Monday, September 8, 2008

Google.docs

Applications like Google.docs further add to the convenience of the Internet and the ability to access needed information from anywhere, provided one has an Internet connection. The different software applications available through this program - while they obviously lack all the functionality of the Microsoft Office applications - also expand the power of the Web to perform tasks that were once only possible on a stand alone computer. Whether or not such programs will eventually eliminate the need for storing files on separate computers remains to be seen. But I expect the convenience that they offer to continue to increase their popularity.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

PBWiki

Nothing very exciting to report here. I added my blog to the SPLS Learning 2.0 Wiki and very brief posts to the favorite vacation spots, music, and movie pages on that site. The interactive features and ease of use of the wiki, however, reinforce its role as a collaborative learning tool.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Wikis

The most interesting thing to me about wikis is that they provide a collaborative, non-hierarchical method for building a web site. They're the most extreme example of a web application that I can think of that does this. One hopes that the collaborative, egalitarian spirit that underlies their design would permeate other avenues of decision-making - at least in those situations where it's appropriate. But on this point I'm probably engaging in another idealistic fancy.

As for what types of library applications might work well with a wiki, these have already been succinctly delineated in the post, Using Wikis to Create Online Communities, an article linked to the Learning 2.0 site on wikis. I'm afraid I can't yet think of any other suggestions beyond what the author mentions. Save it to say that all the examples she mentions - using wikis as subject guides, annotations to a library's catalog, as an online hub for community information, and for collaborative group projects between librarians sound appropriate.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Library 2.0: Ideal librarianship and the real world

My post is in response to two of the articles on this topic, Away from Icebergs by Rick Anderson and Into a New World of Librarianship by Michael Stephens.

Few can fault these commentators with a list of ideals to guide librarians due to ever changing information technologies and the paradigm shift they've forced on us. As benchmarks to aim for, they're sound proposals. But as soon as one returns from the realm of airy philosophizing to reality, one is confronted with the staff limitations that make implementing many of these proposals difficult. Along with limited staff, many librarians face funding shortages that further compound this problem. For instance, it's easy to encourage a greater reliance on user education, but anyone who's worked in a public library realizes that many users require staff assistance - and at times substantial amounts - to use computer equipment effectively. Likewise, while many support outreach activities as a way to make libraries more visible to their communities, such undertakings often entail a heavy investment of staff resources. So while the ideals the authors encourage are admirable - and, perhaps, to a certain degree essential, they're only partially obtainable.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Technorati

Like Delicious, Technorati also has the capacity to be a research tools for libraries, if for no other reason that it is one additional resource one can turn to be fine lots of information on a seemingly infinite variety of subjects. This is particularly the case if one wants to see what the most popular blogs are at any given moment, the most popular searches in the blog universe, and the most frequently tagged blogs. Unfortunately, Technorati suffers from the same drawbacks as Delicious and arguably most of the Internet - a plethora of irrelevant information. So I don't expect under most circumstances that a librarian would turn to this as a first search for information. On another level, Technorati could be one more vehicle by which libraries market their services. By creating their own blogs and claiming them on this site, libraries could potentially increase their visibility on the web.

I did the "Discovery Exercise" in Technorati's blog posts, tags, and blog directory using "Learning 2.0" as a keyword search. The results were different both quantitatively and qualitatively as one would expect. For example, my search resulted in 7,765 blog posts, 902 blogs and 758 tags. But what I don't understand is why the total number of blog posts and tags changed with each page of search results that I clicked on. So when I clicked on the second page of search results for blog posts, the number changed from 7,765 to 9,633 and on page seven it decreased to 9,624. Similarly, with tags, the number increased to 965 on the second page of search results and decreased to 757 on page six. Apparently, the first page of search results doesn't reflect the total number of results as it should.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Delicious and social bookmarking

Yes, sites like Delicious definitely have the capacity to serve as a research tool for those looking for information, particularly if searchers come across bookmarks by people that are authorities in the subject they're investigating. The open-ended tagging process helps facilitate their use as a research tool. Unfortunately, like so much of the Internet, it could be another case of trying to find a needle in a hay stack as searchers may have to wade through a plethora of irrelevant or poor information to find something useful.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

MySpace and social software

The rapid growth of social software sites over the past several years has demonstrated their capacity to build new types of communities. Libraries have the opportunity to participate in these communities by establishing a presence on social software sites. Hopefully, by doing so, they'll find another venue for marketing their services, expanding their user base, and becoming part of already existing online communities. From a more pessimistic perspective, however, social software sites like MySpace appear to be primarily entertainment oriented. One could waste colossal amounts of time on these sites without engaging in any education oriented activity. I hope as libraries establish a greater presence on these sites that they will attempt to offer more educational activities. But with the increasingly hedonistic direction of our culture, I'm probably being naive.

Below is a link to the Hennepin County Library's MySpace site:

http://www.myspace.com/hennepincountylibrary

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Library Thing

Pressed for time, I made a rather cursory exploration of this site. By all accounts, however, there appear to be a myriad of ways to discover and exchange information about books... and not just best seller fare either. So if this site encourages people to read, that's a virtue in and of itself. The link below shows what I've been reading about recently - an admittedly morose topic - but one that is historically important.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/talt

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Un mannequin pour les nouvelles.


This image is from imagegenerator.net, which offers a variety of image generators. It's a French variation of the Ken and Barby phenomena - minus Ken - seen on nightly news broadcasts in this country. Here is the URL for this site:

Monday, June 16, 2008

More on feeds

I found Bloglines search feature the easiest way of finding feeds. The search box allows searches to be limited to feeds, feeds can be previewed by a "Preview feed" link under each search result, and a conveniently located "Subscribe to feed" link makes subscribing easy. I found Topix the most confusing search tool to use and I couldn't find a "subscribe to feed" link on its website.

The most useful feeds I found were those for the Motley Fool, a source for investment information, and the BBC's news feed. An unusual one that I found is that from the Bestiaria Latina Blog, dedicated to students and enthusiasts of the Latin language.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Using RSS feeds

RSS and newsreaders are a concise, quick, and convenient way of keeping up with frequently changing information on a variety of websites. Their convenience and ease of use make them an essential tool for anyone that needs to stay on track of frequently changing information. Libraries can use this technology to help their customers stay on top of programs and classes offered at the library, the status of their accounts, and new material available in the collection, to name some of the most obvious examples. One library system that is already making extensive use of RSS technology is the Hennepin County Public Library in Minnesota:

http://www.hclib.org/pub/search/RSS.cfm

The number of feeds on my public Bloglines account is rather sparse at the moment.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

The Joys of Technology


In Room Blue Screen of Death
Originally uploaded by Newki
Arguably computers are great when they work (or when those using them acutally know how to do so). But often this isn't the case. For example, one of the responsibilities of my job is to oversee a portable computer lab, which is set up when we offer computer classes to the public. I cannot remember how many times the equipment in our lab has malfunctioned, making teaching some of our classes quite difficult to say the least.

Memories from the past


My creation
Originally uploaded by tcalt1974
Here is a trading card of a standard poodle that looks similar to one my father had eight years ago. His poodle's name was Ted, and like the dog pictured here, he frequently wore a red bandana around his neck and enjoyed chewing on tennis balls.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Friday, February 22, 2008

71/2 lifelong learning habits

Out of the 7.5 lifelong learning habits, the one I find easiest to follow is no. 2: "Accept responsibility for your own learning."

Why? Because I realize it's ultimately up to me to learn a new skill.

The habit I find most difficult to follow is no. 6: "Use technology to your advantage."

Why? Because the many technical problems with various technologies can pose a obstacle to the learning process.