Someone on the SAA Archivist listserv I am on posted this 1947 Vocational Video on Being a Librarian:
http://www.archive.org/details/Libraria1947
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Thing #23
The end...
My favorite "things" were Delicious and wikis. I was never in to Delicious until the discovery exercise and I now have over 150 things bookmarked on that site. This allows me to easily save and organize links I want to revisit later and keep all my bookmarks together from computer to computer. The wiki was also nice as I've set a few up here for library staff to collaborate on since they are great places to interact with ideas. I also really like reading the different theories on web and library 2.0 because I'm the type who loves discourse and engaging with ideas. That's the historian and philosophy undergraduate minor in me talking.
I also appreciated having the weekly deadlines to keep me on track. I find that much more effective than just telling people to complete 23 things by a particular date.
The take-away that surprised me the most were the varied opinions on a lot of the things. Browsing other people's blog posts really gave me insight into lots of libraries around the state. I'm an urbanite and will admit that I generally do not give much thought to the rural librarians out there (simply because I have no regular interaction with them) but this program I think helped raise awareness about their interests, goals, needs and abilities.
The only way I would improve would be to find a way to have more interaction among the participants. Maybe doing the wiki exercise earlier on would allow for more collaboration and discussion.
If given the chance again I would do something like this again. I knew a lot about the "things" prior to starting this but definitely got something out of it through being able to experiment with these things for library purposes.
My favorite "things" were Delicious and wikis. I was never in to Delicious until the discovery exercise and I now have over 150 things bookmarked on that site. This allows me to easily save and organize links I want to revisit later and keep all my bookmarks together from computer to computer. The wiki was also nice as I've set a few up here for library staff to collaborate on since they are great places to interact with ideas. I also really like reading the different theories on web and library 2.0 because I'm the type who loves discourse and engaging with ideas. That's the historian and philosophy undergraduate minor in me talking.
I also appreciated having the weekly deadlines to keep me on track. I find that much more effective than just telling people to complete 23 things by a particular date.
The take-away that surprised me the most were the varied opinions on a lot of the things. Browsing other people's blog posts really gave me insight into lots of libraries around the state. I'm an urbanite and will admit that I generally do not give much thought to the rural librarians out there (simply because I have no regular interaction with them) but this program I think helped raise awareness about their interests, goals, needs and abilities.
The only way I would improve would be to find a way to have more interaction among the participants. Maybe doing the wiki exercise earlier on would allow for more collaboration and discussion.
If given the chance again I would do something like this again. I knew a lot about the "things" prior to starting this but definitely got something out of it through being able to experiment with these things for library purposes.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Thing #22
Podcasts
I'm glad podcasts are overcoming the myth that you need an iPod to listen to them. They are just audio files that you can play on your computer or your portable device, either on the go or while you are doing something else at work. I think the "pod" part of the name probably confuses a lot of people.
Like blogs there are podcasts for everything imaginable so it's hard to narrow it down and find the best for your interests and needs. Some are just a few minutes in length such as President Obama's weekly address, while others are longer.
Also, like posting videos taped from conferences and meetings on You Tube, podcasts can be used to record speakers and other events and disseminate the content to those who can't attend in person.
One very interesting one I found was a podcast "episode" from the ACRL from this January,
Coffee Break French and the cleverly named French Podclass
And the NPR directory was nice because it had a "local" section where you can get podcasts from local NPR stations.
I'm glad podcasts are overcoming the myth that you need an iPod to listen to them. They are just audio files that you can play on your computer or your portable device, either on the go or while you are doing something else at work. I think the "pod" part of the name probably confuses a lot of people.
Like blogs there are podcasts for everything imaginable so it's hard to narrow it down and find the best for your interests and needs. Some are just a few minutes in length such as President Obama's weekly address, while others are longer.
Also, like posting videos taped from conferences and meetings on You Tube, podcasts can be used to record speakers and other events and disseminate the content to those who can't attend in person.
One very interesting one I found was a podcast "episode" from the ACRL from this January,
Facebook - Clever Outreach or Costly Diversion?
I also found some for learning the French language:Coffee Break French and the cleverly named French Podclass
And the NPR directory was nice because it had a "local" section where you can get podcasts from local NPR stations.
Thing #21
You Tube
I find it hard to browse on You Tube unless you use the Advanced Search and try to narrow down what you are looking for when you are searching for something vague but that's true of a lot of search engines and "databases". The Advanced Search even lets you use Boolean Logic. That came in handy when I was doing a search on "Jerry Springer" AND Cincinnati. The worst thing about the site is that some videos have better video and audio quality than others. Also because of all the lawsuits over who owns the content a lot of videos disappear so if you are linking to material from the entertainment and music industries you'll need to constantly make sure the version you linked to is still available on the site.
From the looks of it a lot of libraries have put their tutorials on You Tube. It makes sense to share the instructional work you've done with anyone else who might get something useful out of it. Libraries are supposed to be about sharing information and although on the surface You Tube appears to be something entertaining or a way to waste time it can be a good resource for sharing "serious" things. If your library itself doesn't offer tutorials and your patrons use Google to find everything (like so many do), then they may just stumble upon a useful tutorial from a reputable source on You Tube.
Here's a brief tutorial about using MeSH Terms and Search History in Pub Med
Also, this video is really useful for teaching people how to embed a You Tube video directly into a Power Point presentation so when the slide with the video comes up, the video automatically starts playing. I've shown this to several students who were wondering how to do this. How "meta" :a You Tube video about You Tube. :)
Now here's a fun one: Cookie Monster in the Library.
For some reason when I tried to embed this, it was leaving the "value" parameter empty and Blogger wouldn't let me put the url in to fix the code.
I find it hard to browse on You Tube unless you use the Advanced Search and try to narrow down what you are looking for when you are searching for something vague but that's true of a lot of search engines and "databases". The Advanced Search even lets you use Boolean Logic. That came in handy when I was doing a search on "Jerry Springer" AND Cincinnati. The worst thing about the site is that some videos have better video and audio quality than others. Also because of all the lawsuits over who owns the content a lot of videos disappear so if you are linking to material from the entertainment and music industries you'll need to constantly make sure the version you linked to is still available on the site.
From the looks of it a lot of libraries have put their tutorials on You Tube. It makes sense to share the instructional work you've done with anyone else who might get something useful out of it. Libraries are supposed to be about sharing information and although on the surface You Tube appears to be something entertaining or a way to waste time it can be a good resource for sharing "serious" things. If your library itself doesn't offer tutorials and your patrons use Google to find everything (like so many do), then they may just stumble upon a useful tutorial from a reputable source on You Tube.
Here's a brief tutorial about using MeSH Terms and Search History in Pub Med
Also, this video is really useful for teaching people how to embed a You Tube video directly into a Power Point presentation so when the slide with the video comes up, the video automatically starts playing. I've shown this to several students who were wondering how to do this. How "meta" :a You Tube video about You Tube. :)
Now here's a fun one: Cookie Monster in the Library.
For some reason when I tried to embed this, it was leaving the "value" parameter empty and Blogger wouldn't let me put the url in to fix the code.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Thing #20
Web tools
The 2008 Web 2.0 Awards had a lot of tools I already know about and some that were more obscure.
For libraries, VuFind is a open source catalog tool.
One of the more curious ones I found was under "Classifieds and Directories". It's called Parking Search and is a tool to seek out parking spaces to buy or rent. The audience is obviously quite limited and really it's only helpful for those in the largest of cities. There were no results for Omaha or St. Louis. Cincinnati had 1 result. But I liked that it serves a niche market compared to general classified sites.
I also like the idea of niche social networking. TuDiabetes is for those who have diabetes. It seems a lot more social than a traditional message board site.
I looked at 2 sites in the Health category since that meshes well with my job. One, imedix
seemed very user driven with a high possibility for non-credible information. Users post questions and others respond with advice and maybe relevant links. Some may link to Wikipedia but others like in this case, link to more reputable information sources. I will give them credit though for having a disclaimer with every question that says the answers are written by non-professionals. They are very upfront about that so buyer beware.
Another Health site seemed much more reputable, but perhaps not as social as others. Revolution Health features content from both average users and experts. Some articles are reviewed by doctors while others come from sources like the Cleveland Clinic. Users can create health pages and also post to discussion forums.
The biggest caveat to these sites is the question of credibility or authority that they raise. It's good to break down the barriers and promote more open content production but that mindset clashes with what students are taught so it's really about teaching them how to utilize different types of tools and sites on the web. There's a time and place for a Diabetes social networking site but there is also a time and place for professional medical journals about diabetes.
Urban Spoon is another tool for restaurant reviews. It was under the food category. Users can become "fans" of restaurants. It also aggregates in reviews from City Search.
BackPack was one I've never heard of that sounds really cool and helpful but alas it's one that costs $. I think it would really help me organize all my post it notes of random information, notebooks, etc.
FixYa is a social tech support community where you can submit problems with products and hopefully others can help you out or you can discover fixes to your particular issues. I think a site like this is a great idea but only helpful if it has a large following. There's probably lots of questions on there that have not received solutions and as impatient as people get with technology, that may be frustrating.
The 2008 Web 2.0 Awards had a lot of tools I already know about and some that were more obscure.
For libraries, VuFind is a open source catalog tool.
One of the more curious ones I found was under "Classifieds and Directories". It's called Parking Search and is a tool to seek out parking spaces to buy or rent. The audience is obviously quite limited and really it's only helpful for those in the largest of cities. There were no results for Omaha or St. Louis. Cincinnati had 1 result. But I liked that it serves a niche market compared to general classified sites.
I also like the idea of niche social networking. TuDiabetes is for those who have diabetes. It seems a lot more social than a traditional message board site.
I looked at 2 sites in the Health category since that meshes well with my job. One, imedix
seemed very user driven with a high possibility for non-credible information. Users post questions and others respond with advice and maybe relevant links. Some may link to Wikipedia but others like in this case, link to more reputable information sources. I will give them credit though for having a disclaimer with every question that says the answers are written by non-professionals. They are very upfront about that so buyer beware.
Another Health site seemed much more reputable, but perhaps not as social as others. Revolution Health features content from both average users and experts. Some articles are reviewed by doctors while others come from sources like the Cleveland Clinic. Users can create health pages and also post to discussion forums.
The biggest caveat to these sites is the question of credibility or authority that they raise. It's good to break down the barriers and promote more open content production but that mindset clashes with what students are taught so it's really about teaching them how to utilize different types of tools and sites on the web. There's a time and place for a Diabetes social networking site but there is also a time and place for professional medical journals about diabetes.
Urban Spoon is another tool for restaurant reviews. It was under the food category. Users can become "fans" of restaurants. It also aggregates in reviews from City Search.
BackPack was one I've never heard of that sounds really cool and helpful but alas it's one that costs $. I think it would really help me organize all my post it notes of random information, notebooks, etc.
FixYa is a social tech support community where you can submit problems with products and hopefully others can help you out or you can discover fixes to your particular issues. I think a site like this is a great idea but only helpful if it has a large following. There's probably lots of questions on there that have not received solutions and as impatient as people get with technology, that may be frustrating.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Thing #19
Apps
I started using Google Docs for word processing as my computer got older and inevitably slower. It was easier to just surf the web and work at the same time without slowing down my computer by running Microsoft Word.
I use the word processing docs a lot for personal use to keep lists of things like restaurants I want to try. A lot of these lists I share with my husband so we can both keep track of information.
I like these apps because they are convenient and free. I use 2 different computers at home and several at work depending on what I'm doing, so having easy access to materials is great. I'd like to recommend these tools to students because they help keep everything you need in one place. No forgetting your assignment at home, it will be available to you online with your Google or Zoho account. It would also be helpful for people who don't own their own computers and rely on libraries or computer labs. There wouldn't be a disk or flash drive to remember or have get corrupted.
For this exercise, I experimented with the presentations app; I hadn't used it before. It was easy to import PowerPoint slides and there were a lot of options for colors, designs, etc. I like that when you view the presentation you can include an "audience" who could watch it with you over the Internet. That would be great for when you want to show someone something but you don't want them to be an editor.
The only real drawback I see is what if Google's servers fail and you somehow lose your documents. But really that can happen with any computer crash or glitch with commercial products. I guess for the ultimate cautiousness you could back up your Google Docs in Word or vice versa since you can easily export to the .doc format.
For library staff this would be another tool like a wiki to collaborate with and easily share documents.
I've never used Google Docs to post to a blog before so I'm going to try that with this post.
......
and it worked!
I started using Google Docs for word processing as my computer got older and inevitably slower. It was easier to just surf the web and work at the same time without slowing down my computer by running Microsoft Word.
I use the word processing docs a lot for personal use to keep lists of things like restaurants I want to try. A lot of these lists I share with my husband so we can both keep track of information.
I like these apps because they are convenient and free. I use 2 different computers at home and several at work depending on what I'm doing, so having easy access to materials is great. I'd like to recommend these tools to students because they help keep everything you need in one place. No forgetting your assignment at home, it will be available to you online with your Google or Zoho account. It would also be helpful for people who don't own their own computers and rely on libraries or computer labs. There wouldn't be a disk or flash drive to remember or have get corrupted.
For this exercise, I experimented with the presentations app; I hadn't used it before. It was easy to import PowerPoint slides and there were a lot of options for colors, designs, etc. I like that when you view the presentation you can include an "audience" who could watch it with you over the Internet. That would be great for when you want to show someone something but you don't want them to be an editor.
The only real drawback I see is what if Google's servers fail and you somehow lose your documents. But really that can happen with any computer crash or glitch with commercial products. I guess for the ultimate cautiousness you could back up your Google Docs in Word or vice versa since you can easily export to the .doc format.
For library staff this would be another tool like a wiki to collaborate with and easily share documents.
I've never used Google Docs to post to a blog before so I'm going to try that with this post.
......
and it worked!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Thing #18
PB Wiki
I added a favorite restaurant and wiki to the Nebraska Learns 2.0 wiki on PBWiki. I also cleaned up a few things in the sidebar because some of the pages weren't linking correctly. I think PBWiki is a good choice because it allows the wiki administrator to set page level permissions, something I mentioned in my last post about wikis. So I might migrate my work wikis over to that site so the access levels can be more detailed.
A wiki like this experimental one is a great tool for community groups since anyone can edit it. I think the opportunities for public libraries to use these are enormous. Patrons could collaborate and library staff would learn a lot about their customers.
I added a favorite restaurant and wiki to the Nebraska Learns 2.0 wiki on PBWiki. I also cleaned up a few things in the sidebar because some of the pages weren't linking correctly. I think PBWiki is a good choice because it allows the wiki administrator to set page level permissions, something I mentioned in my last post about wikis. So I might migrate my work wikis over to that site so the access levels can be more detailed.
A wiki like this experimental one is a great tool for community groups since anyone can edit it. I think the opportunities for public libraries to use these are enormous. Patrons could collaborate and library staff would learn a lot about their customers.
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