Well, it's hard to believe this course is over and how many new things I've learned and am now using on a regular basis. Mashups are the icing on the cake! I created a couple of my own and it is making my work so much easier, now. I have one that searches many books-related sites so I now can get details about specific books from a variety of sources, including accurate availability information, tables of contents, and publishing information. Another mashup searches multiple sites for institutional publications. I'm still working to refine this, but, in the long run I think this will simplify things for me.
Thanks for doing this class. I know there have been frustrations from some participants, particularly in the ability to access resources from the workplace. But, I'm not sure how many of us would have taken the time to really look at these tools without this incentive.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Week 7 - Podcasts and Online Hosted Video
Well, this was a disappointing week for me. Everything needed to be done at home, and even then, some things didn't work as planned. I have already been subscribing to podcasts, so this wasn't new for me., but I knew nothing about Podcast Alley or podcast.net. They were both a little overwhelming, but I'm glad to know they exist. I was unable to get Odeo to work from work or home.
YouTube has lots of interesting things on it - I've been on that site before, but it's getting more and more difficult to find the "good stuff" when there's so much duplication as well as "uninteresting" material posted.
I decided to create my own video and post it to my facebook account. But, it was 2 minutes and 1 second, which made it 1 second too long to post. I then tried to post a YouTube video to my blog, as a separate page element. But, it didn't seem to allow for a URL. When I typed in the keywords of the YouTube video, it found 4 separate versions, and posted all four. I was unable to delete 3 of them. So, I found another video and added that. The only way I was able to post my own video (from my camera), was to post it as a blog entry. It seems like there should have been a better way... Also, when I showed my husband the YouTube video I posted, he asked if it violated copyright, since it's a video of a live performance. Well, whose responsible for that? The person who posted to YouTube, or me?
So, all in all, I have more questions than answers this week. But, YouTube is blocked at work, as is most audio streaming - at least for now. So, I think I don't have to worry about this technology at this time.
YouTube has lots of interesting things on it - I've been on that site before, but it's getting more and more difficult to find the "good stuff" when there's so much duplication as well as "uninteresting" material posted.
I decided to create my own video and post it to my facebook account. But, it was 2 minutes and 1 second, which made it 1 second too long to post. I then tried to post a YouTube video to my blog, as a separate page element. But, it didn't seem to allow for a URL. When I typed in the keywords of the YouTube video, it found 4 separate versions, and posted all four. I was unable to delete 3 of them. So, I found another video and added that. The only way I was able to post my own video (from my camera), was to post it as a blog entry. It seems like there should have been a better way... Also, when I showed my husband the YouTube video I posted, he asked if it violated copyright, since it's a video of a live performance. Well, whose responsible for that? The person who posted to YouTube, or me?
So, all in all, I have more questions than answers this week. But, YouTube is blocked at work, as is most audio streaming - at least for now. So, I think I don't have to worry about this technology at this time.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Week 6 - Flickr
I am writing this within flickr, and, hopefully, it will post to my blog, along with a picture of Snow in April. Until this assignment, I had been sharing pictures through Kodak's Easy Share site, which came with my Kodak camera. But, I think this will be better, and easier to manage. I see lots of possibilities for personal use. Not sure about professional use - at least not yet.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Week 5 - Web Office Tools
I'm going to see if I can write my post in googledocs and post it to my blog. This is an experiment based on the optional exercise. [Note: this didn't work - I had to cut/paste to get this here...]
This week happens to be a week I've had the least amount of time to devote to this class, which is too bad, because I see lots of potential for this product. I had not even heard of googledocs before, so, this week was totally new and I love the concept. How many times have you read committee meeting minutes and you read the section that has to do with something you said, and you think, "Boy, did they get this wrong - this isn't what I said at all." Well, with googledocs, drafts of minutes could be posted for all participants to see and edit prior to it becoming the official documentation. This would save so many future hassles with amending minutes, revised copies, etc...
I don't do much with spreadsheets or slides, so, I devoted less time to this, and haven't had the chance to really compare googledocs to the other web office products, yet, but, hope to be able to spend some weekend time looking through this and looking at more features of the google products.
Is this the future of all software products? I think not in its current format - but, it's getting closer. I found the "comparison" feature cumbersome. I'd like a better way to see what others have done to my document - maybe colors, or fonts, or something other than lots of crossed-out lines. Bryan suggested you need a constant internet connection. While I don't know if this is true, this would be a shortcoming if if is true, although I suppose one could work off-line and then upload a document into googledocs from another product, such as Word. But, this, of course, means you have to buy more programs...
Very interesting concepts and I've enjoyed playing with this. One additional problem I encountered is that some colleagues invited me to share their documents, but, my work email and my googledocs email aren't the same, and I couldn't figure out how to get into their documents, even though I was invited. Again, because I didn't have much time this week, perhaps I would have figured it out with more time, but, for now, that didn't work well.
This week happens to be a week I've had the least amount of time to devote to this class, which is too bad, because I see lots of potential for this product. I had not even heard of googledocs before, so, this week was totally new and I love the concept. How many times have you read committee meeting minutes and you read the section that has to do with something you said, and you think, "Boy, did they get this wrong - this isn't what I said at all." Well, with googledocs, drafts of minutes could be posted for all participants to see and edit prior to it becoming the official documentation. This would save so many future hassles with amending minutes, revised copies, etc...
I don't do much with spreadsheets or slides, so, I devoted less time to this, and haven't had the chance to really compare googledocs to the other web office products, yet, but, hope to be able to spend some weekend time looking through this and looking at more features of the google products.
Is this the future of all software products? I think not in its current format - but, it's getting closer. I found the "comparison" feature cumbersome. I'd like a better way to see what others have done to my document - maybe colors, or fonts, or something other than lots of crossed-out lines. Bryan suggested you need a constant internet connection. While I don't know if this is true, this would be a shortcoming if if is true, although I suppose one could work off-line and then upload a document into googledocs from another product, such as Word. But, this, of course, means you have to buy more programs...
Very interesting concepts and I've enjoyed playing with this. One additional problem I encountered is that some colleagues invited me to share their documents, but, my work email and my googledocs email aren't the same, and I couldn't figure out how to get into their documents, even though I was invited. Again, because I didn't have much time this week, perhaps I would have figured it out with more time, but, for now, that didn't work well.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Week 4 - Del.icio.us
I have had a del.icio.us account since before this class started. I like having all my favorites handy, no matter what computer I am working at. I am still a bit uncomfortable using it, though, and haven't totally figured out the best way to navigate around the site - like how to combine 2 tags, or how to only see sites if they have been updated since I last visited. Del.icio.us is partially blocked at work, so it's hard to evaluate its potential professional use when I can't really use it when I'm working. (I can open my account, but I can't tag anything new.) I also don't have tons of sites tagged, yet, so I still find myself pulling down the "favorites" from within my browser more often than opening del.icio.us and looking at how I organized things, and then opening what I need. As a cataloger at heart, though, I actually am looking forward to that "rainy day" when I can totally organize everything I have and systematically tag, link to new items, and evaluate how others have tagged similar sites.
I tried looking at other people's links, in order to populate my site, but wasn't overwhelmed with what I was finding. I'm not sure I see potential library applications (for our users) yet, but certainly see using this as a way to personally become better educated and to find relevant sites about personal or professional topics of interest, or to help find resources to better answer a reference question.
I am thrilled to finally be able to spend the time to learn these 2.0 tools. I am glad this course has given me the opportunity to do this.
I tried looking at other people's links, in order to populate my site, but wasn't overwhelmed with what I was finding. I'm not sure I see potential library applications (for our users) yet, but certainly see using this as a way to personally become better educated and to find relevant sites about personal or professional topics of interest, or to help find resources to better answer a reference question.
I am thrilled to finally be able to spend the time to learn these 2.0 tools. I am glad this course has given me the opportunity to do this.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Week 3 -Social Networking
I'm happy the Social Networking instructions were posted early - that way I was able to start this at home on the weekend, which was good, as I'm pretty sure facebook is blocked at work.
I signed up for a facebook account, invited some friends (and I think I invited some people I didn't mean to include, also - won't they be surprised!) and did some looking around. I thought it was fun, but didn't really see how this was going to be work related until I tried the UAB catalog search, the PubMed search and the WorldCat search. WOW Now I see some potential for people who want to connect to the Library from within their facebook accounts! While I'm not sure (yet) what needs to be done on the Library's end to be an "application" - I could see "announcing" new books, faculty publications, and general library news. I also signed up to be part of my workplace's community. Not sure what will happen since this is blocked at work, and I sure hope I don't "get in any trouble."
Next I signed up for LinkedIn. This seemed much more "professional" to me and I felt this was a more appropriate site to investigate, from a personal standpoint. My college-aged daughter feels strongly that facebook should have remained a "college-protected" environment, and I tend to agree with her - or at least I want to support her by not "invading" her "private" space. That being said, though, our users will include people who rely heavily on facebook, and if this is where they want to communicate with us, we need to be poised to do this. Although I found many more "friends" with facebook accounts than with LinkedIn accounts. I saw more potential in communicating with other librarians and professionals from within LinkedIn than from within facebook. But, to optimally use this site, it appears you need to upgrade your membership, for a "small fee." Doubt I'll do that - so LinkedIn is probably out, for now.
I found some myspace pages to be interesting, but, think that this site is not as popular as it used to be. I have a gut feeling that our users, if asked to pick one type of access they would want us to pursue, would pick facebook....
One of the questions I know we're supposed to answer is "How can social networking be used by MLA to connect members?" Well, I think MLA could be a facebook application and MLA members could add this application to their profiles. I also think they could easily be set up as a group within LinkedIn, but, my growing concern, now, is how to keep up with everything that I'm now creating and learning? There's the blog, and the wiki, and now facebook and LinkedIn, and we're only at the beginning of Week 3! How many things can we keep adding and keep doing them well? I think this will be a major challenge. I don't think, as libraries, we want to create a bunch of new access methods and then let them slide, or not stay current, relevant and meaningful to our users.
An observation - it's been 5 days since I wrote the above post. Other than the library "friends" I connected with as part of the assignment, I have found few other friends in either facebook or LinkedIn. The ones I did find still have not responded to me, which leads me to believe that perhaps these tools are not being used as much as they once were, or they aren't being used as much for professional, non-social functions. While I found exposure to these sites to be worthwhile, I'm not sure how often I will "check in" to see what's going on - at least for now...
I signed up for a facebook account, invited some friends (and I think I invited some people I didn't mean to include, also - won't they be surprised!) and did some looking around. I thought it was fun, but didn't really see how this was going to be work related until I tried the UAB catalog search, the PubMed search and the WorldCat search. WOW Now I see some potential for people who want to connect to the Library from within their facebook accounts! While I'm not sure (yet) what needs to be done on the Library's end to be an "application" - I could see "announcing" new books, faculty publications, and general library news. I also signed up to be part of my workplace's community. Not sure what will happen since this is blocked at work, and I sure hope I don't "get in any trouble."
Next I signed up for LinkedIn. This seemed much more "professional" to me and I felt this was a more appropriate site to investigate, from a personal standpoint. My college-aged daughter feels strongly that facebook should have remained a "college-protected" environment, and I tend to agree with her - or at least I want to support her by not "invading" her "private" space. That being said, though, our users will include people who rely heavily on facebook, and if this is where they want to communicate with us, we need to be poised to do this. Although I found many more "friends" with facebook accounts than with LinkedIn accounts. I saw more potential in communicating with other librarians and professionals from within LinkedIn than from within facebook. But, to optimally use this site, it appears you need to upgrade your membership, for a "small fee." Doubt I'll do that - so LinkedIn is probably out, for now.
I found some myspace pages to be interesting, but, think that this site is not as popular as it used to be. I have a gut feeling that our users, if asked to pick one type of access they would want us to pursue, would pick facebook....
One of the questions I know we're supposed to answer is "How can social networking be used by MLA to connect members?" Well, I think MLA could be a facebook application and MLA members could add this application to their profiles. I also think they could easily be set up as a group within LinkedIn, but, my growing concern, now, is how to keep up with everything that I'm now creating and learning? There's the blog, and the wiki, and now facebook and LinkedIn, and we're only at the beginning of Week 3! How many things can we keep adding and keep doing them well? I think this will be a major challenge. I don't think, as libraries, we want to create a bunch of new access methods and then let them slide, or not stay current, relevant and meaningful to our users.
An observation - it's been 5 days since I wrote the above post. Other than the library "friends" I connected with as part of the assignment, I have found few other friends in either facebook or LinkedIn. The ones I did find still have not responded to me, which leads me to believe that perhaps these tools are not being used as much as they once were, or they aren't being used as much for professional, non-social functions. While I found exposure to these sites to be worthwhile, I'm not sure how often I will "check in" to see what's going on - at least for now...
Monday, March 17, 2008
Week 2 Wikis
I started a Wiki on Penguins - thought this just might be fun. But, maybe I should have done something library related. The wiki site has so many options and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by it all, but, I can see some interesting applications - I think maybe more for library staff than for providing library services, but, maybe I need to experiment some more with this. I could see collaboratively working on a Procedure Manual, or co-writing a paper, or planning an event.
As I see it, the blog is "flat" with little room for collaboration, other than through comments. It's a way to disburse information. A wiki has its strength in collaboration. One can start with something very small and let others contribute, which would allow it to be more comprehensive and less one-sided. I don't know how you monitor quality, though. What would prevent someone from adding incorrect, misleading or inappropriate information to your wiki?
As I currently see it, something better suited for a blog, would be something that needs to be conveyed and is either personal or total fact - for example library hours, a menu, a class syllabus, a travel log. Something better suited for a wiki would be something where you want others to contribute to help provide a better product/response. Examples might be ideas on how to answer a tough reference question, how to catalog a book that covers more than one subject area, or suggestions on where to entertain an out-of-town guest.
Am I getting it? I hope so...
As I see it, the blog is "flat" with little room for collaboration, other than through comments. It's a way to disburse information. A wiki has its strength in collaboration. One can start with something very small and let others contribute, which would allow it to be more comprehensive and less one-sided. I don't know how you monitor quality, though. What would prevent someone from adding incorrect, misleading or inappropriate information to your wiki?
As I currently see it, something better suited for a blog, would be something that needs to be conveyed and is either personal or total fact - for example library hours, a menu, a class syllabus, a travel log. Something better suited for a wiki would be something where you want others to contribute to help provide a better product/response. Examples might be ideas on how to answer a tough reference question, how to catalog a book that covers more than one subject area, or suggestions on where to entertain an out-of-town guest.
Am I getting it? I hope so...
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Week 1 continues
Well, I just added an RSS feed to this blog. I picked David Pogue's Pages because I can't read enough of his stuff. I saw him (on television) when he spoke at Cleveland's City Club Forum, and I was hooked. He's so easy to understand, and tells it like it is. I'm curious to see how the RSS feed will work within this blog.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
MLA CE - Week 1 comments
Well, I think I did it! I have subscribed to some RSS feeds, loaded a picture, and have started writing this blog. I didn't have too many problems - just a small one when trying to add the RSS Feed from a PubMed search. It didn't work as I had expected, but, now I think I have gotten it to work properly.
In terms of how to use this, I think RSS feeds can take the place of many of the "SDI" emails I receive. For example, subscribing to the comic strip, "Unshelved" as an RSS feed will mean I can delete the daily emails, which will free up some much-needed mailbox space.
I think patrons may prefer RSS feeds compared to emailed Table of Contents, but, I need to do more investigating.
Also, I can collect my favorite blogs and other websites in one place and not need to visit the sites directly to look for updates.
I wasn't able to do this assignment at work due to the blocking of You Tube, so, I needed to do it "all at once" from home. It took me about 90 minutes, including watching the videos, setting up the accounts, and trying to get it all to work....
I look forward to experimenting the rest of the week; maybe I'll even add an audio clip!
In terms of how to use this, I think RSS feeds can take the place of many of the "SDI" emails I receive. For example, subscribing to the comic strip, "Unshelved" as an RSS feed will mean I can delete the daily emails, which will free up some much-needed mailbox space.
I think patrons may prefer RSS feeds compared to emailed Table of Contents, but, I need to do more investigating.
Also, I can collect my favorite blogs and other websites in one place and not need to visit the sites directly to look for updates.
I wasn't able to do this assignment at work due to the blocking of You Tube, so, I needed to do it "all at once" from home. It took me about 90 minutes, including watching the videos, setting up the accounts, and trying to get it all to work....
I look forward to experimenting the rest of the week; maybe I'll even add an audio clip!
Week 1 - Entering the 2.0 World
Well, here I am - embarking on the world of the Web 2.0. I'm excited - when it's all said and done, maybe I'll know as much as my 21 year old daughter!
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