed to another ride on the Giant Dipper. And I was fine afterwards. The roller coaster seemed to shake me back into balance and I was back in ride mode!

And we were off the Logger's Revenge!

Half-way through the day, it was time for mini-golf. I'm always up for a good game of mini-golf, especially when I can take the opportunity to wipe the floor with Steve. I played an absolutely magnificent round, while Steve. . . Steve's worst hole took 15 strokes. Heh heh heh.

I was so on that I actually made the hole-in-one at the end! I didn't think such a thing was even possible, but there my ball went, right in. It must have been the laser-guided targeting mechanism in my eyes, in evidence in the picture below, that guided my golf ball straight and true.

By the time 4:00 rolled around, the boardwalk had gotten very crowded and the lines were way too long. With a 2 hour drive ahead of us, we made a final purchase of salt water taffy and cinnamon apples and headed out.

We got home tired, but happy, and were looking forward to a nice relaxing evening. But there was a phone message about a baby raccoon at WildCare that needed to go into foster care. But that's a story for another post.

But this afternoon, after I sent a friend a long message explaining why I hadn’t gotten around to it yet, I realized that I could probably get the darn thing up and running in the same amount of time it took me to tell her why I hadn’t done it yet. So, after work, I did it. Fortunately, I had already done something at least similar to the layout change on my PolicyWonk blog, so I snagged that code and finished it lickety-split.

So, I will have my most recent 10 tweets at the top of my main blog page, as you should see above. I might bring this down to 5 once I see how much real estate 10 tweets takes up.

If you are a Twitter user, you can follow me at http://twitter.com/annenb.

I don’t think I can make my tweets show up in the RSS feed for this blog. So, if you follow my blog through a reader, you’ll need to set up another subscription for my Twitter feed if you want to follow it.

I’m kind of excited about this new tool. It takes so much time for me to get a regular blog post up, which I’ll continue to do at my usual snail’s pace, that I think it’ll be a good way for me to keep things really up to date. I’ll just follow up with more details and photos after the fact. Onwards and upwards!

We started off the trip with a leisurely visit to the local zoo. Our first animal encounter may not have been quite what V was expecting, but I was enthusiastic.

Surprisingly, I was the only one who seemed to want to get my hand covered with alpaca slobber. At first, the two alpacas were over on the far side of the enclosure. I got some food out of the machine and was ready to walk over to them, but they hauled a$$ over to me as soon as they heard me put the quarters into the vending machine.

Although not into the alpacas, Steve was able to commune with an emu a couple of enclosures over.

The zoo has a pretty impressive population of macaws. They were really pretty and this one knew how to wave good-bye to us.

Of course, at a place called Cougar Mountain, one would expect to see some kitties. First, there were two beautiful tigers. The zoo had specifically requested these two boys for their coloration. They are currently in a kind of toddler enclosure (they're only a year or so old). Their permanent enclosure is going to be a couple of acres and the zoo is scrambling to finish it so it will be ready once these guys outgrow their current apartment.

The cougars were next to the tigers, but, while the tigers are young kids, the cougars are senior citizens. They are still beautiful, but you can tell the aches and pains of old age are starting to take a toll.

The next day we headed downtown. First, we decided to take the ferry to Bainbridge Island. Mind you, we didn't really go to the island. We just took the ferry over and back which a lot of tourists do. It doesn't cost much and it's a great way to see Seattle and Puget Sound. It was a gorgeous day to get out on the water.

After our ferry ride, we stopped in a few shops and walked through the Public Market. We had already gone there on our last visit, so we didn't spend too much time. We were kind of just killing time waiting to go on the ghost tour we had booked the night before. The ghost tour was a little bit of a disappointment as it was more of a "people who have died here" kind of tour. But it was still interesting, and the group is putting together another tour of the Public Market area that will focus more on the local history and scandals. That could be neat for our next visit.

The cost of the ghost tour included admission to an improv theatre group that was in the middle of a marathon. They'd been going at it for 24 hours or so when we went in and I think they were starting to get tired. It was, ummm, interesting. There were a few funny moments, but one half hour session was enough for 3 out of 4 of us. Besides, it had been a long day out on the water and in the sun, so we headed back to A & V's place to watch a movie.

On the way across Lake Washington, we actually caught sight of one Washington icon that Steve and I were convinced was nothing more than a tall tale used to lure tourists to the area. For years now, A & V have been saying "Oh, if only Rainier was out today" "We wish you could see Rainier" "Rainier's so beautiful". But we'd never seen it. It was still playing hard to get, but finally Mt. Rainier decided to give us a glimpse as if just to prove its existence.

On Sunday, after a long weekend of eating way too much food, and drinking way too much drink (including some fabulous rum drinks at Bahama Breeze), Steve flew home and I headed off to the SLA conference. It is always wonderful to see A & V, and Seattle is a great city. Which brings me to one last point I want to make. Seattle folks are whiners.

I loved the time I spent in Seattle. The downtown area was walkable, even with the hills, and there were lots of cool shops and places to eat. I'm sure there are places in the city where this would not be the case, but unlike in San Francisco, I never once passed a doorway and inhaled the scent of urine.

Also unlike in San Francisco, the city never had that low tide smell. Whenever I'm in San Francisco, at certain times of day, it smells like low tide. And, as you walk past sewer manhole covers, you'll often be treated to a burst of warm, stinky air. Despite the fact that Seattle is every bit as much a port city as San Francisco is, it never smelled that way.

Finally, the weather. Everyone complains about the overcast days. Granted, I was there in June and it is less overcast in the summer than in the winter. But here's the thing. Whenever I was talking to a local and I mentioned that we'd had good luck with the weather the last few days (overcast in the morning, but burning off to be sunny in the afternoon), I got an unenthusiastic semi-agreement. Like they were agreeing just to be polite, but they actually thought the weather sucked.

I worked in my firm's Seattle office on my last day there. As I was walking in the halls outside the office, some random young woman, looked at me and laughed. "Only in Seattle," she said, "would anyone be wearing a turtleneck in June." This, btw, was one of my nice fine-knit Ann Taylor turtlenecks, not some bulky fleece-lined number. I refrained from responding that this is what I would commonly wear to our San Francisco office in June. Frankly, I was a bit taken aback by her comment.

So, you've got a city that has a funky downtown, weather similar to that in San Francisco, and that does not appear to smell like urine, rotting fish, and sewage at various intervals. What's the problem, exactly?

I would not fare well as a wife in the 1930s.

13 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

I am, however, a superior husband, although not very superior.

60 As a 1930s husband, I am Superior Take the test!

Conferences, of course, are different, and I was easily reaching the recommended daily step count of 10,000 (this is quite a bit, more than you would think – for me, it is about 3 miles). I showed up to the dance party hovering around the 10,000 mark, but when I left, I was close to 18,000. I definitely had my boogie shoes on! I actually spent quite a bit of time dancing with my Westlaw Librarian Relations rep. He’s got some fast and fancy footwork!

I also met a librarian from the EPA who had been at the Public Policy Update earlier in the day (this will be re-capped in a separate post). She complimented me on the questions I had asked, and seemed to truly think they were good questions that needed asking. She was very nice and likes to dance, too, so we spent quite a bit of time dancing together. Glad to say I’ve already added her to my LinkedIn account.

I left the dance party just before it ended at midnight. When I got to my hotel, I walked past a woman I had met on Sunday. She is very nice and a lot of fun (she did karaoke, too), but, unlike me, she likes the beer. She appears to be quite the partier, although it might just come out once a year at the conference (one woman on the dance floor exclaimed that she was a mom and never got out, so she was spending the whole night on the dance floor).

Anyway, she had obviously had A LOT to drink and was sitting outside of the hotel with some guy I didn’t know. I walked passed into the hotel, had a second thought, and doubled-back. I was a little uncertain because I didn’t want to offend anyone, but I said “I’m sorry, but I just have to ask. [Woman’s name], do you know this guy?” And she slurred, yes, this is so-and-so, and then proceeded to tell me a long unfunny drunken joke. During the telling, she called the guy by his last name, like if someone from work just called me Barker in a familiar way, so I was pretty sure he wasn’t just some random guy who was trying to take advantage. I really didn’t want to come across as a prude or anything – I could care less if they hooked up for the night. I just wanted to be sure she was going to get back to her hotel okay and the guy wasn’t a creep. I would have wanted someone to do the same for me in that situation because sometimes you end up with a creepy guy tagging along that you have a hard time ditching.

That’s about it for the parties of which I partook at the conference. There was an all conference reception after the closing session, but so many people leave on Wednesday that there were probably only 200 or so people there, and I didn’t know many of them. And again with the beer and wine only.

So, there you have it. 4 nights and 6 parties, and I made a good contact at each one. I actually ran out of business cards this year, which was a shame and a little embarrassing. Usually, I bring a ton and have most of them left at the end of the conference. This year I didn’t bring as many and ran out. I think the more of these you go to, the more comfortable you are with the whole process and the more cards you need. All in all, I had a great time!

“As organizations expand globally, the challenge for researchers is to ensure the information they are gathering is internationally based and current. This session will provide an overview of best practices for developing a strategy for globalization and an effective program of research to help organizations ensure they are making strategic, fact-based decisions when expanding operations to new countries.”

I interpreted this to mean that I was going to hear about ways to access global information, so that my American-centric research skills could find information from the EU and Asia. Instead, the program was more about how you can position your organization to be a player in global information, creating interconnectivity from your organization to the rest of the world.

I think either interpretation of the description is valid, so it isn’t like the description was misleading. I just chose the wrong interpretation and didn’t get quite what I wanted from the session. On the bright side, there was a woman from the European Union office in New York in the audience who offered her assistance to people if they ever have a question about obtaining EU information. The line to get her card after the session was quite long and I'm pretty sure she ran out, but I got one.

My notes follow.

Globalization = interconnectivity

Dissemination of information around the world relies on: Space, regularity, speed, and depth; it can’t be a casual thing and still be globalization

World is not flat when it comes to information, the world is spiky – these were some neat graphs, showing spikes related to emitted light, broadband access, education levels, etc. North America, Europe, and Asia are like excessively-gelled Mohawks rising to the sky. The rest of the world, not so much.

Countervailing forces: integration and universalism versus particularism and fragmentation

There isn’t systematic collection of information globally – there are commissions and suggestions, but not global laws or rules on info collection, so there are different levels of access everywhere. I recently had to try and find information about some Chinese companies. What a project!

Even with idea of globalization and living online and using social networking, people still cluster geographically (MySpace is US-centric, Bebo is Australia-centric)

People do want a unique identity, not to be a truly global citizen, they like their language, culture, and food, and they make decisions in ways informed by those things

There are profound differences in how people deal with the same problem and view the same information – you must understand the culture someone comes from if you want to understand how they will interpret information

The more integrated we become, the easier it is to forget how different people are when they solve problems

Transparency – we do not live in a transparent world – this is often the greatest barrier to finding international information; even in a transparent society, there can be elements that are cloudy (a new culture was created surrounding subprime mortgage world – even though still in the U.S. it was a culture that only the investment bankers and real estate firms were a part of)

Foundations of Global Markets
General
• Drivers
• Technologies
• Global Culture
• Global norms
• Stability
Specific
• Markets
• Infrastructure
• Competencies
• Norms

Obstacles
General
• Cultural Particularism
• Social Expectations
Specific
• Data Standards
• Data reliability

Models of Corporate Alignment
• Centralized – domestic home office
• Duplicated – copies of system used
• Decentralized – everyone does what they do in their office
• Networked – multiple offices working together

How do we start to understand how people solve problems when we are building resources – like client info systems and intranets

This is where they started really veering off into how we need to create our information to speak to a global audience. Important, I’m sure, but not much note taking was done by me.

sla2008

This was a bit of an odd program. First of all, I understood that the presenter who had a death in the family and couldn’t make it would show a pre-recorded web cast for his portion of the program. But I was confused as to why one of the presenters who was there would choose to do so. I mean, I know what he was trying to do. He was trying to demonstrate what a web cast was at the same time he was explaining why to use them. He was multi-tasking in a way, and I get that. But it was strange nonetheless and I would have preferred him speaking in person – he could have shown a short web cast if he really needed to.

Which brings me to my second point. Web casting? At an emerging technologies breakfast? I suppose it is a newish technology, maybe not the standard fare everywhere. But is it really emerging? I watch 3-4 webcasts a month for work. Twitter is emerging. Hyper-local search is emerging. But web casts? Web casts are just. . . here. It’s technology that is already reaching the tipping point of wide-spread adoption. Am I really that early of an adopter, or does this seem odd to you, too?

The other topic of the presentation was wikis. Although most people probably know what Wikipedia is, I suppose you could argue that wikis in the work place are still an emerging technology. If we ever have time to get around to writing out best research practices in our library, I will push to use a wiki, but we don’t have one yet. Collaborative document management systems are pretty mainstream, but collaborative wiki documents maybe aren’t so. But, again, this seemed like kind of a stretch for an emerging technologies presentation.

Finally, there were sections on online social networking and the legal commons (like public.resource.org). I guess these are emerging, but there didn’t seem to be all that much content in this portion of the session. My enhanced notes from the session are below.

Mary Talley & Ellen Callinan, Axelroth & Associates
Wikis
• Intuitive
• Simple Hosting Options
• Content Management System
• Online Discussion
• Knowledge Base

Librarians can create guidelines and the folksonomy for a wiki rather than relying on web developers for access decisions – This is a pretty good point. In the past, librarians often had to rely on web designers to create our web pages and include the hyperlinks that create access to the content we want to share. With wikis, there is much more freedom for the content creator to make access points on the fly for the created documents.

Attorneys can post research strategies for new/other associates to view – This is an interesting idea. I wonder if we could get buy-in from our attorneys for them to create a document describing their strategies. Although for some of the senior attorneys, that research strategy is “contact the library” or “have a junior associate do it”. I have had some senior attorneys tell me that they haven’t used XX research tool in years because they assign the task to other people. At least the library is in there as one of the sources to do their work. . .

Creating buy-in
• Must solve a recognized problem/need – if people don’t know that there is a need for it, they will not make the effort required to adopt the new tool
• Easy – it must be easy. If there is too much training needed to get started, people won’t make the effort
• Fun – you should make the project fun. How to do this? I love this idea: Have the staff create their own wikis for whatever they want to do. Give them “wiki hours” to work on their wiki during the work day (1 hour/week). Later do a show and tell for them to demo their wiki to the rest of the company. What a great idea to get people interested. Don’t make them start with a wiki of corporate procedures (yawn) – let them use a couple of work hours to create a wiki of their favorite restaurants or sports team or video games.
• There must be a leader to take charge. You can’t just introduce a wiki and hope other people will start using it. A leader has to use it, too, and has to encourage others to use it. In our case, a partner would likely need to be the champion of the project.

WikiMatrix – website to help you decide which wiki product works best for you

John J. DiGilio, Reed Smith
Just in Time learning

Voice thread – podcast with voice comments from viewers

Podcasting, vidcasting, etc.

What is Just in Time learning?
Training and instruction designed to get to end-users when and where they need it most; what they need to know when and where they need to know it.

Uses familiar technology: web, audio, video, presentation software

Goal and task driven, and portable

Pros
• Learn on user’s terms
• Cheaper than travel for the teacher
• Less out of office time for learners, too
• Optimal for mobile and distance learning

Cons
• Learning at its “minimum” – giving just what they need in the moment
• Can’t account for different levels among learners
• No teacher-student exchange
• Technological limitations

Assess training needs of institution – are needs suitable for 10-15 minute presentation or is something more needed

Investigate the available tools

Human capital – do you have people to help make, maintain, and update the lessons

Formats/Tools
Software: Camtasia and Profcast – Mac-based
Web-based: VoiceThread.com

This is something Steve and I have talked about doing for WildCare – creating short videos on how to complete tasks at WildCare. Like the proper way to clean a duckling brooder or to clean a raccoon run or to set up a cage for a water bird. But we need to get buy-in from someone in the organization to get volunteers to watch them so it is worth our while. Otherwise, it’s just pissing in the wind.

Nathan Rosen

Speech to text programs still need a lot of work

Online social networking – LegalOnRamp.com and LawLink – just for lawyers

Law Libraries and Librarians have own network, too

Thomas B. Fleming, Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro
Effect of Free Information on Professionals and the Public: Case Research and Web 3.0

The Legal Commons

Scanning error rate on Malamud’s site is 2% = 40 errors/page

Other sites: casemaker.us, chesslaw.com, precydent.com, Silicon Flatiron

Legal Commons – Future

Massive amounts of data available – people can build their own databases

Citations move to URL rather than traditional citations

Will force government to make more information freely available because of larger user base – I hope so. This goes back to the Sunshine Week program I organized with speakers Carl Malamud, Brewster Kahle, and Marcia Hofmann. (You can read a write-up of the program here on page 6 - caution - this is a big PDF file). Their big point was that the data should be freely available so that people can create new databases and that is where market competition comes from. Instead the current procedure is for the government to contract with an established database provider to give them the data so they can create the database. I’m not sure when the tipping point will come that the government understands that giving the data to everyone equally (bug guys and little guys) is what will create competition, but I do hope it happens sooner rather than later.

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Anyway, Monday afternoon I went to a session called Information Professional: The New Private Investigator. This session focused on public records information and was presented by Howard E. Trivers, Sr. Ref Librarian at Baker Daniels. He pointed out that all of the online tools are pretty much only good for information from the mid-1990s on. Fortunately while I often need to find old prior art references, I am not called upon to find old public records. Typically, I just need to find a person’s most current contact information so we can serve them or contact them to be a witness. For this, these tools work just fine. My enhanced notes from the session follow:

How do commercial databases work – buy credit header and combine with public records and compile into one report based on common address and info. People let credit card companies know when they move. This is good to know. I don’t think I’d ever really thought about this. If people suddenly stopped applying for credit in this country, this information would quickly dry up.

Problems with databases – run a credit report on yourself to find common mistakes

Have realistic expectations – cannot find everyone, cell phone only and unlisted households are difficult

Today’s companies: Accurint, ChoicePoint, LexisNexis, Westlaw, Loislaw, Intelius, Merlin, Locateplus, etc.

People Finder Databases

Free people finder databases: Infospace (links to foreign phone books), Switchboard, ReferenceUSA, Argali, Google, Superpages

Finding people before the Web: Polk’s City Directory, phone books, directory assistance, call contacts

Accurint: Owned by Lexis, very current, more accurate than competition, higher cost since bought by Lexis, has People at Work (from credit applications – I always wondered how they got the employer information especially because it is not often current. People tell credit card companies when they move so they can keep getting their bills, but they only tell them who their employer is when they fill out the application. I’ve found People at Work is still a great tool, though, because it at least helps you determine if the person you are looking at is in the right general industry.), has some cell phones gotten from insurance applications, etc.

Other Lexis Products: SmartLinx (too expensive – although I will say I used it once to great effect. In my case, I was trying to find a guy who had moved to the US from the UK in 2005. I couldn’t find his address anywhere else, or any public record of his existence really since all of these databases only include US information. But SmartLinx picked up his address in the U.S. It is not the first place to go, but if you are striking out other places, it may be worth a try.), ALLFIND, P-Trak (okay, but competition is fine)

ChoicePoint Products: Lexis is purchasing, AutoTrakXP, KnowX (can use credit card) - Accurate and current, batch file – can upload excel file full of names to see if they are in there and alive or dead (Accurint has batch upload as well)

LoisLaw Public Records: New product for B&D, flat fee, saves money, not purchased by Lexis (yet), has People Finder database, has rating for probability of paying bills (only place to get this info, but it is only okay –rating based partially on how long at address, not only on past history)

Westlaw: Cumbersome and confusing, improved but still weak people finder products, getting info from ReferenceUSA

LocatePlus: find SSN, some cell phone info

Merlin

Intelius

Public Records

Depends on state or jurisdiction, use free sources for locals, spend money for jurisdictions outside your state

Begin research with Accurint or ChoicePoint, use public records to verify current address (i.e. own property)

Searchsytems.net Public Records Directory – portal to public records sites by state

BRB Publication Company – portal links not as extensive as Searchsytems.net, but lists people who will retrieve local docs for you

PublicRecords.com

Craig Ball (www.craigball.com/hotlinks)

Check state tax assessor info for property value info

Some states keep access to records on state web sites and don’t sell access to commercial companies – won’t be in commercial databases, so you have to look on these state web sites

Can sometimes search DMV registration records using SSN for a fee to get address

Current employment info – bankruptcy records - Accurint (sometimes), LinkedIn – I use this all the time - or tail him/her to see where they go

Asset searches – cars and homes is what you can find, not bank or investment accounts

Criminal Records

Individual state web sites – try free sites before spending money
For example, Indiana Department of Correction
Federal Bureau of Prison, state prison department, local county dockets, local city records
Federal Inmate Locator, state offender sites

Westlaw and Lexis Criminal Dockets – catches plea bargains, non-convictions that won’t be on prison sites. Both have state and local criminal dockets, but go local for free sources first

DMV driving records

Other tools and methods

News outlets – go local, search local papers

Google Maps – look at what type of building the address is – house, apartment, suburb, etc. – I’ve done this before. You can use either Google maps of Live maps. The whole photos of your house deal may be a little creepy, but it works great to see if you are finding a residential or commercial location. Trivers suggested using this to see if the house was nice and in a good neighborhood or if it was a dump.

Search engines – notice the plural

Alltheweb - picks up foreign sites – not sure about this comment, don’t they all?

Genealogy – locate relatives of people who have died

Do not pay for commercial databases for death records – http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com – go first, but only has listing of people who have received Social Security benefits

Phone

Get out of the office – if it’s a local address, drive over there yourself and see what you can see

LinkedIn, MySpace, FaceBook

5 Points to Remember
• Use alternative sources
• Check database coverage
• Create value added research
• Control passwords – don’t hand out passwords to public records databases to everyone. They are powerful tools and can be bad in the wrong hands. Plus, job security.
• Go local – look for local/state databases and resources before paying the big bucks

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After the Thomson party, I headed over to the Lexis Dessert Reception back at the Experience Music Project, where karaoke was the night before. Most of the desserts were only so-so, but I have 2 words for you: chocolate fountain. Oh, how I love me the chocolate fountain. I dipped mainly marshmallows and pieces of pineapple. I started to get full and didn’t want the vehicle anymore - I was trying to figure out a good way to just get the chocolate, but sticking my head under the fountain didn’t seem like the right choice given the state of my reputation from the night prior. I thought about sticking a coffee cup under, but was afraid one side of cup would be a huge mess and it would get everywhere. I’m not sure I forgive myself for passing up the chance. . .

I also met a very cool librarian from the California Academy of Science in San Francisco at this party. She is pretty new to the local SLA chapter so I hadn’t met her before, but I do hope we can keep in touch.

Finally, I headed to the Elsevier reception. I only stayed there for 45 minutes or so – it was getting to be close to midnight and they were only serving beer and wine. Actually, other than the wonderful open bar at the Wiley party, none of the parties were able to provide my rum intake. I had a vodka drink at the Lexis party, but the rest of the parties were dry for me. I guess I need to develop a taste for beer or wine. I didn’t stay too long, but I met a nice gentleman who works at the USPTO, and given that I work at an IP firm, that is a good contact to have.

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Instead, it was a session devoted to (mostly) useless crap. I do not need a catapult watch, complete with BB ammunition. The flip-flops with the built in flask could come in handy now and again, but it is certainly not why my employer paid for me to come to this conference.

This is the type of session that makes sense on Wednesday afternoon, when your brain is squishy from a long week and you need something a little more light-hearted. But Monday morning? It’s just not my bag, baby, and in the future, I’ll pass.

Here are the things from this session that I thought were interesting, and a least mildly useful:
• APC USB Battery Pack - $55
• Turbocell Charger - <$20, runs on 1 AA battery
• Solio Universal Charger – solar charging - $200
• Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card – detects Wi-Fi spots and wirelessly transmits pics to home PC - $80 - $130
• Radioshift - $32 – Tivo for radio. Mac OS only – record from database of 50,000 stations

UPDATE: The slides from the 60 Gadgets presentation are online at LLRX, just in case you want to see what you missed.

Next came the ever-popular Gary Price with Web Tools for Legal Researchers. This was a bit of a misnomer as he did not focus on legal tools one bit. And he was called on it by someone in the audience who was wondering where the legal tools were. Gary replied that these were tools everyone should know about and he would not be showing legal information per se. Whether or not these are tools everyone needs is debatable, and I think the real meat of his presentation was too far in to his ubiquitous list of URLs. Fortunately, his entire list is available at http://digbig.com/4xbhr.

Here are the tools he got to before the end of his session. Actually I had to leave about 10 minutes before he finished because of an unfortunate time overlap, but at the rate he was going he probably only got to 2-3 more tools before time was called.

• Hakia.com – Israeli-based semantic web search engine
• Powerset.com – searches Wikipedia entries
• Jux2.com – compare results to Google, Yahoo!, and MSN – This one is cool. It has a tab showing the search results you would get on each of these search engines as well as a listing of the results that were unique to each engine and the results you would miss if you only searched one engine and not the others.
• 1800flights.com – flight status online and on phone
• Summize.com – search Twitter postings based on topic – This was kind of neat in its use to monitor daily trends and hot topics. Of course your trendspotting is limited to Twitter users, but that group is growing daily.
• i-Metro – public transit directions worldwide
• Hopstop – US transit directions
• Earthcomber.com – local stores, restaurants, etc for major cities
• Whatsonwhen.com – database of world events
• Wheretraveler.com
• Science Info: Scirus, WorldWideScience, Science.gov, CiteseerX Alpha, BotSeer
• feedM8.com – transcoding – shows you how a web site will look on a mobile device
• Archives: Archive-It, CyberCemetary

It was too bad that this session (Price’s only session) was in direct conflict with Mary Ellen Bates’ only non-CE session. It was a tough choice and, given the 60 Gadgets program, I’m not sure I chose the right one. Oh well, ever onward.

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