Learning Library

Facebook

2007-12-17T12:43:00.001-08:00

I've had a Facebook account for ages and have send friend requests, but I played around with it a little so I didn't feel like I was cheating :-).

One of the things I love about Facebook is that it allows me to get back in touch with friends and schoolmates that I haven't talked to in years. Just now, I accepted a friend request and sent a message to a friend from college that I haven't spoken to in about five years.

I really like Facebook and I should really use it more than I do.

Overdrive

2007-12-15T10:34:00.000-08:00

I think the idea of digital books and audiobooks is a good one, but I find that most customers would still rather have the physical book or CD. Customers don't want to be tied to their computers to read or listen and they don't want to spend the money to buy CDs for the burnable titles.

I think the idea of databases like Overdrive and Netlibrary is a good one, and I think maybe in a few more years they might start to take off, but as a person working in a small branch library, I'm not seeing it happen now. I would however, be interested in statistics on how Overdrive and Netlibrary are being used. Since customers only need to come into the library to register and can, from then on, use their home computers without coming into the library, perhaps a lot more use is being made of these resources than those of us in the front line in the libraries are aware of.

That said, the overdrive interface was easy to use, and I liked that I could browse by subject, even though the number of titles in this database is still fairly light. We haven't had Overdrive for very long, so we can't expect to have a huge number of titles. Plus, I can see how our collection development team may not want to spend a lot of money buying titles that may not get very much use compared to their physical counterparts.

I'm glad that Overdrive was one of the "things" covered, since I don't get asked about this database very often, and it was good to spend a little while going over the database so that it will be fresh in my memory the next time someone is interested in e-books or e-audiobooks.

Podcasts

2007-12-06T08:37:00.000-08:00

Podcasts are another new technology that I've been aware of for awhile. Unlike YouTube however, I've never been a real fan (I've never been a big fan of listening to programs on the radio either). Audio, for me, is a step down from video.

If it is a choice between listening and reading, I'd rather read, because at least that way I can skim.

Still, search engines for podcasts are a good thing to be aware of, in case anyone asks. After looking through the three linked on the lesson, my favorite is the first, Podcastalley.com.

I added two to my bloglines account and listened to a few minutes of each, but to be honest, this is not my favorite format, so I probably won't continue to follow them.

Lion Hugs on YouTube

2007-12-06T07:33:00.000-08:00

I'm actually very familiar with YouTube and have been using it a long time. I learned about YouTube while I was in college, and have continued to learn more about newer video sites from teens that volunteer at my library and from the teens that come to my anime club.

This is the first time that I've attempted to imbed a video in a blog however, so here goes:

Web 2.0 awards

2007-12-06T07:03:00.000-08:00

I looked at both the Web 2.0 awards and the Webaware awards, and ended up choosing a site from the Webaware awards.

I had actually heard of the site www.answers.com before but had never really take the time to explore and use it.

To test out the site, I tried a couple of searches, and then browsed the sites features for awhile. The first search I tried was based on an actual reference question--a patron wanted to know more about the guns used on the Louis and Clark expedition. For this search, the search engine performed pretty much the same as Google, but did return different results. The next search I tried was for the book we are doing for next month's book club A Thousand Splendid Suns for this search, I really like the way the information was aggregated and visually displayed from a variety of sources. It grabbed the article from Wikepedia, and displayed an attractive sidebar, showing a few sites where you can buy the book. Most importantly, it told me where the information was coming from so I could refer to the original source.

The real joy of this site however was when I started to browse it. Answer.com presents subject guides on a variety of subjects, one example of which is it's diet guide http://www.answers.com/library/Diet%20Guide in which it lists a variety of diets that you can click on and then view a short summary and then sometimes an attached article from another source.

I believe that I will use this site in the future for reference work. At the very least it provides a quick alternative to the reference databases and Google.

Zoho Writer

2007-12-05T13:09:00.001-08:00

Zoho Writer

I think that Zoho writer works like a simplified version of Microsoft Word. I attempted to use some of the features, such as creating and formatted a table, and found it awkward to use, and I couldn't do everything I was used to doing. It's better than Notepad, but if I were doing anything for work or anything for which I need to use tables, I would still prefer to use Word. However, Zoho writer does offer quite a lot for a free service.

PBWiki

2007-12-04T15:41:00.000-08:00

Perhaps PBWiki would be a useful tool to use to create a site where librarians from a large area (For example Florida librarians, or United States librarians) could share subject guides. Of course this would involve a lot of work, not the least of which would be controlling who can edit the pages, and the content that those people add.

Now if only there were someone with enough time to set something like that up!

Wiki's

2007-12-04T15:06:00.001-08:00

The use of Wikis that I was most interested in would probably be the Book Lover' Wiki, by the Princeton Library. Tying the wiki to a specific event (their adult summer reading program) allowed them to promote the program online using the wiki.

I would love the idea of having a subject guide wiki, similar to the one for SJCPL, that allowed access to librarians and other information professionals from around the world.

Rollyo

2007-11-14T13:22:00.000-08:00

Earlier, when we were asked to blog about technology, I wrote that I was frustrated by the limitations of Google's Video Search. I wanted it to search more sources than just Google Videos and You Tube.

Rollyo actually enables me to create a search to search all of the different video sources that I wanted. I love it when I get my own questions answered!

I decided to create a roll for Asian drama videos, since watching these is a hobby of mine in my free time.

Interestingly, as I was creating my roll, I realized that more is not better. I originally had it searching along with the other sites, but I found that veoh returned so many results in itself that I couldn't really see any of the results for the other sites. So, I included just a few less well known sites in my roll that I search often. If I want to search veoh, I can can just go to veoh to search.

Here's a link to my search roll.

LibraryThing

2007-11-14T12:55:00.000-08:00

I liked LibraryThing, and I think I might actually use the suggestions feature in reader's advisory when What Do I Read Next? fails to offer any good suggestions (which is a lot of the time).

Here's my attempt to link to my catalog:

Playing with image generators

2007-11-14T07:46:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed myself immensely playing around with some of the image generator sites, especially Flickr Toys. I chose to share the one from this web site,

http://www.glassgiant.com/chocolate_bar/

I guess because I was hungry or wanted chocolate? Which is probably always when it comes to chocolate...

I added the Generator Blog (http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/) to my Bloglines account just for fun.

Library 2.0

2007-11-08T11:17:00.000-08:00

I agree with Dr. Wendy Schultz that "Library 2.0" is actually a temporary time and place. I will go further to add that the whole idea of library 2.0 seems somewhat artificial to me. In my opinion, libraries have been and are changing on a nearly continual basis (with some stops and starts and sudden accelerations). To me, Library 2.0 is little more than a label that some are applying to a particular place and time.

I think in the library field there are a lot of people panicking that library's are not "keeping up with the times." I believe that what we are really seeing is a tendency towards discretion. Libraries have traditionally waited to see what was going to take before adopting new policies and technologies. Undoubtedly, though this is before my time, there was a huge debate about whether or not computers should be included in libraries. Eventually, when it became clear that computers were going to become a huge part of people's lives as well as an invaluable resource for knowledge, computers were included. Today, we are having the same sort of debates...should libraries create blogs, and interactive features on their web sites such as customer reviews as John J. Riemer suggests in his article? I think the answer is yes, we will, and in some cases, already are.

I think libraries will continue to adopt technologies that have been proven effective.

Adult Education Classes

2007-11-08T07:11:00.000-08:00

In the last few months, I've taken a couple of adult education classes at local schools. I'm trying to learn spanish and to excercise more, so I'm now on my second Spanish class and I'm taking pilates and yoga. The pilates and yoga class are a lot of fun and the pilates class in particular is good exercise.

My feelings are more mixed about the Spanish classes. It's good that the Spanish classes take into account that the people who are coming are working full time and have busy lives, but I'm not sure that I'm learning as much as I would in a more conventional class. Still, I'm enjoying this class far more than I can remember enjoying classes in college since I don't have the pressure of worrying about being tested or homework.

One of the things that I enjoy about living in Broward County is that it has better opportunities for inexpensive adult education than any other place that I have lived.

Del.icio.us

2007-11-08T06:58:00.001-08:00

After exploring Del.icio.us, I think that I'll definitely use it to help me find sites. For example, I might use it to see if I could find useful information to help me with programming. I tried a search for library anime club (and variations of those words) and pulled up for interesting sites on anime and libraries.

I'm not sure yet whether creating an account and bookmarking sites through it is much more useful than using the bookmarking feature in my browser. I think I'll explore Del.icio.us some more when I have more time.

The Scope of Google Video

2007-11-01T11:12:00.000-07:00

When I go to the Google Video support page ( http://video.google.com/support/ ), it gives the following scope for the service:

"The Video index is comprised of videos that people have added using Google’s services (You Tube, Google Video) as well as videos from other third-party sites."

Where are the videos from the third-party sites? I personally have never seen videos from any site except You Tube and Google video (though I have been using it since the feature was introduced), even when I know that these other sites exist and offer a particular video. Popular video sites such as www.crunchyroll.com and www.veoh.com don't seem to be indexed at all in Google Video.

Google Image search trolls the web for images embedded on an seemingly impossibly wide variety of web sites. Why is the scope of Google Video so comparatively limited? Google Video would be a better search engine if it could actually be used to search for videos on all of the web. As it is now, to look for a particular video, I have to go to each of the video sites and search.

If they are concerned with copyrighting, why are they not concerned with copyrighted images?

Despite it's limitations, I prefer watching videos on Google Video when they are available because those videos that are actually Google videos (and not you tube videos indexed on Google Video) are higher quality and are not generally separated into many parts the way that videos on you tube or crunchy roll tend to be.

Does anyone know of a site that searches for videos the way Google searches the web?

Delivr

2007-10-31T08:58:00.000-07:00

Last week, a friend had a birthday. I wanted to send him an e-card, but had trouble finding one I liked that was free (I willingly pay for the paper cards, but for some reason, I think that e-cards should be free :-P). So when I was looking at the third party applications on flickr, I was interested in the idea of the application delivr (http://www.delivr.net/). I was disappointed when I tried to use the application because there were not many photos available in the categories I chose, and sometimes the photos didn't seem to be very applicable to the category in which they had been placed.

However, with a little (or maybe a lot) of work this application could be very useful. Imagine being able to create an e-card from any public photo in flickr...

Come to the library, IF YOU DARE!

2007-10-31T08:17:00.001-07:00

Come to the library, IF YOU DARE!
Originally uploaded by Manatee County Public Library

I was interested in what other Florida libraries were doing for halloween this year, so that's what I searched for in Flickr. This picture is from the Manatee County Public Library Central Library and it was posted at 6:55 AM this morning--that is dedication especially since they didn't open until 9AM today according to thier web site.

It also lets me know that libraries in Florida are using Flickr to help promote their libraries (note the caption: "Come to the Library, IF YOU DARE!" I wonder how useful flickr is as a promotional tool. Do people in the local community come across photos in Flickr posted by the library?

RSS Feed Search Engines

2007-10-24T12:42:00.000-07:00

After exploring some the the RSS Feed Search tools, I think my favorites are Topix.net and Feedster. I liked Topix.net net for searching for feeds on a broad topics such as "libraries." I liked that you could view "all topics" on one page. Once they were on one page, it was easy to scroll through or do a Control + F search of the page for a particular topic. I like Feedster better when I was searching for blogs on more obsure subjects such as "taiwanese dramas." After a few searches, I wasn't a big fan of either Syndic8.com or Technorati, since they returned 0 hits for more obscure topics and didn't seem very useful to me for broad topics but I'll continue to play with them as I get time to see if there are particular situations in which they are useful.

RSS feeds and Bloglines

2007-10-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

I just completed the RSS exercise and created a bloglines account. I ran into a little trouble finding my public page on bloglines, but then I realized I needed to fill out the "blog settings" section in order to be able to view my public page. My page is http://www.bloglines.com/public/eknapp .

Lifelong Learning

2007-10-17T08:30:00.000-07:00

After listening to the Lifelong Learning presentation, I think that the easiest habit for me is to use technology to my advantage. Because I already have this habit, I am open and even prefer learning in non-traditional environments such as the online environment we are using for TLC 2.0. I think that taking responsibility for my own learning beyond the things that we will be learning specifically for the BCL 23 things will be the hardest habit to apply because of time constraints, both in work and in the amount of free time I have.