Showing posts with label 23 Things. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 23 Things. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
#22: Staying Current
Whoo, coming down the home stretch! I've had to go on a mini-blogging marathon because we've been inundated with bibliographic instruction classes (which is good because that means the faculty are seeing the importance of what we do!) and blogging time had been too scarce. But I was determined to catch up by the deadline and I think I should make it!
I really think that while I was already pretty savvy to 2.0 technologies, I've had my sphere broadened. I tended to stay within the 'big names' and overlook the smaller startups that haven't yet made it big. I've also really learned a lot about my attitudes and preconceptions by having to take the time to really think about certain services. It's been a little fun, and I have definitely been more verbose that I thought I would be! Additionally, I use most of these services on a personal level, so it's been great to try to think of ways my library can utilize them and connect with students.
I am definitely keeping up my wiki, and I'm more inspired to update more regularly, instead of letting months go by. I do think I need to scale back on the number of blogs I read and really focus on the most essential ones. I'm too overwhelmed, and it takes too long to go through them. Considering that I just skim most of the posts, it should be fairly easy to ditch a few of them that I never really open (I say fairly because I have an insatiable appetite to know things and to always be on the forefront of knowledge--something many librarians share. It will be difficult to let go of the blogs that might let me know things!). But I find my Google Reader to be the absolute best way I know of keeping up with things.
I also will try my best to update this blog, but given how stressful it was to keep it up through these last few months (every one of the three other librarians at my library dropped out before Thing 4!), I'm worried it won't be as frequently as I would like. Maybe I can see about creating a blog for our library and try to commit to that one.
I really think that while I was already pretty savvy to 2.0 technologies, I've had my sphere broadened. I tended to stay within the 'big names' and overlook the smaller startups that haven't yet made it big. I've also really learned a lot about my attitudes and preconceptions by having to take the time to really think about certain services. It's been a little fun, and I have definitely been more verbose that I thought I would be! Additionally, I use most of these services on a personal level, so it's been great to try to think of ways my library can utilize them and connect with students.
I am definitely keeping up my wiki, and I'm more inspired to update more regularly, instead of letting months go by. I do think I need to scale back on the number of blogs I read and really focus on the most essential ones. I'm too overwhelmed, and it takes too long to go through them. Considering that I just skim most of the posts, it should be fairly easy to ditch a few of them that I never really open (I say fairly because I have an insatiable appetite to know things and to always be on the forefront of knowledge--something many librarians share. It will be difficult to let go of the blogs that might let me know things!). But I find my Google Reader to be the absolute best way I know of keeping up with things.
I also will try my best to update this blog, but given how stressful it was to keep it up through these last few months (every one of the three other librarians at my library dropped out before Thing 4!), I'm worried it won't be as frequently as I would like. Maybe I can see about creating a blog for our library and try to commit to that one.
#21: Student 2.0 Tools
I absolutely love the assignment calculator, and I can see some real potential for use. Obviously it will require some work to create customizable research guides for the many potential disciplines, but I think it would really get the point across. The only caveat I see is that I'm not sure that it will get much use if it's solely on the library website. I think this is something that we would need to get the faculty involved with.
#20: Books 2.0
For me, you can't discuss Books 2.0 without talking about electronic books. Books are one thing I am convinced will never go away. Electronic texts can't beat curling up under the covers with a good paperback, and they can't be as satisfying as a good beach read (especially important in Florida!). But I am willing to concede that e-books do have a place in this new technologically advanced time of ours, and that they can co-exist with paper books.
The e-books that we have in our catalog through LINCC are a real life-saver. At my college, we have one main campus and one library. This library contains probably about 99% of our holdings, and 100% of our library staff. The college also has several centers in different areas and towns (never more than about 45 minutes away). These cater to students that can't make it in to our main campus. We do travel to give library instruction sessions whenever they are requested by the faculty, but there aren't enough students to justify having a full-time librarian at any of the centers. Since many of these students can't make it to our main campus, the electronic resources are a real lifesaver. We show the students how to limit to just e-books, and how to access our databases. We have two reference book collections online (Credo and Oxford Reference) that provide them with most of the reference materials they need. Of course, we will send any print book from our circulating collection to the students that require it also, but since it can take a few days, electronic resources are more heavily used. If we didn't have these collections, many of them would be without easy access to the resources they needed for their research.
I have recently discovered eReader from Microsoft, and downloaded a few free e-books. There are quite a few websites offering these free books, including Project Gutenberg, the International Children's Digital Library, Bartleby, Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts, and the Internet Archive Text Archive. I've collected more than 150 links to collections of e-books and specific book available online; here is a sampling:
Now, one of the more famous e-book sites is, of course, Google Books. I am a huge fan of it. Even though not many books can be read in their entirety, I find it enormously useful for reference work. When I have someone searching on an obscure topic that could be buried in a broader book, I like to use Google Books to see which books contain a mention of that phrase. Then I can check to see whether we have those books in our library, or place an ILL for them. Sometimes if a student desperately needs a specific title two minutes ago because the paper is due the next day, but we don't own it (which, of course, never happens!), I will take a look to see how much is indexed on Google Books; sometimes there is more than 80% of the book available, and that can be sufficient for the student. It's not something that I necessarily endorse, but since our job is to help the patron to the best of our abilities and resources, I will use it as a last resort.
Here is my exploration on the Books 2.0 sites mentioned in the NEFLIN posting:
Books On Your Phone: Twitterlit
Alas, I have no texting or Internet on my phone. It's very old-school: just calls. I'm musing getting my own plan (I'm currently still on a family plan because it's only $10/month to have my line) in order to get a local area code, and I'm finding some pretty good texting plans for about $5/month. I find Twitterlit quite fun, though, and I can get it outside of my phone (whoo hoo!). I think it would be fantastic to embed on a library website to whet the appetite of patrons and spark some excitement--but of course, one would have to have a well-rounded fiction collection and be prepared to order some of the Twittered books.
Readers' Advisory: ReadingTrails / BookLamp
I've played around superficially with ReadingTrails before, and I think it's fun, but a little limited. Most of the trails I found only have a few items in them, which limits their usefulness. I do love that you can create an embeddable widget of any trail you'd like; here's a good one:
BookLamp really sounded fun because of the mention of how it works similar to Pandora. I love the discovery process of Pandora, and I thought it would be fun to explore. Unfortunately, this site needs a lot of work to make it viable. Of the few listed books, I had only really read one (1984 by George Orwell). The vast majority appeared to be science fiction/fantasy. When I picked it, the closest book match is the USA Patriot Act! That is a very weird thing to come up. While I can see how many people might say that the oppressive environment in 1984 is starting to be replicated with the passage of the Patriot Act, that is a very political and personal connection that I don't believe is appropriate at all, especially since they say they connect books using "pacing, density, description, dialog, and action graphs." How on earth are the two connected using those parameters? Connecting 1984 with Brave New World or Fahrenheit 451 would be a no-brainer, but neither are listed here. I would never say to a patron who wants to read something similar to 1984 to check out the Patriot Act, regardless of my personal political beliefs. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially with the description for the Patriot Act being "A bad idea." I think I'll come back in a year or so to see how this site has developed, but for now it's nowhere near comprehensive enough to be used.
Online Book Communities: Living Social
Living Social is a neat little site, where you can keep track of your book collection, review books, discuss titles, and connect with other readers. In other words, it's just like GoodReads, which I already use extensively. I do like certain things about Living Social a little bit better than GoodReads (like the separate ownership area), but I thought it was too much of a clone to be worth sinking any real time into.
Book Group Resources: LitLovers
I'm not really going to say too much about this one, but I thought it would be a neat resource for those that do book clubs. I passed it along to a fellow librarian who organizes our reading group at our library.
AudioBooks: LibriVox
I think this a fantastic resource! I am the library liaison for our college's Disabilities Resource Center and I am always looking for resources for patrons with disabilities. I think that these audiobooks are great for students who are visually impaired or blind, especially since our audiobook collection is very tiny. So to have these books at our fingertips (and for free!) is wonderful.
Book Reviews: BookBrowse / MetaCritic
BookBrowse looked very promising, but unfortunately most of the best stuff is for 'members only' and membership costs $29.95 for a year. As I've already made abundantly clear, a site better be darn impressive for me to pay to use it, and I really dislike yearly fees. I also didn't like how member-only features are 'hidden' with other features. You're just merrily clicking along when BAM you have to pay for this portion. Tricky tricky, and not a site I want to bother with.
I've shown MetaCritic to certain classes before that had an assignment to find reviews on movies and music, but I hadn't actually taken a look at the book portion. The fact that it hasn't been updated since 2006 is obviously a bit of a minus, but it seemed to be a very straightforward site aggregating multiple sources for book reviews.
The e-books that we have in our catalog through LINCC are a real life-saver. At my college, we have one main campus and one library. This library contains probably about 99% of our holdings, and 100% of our library staff. The college also has several centers in different areas and towns (never more than about 45 minutes away). These cater to students that can't make it in to our main campus. We do travel to give library instruction sessions whenever they are requested by the faculty, but there aren't enough students to justify having a full-time librarian at any of the centers. Since many of these students can't make it to our main campus, the electronic resources are a real lifesaver. We show the students how to limit to just e-books, and how to access our databases. We have two reference book collections online (Credo and Oxford Reference) that provide them with most of the reference materials they need. Of course, we will send any print book from our circulating collection to the students that require it also, but since it can take a few days, electronic resources are more heavily used. If we didn't have these collections, many of them would be without easy access to the resources they needed for their research.
I have recently discovered eReader from Microsoft, and downloaded a few free e-books. There are quite a few websites offering these free books, including Project Gutenberg, the International Children's Digital Library, Bartleby, Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts, and the Internet Archive Text Archive. I've collected more than 150 links to collections of e-books and specific book available online; here is a sampling:
Now, one of the more famous e-book sites is, of course, Google Books. I am a huge fan of it. Even though not many books can be read in their entirety, I find it enormously useful for reference work. When I have someone searching on an obscure topic that could be buried in a broader book, I like to use Google Books to see which books contain a mention of that phrase. Then I can check to see whether we have those books in our library, or place an ILL for them. Sometimes if a student desperately needs a specific title two minutes ago because the paper is due the next day, but we don't own it (which, of course, never happens!), I will take a look to see how much is indexed on Google Books; sometimes there is more than 80% of the book available, and that can be sufficient for the student. It's not something that I necessarily endorse, but since our job is to help the patron to the best of our abilities and resources, I will use it as a last resort.
Here is my exploration on the Books 2.0 sites mentioned in the NEFLIN posting:
Books On Your Phone: Twitterlit
Alas, I have no texting or Internet on my phone. It's very old-school: just calls. I'm musing getting my own plan (I'm currently still on a family plan because it's only $10/month to have my line) in order to get a local area code, and I'm finding some pretty good texting plans for about $5/month. I find Twitterlit quite fun, though, and I can get it outside of my phone (whoo hoo!). I think it would be fantastic to embed on a library website to whet the appetite of patrons and spark some excitement--but of course, one would have to have a well-rounded fiction collection and be prepared to order some of the Twittered books.
Readers' Advisory: ReadingTrails / BookLamp
I've played around superficially with ReadingTrails before, and I think it's fun, but a little limited. Most of the trails I found only have a few items in them, which limits their usefulness. I do love that you can create an embeddable widget of any trail you'd like; here's a good one:
BookLamp really sounded fun because of the mention of how it works similar to Pandora. I love the discovery process of Pandora, and I thought it would be fun to explore. Unfortunately, this site needs a lot of work to make it viable. Of the few listed books, I had only really read one (1984 by George Orwell). The vast majority appeared to be science fiction/fantasy. When I picked it, the closest book match is the USA Patriot Act! That is a very weird thing to come up. While I can see how many people might say that the oppressive environment in 1984 is starting to be replicated with the passage of the Patriot Act, that is a very political and personal connection that I don't believe is appropriate at all, especially since they say they connect books using "pacing, density, description, dialog, and action graphs." How on earth are the two connected using those parameters? Connecting 1984 with Brave New World or Fahrenheit 451 would be a no-brainer, but neither are listed here. I would never say to a patron who wants to read something similar to 1984 to check out the Patriot Act, regardless of my personal political beliefs. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially with the description for the Patriot Act being "A bad idea." I think I'll come back in a year or so to see how this site has developed, but for now it's nowhere near comprehensive enough to be used.
Online Book Communities: Living Social
Living Social is a neat little site, where you can keep track of your book collection, review books, discuss titles, and connect with other readers. In other words, it's just like GoodReads, which I already use extensively. I do like certain things about Living Social a little bit better than GoodReads (like the separate ownership area), but I thought it was too much of a clone to be worth sinking any real time into.
Book Group Resources: LitLovers
I'm not really going to say too much about this one, but I thought it would be a neat resource for those that do book clubs. I passed it along to a fellow librarian who organizes our reading group at our library.
AudioBooks: LibriVox
I think this a fantastic resource! I am the library liaison for our college's Disabilities Resource Center and I am always looking for resources for patrons with disabilities. I think that these audiobooks are great for students who are visually impaired or blind, especially since our audiobook collection is very tiny. So to have these books at our fingertips (and for free!) is wonderful.
Book Reviews: BookBrowse / MetaCritic
BookBrowse looked very promising, but unfortunately most of the best stuff is for 'members only' and membership costs $29.95 for a year. As I've already made abundantly clear, a site better be darn impressive for me to pay to use it, and I really dislike yearly fees. I also didn't like how member-only features are 'hidden' with other features. You're just merrily clicking along when BAM you have to pay for this portion. Tricky tricky, and not a site I want to bother with.
I've shown MetaCritic to certain classes before that had an assignment to find reviews on movies and music, but I hadn't actually taken a look at the book portion. The fact that it hasn't been updated since 2006 is obviously a bit of a minus, but it seemed to be a very straightforward site aggregating multiple sources for book reviews.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
#19: Other Social Networks
Besides Facebook (which I haven't even been checking as often as I used to), I am fairly limited in the social networks I participate in. I've mentioned I'm on MySpace, but I really don't do anything with that. I am on LinkedIn, which is a more professional social network. I used to connect with camp counselors I worked with on MyFamily, but they went to a pay-to-upgrade scheme and no one would pay for our site after a few years. Instead, we have a group on Facebook.
The social network I use the most is Goodreads, which I absolutely love. I talked about how I used LibraryThing to keep track of the books I own, and Goodreads to keep track of the books that I have read and want to read. Currently, I have 1614 books here. 531 are read (since I joined), 950 are to be read, and I am currently reading 3. I have an enormous to read list; when I come across a book on a blog or in a selection tool like Booklist that I want to read but I know isn't appropriate for my community college library, I add it to my list. I know that it would take me forever to get through all of the books, and that I probably will never read some of them, but now when I'm looking for books to read, I can simply peruse the list. I summarize and review all the books I read in spreadsheet, and I upload that to Goodreads as a fail-safe. I started doing this a few years back when I was having problems remembering certain books I read years ago, and I needed considerable sleuthing to track down. Others I still haven't figured out. It's also nice to have my thoughts on the books written down, so I know whether it's worth re-reading or not, and I can also see how a certain author has done. If I don't like a lot of their books, then I won't bother with others. When you read as much as I do, it can be difficult to connect the dots unless it's ordered in a specific way. I've requested permission to be a librarian on GoodReads, and now I can fix problems, upload book covers, and all that jazz. This is good, because I am quite anal-retentive and I can't stand to see known errors without fixing them. I'm constantly updating records in Aleph for our catalog when I see an issue--and that's definitely a good thing. Less errors mean better search results. It's all about quality control and customer service.
For a while I was uploading some of my recipes to wegottaeat.com, but I just don't like the set-up very much. Instead, I'm using Evernote, and I really like it. I can create individual notebooks (Appetizers; Desserts; etc.,) and put individual notes in them. Since I find many recipes I'd like to try online through blogs, I can simply copy and paste them into these notes. They remain very searchable (so I can search for a particular ingredient, such as when I have some half-and-half to use up) and I can tag things very specifically (within my Dessert notebook, for instance, I have tags for brownies, chocolate, cookies, egg whites, egg yolks (if something only uses egg whites or egg yolks), and more). This lets me narrow down quite well, and it's less limiting than having a print notebook. I had been using Google Notebook, but they recently announced they are eliminating support and updates, and I decided to try something new.
For music, I use Pandora. You tell it what songs you like, and it creates a station with similar artists and songs. When I'm in my office cataloging or working on something, I like to have a little music to help keep me going. Pandora does has some limitations; you can't get a song 'on-demand' and you can only skip so many songs, but there is a lot of customization that you can do if you're having too many songs you don't like. I decided to take a look at last.fm. I didn't like it as much as Pandora. First of all, it was a little confusing to use. Secondly I really didn't like that you needed to add 15 artists to your library to be able to play stations. I don't have 15 favorite artists from one genre, and I don't really like to mix genres. I'm usually in a certain mood, and it was a little strange to have La Oreja de Van Gogh mixed up with Journey. I just couldn't get into this one.
I was very intrigued by WebJunction, however. I signed up, but immediately was quite disappointed. None of the affiliations that you're supposed to pick from in Step 3 fit, so I had to leave that blank. Searching for groups was difficult; I wished there were a way to browse through them all; nothing came up for 'community college,' 'academic,' 'reference,' or even 'library,' so I have no idea what groups exist. I didn't really want to pay for the courses either; unless it's something very relevant to my job, I won't really pay for it, and none of the listed courses really piqued my interest. I get enough relevant courses through NEFLIN! I think I might also be a product of the open-access generation, where there are very few things I am willing to pay for. I just discovered that The New York Times has opened up its archives for free on their website, and I am thrilled! It's a little easier to use their site than to go through the databases. I have stubbornly refused to pay to upgrade my Flickr, just because I don't think I should have to. I understand that these companies need to make money, but I prefer to be bombarded with ads than pay for yearly fees. The one exception I've made is I paid $25 to become a lifetime member at LibraryThing. It was a one-time charge and it was quite low, and seemed reasonable. Other than that, there are very few things I will pay for.
The social network I use the most is Goodreads, which I absolutely love. I talked about how I used LibraryThing to keep track of the books I own, and Goodreads to keep track of the books that I have read and want to read. Currently, I have 1614 books here. 531 are read (since I joined), 950 are to be read, and I am currently reading 3. I have an enormous to read list; when I come across a book on a blog or in a selection tool like Booklist that I want to read but I know isn't appropriate for my community college library, I add it to my list. I know that it would take me forever to get through all of the books, and that I probably will never read some of them, but now when I'm looking for books to read, I can simply peruse the list. I summarize and review all the books I read in spreadsheet, and I upload that to Goodreads as a fail-safe. I started doing this a few years back when I was having problems remembering certain books I read years ago, and I needed considerable sleuthing to track down. Others I still haven't figured out. It's also nice to have my thoughts on the books written down, so I know whether it's worth re-reading or not, and I can also see how a certain author has done. If I don't like a lot of their books, then I won't bother with others. When you read as much as I do, it can be difficult to connect the dots unless it's ordered in a specific way. I've requested permission to be a librarian on GoodReads, and now I can fix problems, upload book covers, and all that jazz. This is good, because I am quite anal-retentive and I can't stand to see known errors without fixing them. I'm constantly updating records in Aleph for our catalog when I see an issue--and that's definitely a good thing. Less errors mean better search results. It's all about quality control and customer service.
For a while I was uploading some of my recipes to wegottaeat.com, but I just don't like the set-up very much. Instead, I'm using Evernote, and I really like it. I can create individual notebooks (Appetizers; Desserts; etc.,) and put individual notes in them. Since I find many recipes I'd like to try online through blogs, I can simply copy and paste them into these notes. They remain very searchable (so I can search for a particular ingredient, such as when I have some half-and-half to use up) and I can tag things very specifically (within my Dessert notebook, for instance, I have tags for brownies, chocolate, cookies, egg whites, egg yolks (if something only uses egg whites or egg yolks), and more). This lets me narrow down quite well, and it's less limiting than having a print notebook. I had been using Google Notebook, but they recently announced they are eliminating support and updates, and I decided to try something new.
For music, I use Pandora. You tell it what songs you like, and it creates a station with similar artists and songs. When I'm in my office cataloging or working on something, I like to have a little music to help keep me going. Pandora does has some limitations; you can't get a song 'on-demand' and you can only skip so many songs, but there is a lot of customization that you can do if you're having too many songs you don't like. I decided to take a look at last.fm. I didn't like it as much as Pandora. First of all, it was a little confusing to use. Secondly I really didn't like that you needed to add 15 artists to your library to be able to play stations. I don't have 15 favorite artists from one genre, and I don't really like to mix genres. I'm usually in a certain mood, and it was a little strange to have La Oreja de Van Gogh mixed up with Journey. I just couldn't get into this one.
I was very intrigued by WebJunction, however. I signed up, but immediately was quite disappointed. None of the affiliations that you're supposed to pick from in Step 3 fit, so I had to leave that blank. Searching for groups was difficult; I wished there were a way to browse through them all; nothing came up for 'community college,' 'academic,' 'reference,' or even 'library,' so I have no idea what groups exist. I didn't really want to pay for the courses either; unless it's something very relevant to my job, I won't really pay for it, and none of the listed courses really piqued my interest. I get enough relevant courses through NEFLIN! I think I might also be a product of the open-access generation, where there are very few things I am willing to pay for. I just discovered that The New York Times has opened up its archives for free on their website, and I am thrilled! It's a little easier to use their site than to go through the databases. I have stubbornly refused to pay to upgrade my Flickr, just because I don't think I should have to. I understand that these companies need to make money, but I prefer to be bombarded with ads than pay for yearly fees. The one exception I've made is I paid $25 to become a lifetime member at LibraryThing. It was a one-time charge and it was quite low, and seemed reasonable. Other than that, there are very few things I will pay for.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
#18: Facebook and MySpace
Finally, something I use quite a lot on a semi-daily basis! I've been on Facebook since 2004, soon after it first was started. In those days, schools were only gradually being added, and you couldn't join unless you had a valid .edu e-mail address. It was also called the Facebook, and I still have friends who refer to it as the Facebook. Now, everyone and their mother can join, and many mothers do! (Not mine, although I do have a brother and quite a few cousins on).
I love Facebook because it's easy to use, it's multi-functional, and it's very customizable. Privacy settings let you decide who can see what on your profile; you can add friends to lists and give them different access. So your work colleagues can be banned from those pictures that aren't quite as professional as you'd like... :)
One thing I've noticed with Facebook, however, is that is has drastically changed its homepage several times, and not for the better. I used to love the news feed to see what was going on in my friends' lives, but now it's severely limited. I think that Facebook really needs to think about these changes before implementing them, as there is always quite an uproar.
Libraries have slowly infiltrated Facebook in multiple ways; they have created groups and pages for specific libraries and they have created search applications that will search library catalogs directly from Facebook. I read about one librarian who found every student in a certain program she was the liaison to and sent them a message introducing herself and the services the library offered for them. That is awesome. I know that e-mail is actually not checked as often by high school and college-age students anymore; Facebook is checked more. My brother, for instance, rarely checks his e-mail, but he's on Facebook every day.
Here's my Facebook information:
Diana Matthews's Profile Create Your Badge
Now MySpace is slightly different. I'm just not as enamored with it. There's less control over customization, and it, to me at least, feels slightly 'trashier.' I know that is kind of harsh, but I liken Facebook to Target and MySpace to Wal-Mart. Target is more upscale and has nicer selections, while Wal-Mart usually falls on the seedier side, and their crime is through the roof! It's very difficult to search for people, and because MySpace allows people to custom design their profiles, it's full of eye-popping pink glitter and neon backgrounds that make it really difficult to read anything. It's also not very well organized. While I do have a MySpace profile, I don't really visit it that often. My library has a MySpace also, but it's fallen into disrepair. Maybe I should check up on it... Libraries do have a bigger presence on MySpace, with more profiles. I wonder if this is because many are public libraries that have large teen populations, and it seems high school students gravitate toward MySpace over Facebook?
I love Facebook because it's easy to use, it's multi-functional, and it's very customizable. Privacy settings let you decide who can see what on your profile; you can add friends to lists and give them different access. So your work colleagues can be banned from those pictures that aren't quite as professional as you'd like... :)
One thing I've noticed with Facebook, however, is that is has drastically changed its homepage several times, and not for the better. I used to love the news feed to see what was going on in my friends' lives, but now it's severely limited. I think that Facebook really needs to think about these changes before implementing them, as there is always quite an uproar.
Libraries have slowly infiltrated Facebook in multiple ways; they have created groups and pages for specific libraries and they have created search applications that will search library catalogs directly from Facebook. I read about one librarian who found every student in a certain program she was the liaison to and sent them a message introducing herself and the services the library offered for them. That is awesome. I know that e-mail is actually not checked as often by high school and college-age students anymore; Facebook is checked more. My brother, for instance, rarely checks his e-mail, but he's on Facebook every day.
Here's my Facebook information:
Diana Matthews's Profile Create Your Badge
Now MySpace is slightly different. I'm just not as enamored with it. There's less control over customization, and it, to me at least, feels slightly 'trashier.' I know that is kind of harsh, but I liken Facebook to Target and MySpace to Wal-Mart. Target is more upscale and has nicer selections, while Wal-Mart usually falls on the seedier side, and their crime is through the roof! It's very difficult to search for people, and because MySpace allows people to custom design their profiles, it's full of eye-popping pink glitter and neon backgrounds that make it really difficult to read anything. It's also not very well organized. While I do have a MySpace profile, I don't really visit it that often. My library has a MySpace also, but it's fallen into disrepair. Maybe I should check up on it... Libraries do have a bigger presence on MySpace, with more profiles. I wonder if this is because many are public libraries that have large teen populations, and it seems high school students gravitate toward MySpace over Facebook?
#17: Podcasts
Podcasting is another topic that I've been interested in but haven't had the time or inclination to really throw myself into. Much like blogging, it requires time and commitment, whether one is creating a podcast or simply listening to it. While I subscribe to many blogs, I usually skim most entries unless something catches my eye. It's much more difficult to 'skim' a podcast, and also requires you to be somewhere where you can actually have audio playing, or where you can have headphones in. This makes podcasts more difficult to subscribe to than blogs. However, they do have some advantages. For those who learn best aurally, podcasts can help more than written blogs. I can see this being used with certain lessons. Additionally, certain subjects lend themselves to podcasting more naturally, for instance, learning a new language. Being able to listen to native speakers and teachers makes it easier to learn than trying to read. A great site for learning these languages for free is the Radio Lingua Network. I subscribe to the Coffee Break Spanish podcast; there is also Coffee Talk French and a lot of OneMinute versions (including Danish, Romanian, Russian, German, Norwegian, Mandarin, and Japanese).
A former colleague of mine at USF, Drew Smith, is one of the Genealogy Guys, who have a weekly podcast. They're up to number 167, and they are the "oldest regularly produced genealogy podcast in the world"! Drew is also the Library Guy, of Library Guy & Library Gal, where they discuss using the library's resources.
Books are another medium that can benefit from podcasting and audio. Two sites, Lit2Go and Podiobooks, have free audio versions of books that you can download to your MP3 player and take them wherever you go. For those that take the bus or have to wait in long lines but don't necessarily want to whip out a book, these could be a viable alternative.
Another great use for podcasts is for fun extras. Some TV shows have the writers blogging, which is great, but others take it a step further with podcasts for each episode where those involved in making a show will talk about certain aspects of that episode, including trivia, though processes, and more. One show that did that is Battlestar Galactica; while it's over now, fans can still listen to these podcasts.
I can see my library creating audio help files as podcasts, but I think I prefer video tutorials to audio-only, and I'm not sure if I will take steps to implement podcasting here.
A former colleague of mine at USF, Drew Smith, is one of the Genealogy Guys, who have a weekly podcast. They're up to number 167, and they are the "oldest regularly produced genealogy podcast in the world"! Drew is also the Library Guy, of Library Guy & Library Gal, where they discuss using the library's resources.
Books are another medium that can benefit from podcasting and audio. Two sites, Lit2Go and Podiobooks, have free audio versions of books that you can download to your MP3 player and take them wherever you go. For those that take the bus or have to wait in long lines but don't necessarily want to whip out a book, these could be a viable alternative.
Another great use for podcasts is for fun extras. Some TV shows have the writers blogging, which is great, but others take it a step further with podcasts for each episode where those involved in making a show will talk about certain aspects of that episode, including trivia, though processes, and more. One show that did that is Battlestar Galactica; while it's over now, fans can still listen to these podcasts.
I can see my library creating audio help files as podcasts, but I think I prefer video tutorials to audio-only, and I'm not sure if I will take steps to implement podcasting here.
#16: YouTube
I think YouTube is a fantastic resource that is often disparaged. Teachers and educators often don't think about what it can really be used for. It's not just pirated music and goofy antics. There is a real treasure trove of informational tutorials, public domain documentaries, and educational resources from highly respectable institutions.
For instance, USF Libraries has done a lot of work with their YouTube channel, with more than 137 videos uploaded. They have lectures, oral histories, interviews, and tutorials, and they are quite good at uploading regularly (as of today, the latest update was only five days ago). There are many educational institutions available also; check out YouTube Edu for the list. Who else is on YouTube? Here are a few heavy-hitters:
For instance, USF Libraries has done a lot of work with their YouTube channel, with more than 137 videos uploaded. They have lectures, oral histories, interviews, and tutorials, and they are quite good at uploading regularly (as of today, the latest update was only five days ago). There are many educational institutions available also; check out YouTube Edu for the list. Who else is on YouTube? Here are a few heavy-hitters:
- The Associated Press
- CBS
- Florida State Emergency Response Team
- NASA
- The Nobel Prize
- U.S. Senate
- U.S. House of Representatives
- White House
For one of my library science classes, I had to pick a video on YouTube and design a lesson around it. I picked a short video about the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and paired it with a picture book and a very short book of the disaster and its effects (Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes) and some copies of the newspaper stories on the bomb, from ProQuest Historical. Then I posed the question about whether this was an acceptable solution to end the war, and if the cost of human lives was worth it. The lesson has the potential to provoke discussion, especially by bringing the event to life, instead of drearily reading about it in a textbook. I can certainly see using these videos in many fields. For chemistry and science classes, find the video showing the reaction between Mento's and Diet Coke and discuss the scientific reason for that violent explosion. For a business class, find videos of classic television ads and discuss how advertising has changed in the past 50 years. History is very self-explanatory, but in a similar vein to the television ads, why not look at political advertisements, such as the famous "Daisy Girl" ad from Lyndon B. Johnson? The sky's the limit! For those that wish to limit to somewhat educational and safe videos, YouTube has a K12 Education area. You can also zip on over to TeacherTube.
I much prefer YouTube to other video sites, because it's the 'main' site, and the breadth and depth is much larger than others. But when it comes to watching TV shows, Hulu can't be beat. They have full-length TV shows from Fox, NBC, and Comedy Central (plus some others), and also a selection of full-length movies. The quality is fantastic (much better than YouTube), and the fact that you don't have to download a special video player to view (like other channels
Very fun! Now, this isn't from YouTube, but we use this video in our online LIS courses to illustrate how Wikipedia has its pitfalls. This is from The Colbert Report, way back in 2006, and it really gets the point across.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Word - Wikiality | ||||
| ||||
Now, here's a fun Sesame Street video that I love to watch. Enjoy!
#15: Rollyo
I've heard of Rollyo but never thought about using it before. To create a new Rollyo, I decided to create something that would search websites specializing in information about countries, as that is a very popular topic. I raided my CountryInformation tag on delicious, and here is the finished product:
I think this is a neat little tool that can really help save some time, especially for reference. I can envision creating multiple ready reference search boxes and having it readily available while at the reference desk. I can also see using it in classes, creating some resources for students doing research on a certain topic. I might consider using this in the future. I love the e-books search, btw!
I think this is a neat little tool that can really help save some time, especially for reference. I can envision creating multiple ready reference search boxes and having it readily available while at the reference desk. I can also see using it in classes, creating some resources for students doing research on a certain topic. I might consider using this in the future. I love the e-books search, btw!
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
#14: Online Productivity Tools
Since I am in love with all things Google, I quite naturally have chosen iGoogle as my start page. I like it okay, but I don't really use it all that often. I have enough Firefox extensions and multiple home pages that every time I open a browser I know pretty much all of this information. I have an extension that alerts me to new Gmail messages, for instance, and one that gives me the weather. I think it's a fun page, but ultimately, not that useful for me.
Now the online calendars, however, are essential for me. I use Google Calendar, and I use it keep track of the different spheres of my life. Google allows you to have multiple calendars in one, so I have one for work, one for appointments, one for bills, etc. I use the one for work and I embed it on my work website so that my online students can see where I am when they are setting up appointments. For a while, my library used Google Calendar to keep track of our leave, study room reservations, and instruction sessions. Now that my institution has switched to Outlook, we are expected to use that calendar instead. But since I have an attachment to Google, I have downloaded a program that syncs my Outlook and Google Calendar to each other. Now I can use Google, but my colleagues can still see my schedule on Outlook--best of both worlds!
I've tinkered around with to-do lists, but I just haven't fully committed. I find myself forgetting they exist, and not checking them for a while. Remember the Milk integrates with Google now, but I still haven't bothered to do anything with it. I suppose this will be one productivity tool that won't be helping my productivity!
What else? We use CutePDF at work all the time. It's great for saving websites without getting all the graphics etc., messed up. I do love Lifehacker--it's a fantastic website for tips and it's in my Google Reader.
Now the online calendars, however, are essential for me. I use Google Calendar, and I use it keep track of the different spheres of my life. Google allows you to have multiple calendars in one, so I have one for work, one for appointments, one for bills, etc. I use the one for work and I embed it on my work website so that my online students can see where I am when they are setting up appointments. For a while, my library used Google Calendar to keep track of our leave, study room reservations, and instruction sessions. Now that my institution has switched to Outlook, we are expected to use that calendar instead. But since I have an attachment to Google, I have downloaded a program that syncs my Outlook and Google Calendar to each other. Now I can use Google, but my colleagues can still see my schedule on Outlook--best of both worlds!
I've tinkered around with to-do lists, but I just haven't fully committed. I find myself forgetting they exist, and not checking them for a while. Remember the Milk integrates with Google now, but I still haven't bothered to do anything with it. I suppose this will be one productivity tool that won't be helping my productivity!
What else? We use CutePDF at work all the time. It's great for saving websites without getting all the graphics etc., messed up. I do love Lifehacker--it's a fantastic website for tips and it's in my Google Reader.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
#13: LibraryThing
I've touched upon how awesome LibraryThing for Libraries is in Thing #10 (Tagging), but I haven't really spoken to how it can be used outside of the OPAC.
I really like the ability to create dynamic book lists, tied together by tags if needed, where the contents may be ever-changing. Being able to embed the widget on a website is fantastic, although I do admit there still needs to be a lot of work on getting those widgets more customizable.
I had started to play around with LibraryThing while I was at USF, but I was never able to fully implement it as I wanted to.
Check out my bibliography here, but make sure to use the suggested viewing style. (Click the use it link up top). This will show you all the fields I decided to use. This is mainly children's literature, as I was taking assignments from a prolific children's literature class and finding appropriate items in the university's library (for example, one assignment called for them finding animal fantasy books; I tagged those items with Animal Fantasy.) I was able to link directly to the library's catalog so that students can see with one click whether the items are checked in or not (a big problem when numerous students swarm the library for these books). I was also trying to identify major awards winners (like the Newbery and Caldecott). Including summaries and page counts were to help the students be able to pick something interesting and appropriate.
Here's a sampling of what is in the bibliography:
I really like the ability to create dynamic book lists, tied together by tags if needed, where the contents may be ever-changing. Being able to embed the widget on a website is fantastic, although I do admit there still needs to be a lot of work on getting those widgets more customizable.
I had started to play around with LibraryThing while I was at USF, but I was never able to fully implement it as I wanted to.
Check out my bibliography here, but make sure to use the suggested viewing style. (Click the use it link up top). This will show you all the fields I decided to use. This is mainly children's literature, as I was taking assignments from a prolific children's literature class and finding appropriate items in the university's library (for example, one assignment called for them finding animal fantasy books; I tagged those items with Animal Fantasy.) I was able to link directly to the library's catalog so that students can see with one click whether the items are checked in or not (a big problem when numerous students swarm the library for these books). I was also trying to identify major awards winners (like the Newbery and Caldecott). Including summaries and page counts were to help the students be able to pick something interesting and appropriate.
Here's a sampling of what is in the bibliography:
I have my own personal library in LibraryThing, but I only add books that I actually own. For keeping track of my reading, I use GoodReads. I prefer to keep the two separate, just for my own personal reasons. I also contribute to LibraryThing's Common Knowledge; I love to add series and to make sure works are combined properly. They have a little system of rewarding you as you contribute more called Helper Badges, and I'm proud to have a gold star for Helper and Common Knowledge and a Bronze for Work Combination. Here's my proof!
As you can see, I've been busy--more than 650 edits! But what can I say, it's the librarian in me! :) I've even added my library as a venue and claimed it--but for privacy's sake, I won't be linking to it from here.
#12: Wikis
Wikis can provide a great platform for sharing items that are dynamic and every-changing. This includes book reviews, library resources, lists, etc., Whereas websites have to be updated and then uploaded, changes to the wiki are easy to do and instantly published. Even blogs don't offer that type of flexibility.
I have my own wiki, one that I don't update quite as often as I'd like to. It's found at http://librarytwopointoh.pbwiki.com/, and it focuses on examples of libraries using 2.0 technologies and next-generation OPACs. I was finding all sorts of great examples, but I had nowhere to store them for later referral. This wiki is by no means comprehensive, and it still needs a lot of work, but it's a great start and I think it's a good repository of information for those wishing to see some examples of other libraries.
I used a wiki with my coursework also. While in library school and taking a business resources class, I was put into a group and we were assigned a project developing a business plan for a business we would create. There were many components of the assignment, and we decided to work on it within a wiki. This allowed us to post our work, edit collaboratively (always being able to see what was changed), and communicate effectively. We were able to get our work done much quicker than some other groups, especially considering that the class was a hybrid class, mostly online with only a few face-to-face meetings. While we were lucky in that three of the four group members worked in the campus library and could meet, other groups did not fare so well in a commuter school.
The most famous wiki, obviously, is Wikipedia, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I use it quite often. While everything has to be taken with a grain of salt, it's a great jumping off point for very broad topics. For example, a student tonight came in asking about the World Cup (I am at a community college). She needed some very basic information about when it started, and specifically about Italy's involvement. We only had three books that even touched on the World Cup (note to self: buy a few more!) and didn't have a soccer encyclopedia (definitely must buy!). The databases were finding more of the news stories, which was helpful but not exactly what she needed. Even the World Cup website was a little difficult to navigate and required some roundabout searching to get the information she required. Wikipedia, on the other hand, has a great summary of the history of the tournament, up-to-date information about winners and current standings, and, most importantly enough, links. This is what I always show students when I do show them Wikipedia--that most of the time, sources are cited. The Notes and References area has some great stuff, along with the External Links. I've even had to use this roundabout method with those really tough reference question assignments from library school where Google just isn't showing you what you need.
If Wikipedia is too risky for you, there are plenty of wikis popping up that try to limit authors to highly selective individuals with specific credentials. Of course, this means that the scope can never even attempt to reach the behemoth of Wikipedia, but you're more assured of quality and reliability. Interestingly enough, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, long the ruler of the encylopedia world, is now taking a page from Wikipedia's 'book' and are allowing users to directly edit entries.
Here are some wikis I have bookmarked that may be of interest:
I have my own wiki, one that I don't update quite as often as I'd like to. It's found at http://librarytwopointoh.pbwiki.com/, and it focuses on examples of libraries using 2.0 technologies and next-generation OPACs. I was finding all sorts of great examples, but I had nowhere to store them for later referral. This wiki is by no means comprehensive, and it still needs a lot of work, but it's a great start and I think it's a good repository of information for those wishing to see some examples of other libraries.
I used a wiki with my coursework also. While in library school and taking a business resources class, I was put into a group and we were assigned a project developing a business plan for a business we would create. There were many components of the assignment, and we decided to work on it within a wiki. This allowed us to post our work, edit collaboratively (always being able to see what was changed), and communicate effectively. We were able to get our work done much quicker than some other groups, especially considering that the class was a hybrid class, mostly online with only a few face-to-face meetings. While we were lucky in that three of the four group members worked in the campus library and could meet, other groups did not fare so well in a commuter school.
The most famous wiki, obviously, is Wikipedia, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I use it quite often. While everything has to be taken with a grain of salt, it's a great jumping off point for very broad topics. For example, a student tonight came in asking about the World Cup (I am at a community college). She needed some very basic information about when it started, and specifically about Italy's involvement. We only had three books that even touched on the World Cup (note to self: buy a few more!) and didn't have a soccer encyclopedia (definitely must buy!). The databases were finding more of the news stories, which was helpful but not exactly what she needed. Even the World Cup website was a little difficult to navigate and required some roundabout searching to get the information she required. Wikipedia, on the other hand, has a great summary of the history of the tournament, up-to-date information about winners and current standings, and, most importantly enough, links. This is what I always show students when I do show them Wikipedia--that most of the time, sources are cited. The Notes and References area has some great stuff, along with the External Links. I've even had to use this roundabout method with those really tough reference question assignments from library school where Google just isn't showing you what you need.
If Wikipedia is too risky for you, there are plenty of wikis popping up that try to limit authors to highly selective individuals with specific credentials. Of course, this means that the scope can never even attempt to reach the behemoth of Wikipedia, but you're more assured of quality and reliability. Interestingly enough, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, long the ruler of the encylopedia world, is now taking a page from Wikipedia's 'book' and are allowing users to directly edit entries.
Here are some wikis I have bookmarked that may be of interest:
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
#11: Social Media
The concept of social media fascinates me. While I don't usually use it myself, I can definitely see the appeal. With millions and millions of pages, it can be difficult to ferret out the 'best of the best' in the ever changing world of online news. These sites offer a way to explore sites and stories recommended by others. I think it can be a fascinating discovery tool, but it's much like a garage sale--there's a lot of junk to be waded through before you find that hidden treasure. I find most of the sites to be quite overwhelming (and this is from someone who has 100+ feeds in their Google Reader and goes through 500+ postings a day!). I find that I would rather let the bloggers do that culling for me, and then read what they post about it. I try to be very select with my blogs, and they have to 'prove' themselves before I commit.
I can see using these sites with an alert system, to help you focus in only on items matching a specific criteria. I do the same with Craigslist and Google News alert, and it can be nice to have that information come to you. But on a whole, I am just not too enthused about social media for my personal use.
Here are my comments on each of these four social media sites:
*MIXX: Way too overwhelming, with no easy starting point and less categorization. I would never use this site.
*DIGG: I liked this much better. The categories up top give me something to focus on based on my interests, and the homepage is much cleaner and less overwhelming. The RSS option is good, and something I might consider. I didn't quite like that the default for search results is 'best match' first; I ended up getting items that were a year, two years, or more old. I didn't really understand what an 'upcoming' story was either, because those results were all quite old too. I also found that the search results, even when limited to newer first, were still quite old (the newest was 19 days ago, the second was 83 days!). I was indifferent to this site.
*NEWSVINE: This site was a lot better spread out than others, with the 'nuggets' helping the eye separate out different categories. Categories were given up top and RSS was an option. The search results for these didn't give me a lot of information (how old is it? what source did it come from? what category is it in?) and I really didn't like that.
*REDDIT: First off, I love the little Reddit guy. Adorable! However, the site requires quite a bit of deciphering, and isn't very clear to a newbie. Things were a little confusing in search results, and the text-heavy site makes it difficult to wade through everything.
I can see using these sites with an alert system, to help you focus in only on items matching a specific criteria. I do the same with Craigslist and Google News alert, and it can be nice to have that information come to you. But on a whole, I am just not too enthused about social media for my personal use.
Here are my comments on each of these four social media sites:
*MIXX: Way too overwhelming, with no easy starting point and less categorization. I would never use this site.
*DIGG: I liked this much better. The categories up top give me something to focus on based on my interests, and the homepage is much cleaner and less overwhelming. The RSS option is good, and something I might consider. I didn't quite like that the default for search results is 'best match' first; I ended up getting items that were a year, two years, or more old. I didn't really understand what an 'upcoming' story was either, because those results were all quite old too. I also found that the search results, even when limited to newer first, were still quite old (the newest was 19 days ago, the second was 83 days!). I was indifferent to this site.
*NEWSVINE: This site was a lot better spread out than others, with the 'nuggets' helping the eye separate out different categories. Categories were given up top and RSS was an option. The search results for these didn't give me a lot of information (how old is it? what source did it come from? what category is it in?) and I really didn't like that.
*REDDIT: First off, I love the little Reddit guy. Adorable! However, the site requires quite a bit of deciphering, and isn't very clear to a newbie. Things were a little confusing in search results, and the text-heavy site makes it difficult to wade through everything.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
#10: Tagging and Delicious
I love tagging, and I can see some wonderful potential for it within libraries. While controlled vocabulary (taxonomies) work in order to get precise information, I think they should work in tandem with tagging (folksonomies), especially within the OPAC. When users are in the OPAC, they don't necessarily know that to find books on World War II, they need to search "World War, 1939-1945" (even I have to look that up!). In addition, not all books have as precise subject headings as they can, especially fiction where many times the subject headings are dry and don't describe the contents at all. For instance, let's look at Shakespeare's classic Romeo and Juliet. One of the newer records in Santa Fe's system includes the following subject headings:
16th century, adult, british, british literature, classics, death, drama, family, literature, love, plays, Romance, shakespeare, suicide, theatre, tragedies
These tags show a little bit more, especially the romance angle. I think a system where subject headings work in tandem with user-supplied tags has the best potential to maximize users' results. We can get the precise results, or we can see how users define a book--after all, users are our target audience.
While allows users to add tags to books in the catalog is great, there are some downfalls. What if no one adds any? And what if certain users like to use profanity or inappropriate tags? LibraryThing has a way of adding their tags into library OPACs; called LibraryThing for Libraries, I think it's a great way to get edited tags displayed within the OPAC.
You can really see the contrast in this catalog record from Bowdoin College for The Da Vinci Code. The given subject headings (Leonardo, da Vinci, 1452-1519 -- Fiction; Grail -- Fiction; Cryptographers -- Fiction) do not adequately describe the book like the tags do (adventure art Catholic Church Catholicism Christianity conspiracy crime Da Vinci Dan Brown France grail historical fiction history Jesus Leonardo da Vinci Mary Magdalene mystery Opus Dei Paris religion Robert Langdon secret societies suspense Templars thriller).
Other systems allowing tagging within the OPAC include:
- Romeo (Fictitious character) -- Drama
- Juliet (Fictitious character) -- Drama
- Conflict of generations -- Drama
- Verona (Italy) -- Drama
- Vendetta -- Drama
- Youth -- Drama
- Tragedies.
16th century, adult, british, british literature, classics, death, drama, family, literature, love, plays, Romance, shakespeare, suicide, theatre, tragedies
These tags show a little bit more, especially the romance angle. I think a system where subject headings work in tandem with user-supplied tags has the best potential to maximize users' results. We can get the precise results, or we can see how users define a book--after all, users are our target audience.
While allows users to add tags to books in the catalog is great, there are some downfalls. What if no one adds any? And what if certain users like to use profanity or inappropriate tags? LibraryThing has a way of adding their tags into library OPACs; called LibraryThing for Libraries, I think it's a great way to get edited tags displayed within the OPAC.
You can really see the contrast in this catalog record from Bowdoin College for The Da Vinci Code. The given subject headings (Leonardo, da Vinci, 1452-1519 -- Fiction; Grail -- Fiction; Cryptographers -- Fiction) do not adequately describe the book like the tags do (adventure art Catholic Church Catholicism Christianity conspiracy crime Da Vinci Dan Brown France grail historical fiction history Jesus Leonardo da Vinci Mary Magdalene mystery Opus Dei Paris religion Robert Langdon secret societies suspense Templars thriller).
Other systems allowing tagging within the OPAC include:
- Drupal (ex: Miami University - tag cloud)
- Primo (ex: Boston College - tag page)
- VuFind (ex: George Mason University - record)
- SOPAC (ex: Ann Arbor District Library - tag cloud)
- PennTags from the University of Pennsylvania
Now on to one of my absolute favorite tools, Delicious. I've been using this tool since it was the slightly hard to remember del.icio.us--now I'm quite glad it's the easier to remember delicious.com. I have over 3500 items tagged, and these items are all to help me and students when doing research. Unfortunately I only use it informally--there is no promotion or links to this. However, when I have someone come up and ask for information on a country, I go to my CountryInformation tag to show them good websites (after looking up books, of course!). I can also thread two of my tags together to create a type of Boolean tag search, for instance, http://delicious.com/djmatth2/Health+Statistics will give my sites that are tagged both Health and Statistics. I have bundled tags together to try to keep them straight (under my Art/Music bundle, for instance, are the following tags: Architecture, Art, Clothing/Fashion, Dance, Music, Photography, and SheetMusic).
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
#9: Sharing - slides, photos, databases
I love the ability to create and embed dynamic information. PowerPoint is ubiquitous, and great for self-paced tutorials, so I can see some real promise in using SlideShare. For an LIS class, I had to create a database tutorial. I created a PowerPoint for the Alexander Street Press database "Women and Social Movements in the United States." This is not a database that follows the 'rules' of others; you aren't searching journals, you're searching primary documents. So I felt there was a need for a tutorial on this. I had uploaded it while working at USF, and embedded below is the presentation.
The only problem with SlideShare is that sometimes things don't shrink the way you planned. The spacing on the embedded slideshow is not the same as in the original PowerPoint show. SlideShare says it's been viewed 540 times, which is quite a lot, and a related show is "Hottest Women Alive," which is quite amusing.
Since PowerPoints take minimal time to create, I can see using SlideShare to disseminate tutorials on library services and resources. I think the more ways information can be received, the more likely it is students will receive it. Embed it, make it pretty, automate it--students should stumble upon something somewhere. Also, a common theme in these Web 2.0 technologies is participation and interactivity. These dynamic resources make students feel more like we "get" them--and in an age where librarians are still stereotyped with buns and glasses, getting on students' level is not only a good PR move, it's almost a necessity for libraries to survive.
Friday, February 6, 2009
#8: Web 2.0 Communication
Virtual communication is something that I am well-versed with. Being a young librarian, I grew up being 'plugged in.' In 8th grade I finally convinced my parents to let me have my own AIM screen name and after that I couldn't be torn away from IM and chat rooms. Now, however, I've let my AIM fall by the wayside; I haven't used it for 3 years, since I graduated from college. My preferable chat now is GTalk, tied in with my Gmail (what can I say, I love Google!). However, I only really chat with a few friends, which is much different than when I was in high school and chatting with anyone who would chat back.
(the little bomb is because my Firefox is currently themed in a Super Mario theme--it's the close button)
Our library participates in the statewide Ask-a-Librarian chat service, and I staff that regularly. We have a local desk so that Santa Fe students can talk to Santa Fe librarians first, if possible. However, I don't see much use of this resource. I'm not sure if it's because of a lack of marketing, or if it's because this particular service isn't really intuitive or familiar to students. At USF, we had a brief experiment using Meebo for chat; we embedded the chat widget in the page, and we saw our statistics skyrocket. We had to stop after our trial period, however, because there were some lacks in the platform that needed to be addressed, including having multiple librarians logged on and statistics. Unfortunately the chat software we reverted to, RightNow, requires launching an unfamiliar looking interface, which really turns some patrons off. I have a Meebo widget embedded one of my professional pages, but it hasn't gotten any hits, mainly because it's a little off the beaten path.
I'd like to see about promoting this service more to our students, because I think it's a really great service that would be ideal for those who aren't on campus (we have multiple centers in other towns) or who just have a quick question.
E-mail is very near and dear to me; I check it almost obsessively! I have multiple e-mail addresses (Gmail, Hotmail, two old school addresses, and my work address). I tie my school addresses to Gmail, but unfortunately I can't link my Hotmail so easily. I have a Firefox extension called Webmail Notifier to let me know of new messages, and a Greasemonkey script that shows the number of unread Gmail messages in the favicon of my Gmail.
(the little bomb is because my Firefox is currently themed in a Super Mario theme--it's the close button)
I have noticed, however, that e-mail is not used as much at my current library as it was in my previous one. In my old library, there were so many distribution lists - the whole library, the whole library system (including other campuses), the reference department, the graduate assistants, the reference graduate assistants, etc., Things were sent out every five minutes it seems. I am very used to sending out interesting articles, updates on situations, questions--even pleas for help, if I was at the reference desk with a huge line! Someone would usually respond to the message by coming out to help. It's a great way to reach a large number of people or an entire department and get opinions and information when they are ready to respond. One does have to be careful, however, since e-mail is archivable and is apparently free game for information requests. I reserve my personal e-mails strictly to my Gmail account to avoid problems.
Texting is something that I don't really participate in. My phone doesn't really like receiving texts and I can't send them at all. I can probably see about changing my plan, but I just haven't bothered. My brother is a huge texter, however, and I can see its usefulness. I was really struck how handy it can be during the reports of the terrorist attack in Mumbai this past Thanksgiving. Many of the survivors talked about texting the embassies and authorities and getting information from family and friends by text. Because they had to be silent while the terrorists were in the building, they couldn't simply talk on their cell phones--they needed to text. Additionally, many universities and colleges now have texting alert systems for when an incident occurs on-campus, to let students know what places are safe and keep those off-campus from coming into a dangerous situation.
While texting in the library probably won't save lives, it can be quite handy. One feature that I absolutely love in the OPAC is the ability to text call numbers. At USF, students would arrive with their cell phones, brandish a text with a call number at us and ask where it was. This new feature is starting to show up more and more frequently (see one example here). I would love to make this available in my current library.
A few thoughts on Twitter. As much as I love e-mail and chatting, I simply could never get into Twitter. It reminds me of the status updates when they were added to Facebook. I thought they were a stalker's dream (Diana is sleeping; Diana is at class; Diana is alone in her apartment with the door unlocked) and I rebelled against them. I will now use them occasionally, but for the most part it stays empty. I do have a Twitter account, but my Tweets are few and far between (6 months ago!). I know it can be incredibly helpful and informative. For instance, Barack Obama used it quite effectively during his campaign, and many companies (including Bank of America, Comcast [which monitors but doesn't post], Virgin America, and Jet Blue) use it to promote deals and for customer service. There are also some really great API sites tracking specific Tweets, like the now defunct Politweets which tracked mention of the Republican and Democrat candidates through the primaries and presidential election. You can also track breaking news and Tweets on a specific topic, like the crash landing of the airplane in the Hudson River. I think I see Twittering more as a source for information that I peruse but don't contribute to (is that wrong or selfish of me?).
And finally web conferencing. I've had the opportunity to participate in a web conference for one of my LIS classes, involving lecture and discussion, and while I liked the format, I wasn't huge on talking. I much preferred typing in the chat box. I've also attended 3 different webinars since becoming a librarian (2 from NEFLIN!), and I do like that format. There's enough visual and audio interaction to keep it interesting, and while I prefer the face-to-face interaction, I definitely think it's better than nothing if travelling is out of the question. I think it would a huge boon to those serving on statewide committees and working with colleagues from other institutions, especially with travel so tight in these times of budget woes.
And finally web conferencing. I've had the opportunity to participate in a web conference for one of my LIS classes, involving lecture and discussion, and while I liked the format, I wasn't huge on talking. I much preferred typing in the chat box. I've also attended 3 different webinars since becoming a librarian (2 from NEFLIN!), and I do like that format. There's enough visual and audio interaction to keep it interesting, and while I prefer the face-to-face interaction, I definitely think it's better than nothing if travelling is out of the question. I think it would a huge boon to those serving on statewide committees and working with colleagues from other institutions, especially with travel so tight in these times of budget woes.
Whoo, that was a lot of writing! Hope my random readers enjoyed! I still hate fighting with Blogger every step of the way, BTW. I've just had to edit this post three times because it keeps taking out my spacing between paragraphs randomly.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
#7: Online Image Generators
This much the same vein as the Flickr Mashups, but more specific. I've actually used generators before, and I subscribe to the generator blog in Google Reader already. I created wanted posters featuring items of food for a food drive and put those up in our library. The librarian trading cards are quite simply awesome; I had seen last year's, but this was the first time I saw the newest batch. I love them because they really connect with users, and they present librarians as both superheroes (knowing everything! researching at the speed of light!) and very human, with a wonderful sense of humor. I've always been quite jealous of these cards :)
I think I love generators so much because I am not that adept at Photoshop (considering its expense, I've barely been able to look at it at all!). I've downloaded GIMP, the open-source alternative, but I still need some sort of instruction because I find it too confusing.
Let's see what I can make!
My Medieval Name: ALEMANDRINA CAMELOT (link)
My Hip-Hop Name: PHATTY McBLING (link)
My Personalized Shakespeare Insult: Thou currish crook-pated clack-dish! (link)
My Soundbadge:
I think I love generators so much because I am not that adept at Photoshop (considering its expense, I've barely been able to look at it at all!). I've downloaded GIMP, the open-source alternative, but I still need some sort of instruction because I find it too confusing.
Let's see what I can make!
My Medieval Name: ALEMANDRINA CAMELOT (link)
My Hip-Hop Name: PHATTY McBLING (link)
My Personalized Shakespeare Insult: Thou currish crook-pated clack-dish! (link)
My Celebrity Baby Name: Hendrix Clara (link)
My Gangsta Name: FOXXY STEEZ (link)
My Soundbadge:
And of course, my absolutely favorite generator, Wordle. This is a tag cloud, which you can generate from a block of text (like a song!) or an entire blog which parses out keywords and makes the most frequently-used ones bigger.
#6: Flickr Mashups
Building on Flickr, these mashups are quite fun to play around with. Sometimes we need cool graphics for library promotion, signs, etc., These mashups could make posters etc., infinitely more interesting. Beyond an aesthetic look and the fact they are just plain fun, however, I must confess that I'm not creative to think of more ways to implement them. Enough talking, however--let's look at what I made!
P.S. Can I mention that even though it's free, and I'm grateful for that, Blogger is driving me nuts! I'm a constantly fighting with it for layout, every time I try to insert a pictures it doesn't matter where the cursor is, it's going right at the top, and the spacing is messed up. Not fun. I've had to go into the HTML editor just to fix some major problems.
Monday, February 2, 2009
#5: Flickr
Flickr is a wonderful tool for finding pictures and new and interesting groups. I haven't had much luck with using it personally however. I originally used Yahoo Photos, but when it shut down, I was transferred to Flickr. It was great for a while, as I got a premium membership for free, but after a few months it expired, and I was downgraded. Now I can only show 200 photos (and only the last 200 I uploaded, not 200 of my choice) and the rest of my pictures are basically being held hostage until I pay to re-up my membership. I have no desire to pay, so I'm stuck in limbo. Instead, I've been exploring Picasa, one of Google's many applications, and I've liked what I've seen. I also have quite a few pictures on Facebook. I keep my personal photos private for the most part. Facebook doesn't let you keep things completely private, so I try to avoid posting pictures that I don't want out there, and I never post pictures of my family. To view a fun Picasa album of mine with past yearbook photos generated from a website, visit here. Some of them are definitely better than others! I think so far I prefer Picasa because there is a desktop application as well as a web application, and this allows you to automatically find pictures to upload. There's also no need to create a new log-in--if you have a Google log-in, you're fine!
While I was at USF, I created a Flickr account for their library, and uploaded some pictures of book displays. I absolutely love the Clemens note features for book displays and I can see some real potential there. Unfortunately, not much else was done with this account. I'd love to be able to get some great pictures uploaded to promote my library, with a mixture of displays, events, everyday 'library-ing' and our READ posters.
Flickr is a veritable treasure trove of information. Here are some groups and albums that I find especially interesting:
- Free Use Photos
- Library Cards
- Librarians' Desks
- HDR (High Dynamic Range Imaging photos - breathtaking!)
- [citation needed]
- Sleeveface pool
A lot of highly respectable institutions have joined Flickr and uploaded public domain images from their special collections. Here are a few:
- The Library of Congress
- Boston Public Library
- Biblioteca de Arte-Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
- Bibliothèque de Toulouse
- George Eastman House
- The Smithsonian Institute
- American Libraries
Here is one picture from the HDR pool that is just amazing to look at. It was taken by Dave Zombie and posted Feb. 2, 2009.
Friday, January 30, 2009
#4: RSS and Newsreaders
RSS and RSS readers/aggregators are one of my favorite (somewhat) recent discoveries. When I was still the editor of my library's newsletter, I had about 20 library sites that I mined for information, in order to populate the newsletter with interesting tidbits and news from the library world in general. I grew tired of continuously checking them all, and someone told me about Google Reader. I immediately set one up and never looked back. It's been almost 2 years, and I currently subscribe to 189 blogs or sites (!). I really need to go through and "weed" some of these...
Because I love having information at my fingertips, my Google Reader has been a real lifesaver. I use it to keep track of news, sports (football only), issues in higher education, my friends' blogs, and of course library blogs. I have folders set up to group similar blogs together. Following so many blogs, even with an aggregator, can be a little overwhelming. I probably have more than 1000 new items on any given day. I have perfected the art of quick glances at posts to see what truly interests me; these I open in a new tab in Firefox and continue browsing. Once I've gone through a folder, I then read what I've opened. I probably fully read less than half of what comes through my reader. But that's okay--otherwise I would be completely overwhelmed.
With so much to go through, I've perfected the art of the keyboard shortcuts in Google Reader. "S" puts a star on posts to save for later, "J" skips to the next item within the folder, "K" goes back, "T" will let you add tags to categorize posts to be saved, and the spacebar serves as a page down, and also lets you navigate to the next folder's items when you're at the end of a folder. To open up the items I want in a new tab, I click with the scroll wheel of my mouse (that middle button that lets you scroll up or down; usually you can click with that). That scroll click will open links in a new tab anywhere in Firefox or Internet Explorer, not just in Google Reader, btw.
I've explored a little with Bloglines, but I didn't find it nearly as easy to use as Google Reader, and since I already use Gmail and Google Calendar along with other products, I find Google Reader is more integrated. I particularly like the fact that I can click the 'e-mail' button and send a post I like to friends or coworkers from my Gmail account with little fuss. I can also share items; to view items I have shared, visit this link: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/13417720717977932956
So what are some of my top blogs I subscribe to? I'm glad you asked, theoretical reader. Here are some faves, in no particular order:
Because I love having information at my fingertips, my Google Reader has been a real lifesaver. I use it to keep track of news, sports (football only), issues in higher education, my friends' blogs, and of course library blogs. I have folders set up to group similar blogs together. Following so many blogs, even with an aggregator, can be a little overwhelming. I probably have more than 1000 new items on any given day. I have perfected the art of quick glances at posts to see what truly interests me; these I open in a new tab in Firefox and continue browsing. Once I've gone through a folder, I then read what I've opened. I probably fully read less than half of what comes through my reader. But that's okay--otherwise I would be completely overwhelmed.
With so much to go through, I've perfected the art of the keyboard shortcuts in Google Reader. "S" puts a star on posts to save for later, "J" skips to the next item within the folder, "K" goes back, "T" will let you add tags to categorize posts to be saved, and the spacebar serves as a page down, and also lets you navigate to the next folder's items when you're at the end of a folder. To open up the items I want in a new tab, I click with the scroll wheel of my mouse (that middle button that lets you scroll up or down; usually you can click with that). That scroll click will open links in a new tab anywhere in Firefox or Internet Explorer, not just in Google Reader, btw.
I've explored a little with Bloglines, but I didn't find it nearly as easy to use as Google Reader, and since I already use Gmail and Google Calendar along with other products, I find Google Reader is more integrated. I particularly like the fact that I can click the 'e-mail' button and send a post I like to friends or coworkers from my Gmail account with little fuss. I can also share items; to view items I have shared, visit this link: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/13417720717977932956
So what are some of my top blogs I subscribe to? I'm glad you asked, theoretical reader. Here are some faves, in no particular order:
- Early Word - book blog, mentioned in Thing #3.
- Infodoodads - a neat technology blog with more of an information-seeking focus
- Of Zen and Computing - fantastic computer/Internet tips
- Consumerist - a consumer resource type blog; not necessarily too many resources, but they showcase customer complaints and provide tips for resolution
- Fail Blog - always good for a pick-me-up, this blog showcases people or situtations that have 'failed' in some form; this can get a little PG-13
- Not Always Right - dumb and funny customer exchanges; never fails to entertain
- iLibrarian - one of my top LIS blogs, it focuses more on technology and its applications to librarianship
- RSS4Lib - speaking of RSS...this blog focuses on "innovative ways libraries use RSS."
- Swiss Army Librarian - a blog from a public reference librarian, I particularly love his Reference Question of the Week, which hardly ever fails to provide me with a new resource
- The Kept-Up Academic Librarian - brings together important news in higher education; not necessarily directly related to libraries, but it helps us know what's going on in the higher education sphere as a whole
- What I Learned Today... - another one of my top LIS blogs, with a definite 2.0 angle
- Coffee Break Spanish - get a mini Spanish lesson in your RSS reader and brush up on (or get acquainted with) the language
- Mental Floss Blogs - a companion to the magazine, this blog always has tons of trivia, lists, and fun information
- White House - yes, the new administration is embracing technology and the White House now has an RSS feed! Keep up on press releases, news, and legislation President Obama has signed.
Obviously I have a lot more feeds I subscribe to, and I read most of the ones mentioned on NEFLIN's 23 Things blog, so I'm glad we're on the same page!
I've been thinking a lot about how I can use RSS in my library, not just for my own edification. One thing I really love is the fact that the state university's new Endeca catalog gives you the opportunity to create an RSS link for any search that you do. Want new books at UF? Check this link: http://uf.catalog.fcla.edu/uf.jsp?N=20+206535&S=D35J3E8UG3FCNFAEBBX94LR9C9SKE3ME9TFKCS4HXK7L5BDKYE&Ntk=Keyword&Nty=1
Want to find books about 2.0 in the Z call number range in the General Collection of Library West (UF) in a book format? Here's your link: http://uf.catalog.fcla.edu/uf.jsp?Ntt=2.0&CN=LC&N=1038+407218+206483&CNS=S&S=D35J3E8UG3FCNFAEBBX94LR9C9SKE3ME9TFKCS4HXK7L5BDKYE&Ntk=Keyword&Nty=1
I think that this has amazing potential for use with faculty members in particular. Send them a link to a specialized search in their subject field and they'll always know when new items are added. Or create a website that embeds that RSS feed if they don't want to bother with an aggregator. I only wish the community college system had some way to incorporate RSS feeds. For now, I think creating a new books blog might help, but Aleph is missing the boat here...
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