The PBCLS wiki is kind of fun. I enjoyed seeing fellow employees write about favored movies, books, and restaurants. I added my blog to the Favorite Blog list, though I was appropriately chagrined at my hubris in doing so.
Also contributed to a couple lists of favorites, most notably Favorite Mangos. In doing so, I found someone working at another branch who shares my affection for the king of fruits. Sadly she was unable to accept my posted offer of a free mango tree.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Wiki Watchee
So, you may ask, how is a wiki different from other sorts of websites? Well, unlike a blog, a wiki is a collaborative website. It is designed for the easy sharing of knowledge/plans etc. by anyone who wishes to contribute. Unlike a message board / bulletin board, people can edit contributions made by others. That is good for some applications, not so good for others. I guess there is an ethereal version of a paper trail to track changes, though I'm not sure how that works.
I followed a few of the library wiki links, and came across some interesting stuff. There was a good article about why cell phones are so annoying; it included an actual study with data. I don't remember what trail of links I followed, but later found it again through a Google search. There was a good article about Wiki etiquette. Also enjoyed the Ann Arbor wiki, which brought back memories of Shakey Jake, and the annual Hash Bash (though why anyone would want to criticize a plate of steaming hot, delicious corned beef hash is beyond me).
How, then, might wikis be used in a library environment? They could be a good tool for sharing information within a branch, especially if easily searchable by keywords. Any business open as many hours as we are, with staff on different schedules, has a problem keeping everyone current on everything going on.
A wiki could also help with collaberation among staff at various levels in the organization. Many library systems have an overly "top-down" management style. Decisions are made at upper levels without any input from the worker bees as to the ramifications for staff and patrons. It would be so much better to discuss policy issues and changes on a wiki long before final decisions are made.
I followed a few of the library wiki links, and came across some interesting stuff. There was a good article about why cell phones are so annoying; it included an actual study with data. I don't remember what trail of links I followed, but later found it again through a Google search. There was a good article about Wiki etiquette. Also enjoyed the Ann Arbor wiki, which brought back memories of Shakey Jake, and the annual Hash Bash (though why anyone would want to criticize a plate of steaming hot, delicious corned beef hash is beyond me).
How, then, might wikis be used in a library environment? They could be a good tool for sharing information within a branch, especially if easily searchable by keywords. Any business open as many hours as we are, with staff on different schedules, has a problem keeping everyone current on everything going on.
A wiki could also help with collaberation among staff at various levels in the organization. Many library systems have an overly "top-down" management style. Decisions are made at upper levels without any input from the worker bees as to the ramifications for staff and patrons. It would be so much better to discuss policy issues and changes on a wiki long before final decisions are made.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Web 2.0 vs. Brain 1.0
Am I the only one having trouble keeping all of these internet tools straight in my head? They all jumble into one massive keyword search in my head.
But speaking of Library 2.0, does the library really have anything to do with the WWW? Nahhh, most of our patrons have full access to that without coming to the library. It's our books and databases and our amazingly personable service they look for in the library.
But, getting back to Rick Anderson's article about staying "Away from the 'icebergs'" :
I'm not ready to completely give up the "just in case" collection. In some cases books are a heck of a lot easier to use than web-based sources. This is gradually changing, though, as developers struggle to find intuitive interfaces for their electronic resources.
Versatile software is by nature more complicated to use. When you attempt to dumb it down you tend to lose something in efficiency or accuracy. This too is certainly subject to improvement as time goes on.
As we give up the "come to us" model will we be giving up libraries as an institution?
But speaking of Library 2.0, does the library really have anything to do with the WWW? Nahhh, most of our patrons have full access to that without coming to the library. It's our books and databases and our amazingly personable service they look for in the library.
But, getting back to Rick Anderson's article about staying "Away from the 'icebergs'" :
I'm not ready to completely give up the "just in case" collection. In some cases books are a heck of a lot easier to use than web-based sources. This is gradually changing, though, as developers struggle to find intuitive interfaces for their electronic resources.
Versatile software is by nature more complicated to use. When you attempt to dumb it down you tend to lose something in efficiency or accuracy. This too is certainly subject to improvement as time goes on.
As we give up the "come to us" model will we be giving up libraries as an institution?
Among the Technorati Illuminati, or not
The Technorati web site is designed to help us find other folks who are blathering on about "virtually" nothing on the WWW. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not.
I did manage to "claim" my blog so that Technorati is aware of it. Then I went back and added labels to my posts, so that my blog could be found via searches for tags. That didn't work, though. A search for one of my posts based on its tags yielded nothing. Likewise my keyword search for all of the blog posts that include Samuel Johnson and Alec Baldwin failed to bring up my post. The instructions for helping Technorati find labels for my blog posts were confusing. They did mention something about "Atom" so I clicked on the Atom link at the bottom of my blog. I tried that several times but got only error messages.
So far I can't say that Technorati would be especially useful to me. I don't mind reading intelligent political commentary from well-read liberals, but I'm not convinced that a keyword or tag search would help me locate these.
Searching for blogs that link to the library's home page yielded mostly dead links, a bit of a frustration, but understandable.
I did a tag search for web 2.0, narrowed it to English, and got lots of hits but little of interest. Clicking on the thumbnail of the hits I wanted to see yielded error messages. Clicking the URL, which was small and greyed out, sometimes did get me somewhere.
I did manage to "claim" my blog so that Technorati is aware of it. Then I went back and added labels to my posts, so that my blog could be found via searches for tags. That didn't work, though. A search for one of my posts based on its tags yielded nothing. Likewise my keyword search for all of the blog posts that include Samuel Johnson and Alec Baldwin failed to bring up my post. The instructions for helping Technorati find labels for my blog posts were confusing. They did mention something about "Atom" so I clicked on the Atom link at the bottom of my blog. I tried that several times but got only error messages.
So far I can't say that Technorati would be especially useful to me. I don't mind reading intelligent political commentary from well-read liberals, but I'm not convinced that a keyword or tag search would help me locate these.
Searching for blogs that link to the library's home page yielded mostly dead links, a bit of a frustration, but understandable.
I did a tag search for web 2.0, narrowed it to English, and got lots of hits but little of interest. Clicking on the thumbnail of the hits I wanted to see yielded error messages. Clicking the URL, which was small and greyed out, sometimes did get me somewhere.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Deliciousness
I know, it's just so easy to be cynical about trying new things. So, shall we get started?
Actually, I liked using del.icio.us. I think it may be handy to be able to access favorite sites from any computer. As far as using it to find other web sites on topics of interest, I had mixed results. First I tried searching for mango cultivars, with poor results. I got similarly scant results with mango varieties. However, searches for curry recipes, and peanut dressing recipes yielded some tasty hits. And the home page, with its recent/popular listings, yielded a good web site for making Windows Vista less annoying.
Actually, I liked using del.icio.us. I think it may be handy to be able to access favorite sites from any computer. As far as using it to find other web sites on topics of interest, I had mixed results. First I tried searching for mango cultivars, with poor results. I got similarly scant results with mango varieties. However, searches for curry recipes, and peanut dressing recipes yielded some tasty hits. And the home page, with its recent/popular listings, yielded a good web site for making Windows Vista less annoying.
Voting Republican?
A friend sent me a link to a good video on YouTube, so I thought I'd see if I can figure out how to include it on my blog.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Minor Feat
I've used WebFeat in answering reference questions, but today tried a subject search for my hometown of Sandusky, Michigan. A few postcards exist featuring Sandusky's older buildings. Over a thousand residents of the town have died through the years. Sadly, nothing else of note has happened there, at least according to WebFeat. I'm convinced that a murder did occur some time during the fifties, but this may pre-date the databases.
I also tried looking up a steroid drug that may be useful in reducing territorial marking by male dogs and cats. No good hits came up, so good old Google won the prize for this search.
I also tried looking up a steroid drug that may be useful in reducing territorial marking by male dogs and cats. No good hits came up, so good old Google won the prize for this search.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
The Next Generation
With apologies to Samuel Johnson.I tried a fair number of image generators, with varying degrees of success. My animated gif would not display properly on this blog, so I did the banner above instead. I used the banner tool at imagegenerator.org. There was a nice generator for putting one's face on a different body. Sadly I didn't find a suitable picture of Alec Baldwin.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Library Thingy
I had a chance to try LibraryThing, and added some books to "my library." I also was able to add book cover illustrations for some of my titles. The link is: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/mangomandan
I'm not at all sure this is something I will use. I do wonder if it would be useful for a project I've had in mind. I would like a small catalog of the piano music books we have at home. However, it would only be worthwhile if LibraryThing included the song titles that each book contains. Also, I would want to then use LibraryThing to create an alphabetical list of song titles, giving the book title and the page number for each song.
I'm not at all sure this is something I will use. I do wonder if it would be useful for a project I've had in mind. I would like a small catalog of the piano music books we have at home. However, it would only be worthwhile if LibraryThing included the song titles that each book contains. Also, I would want to then use LibraryThing to create an alphabetical list of song titles, giving the book title and the page number for each song.
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