Archive of Avenging

Librarian Rave Mix

on April 20th, 2012 in Avenging, Librarianship, Library school, Music, Nerdcore Rap by | 1 Comment

Librarians: You know how it goes. You are out partying with your librarian friends. Suddenly you realize that your gathering requires a suitable soundtrack. A library-themed soundtrack. Indeed, without the proper music, the event will be a disaster! It could happen. The worst case scenario is sobering: everyone ends up…

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The Librarian Avengers Film Rating System

on February 12th, 2012 in Avenging, Favorite Posts, Film by | 4 Comments

Dear Film industry: Your metadata is not granular enough. The MPIAA ratings G, PG, PG-13, and R do not fulfill my needs. I need information relevant to my particular disinterests. I need to know ahead of time if a movie contains elements that I consider unacceptable. I’m not talking about…

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How FreeFile Almost Cost Me Plenty

on February 8th, 2012 in Avenging, Favorite Posts, Interface design, User Interface Design by | No Comments

Let’s talk for a moment about why I misfiled my tax extension. Melty Jello brain aside, bad software design almost cost my little family $2,500. Background: When I’m not wrestling a one-year-old into tiny shoes, I’m a User Experience Designer. This means I work with software companies to create easy-to-understand…

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The IRS was kind to us

on February 7th, 2012 in Avenging, Family, Parenting by | 3 Comments

Yes, that was my letter from the IRS. I misfiled our tax extension. My husband, who is hilarious, wrote a letter to the IRS asking for clemency due to new-baby-induced Jello Brain. The IRS, who are apparently also hilarious, quoted him in their response. I scanned the letter and he…

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Kaiser Perminente’s website causes heartburn, sleeplessness

on January 13th, 2012 in Avenging, Interface design, User Interface Design by | 1 Comment

Yesterday I tweeted: The Kaiser Permanente site is pretty, but someone organized it using their butt. I had just spent an hour on their member website trying to set my daughter’s primary care doctor. The links I followed did not lead to useful content. I was frustrated. I wrote: I…

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Tales from the Reference Desk

on October 26th, 2011 in Avenging, Librarianship by | 9 Comments

Hey gang, I’ve been funemployed for several weeks, and am rapidly losing my mind. I could use some perspective. The new crop of students must be coming into the library to do last-minute midterm research around now. Remind me what I’m missing by skipping out on my library career to…

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Data munging

on May 31st, 2011 in Administrivia, Avenging, Life, Mommy Stuff, Parenting by | 1 Comment

Recently I’ve been importing the ancient Librarian Avengers archives to live within WordPress. Because the site goes back to…hrm… 1997, there’s some data munging to do. Right now I’m concerning myself with the period after Graduate School, when I moved to Ithaca, NY for an ostensibly-cool digital library fellowship. I…

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A Parent’s Life as a Video Game

on March 29th, 2011 in Avenging, Favorite Posts, Mommy Stuff, Parenting, Tech by | 2 Comments

I work in the video game industry, so I tend to think of life in these terms. For example, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I realized that pregnancy is essentially a really immersive resource-conservation RPG. I was always asking myself questions like: “Do I pick up this stuff…

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