Thing #10: Online Image Generators

I invested an entire evening just looking at every site listed on the Generator Blog roll and poking around for more generators. I had a blast playing around! As I've observed before, you can keystroke your life away with this stuff!

I have a whole new set of identities.

Blues name: "Hollerin'" Willie Hooker
Mob name: Nicodemo 'The Slug' Abattalli
Hippie name: Windgroove Strawberrywolf
Elvish name: Elrohir Elanessë

My favorite generator by a wide margin was PhotoFunia where I produced this image of a decidedly LOW-Def Librarian! Just upload a portrait and it'll plug it into lots of different scenes, from a wall mural to an astronaut in space to Angelina Jolie's t-shirt!

Another fav is Says-It where you can put the text of your choice on a church sign, a vinyl record album, a delivery truck and more.

Thing #13: delicious

I first learned about delicious (back in the old del.icio.us days) in my academic libraries class at KSU. My professor said she had all her bookmarks on delicious and never used her local "favorites" at all. She loved the universal access to her bookmarks on any PC connected to the Web.

I opened a delicious account and began using it for research, adding sites of interest and tagging them so I could easily recall the Web page content. I also have a few of my general bookmarks out there as well.

It's really cool what SBN and others have done for their locations using delicious. I may set up a delicious account for my division so we don't have to mess with updating multiple "favorites".

Thing #11: LibraryThing

I've read plenty about LibraryThing and have seen a number of LT widgets on blogs. I hesitated to get started with an online catalog of my books because I knew I'd just be sucked into it.

Sure enough, I signed up and spent an hour looking for, selecting, and posting books. (Please see my widget.) It's a lot of fun, but dangerous for a guy like me who's fanatical about organizing my book and CD collections at home. Even worse, I discovered even more books that I'm now dying to read.

I'm already addicted to Facebook, and now this! It appears I can say goodbye to the concept of "spare time".

Thing #9: Finding Feeds

I tried all the suggested search tools. Bloglines' GUI struck me as a Google clone (not that there's anything wrong with that). Technorati had a cluttered portal-feel to it; it also featured a terrible flashing ad that nearly caused a seizure.

My favorite way to find RSS feeds? Meet my old pal, Google. I just enter my subject terms followed by the letters rss. Example:

e-books rss

In most cases clicking on a search result takes me directly to a specific RSS feed page. There it is, short and sweet!

E-Book Readers Gone Wild!

No, not the people that read e-books, I mean the crazy proliferation of e-book reader devices. If you're thinking there's nothing out there beside Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle, think again.

Plastic Logic just announced a new e-book reader that's as thin as a magazine and easy on the eyes at 8.5x11 inches. The product uses an electronic paper display, the same as found in the Kindle. It's a reflective rather than a backlit screen so it's easy to read even in broad daylight.

iRex Technologies also announced this week that they're releasing a new e-book with a 10.2 inch screen. iRex hopes to expand on the success of its iLiad e-book reader in Europe. These two e-books carry fairly hefty price tags and are aimed at business customers.

The rumormongers agree that Amazon will release Kindle 2.0 before the holidays this year. The word on the street is that it's cheaper, has a much bigger screen, and is "sexier" than the original.

Some glorious day e-books will be as ubiquitous at libraries as print editions, but not until the readers are simple to use and the download experience is effortless.

Thing #8: Bloglines Good, NetNewsWire Way Better

Hey Mac people! Try NetNewsWire! IMHO it's much simpler to use than Bloglines because it's a full application, not a Web service. No signups, no newsletters, just pure RSS reader simplicity.

I first tried NetNewsWire Lite a few years ago when I didn't want to fork over the cash for the full version. Now it's 100% free and has that clean Quartz look and feel we've come to expect from Mac apps.

How do I use RSS feeds? I subscribe to feeds from sites that are similar to the sites I read daily. For example, I check the Tidbits Mac news site daily but I subscribe to four other Mac sites just to make sure I'm not missing a big story.

Hmmm... obsessed with Mac much?

Thing #6: Flickr Fun

To Remind Me Of Spring
Originally uploaded by the hi-def librarian

This is my Learn & Play Flickr photo mess-around. When I was a Photography and Cinema undergrad at OSU (1978-1982), showing the film edges in a print was very cool. I couldn't resist reliving the spring of 2008 - the most beautiful season ever for my lawn and landscaping - and Photography 110 in the same graphic moment!

Magnetic Tape, We Hardly Knew Ye

At my major Midwest library, the death rattle of VHS echoes hauntingly. Oh sure, we still own a handful, but we yanked the format's feeding tube (i.e. funding) and signed its Do Not Resuscitate order nearly four years ago. Two years ago Variety ran an obituary: VHS, 30, Dies of Loneliness.

At best, our remaining analog formats have moved to hospice. Books on cassette have finally gone the way of the 8-track according to Andrew Adam Newman in this recent New York Times article. When Detroit ditched auto tape players in the new millenium, the audio cassette's demise was assured.

Tape may be the last medium completely supplanted by others, those being the DVD and CD. We're seeing the genesis of a marketplace where many delivery systems, including disc/streaming on demand/downloads, comfortably and profitably co-exist. Future library material acquisition models are likely to look like nothing in use today.

If only I had a crystal ball - I could retire a wealthy man.

Hello, Operator? Give Me The Library Catalogue

It's a few months old now but still current: the Pew Internet and American Life Project released its Report on Mobile Access to Data and Information in March 2008.

Pew found that - to the surprise of absolutely no one - more Americans rely on their cell phones for non-voice data applications than ever before. Here's a tidbit I found most interesting:

Leading the way in this world of untethered access are young adult Americans, Hispanics, and African Americans. A majority of adults under age 30 and Hispanics would find it hardest to do without their cell phones – and are much more likely to say it would be hard to be without a cell phone than to be without the internet or email. Hispanics in the United States are a more youthful group than whites or African Americans, but Latinos’ attachment to the cell phone stands out even after controlling for age and other demographic and socio-economic factors.

Libraries are behind the curve when it comes to delivering data to their customers via cell phones. We also talk the talk about serving the Latino community, but if libraries don't step up and make their Web sites and catalogues accessible through phone browsers we aren't walking the walk.

Our First OverDrive Download Station Has Landed at Main AV

Our sweet download station has been in place for a couple of weeks now but hasn't seen much action. It will, though, it will. Thanks to Mike H. in IT for creating a new profile so this baby shuts down and fires up automatically. Just one less thing to worry about.

We had one very excited phone customer who asked for downloading help. She said "I'm just across the street - I'll be there in a jiffy!" and hung up before we could ask about her device. When she arrived she proudly pulled out (drum roll please): her iPhone. Nuts! OverDrive doesn't support the iPhone yet and we don't own MP3 files that would play on it. We will, though, we will. The customer was pleased we offered the service, even if we couldn't serve HER at the moment.

Wait - I think I hear another customer pouring in now...

(Learn & Play @ CML!)