40.5 years of WorldCat - a great tool for digging up books, magazine articles, etc.

Many are familiar with Amazon.com as a web site for finding books and other media to buy. We need a different tool for finding what we can borrow. 

Last August WorldCat, the planetary library catalog, celebrated its fortieth anniversary. That enormous database has over 240 million records about 1.8 billion items in over 10,000 libraries. On their web site Popular Science called it one of the world's most amazing databases. There even is a web page where you can just watch WorldCat grow.

I have previously blogged about using it to find books or magazine articles, although it can also be used to locate other types of information like DVDs, CDs, etc. WorldCat can be searched by Author (au:), Title (ti:), Subject (su:), and even Genres. An exact title should be entered surrounded by quotation marks. Otherwise we may drown in results.

When we ask WorldCat to display the libraries that have an item, it will ask us for our location. Once it knows that it will display the closest libraries. For me that means that it will first show the local Boise Public Library and the Boise State University Library. If neither has an item, I might ask the public library to obtain it via interlibrary loan.

Some university libraries use WorldCat as their default online catalog. Boise State University currently does that.

The State of Idaho has many subsets of the WorldCat database that can be searched from their LiLI Unlimited web page portal. They also have options for both the Pacific Northwest and the Intermountain West. Check with the reference librarian at your local public library to find what WorldCat options there are in your state and region.

I found Livingston Taylor’s Stage Performance book in the Boise Public Library catalog under the subject of Public Speaking. On WorldCat it is listed there (among 17,128 items) and under the very broad subject of Performing Arts (74,566 items) and the much narrower one of Stage Fright (507 items). For Stage Fright, looking at the bottom of the left column under Refine Your Search would let us immediately narrow to 55 items under the Topic of Psychology.

The image of a boy with a shovel came from the Library of Congress.

How an old pro accepts an Academy Award

Last night Christopher Plummer finally won for Best Supporting Actor at age 82. Watch how he opens his speech with jokes, and how relaxed he looks as he proceeds to thank his colleagues.

One of his best known film roles was back in 1965 - playing Captain George von Trapp in the The Sound of Music.

Getting useful structured feedback on speeches

On February 21st at the Inter-Activ Presenting & Influencing blog Gavin Meikle asked How do you know if your presentations are any good? Then he described five questions that could be answered with ratings on a 1 to 10 scale. He asked how others assess speaker effectiveness.

Last July I blogged about an Online directory of speech evaluation forms, and in May 2010 I blogged on Rubrics and figuring out where you are.

Back in 1990 the National Communication Association devised The Competent Speaker Speech Evaluation Form. It has eight competencies (four each on content and delivery) rated as either  Unsatisfactory, Satisfactory, or Excellent. The 2nd edition of their detailed publication about it from 2007 can be downloaded as an 47-page Acrobat .pdf file at the Assessment Resources page on their web site by just clicking on that title. 

Even if you ask nicely for structured feedback you may still get unhelpful suggestions. Tom Fishburne has a bunch of cartoons about the eight types of bad creative critics, creative directors, managers, and leaders.

The cartoon about how too many cooks spoil the broth was adapted from an 1884 Puck magazine cover.

How is preparing a presentation like making a cup of coffee?

What matters is the final result, not the speechwriting process used to get there. You can begin by making an outline on note cards, or with word processing software. Or, you can draw a mind map either with colored pencils or computer software, or make a storyboard. Just do whatever works for you.

Over at Costco I’ve seen the Keurig and similar machines for quickly and conveniently making a single serving using a beverage cartridge or cup that costs about $0.50. Instead I still use a vintage white plastic Melitta filter funnel that fits on top of my mug. (A current version is called the Ready Set Joe). The $0.05 paper filter and $0.20 of coffee come from the Winco supermarket. Water gets heated in the microwave for less than two minutes. When I get bored with plain coffee, I add an ounce of DaVinci or Torani syrup (about $0.25). Right now I’ve got a bottle of DaVinci German Chocolate Cake flavor - which is supposed to combine the flavors of chocolate cake, caramel frosting, and toasted coconut.

Those fancy machines sometimes even have unwanted side effects. Earlier this month the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada recalled both a bunch of Tassimo coffee makers and some discs for them because they can spray the user and bystanders with hot liquid.

Three quotations for President’s Day

Tomorrow we celebrate George Washington's birthday approximately - on the third Monday in February rather than on the 22nd day. Thus it’s time for some quotes, none of which are as they seem.

One often seen in books, like page 799 of the Yale Book of Quotations (Yale University Press, 2006), comes from his lengthy 1796 Farewell Address:

“....Avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”

When I looked at that document (probably written for him by Alexander Hamilton) I found that quote didn’t even begin at the start of a sentence. The full paragraph reads (previous quote in italics):

“While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rival ships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.”

Another in that same book comes from his 1790 Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport and says that:

“....Happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

When I looked at that letter I found again the quote didn’t begin at the start of a sentence. The full one -sentence paragraph reads (previous quote in italics):

“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

A third is some of his last words, which were:

“....I die hard, but I am not afraid to go.”

Yet again, that sentence may have instead began with the missing word Doctor, and also may have been followed by more words. Did George’s words inspire the use of Die Hard as a movie title?

Also, we don’t merely have sales on President’s Day - we more grandly call them Savings Events.

Top 21 anxieties for students at the University of Manitoba in 1974

Previously I have blogged about recent surveys on what college students in the United States, Sweden, and India fear. I thought somewhere there must be data on students in Canada, but  could not find anything recent. 

Back in spring 1974 two Canadian psychologists, M. P. Janisse and T. L. Palys did a survey of 1097 students in psychology classes at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. There were 642 females and 455 males. Students were asked to name three situations that produced anxiety, and to write each one down on an index card. (They also were asked to rate each situation on a scale from 1 to 10). Results were reported in 1976 in an article titled Frequency and Intensity of Anxiety in University Students published in the Journal of Personality Assessment, (volume 40, pages 502 to 515).

Over 110 items were reported at least once, and 62 were reported by both males and females. Table 1 reported their results for males, and Table 2 reported results for females.  I analyzed their results by tabulating the frequency for various items and dividing by the number of students to produce percentages. The common items were situations 21 through 82 in the tables. I also added their results for males and females to produce totals.

The bar chart shown above presents the top 21 anxieties (click on it to enlarge). Writing Exams (29.3%) was the top anxiety, followed by Speaking in Class or in Public (20.2%). Before Taking an Exam (14.9%) came third. Being Unprepared for an Exam (5.3%) and Studying for Exams (4.5%) came seventh and eighth, so four of the top ten anxieties involved exams. This article probably stayed obscure because it did not contain a bar chart (or even a table) like the one shown above. You have to read all the way to the 12th page to find any mention of the top three anxieties in their text. 

 





















A second bar chart compares results for females (pink) and males (blue), listed in deceasing order for females. There were significant gender differences. Females reported higher percentages for 13 of 20 anxieties reported by both sexes. Only females reported being anxious when Walking Down a Dark Street at Night, while only males reported being anxious in Encounters with Police and Receiving a Phyically Violent Threat.

This January a Canadian student blogger, Michael Fantin, posted asking people to comment by naming their top three greatest fears. So far he has no replies, so he might look at the Janisse and Palys data.

Know the audience before you open your mouth

Last night former US Senator Rick Santorum, who is a Republican presidential candidate, visited and spoke here in Boise. His visit was planned and announced just a few days ago. Mitt Romney will be here on Friday.

When you travel as a speaker, you need to be aware that the audience may have very different beliefs and concerns than you do. One of the topics Mr. Santorum mentioned was that he would work with Congress to transfer federal lands to states and sell lands to the private sector. In his home state of Pennsylvania that’s small potatoes - they were settled so long ago that only about two percent of the state is federal lands.

Out here 64 percent of Idaho is federally owned. Talking about changing that is a big deal and upsetting to us. Thirty-nine percent of this state (shown in green) is covered by national forests - an area just slightly larger than the entire state of South Carolina (32,020 square miles, shown in red). 

States are very different in many ways. There is a pair of maps showing the best and worst for each one. People are different too. One of the former Canyon County commissioners called the AM talk radio station before it aired Mr. Santorum’s speech. He griped that he wouldn’t attend because he and his wife long ago had made dinner reservations for Valentine’s Day.

Scaling the whole universe

Today I saw a very interesting post by Phil Plait about an amazing interactive tool for seeing The Scale of the Universe 2. It was developed by Cary and Michael Huang. Six images from it are shown above (click on any of them to enlarge). The spacing between them is a zoom factor of a billion (ten to the ninth power). They did a wonderful job of putting in objects we already know about.

In some previous posts I’ve talked about showing the size of things. Last July I discussed What can we say about a really big hole in the ground? A year ago I asked Is it bigger than a breadbox? Can I hold it in my hand? Back in 2010 I described How thin is “extremely thin”?

Composing images with the Suggestion of Thirds

About two years ago I read Andrew Dlugan’s blog post on How to Improve Your PowerPoint Slides with the the Rule of Thirds. As shown above, it is a rule for composing images. More recently I read Paul Caputo’s post on the IBD (Interpretation by Design) blog which explained how - The Rule of Thirds: It’s Just a Suggestion.

 Other posts by Oliver Adria and Garr Reynolds have pointed out that using guide lines a third of the way across or down is an approximation based on the geometrically fascinating Golden Mean, also known as the Golden Ratio, Phi. As shown above, placing them at 33% just is an easy “rule of thumb” approximation to 38.2%.

Paul Caputo’s post also noted that there is a Rule of Fifths, and he gives some examples of it. His post opened by stating that the Rule of Thirds is not about how many trips you should take through a meal buffet in Las Vegas. Similarly, the Rule of Fifths is not about how much liquor you should consume.

Does your organization give off a negative vibe?

Recently I read Ralph Heath’s 2009 book on Celebrating Failure. He opened chapter 23 by telling a story about investigating rental of a local meeting room.

First, the customer service representative in the corner ignored him. Second, when he said he’d like to book it from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM she replied that no one was there before 9:00 AM. Third, she added that they were closed on Mondays, although Ralph hadn’t even mentioned Monday. He found another venue, and then mused that a leader might have helped her to quit being completely negative (and win him as a customer).

 

When I walk to the main public library, I cross the Boise River Greenbelt, which has paved trails on both sides of the river. As shown above, the sign on the south trail communicates that people should both enjoy themselves and behave responsibly. It says both what to do and what not to do. (There is a similar National Forest sign here).

Less than a hundred feet away is the old Eighth Street Pedestrian Bridge. Look at the sign mounted on the left side at the south entrance, which says that six different activities all are prohibited. I’m still puzzling over how you could surf on a bridge with a wooden deck, and what was changed before adding the last two items.

R.I.P. Steve Appleton

Last Friday morning around 9:00 AM Steve Appleton, the Chief Executive Officer of Micron Technology, Inc., was killed when his Lancair IV airplane crashed shortly after takeoff from the Boise airport. He was only 51.    

In 2011 Steve received the Robert H. Noyce award from the Semiconductor Industry Association. He graduated from Boise State University, and was responsible for the Micron Foundation donating millions of dollars to build a School of Engineering, and more recently construction of a Business and Economics building.  

Steve was the kind of guy who once took his taekwondo instructor for a ride in his 600-mph vintage Hawker Hunter jet fighter. He will be missed here in Idaho.

The image of a Micron 64Mb SDRAM memory chip is from Wikimedia Commons.

Where did that Top Ten list come from?

In my last post I discussed an article on children’s fears from 2002 by Peter Muris and Thomas H. Ollendick. Dr. Muris also wrote a book on Normal and Abnormal Fear and Anxiety in Children and Adolescents (Elsevier, 2007). On page 4 he gave his top ten list for common fears among youths:

1. Not being able to breathe
2. Being hit by a car or truck
3. Bombing attacks/being invaded
4. Getting burned by fire
5. Falling from a high place
6. Burglar breaking into the house
7. Earthquake
8. Death/dead people
9. Illness
10. Snakes  

He said the list was based on several studies using the Fear Survey Schedule for Children Revised (FSSC-R). Public speaking isn't on the list. When you read his opinion you know five things a journalist always asks: who, what, when, where, and how.

Contrast that with a web article on the Top 10 Things Children Fear posted on FearOfStuff. Their list is:

1. Divorce
2. Loss of a parent
3. Personal danger
4. War
5. Doctor
6. Being alone in the dark
7. Death
8. Monsters and ghosts
9. Animals
10. Public speaking

That list probably is drivel. The silly article doesn’t answer any of those five things a journalist asks.

Their list might as well have come to us the same authoritative way the best known TopTen list did, as illustrated above, except that when you scroll to the bottom of the web page you instead find the usual disclaimer that:

“The phobia information contained on the FearOfStuff.com web site is not intended as, and is not, a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek professional medical counsel for proper diagnosis and treatment.” 

There is a good reason why public speaking doesn’t belong on a top ten list  of children’s fears. As I discussed last year, typically it rears its ugly head in early adolescence, but sometimes it does not show up until early adulthood.   

The Gustave Doré image of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments came from Wikimedia Commons.

Top ten fears of Belgian Adolescents

A decade ago, in 2002, Peter Muris and Thomas H. Ollendick published an article on “The Assessment of Contemporary Fears in Adolescents Using a Modified Version of the Fear Survey Schedule for Children - Revised” in Anxiety Disorders magazine (Volume 16, pages 567 to 584). You can read the abstract here.

They surveyed 551 Belgian adolescents, with ages ranging from 12 to 19 (297 girls and 254 boys). Those adolescents were given the Hawaiian version of Fear Survey Schedule for Children - Revised (acronymed as the FSSC-HI), which has 80 items. Survey participants responded to each item by marking either None, Some, or A Lot. The most common fears were the ten fears with the highest means at the A Lot level. Public speaking was covered in Item 65, which is:

 “Having to talk in front of my class”

The Top Ten most common fears (in their Table 6) were:

1. AIDS
2. Being killed or murdered
3. Family member dying
4. Being raped
5. Bombing attacks - being invaded
6. Nuclear war
7. Being kidnapped
8. Drowning
9. Myself dying
10. Germs or getting a serious disease

Having to talk in front of my class wasn’t one of them. Only one item on this list, bombing attacks, is the same as the list in the cross-cultural survey discussed my previous post.

A bar chart (shown above, click to enlarge) displays the percent of adolescents reporting each of those fears.

Another bar chart compares the results for the 12 to 15 year olds and the 16 to 19 year olds. The younger group had a higher percent for eight of the ten fears; with the similar exceptions of AIDS and germs or getting a serious disease.

A third bar chart compares the results for boys and girls. A higher percent of the girls reported all ten fears.

Top ten fears of children in the United States, Australia, China, and Nigeria

Our cavalcade of what children fear continues with a broader survey. In 1996 Thomas H. Ollendick, Bin Yang, Neville J. King, Qi Dong, and Abebowale Akande published an article titled “Fears in American, Australian, Chinese, and Nigerian Children and Adolescents: A Cross-Cultural Study,” in a magazine called The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (V37, pages 213 to 220). You can find an abstract here. They surveyed 300 children in each country, with 50 boys and 50 girls chosen at each of three predetermined age levels (7 to 10, 11 to 13, and 14 to 17).

Ollendick et al used the Fear Survey Schedule for Children - Revised (acronymed as the FSSC-R) which has 80 items. Survey participants respond to each item by marking either None, Some, or A Lot. The most common fears were the ten fears with the highest means at the level of A Lot. Public speaking was covered in Item 1, which is:

“Giving an oral report”

The Top Ten common fears (from the entire pooled sample) were:

1. Not able to breathe
2. Hit by a car or truck
3. Bombing attacks
4. Earthquakes
5. Fire - getting burned
6. Falling from a high place
7. Failing a test
8. Having my parents argue
9. Getting poor grades
10. Death/dead people

A bar chart (shown above, click to enlarge) displays the percent of children reporting each of the common top ten fears (their Table 2). Giving an oral report isn’t there.

For American children, seven of the ten fears in their Top Ten were the same as the common ones:

Not able to breathe
Hit by a car or truck
Bombing attacks
A burglar breaking into our house (replacing Earthquakes)
Fire - getting burned
Falling from a high place
Looking foolish (replacing Failing a test)
Getting lost in a strange place (replacing Having my parents argue)
Getting poor grades
Death/dead people

For Australian children, eight of the ten fears in their Top Ten were the same as the common ones:

Not able to breathe
Hit by a car or truck
Bombing attacks
Earthquakes
Fire - getting burned
Falling from a high place
Failing a test
Having my parents argue
A burglar breaking into our house (replacing Getting poor grades)
Germs/getting a serious illness (replacing Death/dead people)

For Chinese children, seven of the ten fears in their Top Ten were the same as the common ones:

Not able to breathe
Hit by a car or truck
Getting a shock from electricity (replacing Bombing attacks)
Earthquakes
Fire - getting burned
Bears (replacing Falling from a high place)
Failing a test
Having my parents argue
Getting poor grades
Ghosts or spooky things (replacing Death/dead people)

For Nigerian children, six of the ten fears in their Top Ten were the same as the common ones:

Snakes (replacing Not able to breathe)
Hit by a car or truck
Bombing attacks
Earthquakes
Guns (replacing Fire - getting burned)
Falling from a high place
Getting a shock from electricity (replacing Failing a test)
Deep water/ocean (replacing Having my parents argue)
Getting poor grades
Death/dead people

So, for children in all four of these countries, public speaking (giving an oral report) wasn’t even in the top ten - or remotely near being the number one fear typically claimed to occur for American adults.

Fears of children in the southeastern United States - is public speaking in the top ten?

No, it isn’t. In 2005 Professor Joy J. Burnham published an article titled “Fears of Children in the United States: An Examination of the American Fear Survey Schedule With 20 New Contemporary Fear Items,” in a magazine called Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development (V38, page 78). She surveyed 720 children in two states, with ages ranging from 7 to 18. You can find an abstract here.

The American Fear Survey Schedule for Children (acronymed as the FSSC-AM) has 98 items. Survey participants respond to each item by marking either Not Scared, Scared, or Very Scared. The most common fears were the ten fears with the highest means at the Very Scared level. Public speaking was covered in Item 20, which is:

 “Having to talk in front of my class.”

Three bar charts (shown above, click to enlarge) display the percent of children reporting each of the top ten fears for three age groups (her Table 3). Those fears include AIDS, myself dying, someone in my family dying, not being able to breathe, etc.

Smaller percentages of fears were reported by older children. For the age group from 7 to 10 all ten fears were reported by more than 60% of the children. For the age group from 11 to 14 all ten fears were reported by more than 50% of the children. For the age group from 15 to 18 all ten fears were reported by more than 40% of the children.

Another bar chart (from her Table 2) shows the percent of girls and boys reporting each of the top ten fears. A larger percentage of girls reported each fear that also was reported by boys.

So, for these children, public speaking wasn’t remotely near being the number one fear typically claimed to occur for American adults (and greater than death). These results agree with those reported in a 2005 Gallup poll, mentioned in my previous post.