November is Nanogenmo, or National Novel Generation Month, a cheeky variant on the more well known Nanowrimo, or National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that during the month of November, you write code that produces a 50,000 word novel. Most of the “novels” produced are of course unreadable. But it’s a great opportunity to… Continue reading Nanogenmo 2020
Website committee
I was recently appointed chair of our library’s website committee. I am honored to take on this role, as I feel that working to improve our library’s web presence is one of the most useful contributions that I can make to our library. It is also work that I like doing. I can see how… Continue reading Website committee
Further into Alma
This week I dug into Alma a bit further, and learned how to do things like make sets and run jobs. I know I’m a bit behind the curve on this – other CUNY librarians have been doing these things for months – but it felt good to level up and figure this stuff out.… Continue reading Further into Alma
Building incrementally
As soon as I finished the Open Journal Matcher and released it to the world, I wanted to rewrite it from the ground up. When I looked at the code, it was clear that so much could be improved: from better variable names, to clearer flow, and more concise functionality. I had to resist the… Continue reading Building incrementally
Slow down, be thorough
Since (for now) the Open Journal Matcher is built without using a proper task queue, I’ve been spending a lot of effort handling the various errors thrown by my Google Cloud Function. This is both satisfying and annoying: it is nice to catch and handle each error properly, but it takes some digging to figure… Continue reading Slow down, be thorough
On variable costs
Now that the Open Journal Matcher is live and receiving traffic, I’m wondering how much it is going to cost to keep running. There isn’t an obvious answer. Mostly this is because Google Cloud Functions scale with your project. This is definitely good for scalability and availability, but it makes it much more difficult to… Continue reading On variable costs
On scaling
I’ve been using PythonAnywhere to host web projects for some time now, and while I am very happy with the service, one of its weak points is scalability. This is especially problematic when trying to handle unpredictable spikes in traffic. While there are plenty of platforms that will scale seamlessly along with your traffic, PA… Continue reading On scaling
Alma
Recently, CUNY libraries migrated to Alma, our new library services platform. Alma is a pretty mighty piece of software. It can manage many, many library functions. Given how much it does, it amazes me that it works. I would love to look at the codebase for a bit, just to get a sense as to… Continue reading Alma
Access to readings during remote instruction
Our students are facing a potential textbook crisis this fall. Many may not even realize it yet. But with in-person library services potentially greatly curtailed, one crucial source of textbooks – the library reserve desk – may not be readily available to our students. The librarians are working to mitigate this crisis on several fronts.… Continue reading Access to readings during remote instruction
Recalibrating
Now that the Open Journal Matcher is more or less complete and shared with the world, I feel like it’s time for a new beginning. I like this part of my job: occasionally I arrive at a point where I get to reset and consider what’s next. I’m going to take a different approach. In… Continue reading Recalibrating
