Peter Merholz has a thing or two to say about decentralized organizations unifying their online presence. Makes me tired to even think about it.

Accessibility Tip:
I’ve been doing Section 508 research, and testing each new lesson on the NYPL site. The flavor of this month has to do with links and screen readers. Some screen readers have an option to read only the links on a given page. It is important to select meaningful words to use as the link. Here is an unkind way to set it up for screen readers:

• Visit this site to see panthers in their natural habitat.
• Visit this page to read about a panther’s diet.
• Read about how panthers mate.

A screen reader set to read links only will read, "visit this site, visit this page, read about."

Here is the kind way to provide the screen reader with meaningful links.

• Visit this site to see panthers in their natural habitat.
• Visit this page to read about a panther’s diet.
• Read about how panthers mate.

There are two things that women discover about themselves in their thirties; one is their anger. At age 32, mine flows steadily like steam from a subway vent, but I have not tapped it entirely yet.

Years ago I gave Interland my credit card number so they could host an ill-conceived web site. Last month they charged that card $1,141.20, assuming that I wanted to continue the long-dead site on their new, exorbitantly priced hosting plan. Securing the refund was a two-day affair that climaxed when my account rep informed me that I had not "canceled the account soon enough to warrant a full refund."

I do not yell much. I am afraid to, really. When I have yelled, I have always withheld some part of it, sort of like the way I dance, arms a bit stiff, reluctant to submit to the experience.

But this time, I yelled at my rep with all my entire being, "You did not have my authorization to take my money, and I will not get off the phone until I have a full refund!"

And he gave it to me.

Two truths and a lie.

Forgive the silence. Been working on a few projects including an article on web standards for Library Journal’s netConnect spring supplement. Here is a little teaser. I did a little digging to find out why OCLC belongs to World Wide Consortium.

OCLC’s membership is based on the insightful assumption that it is essential for the library community to play a role in the development and governance of web standards. Libraries once had the luxury of having control over our own standards such as the MARC record, Anglo American Cataloging Rues, the Z39.50 protocol. But now we find ourselves sharing a technological world with very different kinds of businesses with very different kinds of objectives. We need to maintain a position where we can promote our own perspectives and values. It’s about stewardship, baby, but without hair buns.

Speaking of hair buns, get your own roguelibrarian.com pencils. These bad boys are sleek green number two pencils with, "Roguelibrarian.com / Stick this in your bun" stamped right on ‘em in a nice canary yellow. I ordered five thousand. Send me an email, and we’ll work out the self-addressed-stamped-envelope stuff.

Here is a little article about where I work, and the stressfest that you can find at a public library.

I think that your library discriminates against people with big square heads.
They can’t get between the aisles of books.
You should put a head-shrinking machine in the lobby.

This is the actual text of a feedback form. If you have any good ones like this, please send them to me. I’ll post them here. Sometimes such forms are accompanied by illustrations. I would be happy to include any of that if you can send it. Please, please, please send. mailto://cbickner@hotmail.com