Week 11 : Podcasts, wrapup

Podcasts are not just for iTunes!  I listen to a radio program called Sunday Baroque via podcast every week.

 I’m not sure if live broadcasts can be considered podcasts or not (at least until they are stored), but I enjoyed being able to listen to Obama’s “Not this time” speech via podcast and being able to hear Bill Richardson’s endorsement speech live via CNN streaming video.  I have just listened to the Denver Library’s podcast of a Beatrix Potter story. As a former employee of an academic library that made content available digitally and was always concerned about copyright issues, I wonder about the legality of making a performance of that story available to anyone/everyone (as opposed to reading it to a small group). Oh, well, I can remember when it was supposedly “illegal” to videotape TV shows and that didn’t get very far, did it? 

 

As for the Vermont23Things in general; Good show!  I appreciate all the effort that the folks at the state have put into this. It was nice to get updated on emerging technologies, especially in the company of other librarians, I hope to see some other all-community programs like this in the future. (Not 11 weeks in length, though. That’s just a tad too long.)

Week 10 : Online tools, Web2 Awards

File sharing and free word processing on Google and Zoho seem like great ways to make “must have” applications available to those who cannot afford the proprietary versions.  I chose not to create yet another account on these sites. I’ve shared enough information already! 

 

Web.2 Award Sites I liked: I’m a big fan of YouTube. At our library, we meet many  international students who have come to Vermont to work in the hospitality industry. If someone says they are from, say, Valparíso, Chile, I can quickly find out on YouTube that Valparíso is a city of hills, buildings of many different colors and a seaport. ¡Bueno!

Upcoming, which is an event listing site, apparently identifies your location (how?) and lists events in your county. It can also work internationally. In additon, it provides you with a map of the area for  which you have requested the list of events. Meebo, is sort of aggregator for different instant messaging services. Clever!

 

Sites that aren’t for me:  I can’t deal with the “what are you doing?” question on Twitter! The only answer I can come up with is “Wasting time looking at this silly website”  The “news” on Digg seems like news ”lite” to me. Although Craigslist includes cities outside the U.S., why browse through all the craigslist subject headings?  If you know you want information about classes, housing, pets or rentals in New Hampshire, just do a search.  I can see, however, that the lists I don’t like accommodate people who like to browse and/or who don’t know how to formulate search statements, so they’re obviously good for something!  

Week 9 : Wiki’s

My former employer, a small academic library that is open 81 hours per week and that employs about 20 library assistants (never all present at the same time) used a wiki to communicate changes in procedures, instructions, and news to all employees.  It was quite effective.

I often use Wikipedia as a jumping off point when I’m investigating something. Although it is not necessarily authoritative, it can provide the vocabulary I need to search in more traditional sources. Of course, since I have personally edited an article in Wikipedia, I should add that sometimes it is quite reliable!  I had to be a registered user (including giving my email address) to make that change in the Wikipedia article. I thought it was interesting that I had to say why I was making the change I made.

I think Wiki’s are great for all sorts of collaboration and information sharing projects.

 Adding my blogspot and favorite vacation spot to the Vermont23ThingsWiki was just a matter of following directions.

Week 8 : Perspectives, etc.

As I investigate services such as delicious, flickr, library thing, image generators, Technorati, etc., I sometimes wonder: “Who is making these services so successful? It has to be people with lots of time on their hands!”  I’ve also  noticed  that existing technology sometimes produces the same or better results than the new services, The search statement ”Che Guevara blog” for example, brings up more blogs about Che Guevara than Technorati. The “added value” of Technorati (for me), is the ”Mentions Per Day” chart that shows how many times Che Guevara is mentioned on blogs in the each of the last 7 or 30 or 90 days. As far as I can see, Technorati doesn’t tell you WHY Che would have been mentioned 225 times on February 12th and only 5 times on March 12th, but if you are interested in this subject, I suppose you already know why. One is left to question whether that small added value makes Technorati a better choice than a plain internet search. 

The fact that I would ask that question, though, demonstrates the librarian’s role in web 2.0 / library 2.0.  As librarians we need to be prepared to teach patrons how to evaluate resources, especially web-based resources; to teach them the meaning of authoritativeness, the value of currency, ways to distinguish real added value from mere dazzle and we especially need to teach them how to detect a sales pitch.  As always, the challenge is to be objective in our evaluation. Technorati, for example, isn’t better or worse than Google just because I am more familiar with Google!  On the other hand, Folksonomies aren’t better just because they are user generated. I have yet to make up my mind about user generated tags. They work (for the user). They are intellectually accessible.  But controlled vocabulary works, too. (But is it intellectually accessible? By patrons?  Not so much!).  I’m in a wait and see mode on that one.

As for the role of tomorrow’s library, I don’t think it will be so different from the role of libraries in the past. Libraries have always offered access to materials that people can’t afford to own individually or don’t need to own. Today, it’s books, magazines, computers, DVD’s, playalongs, audiobooks, authoritative databases. and so on.  Tomorrow, it may be BlueRay Discs, paintings and other works of art. or new kinds of digital content that we can’t even imagine at present. As always, we will serve as guides and intermediaries for our patrons as they use these materials and services.  

Weeks 6 & 7

I created an avatar for one of my Yahoo accounts. Now I see “myself” every time I open that account. The jury is still out on whether that’s a good thing or not!  I also used some image generators to create some virtual campaign buttons. This is done by uploading a photograph into a pre-existing background. Kind of cute. Certainly useful to make name tags, buttons, etc.

I had joined Library Thing previously. From a cataloging point of view, I’m not completely impressed with the records they have available. If you’re cataloging for real, the MARC record needs to be for precisely the right edition of the right book. Since this is for fun, however, I guess it doesn’t matter.

I thought it was interesting to see that there was anyone else with the same taste in reading that I have, namely, sociolinguistics, and Latin American history and politics.  Believe it or not, there were several other people with the same books as I.

Week 5 : Social Networks

Signed up for two social networks, Hi5 and Facebook, and navigated around on their pages to see what services they offer.  I also tried to investigate claims that Facebook and MySpace open you to identity theft. I suppose that’s possible if you share too much personal information.  I joined Hi5 first and entered real data. So far, the sky has not fallen. When I got to Facebook, however, I decided to be a little more cautious and use an email that can’t really be associated with me (unless I allow it to be) and made up “personal information.” That way, I could look around and still be anonymous.

 I also embedded a time clock in my Hi5 space. I wanted one that would count the time until retirement, but they don’t seem to have one that will go that long (I sure hope I do). The most fun was choosing a “skin,” that is, a background for the presentation of the information.

Week 4 : RSS Feeds

On my own computer, I added the type of RSS aggregator  that functions like a ”favorite” on the browser. On one of the staff computers, I installed Feed Reader, complete with a desktop shortcut.  The advantage of an RSS feed over a favorite, as far as I can see, is that with RSS you can see much more of the available news/information in a glance. With a favorite, you go to a single web page from which you have to navigate to see other information.

Uploading photos

Uploading Uploading a photograph is easy if you scroll down to find the right commands! This is Torres del Paine in Patagonia.

Week 3

Created a new Flickr account (I had had one before), and uploaded two library photos to same.  I had a “before” picture and an “after” picture of the re-finished library doors. I should have uploaded the first one second and the second one first, so the “before” picture appeared on the left.  Live and learn.

Weeks 1 & 2

Have never created a blog before, but am interested in trying the 23 Things. Tag clouds are interesting. I find myself following cataloging concepts, i.e., I created the tag “Week 1″ and immediately felt I wanted to create the tag “Week One,” etc.  (i.e., the equivalent of a 246).