Such fun! I first used a wiki in a Foundations of LIS class at Kent State. I was in a workgroup and we set up a wiki to centralize and edit a presentation about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA). After the presentation, we added our final information to a wiki for all the presentations.
I poked around the OSU - that's Oregon State University - wiki. I'm borrowing parts of their organizational structure for a new AV Division wiki I set up a few days ago. We have so much information scattered around in notebooks, files, etc. and a single spot to put all of it should be very handy.
Friday, October 10
Monday, October 6
Thing #17: Online Productivity Tools
I began using Google Docs during an Academic Libraries class. We worked in small groups, and the groups shuffled members every week. Rule #1 was that everyone in the class was required to have a Gmail account.
For one assignment each group had to create a spreadsheet of detailed information about different research universities - number of students, size of library, that sort of thing - and we couldn't have done it if not for a shared spreadsheet on Google. It's an awesome, albeit basic, tool.
As Google and other online toolkits become more full-featured and reliable, Microsoft will have a tough time selling its top-shelf Office suite.
"Tell me again, why should I spend $600 on your productivity suite that's full of tricks I never use, when I can get one for free?"
I'm not willing to ditch Excel just yet, but the day will come, and soon.
For one assignment each group had to create a spreadsheet of detailed information about different research universities - number of students, size of library, that sort of thing - and we couldn't have done it if not for a shared spreadsheet on Google. It's an awesome, albeit basic, tool.
As Google and other online toolkits become more full-featured and reliable, Microsoft will have a tough time selling its top-shelf Office suite.
"Tell me again, why should I spend $600 on your productivity suite that's full of tricks I never use, when I can get one for free?"
I'm not willing to ditch Excel just yet, but the day will come, and soon.
Thing #14: Library 2.0
No startling revelations here, just an observation: my major Midwest Library needs to work on the "inviting customer comments" piece.
Of course, we have carefully planned public meetings and other formal opportunities for the public to tells us what they think of us. We also have blogs for customer feedback. I think we need a method for recording feedback and comments on individual items in the library's collection. One of the articles mentioned an experience where customers could "rate" items. Personally, that's my favorite part of Websites such as cduniverse.com and Amazon. I love finding other people who are passionate about the same movies and music that I am.
Isn't the library growing from a "come and borrow place" to a "come and do place" where people can share their common interests? I welcome Web 2.0 technologies as an easy way to collect and make transparent feedback from customers about our collection and our perceived value to their lives.
Of course, we have carefully planned public meetings and other formal opportunities for the public to tells us what they think of us. We also have blogs for customer feedback. I think we need a method for recording feedback and comments on individual items in the library's collection. One of the articles mentioned an experience where customers could "rate" items. Personally, that's my favorite part of Websites such as cduniverse.com and Amazon. I love finding other people who are passionate about the same movies and music that I am.
Isn't the library growing from a "come and borrow place" to a "come and do place" where people can share their common interests? I welcome Web 2.0 technologies as an easy way to collect and make transparent feedback from customers about our collection and our perceived value to their lives.
Thing #12: Twitter
I've been Twittering for about a week now. It's not a tool I'm finding very useful yet.
I installed the Twitbin extension for Firefox on my home Mac and have it running all the time. Oh sure, it's fun to see who's online and what they're thinking and doing, and tweets from my favorite organizations are interesting, but Twitter seems to divert me from my primary tasks. Distractability was already a problem for me and Twitter simply enables the ADD part of my brain to lose focus.
For folks who process their social network lives in information "droplets", I can see Twitter would be a valuable adjunct to IMs and text messages. Twitter could be a secondary way to communicate quick messages to customers who are online. It'd even be useful way to communicate withing CML - at least as useful as a quick email message.
If I was more committed to Twitter-style communication on a personal level - and if more of my friends outside of CML used it - I'm sure I'd value it more. As it is, it's an amusing and occassionally informative novelty for me.
I installed the Twitbin extension for Firefox on my home Mac and have it running all the time. Oh sure, it's fun to see who's online and what they're thinking and doing, and tweets from my favorite organizations are interesting, but Twitter seems to divert me from my primary tasks. Distractability was already a problem for me and Twitter simply enables the ADD part of my brain to lose focus.
For folks who process their social network lives in information "droplets", I can see Twitter would be a valuable adjunct to IMs and text messages. Twitter could be a secondary way to communicate quick messages to customers who are online. It'd even be useful way to communicate withing CML - at least as useful as a quick email message.
If I was more committed to Twitter-style communication on a personal level - and if more of my friends outside of CML used it - I'm sure I'd value it more. As it is, it's an amusing and occassionally informative novelty for me.
Monday, September 29
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".
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".
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".
Saturday, September 27
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!
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 16
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?
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?
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