Jumping ship

Hi, everyone!

Thanks to all of you who've encouraged me to keep up with this blog more over the last few years! I'm switching platforms now, and wanted to let you all know. Mostly for reasons surrounding all the other websites/blogs I manage being over on Wordpress, that's where my blog is headed, as well.

The new URL is: thatisnotabookmark.wordpress.com, and I think the revision I've put my layout through in the process is pretty awesome. I hope you'll continue to follow me there!

Points are for people

One quote that really stood out to me this week among our readings in Meaningful Gamification is also the one that really rankles. 

From Sanford: "Points are for people with no imagination."

In my notes that I took on this reading, I wrote down that quote, and next to it, in big, harsh, angry letters: "BOO!" I can't tell you why, at the moment, that sits so ill with me, but I'm going to try to use this post as a way of figuring it out.

Do not confuse my dislike of this statement for general disagreement with Sandford's point. I completely concur that accumulating points ≠ playing a game. However, I don't think that points (inside or outside of games) are inherently bad, nor are they indicative of a particular failing. "Pointsification," as Margaret termed it, on the other hand, is a whole 'nother story, which I will try to address in my next post.

So what do points mean to me? In games that I play with others, they reflect a measure by which I have either triumphed or been beaten. As a highly competitive person in these situations, I don't always manage to keep my gloat reflex in check. I'm pretty sure I have uttered the words "Do I look like a bus, because I just took you to school!" at least once, in the face of a particularly sweet victory. 

In my favorite games, which are, let's face it, primarily RPGs, points are a simple substitute for marking time and/or experience. When I think of points, I automatically think of XP. Time and experience are both vital in character/story-driven RPGs. They show progress, both of the narrative and the characters involved. Points are the primary vehicle for the development of new abilities, and are sometimes attached to important events in the plot. 

However, in both table-top and video game versions I like to play, the specific number of points I've gained from any given battle or quest is often the least of my concerns. I don't play for points, I play to advance the story. Points are a mechanism used by the game to represent that advancement. What matters is not the number of XP itself, but rather whether that number has put my character within reach of a goal--a new skill or item they can use. 

Particularly in terms of time, I think points are very useful. In a long-form game that takes weeks or months to play, days or years pass in-game that are not otherwise strictly bound to realtime. Points can be used to express to the player something that I think it would be otherwise difficult to quantify in our minds. 

In this light, I still disagree with Sanford's statement, but I don't think he meant it to be quite such a focal point (pun totally intended). Through points, I don't have to think as hard to maintain a connection to game and character progress. Which perhaps requires less of my imagination? 

Sandford asserts that there are great games that have nothing to do with points. At the moment, all that comes to mind are the Sims series (The Sims, Sim City, etc.). Sandbox games. And it's true, they are great. However, I don't think their greatness necessarily means that points are categorically Bad. There can be poor implementation of point systems,--which I'll explore further in my upcoming "Pointsification" post-- but I don't see the need to vilify all point systems everywhere. 

Both Sanford and Margaret made statements at various points that amount to the following: a great game is greater than the sum of its parts. I see no reason why those parts can't include points, so long as they are used thoughtfully, and aren't the central mechanic of the game.

Warning: like everything on the Internet, this post features cat pictures

Guide to Housecat Coat Colors & Patterns

This is one of the neatest infographics I have ever seen. In case the title isn't a dead giveaway, this poster-sized graphic is designed to help you (via text descriptions and illustration) discern the detailed, technical term for the coloration of any given house cat. You can see a full sized copy of the image here. In certain cases, this table can even help you determine the breed of the cat in question, as it includes some unique, breed-specific coloration patterns at the bottom. I've become obsessed with it recently, flipping through photos of my friends' cats and trying to determine their patterns. It's just fun for me. But that is slightly beside the point. What's fascinating to me is that I can look at this illustrated guide, and, based on its contents, decide that my cat, Momo, is a brindled, golden smoke tortoiseshell. See "Exhibit A."

Exhibit A

If I had the inclination, I could even tell you what color type Happycat of Cheezburger fame falls into. See "Exhibit B."

Exhibit B

Obviously, neither Momo nor Happycat look anything like the illustrated cats in the infographic. I'd dare you to find any photograph of a real cat that resembles them--they are cartoons.

The human brain is remarkably good at making the connection between an animated object or creature, and the reality of that thing or organism. For example, despite their differences, I know that this:

Image from Wikipedia entry "Giraffe"

and this:

Image from Photobucket

both represent the same thing. How is that possible? The cartoon giraffe doesn't even have any legs to speak of! And I am not unique in this ability. Most people, from the very young to the very old, would recognize that here we have two depictions of the concept of "giraffe." This is assuming they are familiar with the idea of what a giraffe is, in the first place. Where and how do we develop the concept? How does it remain constant or change in the face of the wide variety of less-than-realistic illustrations we run into?

I'm sure there's more research for me to do here, but in the meantime, I'm curious as to whether you all have anything to add!

Playtime!

For those of you also in my Information Design class this semester, this post will look a bit familiar. I really enjoyed the subject, so I wanted to cross-post this here, as well.

Fiona & Grandpa at the park

Taking readings both from last week's coverage of wayfinding, and the Information Design Handbook's chapter on aesthetic principles into consideration, I started thinking about something that we haven't heard much about, yet. Periodically, in the reading's coverage of aesthetics and visual cues, there would be a mention of impaired vision or making allowances in your design for the elderly. I started wondering about people on the opposite end of the age spectrum. What is it like to design information for kids? Combine that with our readings on wayfinding, and I started to think about playgrounds--specifically playgrounds that feature those massive, colorful plastic complexes of slides, ladders, monkey bars, bridges, etc.

As I started to think more about how designing a playground system might work, looking at pictures of playgrounds, I asked myself, how does a child know? What about this structure says to them "Climb here," and "Don't climb there"? Kids of all ages are in varying stages of testing the limits of the world, learning what works and what doesn't. How does the designer communicate proper use of objects? The designer can't rely on the reading abilities of all kids who might interact with their work, so they must communicate intended use without the help of words, right?

One thing I've noticed is that even playground equipment systems have a flow to them. Entrance points are usually ladders, exits are almost invariably slides. There's nothing that says a kid can't climb down a ladder, but slides are usually a more fun way to get around. There's also nothing stopping the occasional contrarian from deciding to climb up the slide, but that usually incites the wrath of the kids waiting to go down it. It's a bit like a large scale, 3-D game of Chutes & Ladders.

Image from childrensplayequipment.com

From the examples I've seen, it seems that some playgrounds use color as a method of communication, whereas others use it primarily as decoration, and as a method for marking the equipment as a "for kids" structure. In the picture below, for instance,  notice that all the ladders are brown, and all the slides are green. Contrast that with the photo above, in which I can't really discern a communicative color scheme, other than "This must be fun, because it's so bright!" The noise created by lots of bright, saturated color is what our culture uses to indicate that something is kid-friendly.

Image from AAA State of Play

I can't imagine that the designers of the above equipment somehow accidentally color-coded the pieces this way, and I wonder whether this design is actually effective. Given the comparatively dull color scheme, perhaps this one was designed more with parents in mind--for the people who supervise the children, or walk them through the playground. I think there's more digging to be done on this topic, and I'd be interested to hear other opinions!

Folders and Tags: Reflections on Vannevar Bush

“When data of any sort are placed in storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found (when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass…The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association. With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain. It has other characteristics, of course; trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items are not fully permanent, memory is transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of trails, the detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature.” – Vannevar Bush, As We May Think, 1945, p. 43

What jumps instantly to my mind upon reading this quote is first, agreement–that my brain navigates subjects by association–and second, the fact that the machine through which I access or search for a large percentage of the information I seek–my computer–doesn’t work that way.

You wouldn't know it, but there are thousands and thousands of
images scattered throughout these folders.

My desktop runs Windows 7, which organizes files (and allows me to choose how to organize them) into folders. Folders can be nested within each other. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this operating system, here’s a screenshot of what my Pictures folder looks like:

I can move or change these folders any which-way I like. I can delete them, change their names or put them in a different folder entirely. If I have a file that falls under more than one of my folder categories, I can copy that file and put a copy in each location.

The funny thing I’m noticing as I write this, is that it’s hard for me to describe what a folder system is really like without referring to the word “folder” as a unit very frequently. I realize that to us, it probably sounds like a ridiculous hypothetical to ask how someone with no knowledge of how this organizational system works would navigate and find the information they’re looking for on a computer, but I watch my older family members go through this painful process on a regular basis. I once actually did a physical demonstration of files/folders–using our filing cabinets at home–to illustrate the hierarchical nature of how information is organized within Windows.

All images are screenshots made by me.

Tagging, on the other hand, operates using a similar function to the human brain, using associations designed by the user. For instance, I use Evernote to take notes for many of my classes, meetings, etc. While I can give each new “note” a title and organize sets of notes into “notebooks,” the tagging feature is what I actually use to organize my different notes by subject. I create each individual tag as I need it. I have a different tag for each class, for my job, and for certain meetings. Tags lack the hierarchical structure of the folder system, but it saves the user disc space as well as time in trying to remember where they categorized a particular note/file, and one item can have multiple tags. So, if I have one note tagged as both “613″ and “616,” and I click on either of those tags in the left-hand menu, that note will appear in both lists. It has a similar effect to copying a file into two separate folders, but, as previously mentioned, saves disc space, and is much easier to navigate.

Ladies and gentlemen, the hashtag.

Twitter is another prime example of how tags are useful. Without the ubiquitous hashtag, the sheer volume of individual tweets would be impossible to navigate. Twitter users tend to use hashtags in which they’re interested to find new people to follow, and I imagine the entire community would be much more disjointed were it not for the hashtag drawing users together. The one thing tags don’t really lend themselves to is browsing. They are great for locating specific items, but if a user simply wants to poke around and see what’s there, tags might limit search results unnecessarily.

I’d be curious to hear other opinions on this topic. Are tags actually more useful/”better” than the folder system? Are they just a better idea in terms of user interface? I’ve heard a few people describe tags as how we’ll navigate computer folders in “The Future,” and having grown up using Windows, I shudder to think what a chaotic mess my folders would be if I traded that for tagging each file.

So here's the story...

I spent approximately three years working in a library after graduating from the University of Chicago.  About a year and a half in, I started thinking, "Huh. I guess I kind of like this library business." In the interest of getting to do something a little more glamorous than being one of the gnomes that makes sure all the books get moved/shelved/lost/found, etc., I'm now at library school, pursuing my MLIS at Syracuse University.

This blog is going to be shifting gears, now. If I find weird things in my new libraries, I'll be sure to document and post them as I can, but this is officially my blogging-for-class blog. I've never run into a professor who mandates blogging before--much less who views doing so as a necessary skill--but I think it's interesting.  Plus, I'm a somewhat-veteran blogger now, so it shouldn't be that difficult, right? Right.

I like the idea of blogging as a skill. Sure, it's communication. It's shouting into the void that is the series of tubes... and sometimes, they shout back. Learning how to write for an audience (particularly for one you may not know that well, if at all) is exceedingly useful. But now, the pressure is on.

I'm so very intimidated and excited to be where I am. The other library students are cool kids (not to be confused with Cool Kids), so I'm in good company. There is so much to do now. My schedule for the past few years was work, 9:00-5:00, Monday-Friday, then come home and do whatever it was I felt like doing on a given evening/weekend. Now, there is literally always work I could or should be doing. It's awesome, if a bit daunting, to be busy again. It's a major gear shift in my brain that I'm still wrestling with, to a certain degree.

So Dr. Dave Lankes--the aforementioned professor--wants us to be radical librarians. I like the idea. It's hard not to think of it as a bit of anti-propaganda (which is still propaganda), because it's catchy, but... It works. I like being prompted to decide instead of told what my career options are going to look like; what this entire field is going to look like. Things are taking shape, and those who are shaping them are usually the last to realize they're doing so. We have at least been warned, so we have no excuse not to do it with purpose.

I propose that we get team shirts. This suggests itself as the obvious choice. And no, I'm not just saying that because I've wanted that shirt for a few years now. It's just convenient and accurate. And awesome.

Paperdolls

One morning--very early--walking through the stacks, I came across these abandoned little fellows. They struck me as kind of sad, given that they were just left lying there on the floor, on opposite sides of an aisle.

I often have some sort of guess as to the origins of the strange items I find in my work's way, but these guys kind of baffle me. Who cuts out little foamboard people and just leaves them in the aisle of the library? They aren't the strangest of the golems--as I've come to call the various humanoid constructs--I've discovered.

My best guess is that they were either a) part of a student project of some sort, discarded because they weren't quite up to par or, perhaps more likely, b) created out of boredom by students who were supposed to be doing something else entirely with their foamboard. Whatever the case, this was a fun way to start my morning.

There's a clacks in the tubes

One of the many perks of having outdated, clunky software with which to run your entire library is enduring the occasional techno temper tantrum. Just the other morning, I walked into work to find Horizon on the fritz, which wasn't entirely unusual. What did catch my eye was the particular error message generated when we foolishly attempted to scan a book:

Fatal Horizon (Internal) Error
LbSync.Destroy: invalid semaphore handle

After noting the oddity of the Horizon's wrathful message that it wanted to "destroy" something--not to mention wondering what on earth semaphore has to do with it all--we tried the usual method of rebooting our machine into submission. Of course, this didn't work (initially), and we were left to puzzle over what the little guys waving the flags in there were thinking. Whatever bad mood had originally possessed our check-in station seemed to dissipate by the afternoon. And they say machines will never be able to replicate the range of human emotion...

Preposition-happy misprints

Take a look at these two titles, and tell me what's wrong with them:

I didn't even notice at first, myself. It's amazing to me how the human brain will seek out familiar and "sensible" phrases, sometimes without even a noticeable hiccup over such minute errors as these.

I have a tendency to scan through the titles of our new acquisitions, and serials naturally catch the eye. Out of the seven to ten books total in the series, two of them had misprinted titles on their spines. Statistically speaking, I think that's what might qualify as "abysmal."

The funny thing is, the titles are printed accurately on the cover. I'm betting somebody at Berg's publishing house was in trouble when the mistake was discovered.

400 babies

Okay, the title of this post exaggerates a bit. I did not find 4,000 babies anywhere in the book stacks, much less in a book. My department did, however, find about 14 babies--babies that were cast in plaster and frequently deformed, like demonic, little Kewpie dolls.

They weren't all so incomplete as the example above. Some of them had all four limbs. Some of them had no limbs. And one of them was just a decapitated head--we never recovered the body.

They started appearing during the Spring Quarter of 2009, scattered throughout the book stacks on seemingly random shelves. We found them all in about a week. One of them almost killed one of our staff with a deadly blow to the head when it toppled from a row of compact shelving (shelving that moves).

I ran into a friend of a friend who claimed to have a roommate who knew why the plaster babies existed, which was ostensibly that they were part of an art project. Now, I've seen some pretty conceptual art (and appreciated a fraction of it), but I can't fathom what our artist(s) might be attempting to convey with these creeptastic creations. Unless their intent was just to give me the creeps. In which case:  job somewhat done. I'm mostly just confused.

After that one crazy week at the end of the school year, we appeared to have outlasted the plaster onslaught. Until the spring of this year. The same week. The same pint-sized horrors, and in roughly the same quantity. And I now have no clues as to who the perpetrators are or why. I'm somewhat anxious to see if the same deformed figurines will make an appearance for a third year running. We'll probably run out of storage space for them eventually.