Friday, May 16, 2008

Thing 23 Wrapping up


These exercises reinforced that which I already knew--that is--if you really want to learn something you have to do it again and again so you can master it. Blogging is a lot easier than I thought it would be and that is because I did it after almost each tool I learned. I cannot see myself being a blogger but it's nice to know that I could be one if I so desired. Web 2.0 is here. As a librarian I will need answer questions about how to use it. After these exercises I am better qualified to do so.

My favorite things are:
LibraryThing because I will use it to keep track of the books tha I have read.
BlogLines because I can find blogs to read regarding issues of concern to me.
Podcast.com because I can listen to radio broadcasts that air I when I'm unavailable to listen.

My least favorite was when the websites had technical difficulties --Odeo and Flickr. This was especailly true for Flickr because it was an exercise that we had to do almost at the beginng. I can see where the problems with Flickr could have discouraged many staff members from continuing with the other exercises.



It seem that Google.docs ansd Zoho could be useful for staff who are committee members.


haring Web 2.0 with my friends and family is something Ive just started to do. I started to use ListenNJ today and shared it with my husband. I intend to share LibraryThing with the members of both books club that I belong to when I see see them.


Thursday, May 15, 2008

Web Thing 22 Listen NJ

I've looked at the info for Listen NJ. I will add my reaction after I download the software at home.

With a little hunting and pecking I downloaded "OverDrive Media Console" and updated "Windows Media Player". I opened "OverDrive Media Console", checked out one book, downloaded and listened to a little of it. Checked out two more books just to make sure I had done it correctly and lo and behold they also appeared to be downloaded.

Looking forward to getting that MP3 player since I don't intend to listen to a book from my computer but I could see listening to it from the MP3 player.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/1095/90274510/npr_90274510.mp3

http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/Economics/On_Economy/vO3nYBz5sqeg.mp3
http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/Economics/On_Economy/vO3nYBz5sqeg.mp3
http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/Economics/On_Economy/vYIbTHARl9PY.mp3

Thing 19 Web Awards

Having worked as a medical librarian for most of my career I was interested in the Health
category. The web service I looked at was www.medstory.com and I will be adding it to my del.icio.us page so I can explore it at a later date.

www.medstory.com
A search engine for all things health-related, Medstory lets you search for your health query, presenting you with ways to refine your search by disorder, drugs, studies and more.
Usability 5 / 5
Usefulness 5 / 5
Social Aspects 0 / 5
Interface & Design 4 / 5
Content Quality 5 / 5

Thing 18 Web Apps


Thing 18 - Web Apps was created with Zoho as you can tell by how the tags are shown.

Google Docs and Zoho are very interesting software applications - they do look very much like Microsoft products. I am only working part-time so I am not currently working on any library projects. I do see how they would be useful to members of the same committee working on a project.


Technorati Tags ,,,,,,

Thing 17 Stuck in the Sandbox

After a lot of false starts I finally finished this task--now I leave the sandbox behind me.

Members of project groups (i.e. committee members) may find a wiki useful in pooling the information they have found that tey want the public at large to know.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Thing 20 YouTube - The Shot Heard 'Round The World

Just for fun for all you old time New York Giants fans!!!





October 3, 1951

Thing 20 - YouTube - The L-Team Check It Out!

This really is a wonderful PR piece for libaries. Thanks to creativity and "The A Team". I wanted to know who did it so I copied all the info about it.

From: nnnicck
Joined: 2 years ago
Videos: 13
Please login to subscribe.
Added: February 14, 2007 (More info)
If you have a research question, if no one else...
Added: February 14, 2007 (Less info)
If you have a research question, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... the L-Team!
Category: Comedy
Tags:
l-team library team a-team librarians williams college libraries


Thursday, May 8, 2008

Thing 16 Wiki and Me

I've spent a considerable amount ot time exploring wikis because of my concern for who authored them. What do I know about this individuals and how do I find out about them is the basic problem I have with wikis. Most of my career was spent with peer reviewed journals and published books where the author's identity was known and a very important part of the reference work that I did.

I was able to find out when the info about Sparks was changedfrom the history
tab:
Pink as of Aug 29, 2007
Magenta as of Sept 10, 2007
Sourced Sept 11, 2007 by Garnetpoint (however I don't know who Garnetpoint is)

This exercise furthered my explorations of wikis and I have now learned a little more about how they are authored and some of the controls on them. Looking at the history made me look to see what was behind the other tabs.

I did take a quick look at the "Library Success Wiki" and it had more useful information than I expected to find. On the "recent Change Page" I found information about libraries using IM for reference work. This seems like a useful thing for libraries to do but i"m not really sure this is web 2.0--sounds more like web 1.0 to me.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Thing 15 Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 Unanswered questions

Web 2.0 has certainly arrived and many people are using it. I'm not sure that I want to spend large chunks of my time using it. I would prefer seeing and talking to those I know than strangers who may not even be those they say they are. I can see some value in some of the blogs, especially when I know who created them. One thing I learned of value about Web 1.0 is that I want to know who created the information and when did they last update it. In many of the articles in wikipedia I have no idea who created them and therefore am hesitant to rely on the information they present.

Input from customers has value but if we reach the point that we are concerned by the customer's input we diminish our own standing. This buy into the argument that everything is available on the Internet for free. As librarians we know this is false. As long as there are commercial enterprises and copyright Web 2.0 will never provide everything for free.

Thing 14 More of the same

Exploring Technorati again gave me a little more of a sense of what it does but I'm still not sure what I would use it for in my life or at work.

Thing 13: del.icio.us -- maybe

It took me a while to set up the del.icio.us account an I will not be able to test it until Thursday Evening ( I only work part-time, very part-time).

If I am successful in using it at work it will be an easy way for me to get to some of my favorite bookmarks which are not included in "link to a topic".

If I was not retired I could see del.icio.us being helpful in establishing contacts with other librarians and informationists. At this point I can see it being useful to know about this kind of sharing. I do not get many reference questions that are really research questions--however if I did have to answer this type of question I would explain del.icio.us to that person.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Thing #12 NetLibrary and WorldCat My Comfort Zone

As a librarian I have been helping customers set up NetLibrary accounts. For those custmers who are computer savy it is very easy. At this point any staff member who has come this far in setting up numerous accounts will easily be able to help our customers set up a NetLibrary account for e-books.

Using WorldCat I found out that the Ocean County Library does not own a printed copy of "lost Horizon' but it does a DVD version of the that has been reformatted from the original released in 1937.

WorldCat will be useful for locating data for the ILL form for material not found on amazon. The one thing that WorldCat will not supply is the cost of the item.

Biographical cyclopedia of Ocean county, New Jersey by William H Fischer is owned by only four libraries in WorldCat. One copy is at the Tom's River Branch.

Thing # 11: LibraryThing

At last something I can use! I belong to two book clubs and I cannot always remember all the books that I've read. This site can be used to record all the books I've books I've--well at least 250 of them.

Thing 10: Tech blogging

One new technology I'm very happy withis my GPS--it's a portable Garmin. Being relatively new to NJ I find i can be 30 minutes from home and have no idea how to get there or back--Garmin to the rescue--It really works.

Thing # (9: Finding Things

I lookined at all three suggested sites-- at Topix.net, Syndic8.com and Technorati.com.

I decide I liked the feature on Topix.net theat let you choose "Your Town" I live in Upper Freehold which is very small and google searches don't yield much new information. I had to use my zipcode and that proved to being the key for finding the info. It also looked like the page I pulled up which was set to toms River had been customized.

On Technorati I liked that current items could be found under the tags at "What's Rising"

I did not come up with anything that I coud do with Syndic8.

It was informative to know abou the "standard feed icon" that appears after the URL in the address bar but i could not try this out at work because it doesn't wor with "IE">