Ouch, dammit.

So here it is, the morning of my presentation on anonymous library cards, and my throat is congested and raw AND my right knee hurts a bit. I know I can get through this presentation, but I'm not sure I should.

If I give the presentation and end up hoarse the rest of the week, that'll suck. On the other hand, it's possible that I'll end up hoarse anyway and it's a good thing my presentation was scheduled for the very first slot so I could still give it. Or maybe, if I duck out, I'll be saving my voice and avoiding further damage.

Well, I guess I'll probably give the talk. It's probably only going to be about 15 minutes, so that shouldn't kill me. And I do really want to evangelize.

The things I do for CODI...

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Presentation and Recuperation

I arrived slightly late to the general session this morning, but found a seat and listened to the presentation. It all sounded good, but the real applause came when we saw a live demo of the serials prediction calendar -- an actual one-year calendar that showed you exactly when each issue was expected. Judging by the applause, I'd guess that this feature has been needed for a while.

My presentation went well, I think. At one point I tried to think of a segue and finally just said "Okay, I don't have a smooth segue, so I'll just admit it. Next, I'd like to talk about law enforcement..." I got lots of questions and suggestions, but my favorite was from an Albertan librarian who said "We don't actually have the Patriot Act where I'm from, but let me ask you this: Are you trying to get around the Patriot Act by offering anonymous library cards?" I repeated the question on-mic and answered: "Yes, sir, we are." Brought down the house. I think I got more applause on that answer than on my presentation!

After lunch at the cool kids' table, I attended bits of two other presentations before realizing that they weren't actually boring, it was just that I was coughing too much (and my knee was hurting too much) to pay attention. So I'm back at the hotel, a block or two away, and I'll try to rest up so that I can go back for the last set of sessions -- or at the worst, make sure I'm in shape for tomorrow.

Technorati tags: codi2005

(no subject)

This afternoon's session on internationalization (or i18n, as geeks call it) was a lot of fun. The new catalog software apparently allows you to supply translations of words and phrases that will be used by people who want their library catalog to appear in Canadian French, Armenian, Chinese (simplified and traditional), etc.

I made a lot of suggestions, since I'm a linguistics geek. For example:

In English and other left-to-right writing systems, it makes sense to offer links like this:

< previous | next >

But in Arabic and Hebrew, it might make more sense for next to be on the left, since that's where the next page is.

Phrases like "You are logged in as " assume that the user's name should come at the end of the sentence. But in some languages, you can't just translate one phrase and follow it with a name, you have to embed the name into the phrase: in the name of Ben Ostrowsky are you logged in. And that's ignoring the languages in which "you are logged in" might be worded slightly differently if the user is male.

And then there were the non-linguistic suggestions like "Hey, if you give us an Export/Import function, then we can share our translations with each other without having to retype all these phrases one at a time."

The presenter said that they obviously need someone like me working for them, and said he knew of a house for sale in the vendor's hometown. I'll stay in touch with them about the idea, since we'll be moving when Jodi picks her next school. Since they already have offices all over the place, they probably would allow telecommuting, especially if my job would involve interviewing native speakers to make sure that we get things translated properly. (You don't want to translate that "Home" link as "Casa", for example. The Spanish equivalent means "main page".)

Some sort of winter-wonderland cocktail hour is starting soon. I saw them setting up Christmas trees, pastel castles, and the like inside the main ballroom. I'll go check it out to get some good pictures and use my free drink ticket. After that, I'll probably go to sleep early. There's a walking tour of Loring Park that meets at 6:30am, and if my knee's up to it, I want to see if I can find the Loring Park Micro geocache.

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Escalator after the opening session

Escalator after the opening session

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Scary fake snowman at the CODI 2005 Winter Ball

Scary fake snowman at the CODI 2005 Winter Ball

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