Author: Paul R. Pival
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With whom did Danielle Smith actually consult on her transgender rights policy?
In January 2024, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced "sweeping changes to Alberta's student gender identity, sports and surgery policies" aimed at the province's transgender community. According to news reports, "Alberta’s premier says she’s had many conversations with members of the trans community before and since drafting a suite of policy proposals dealing with transgender rights."…
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Competencies for Generative AI in Libraries
I recently had the pleasure of speaking at the online conference, AI and Libraries: Applications, Implications, and Possibilities. It was a quick talk, but mine was initially titled, A Framework for AI Literacy in Libraries. In the middle of the talk I changed the title to the more accurate, Competencies for Generative AI in Libraries…
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Seeking Alberta FOIP advice
I recently put in a FOIP request to the Alberta Executive Council and got a pretty quick response that no records exist (EC000-2024-G-10 closure letter). I asked for clarification, and received, "Based on your very specific request for a list, a thorough search was undertaken to locate the records, and it was discovered that no…
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Qualitative Data in the News
It seems a rarity, but I have two really interesting sites open in my browser talking about qualitative data in the relatively current environment. The first, Pandemic Journaling Project Archive Opens for Research, is notable because it fills a big gap. As the article notes, “There are several large quantitative surveys in the social sciences…
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2023 Access Conference Recordings
There's not (yet?) a link to each recording in the original schedule, but the recordings from the 2023 Access Library Conference, held in Halifax on October 23-25, 2023, are now live on YouTube. Definitely some good stuff worth checking out!
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llamafile is the new best way to run a LLM on your own computer
I lifted the title directly from Simon Willison’s post: llamafile is the new best way to run a LLM on your own computer, even though I don’t have the expertise to know if it’s the BEST way. I can tell you it’s a damn easy way, even on Windows! Simon’s explanation works on a mac,…
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AI Linkdump
I just came out of a webinar that generated a slew of good-looking links, and was off on Friday, so have a handful of newsletters, also with tasty-looking links. The rest of the day is full, and I fear I may not get to these for some time, so here, maybe you have time: In…
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Link wherever you want (YMMV)
Quite some time ago, I used a browser extension called TLDRify that allowed me to highlight some text on a web page, and it would create a link I could share that would jump a person directly to the text I had highlighted. It was a way to both create an anchor link when one…