Sometimes I feel like my communications sound like Jack Handy (for those of you who do not remember - Deep Thoughts with Jack Handy was a Saturday Night Live skit).
I've really enjoyed participating in Learning Challenge 2.0. While I was behind for a portion of the challenge, I learned that you can make time to learn something(s) new. Essentially, I see the challenge as both fun and functional. The fun element is present in that there is an element of play and exploration. The functional element is present in that these are tools and skills we can use to not only connect with our users, but also increase the functionality of our existing tools and services to meet the user's information seeking behaviors.
When I came into this challenge I thought I knew a thing or two about web 2.0. What I really came to find out was that there is so much out there that I didn't have a clue about. I guess I had become stagnant with some of the neat 2.0 tools like last.fm and myspace, but the thing with web 2.0 is that you cannot remain stagnant. It is always changing and to keep up with this continual evolution, you have to be a lifelong learner and not let stagnation get the best of you :)
I really enjoyed the online image generator, rollyo, playing with a wiki, the online productivity tools and of course - librarything.
This has been a wonderful experience and if something similar was offered in the future I would definitely participate.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Ah - facebook. There are a couple of reasons why I like facebook. There is the networking potential with other library colleagues. Also from the people connection standpoint, this site has been great with finding friends from high school who I have not seen in ages. While I've been able to locate more people from my past and present on myspace, there is a gap in that some people sign up for either one social networking site versus another. Facebook has a wide range of applications that are really easy to add versus myspace which tends to be a little bit more difficult to add applications. In addition to the networking benefit of facebook in a workplace setting there is also the opportunity to find out more about your co-workers which is especially beneficial in a large library/company. People place pictures and descriptions of themselves on facebook and it allows you to peer into their personal world which is sometimes difficult in a real life work setting. Also, reading comments from other people about the individual also adds insight and often laughter.
As for a library being on facebook, it is definitely a way to make oneself visible to a demographic and that is generally college students. For an academic library especially, there holds potential in facebook. The question is with this visibility, what can a library post or display that would interest facebook/library users and keep them coming back? There are event feeds for NSU and perhaps this is one way we could utilize this visibility. Honestly though, if I see things that are not related to my friends, I often ignore them. This is just me and other people's information scanning habits are different, but one must wonder how can a library best market itself in this medium? This is my question to now ponder.
As for a library being on facebook, it is definitely a way to make oneself visible to a demographic and that is generally college students. For an academic library especially, there holds potential in facebook. The question is with this visibility, what can a library post or display that would interest facebook/library users and keep them coming back? There are event feeds for NSU and perhaps this is one way we could utilize this visibility. Honestly though, if I see things that are not related to my friends, I often ignore them. This is just me and other people's information scanning habits are different, but one must wonder how can a library best market itself in this medium? This is my question to now ponder.
Podcasts
I used Yahoo Podcasts and Podcastalley.com to locate a podcast. What I really disliked about the Yahoo Podcast site was that it kept defaulting to Online Music stores and you had to click another tab to get into the podcasts. I liked Podcastalley a bit better as you could pick a genre and then browse from there. I was able to locate "Grammar Girls Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing" which I had actually listened to awhile back on my ipod (podcast downloaded via iTunes). Really a great little podcast to brush on on grammar and it is funny too. This time I added the poscast to my bloglines account. Upon seeing the page with the XML script, I copied the address from the address bar and then pasted it into bloglines and selected search for feeds. It takes a few steps and i use to be completely baffled with the whole XML script page, but everything is much better now and i feel more comfortable with the technology. BTW the link is http://www.qdnow.com/grammar.xml
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
You Tube
This is one of my all time favorite youtube videos. I like YouTube. Sometimes finding interesting stuff in the featured browse is difficult and sometimes you run across some real cool stuff. The above video is fantastic and my favorite version of the "______ took a photo of themselves for ____ days" craze last year. It is long, but worth the watch. Libraries could use YouTube to put up tutorials or have an introductory video to the library.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
2.0 Award winners
Meebo.com
We all know that chatting is very popular and that people often have 2 or more chatting accounts. Meebo is a web-based version for chat accounts that will allow you to login into either one or all your accounts at one time. I remember the days of trillan and perhaps trillan is still around, but I just remember that AOL did not like to play with trillan and would always end up messing things up. Also, I remember that trillan was considered a no no by the companies who at that time had chat programs. Now it looks like it is quite supported. Meebo is very easy to use and is an alternative for those at the reference computers who insist on chatting. Since it is web-based nothing has to be downloaded and they can proceed. I've actually seen a meebo widget on a library web-page for library chat and this way you don't have to have an aol and yahoo account - one meebo account will suffice and you can chat with anyone and not be restriced by their chat service of origin.
Another award winner that I love and use with a great degree of frequency is last.fm. This site allows you to listen to music that you like! While I like the discovery of online radio stations, i can at times get fed up with the commercials or having to listen to music I detest while listen to stations that I generally like. On last.fm, you can choose a band and then listen to a station of similar artists. It makes recommendations and the best part is, if you don't like a song - you can skip it! Also, there are no commercials. If you sign up for one of their free accounts, the create a station for you based on your likes and dislikes. Like amazon suggesting books, but here -- you actually get to listen to the music in its entirety. To fine tune this you can express you like or dislike for songs as they play. I've actually discovered quite a few new artists - from strangely enough Sweden as of late. Its also a social network where you can share with your friends who also have accounts. I love it.
We all know that chatting is very popular and that people often have 2 or more chatting accounts. Meebo is a web-based version for chat accounts that will allow you to login into either one or all your accounts at one time. I remember the days of trillan and perhaps trillan is still around, but I just remember that AOL did not like to play with trillan and would always end up messing things up. Also, I remember that trillan was considered a no no by the companies who at that time had chat programs. Now it looks like it is quite supported. Meebo is very easy to use and is an alternative for those at the reference computers who insist on chatting. Since it is web-based nothing has to be downloaded and they can proceed. I've actually seen a meebo widget on a library web-page for library chat and this way you don't have to have an aol and yahoo account - one meebo account will suffice and you can chat with anyone and not be restriced by their chat service of origin.
Another award winner that I love and use with a great degree of frequency is last.fm. This site allows you to listen to music that you like! While I like the discovery of online radio stations, i can at times get fed up with the commercials or having to listen to music I detest while listen to stations that I generally like. On last.fm, you can choose a band and then listen to a station of similar artists. It makes recommendations and the best part is, if you don't like a song - you can skip it! Also, there are no commercials. If you sign up for one of their free accounts, the create a station for you based on your likes and dislikes. Like amazon suggesting books, but here -- you actually get to listen to the music in its entirety. To fine tune this you can express you like or dislike for songs as they play. I've actually discovered quite a few new artists - from strangely enough Sweden as of late. Its also a social network where you can share with your friends who also have accounts. I love it.
Zoho
Below is the text of my zoho writer experience. I had problems posting it to my blog and also exporting it into HTML. I will play with those at a later time, but here are my thoughts as recorded in ZOHO.
While signing up for my zoho writer account I remembered a blog post I had seen awhile back where the writer suggested that one could use the human input in the secret anti-spam code to confirm ocr text from scanned documents. In other words, instead of having to devote staff time in some digital projects to rechecking the ocr of a scanned document you could use the human interaction with these anti-spam to recheck it. The only problem with this and given it has been awhile since I read the article, but from what I understand, what one inputs in the anti-spam box is checked against some "answer," hence, if the ocr was incorrect one would not be allowed to proceed. Great concept and I'm sure there might eventually be some way around this like having some initial human correction and then simply using this approach to double checking the ocr (which is btw optical character recognition). You can use OCR on scanned documents of text which are at that point simply images and when you ocr the document you can pull the words out and then make the document image searchable as the words are now pulled out and indexed along with the image of the text. In the case of older script or handwritten documents, OCR does not generally work and does require that a human read and type out separately what is said.
As for zoho, I like it. I was not aware of it. While it may create too much confusion at the desk, it is an option for those that simply want to type up something and since we have no access to word or another word-processing product, this web-based product might be a work-around.
While signing up for my zoho writer account I remembered a blog post I had seen awhile back where the writer suggested that one could use the human input in the secret anti-spam code to confirm ocr text from scanned documents. In other words, instead of having to devote staff time in some digital projects to rechecking the ocr of a scanned document you could use the human interaction with these anti-spam to recheck it. The only problem with this and given it has been awhile since I read the article, but from what I understand, what one inputs in the anti-spam box is checked against some "answer," hence, if the ocr was incorrect one would not be allowed to proceed. Great concept and I'm sure there might eventually be some way around this like having some initial human correction and then simply using this approach to double checking the ocr (which is btw optical character recognition). You can use OCR on scanned documents of text which are at that point simply images and when you ocr the document you can pull the words out and then make the document image searchable as the words are now pulled out and indexed along with the image of the text. In the case of older script or handwritten documents, OCR does not generally work and does require that a human read and type out separately what is said.
As for zoho, I like it. I was not aware of it. While it may create too much confusion at the desk, it is an option for those that simply want to type up something and since we have no access to word or another word-processing product, this web-based product might be a work-around.
PBwiki
Very easy to use, once you know where things are. As with any new site or program, it takes a bit to get accustomed to what button is what and where to go, etc.
I did feel a bit nervous adding my blog link as it pulled the books link up to the line with it. So there is the potential that those who have no clue what they're doing can mess up format. It was really easy to fix though as it had an undo button similar to the one in word. When I posed my favorite movie, it was much more easy and i felt much more comfortable making changes.
I did feel a bit nervous adding my blog link as it pulled the books link up to the line with it. So there is the potential that those who have no clue what they're doing can mess up format. It was really easy to fix though as it had an undo button similar to the one in word. When I posed my favorite movie, it was much more easy and i felt much more comfortable making changes.
It's a wiki world.
There were some interesting applications of wikis in libraries. I liked the subject guide function and the best practice forum. The benefits and cons of this tool have been discussed at length it seems. Not having to know html or code and also the openness and collaborative aspect of wikis are definite benefits. The cons really pivot upon the fact that anyone can make changes and as seen in the Library Success wiki, they even now require email registration as saboteurs have apparently taken their toll. Despite the cons, there exists the potential for internal and external uses in a library. I think the internal potential for project collaboration is fabulous. A central place to work online, work with different versions of documents and just making all the content easily available is a wonderful part of wiki use. Externally, a book review library wiki or subjects guides would be great as participation and collaboration can make the content stronger and more relevant to the user groups.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Library 2.0 thoughts
The article I liked the most was Dr. Wendy Schultz's "To a temporary place in time..." She focused on how library 2.0 is not an end in itself, but just one phase in the evolution of libraries. She details some of her visions of library 3.0 - library 4.0. I especially like her vision of library 4.0.
"Library 4.0 revives the old image of a country house library, and renovates it: from a retreat, a sanctuary, a pampered experience with information—subtle thoughts, fine words, exquisite brandy, smooth coffee, aromatic cigar, smell of leather, rustle of pages—to the dream economy’s library, the LIBRARY: a WiFREE space, a retreat from technohustle, with comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt. You know, the library."
Beautiful imagery. I honestly agree though that this is simply another phase of the evolution of libraries, not the end of libraries. Libraries may change shape and form and people may access more and more services from home, but I think the library as a place will still continue to remain important: a place of quiet and focus; a place of conversation and laughter; a place of ideas and sharing of ideas. Also, while the details of our roles as librarians will continue to change, our underlying roles as information guides will continue.
"Library 4.0 revives the old image of a country house library, and renovates it: from a retreat, a sanctuary, a pampered experience with information—subtle thoughts, fine words, exquisite brandy, smooth coffee, aromatic cigar, smell of leather, rustle of pages—to the dream economy’s library, the LIBRARY: a WiFREE space, a retreat from technohustle, with comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt. You know, the library."
Beautiful imagery. I honestly agree though that this is simply another phase of the evolution of libraries, not the end of libraries. Libraries may change shape and form and people may access more and more services from home, but I think the library as a place will still continue to remain important: a place of quiet and focus; a place of conversation and laughter; a place of ideas and sharing of ideas. Also, while the details of our roles as librarians will continue to change, our underlying roles as information guides will continue.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Technorati
The search for blogs. Really a great site as what is provided within one's own blogging program for searching is limited. This really has excellent possbilities for discovery. As for searching for library 2.0 in posts, in tags and in the blog directory, I'd compare looking in posts and tags to keyword and subject searching. There is the potential for locating items that possess "aboutness" of the topic matter when searching through the tags. Searching through posts is like a keyword search where it looks everywhere, actually more like a full text search, but same concept. Additionally, the blog directory seemed to have a comparable number of items as the tag search.
Friday, October 19, 2007
del.icio.us
Del.icio.us is really quite a neat bookmarking application. I do find that the links I have on my desktop can at times be crowded and disorganized and with the use of tags I can more easily locate them. I use folders with my regular bookmarking, but it really just is not the same. Also the ability to share and "spy" on other's links is fantastic. I also found some government document del.icio.us sites and I was able to find some really neat resources that I was unaware of. Especially since the GPO is going to 80% dissemination of publications electronically - hence - websites - this all works well together.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
rollyo
Yea. It worked!
Really quite neat. I created a roll of the Digital Library of Georgia and the Florida Memory Project. Two really great digital library initatives. It was a little hard to find where to create your own widget-like thing of rollyo, but it was really easy to create one's own rollyo. I would reccomend.
librarything - YO
Librarything is really neat. One of our student workers at my last job introduced me to it. Honestly though, I don't use it with frequency, but it is really neat.
Some other librarything type sites are:
http://home.litminds.org/index.html
http://www.goodreads.com/
http://whatsonmybookshelf.com/
http://www.booktribes.com/
http://www.shelfari.com/
Some other librarything type sites are:
http://home.litminds.org/index.html
http://www.goodreads.com/
http://whatsonmybookshelf.com/
http://www.booktribes.com/
http://www.shelfari.com/
Image generator
http://www.blyberg.net/card-generator
Finally, I'm done. It is not that playing with a generator is difficult, but rather getting the image to work just right. First, I played with the magic eye generator where you could create those images that if you stared at long enough would turn 3-D. Loved those, but it just never seemed to post right on blogger. Then I played with some other ones, but it seemed that they were flash images that you weren't able to copy or save as an image. So I ended up here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)