The “just in case” collection was an idea raised by Rick Anderson in one of the OCLC newsletter segments.
Since I am collection coordinator at the branch, this idea really resonated with me, especially since we just (well, almost) finished the purge report for this year. How many items showed up on that report, unused in over a year, did we decide to keep "just in case" a student needed a book on that, or "just in case" all of the other titles on Kyrgyzstan are checked out at the moment. Realistically, how many of those do we need, since we are paying beaucoup dollars to have 24-7 (and, more frequently, remote) access to fairly comprehensive electronic sources? Especially now that teachers are not requiring students to bring in solely books for reports or projects - articles from databases are more widely accepted than they were 4 years ago? [for summer reading they still have to read the books, but the non-fiction assignments have gone more electronic...]
I can definitely see a massive reduction in the number of physical volumes in public libraries over the next decade, especially in non-fiction collections. I don't see as many titles falling off in the fiction section because of ebooks. Electronic fiction books seem like companions to the physical volumes, not competitors. That's something I was aware of, but not really working toward. I will try to really challenge myself on this point when doing collection maintenance. Do I see a legitimate need for this item or am I just holding onto it for the rare instance when 40 encyclopedia articles and 100 magazine or newspaper entries will not suffice?
I also am intrigued by the possibilities for user-friendly and/or user-created cataloging - finally, the term "cookery" will burn!
Excerpts from the articles:
The name, as you may guess, is an extension of Web2.0 and shares many of its same philosophies and concepts including harnessing the user in both design and implementation of services, embracing constant change as a development cycle over the traditional notion of upgrades, and reworking library services to meet the users in their space, as opposed to ours (libraries).
wikipedia: especially public libraries, are at a crossroads where many of the elements of Web 2.0 have applicable value within the library community, both in technology-driven services and in non-technology based services. In particular, he described the need for libraries to adopt a strategy for constant change while promoting a participatory role for library users.
rich interactivity, user participation, collective intelligence, self-service, novel and remixed content
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
week 9, thing 22: audiobooks and gutenberg
Although I am not a big user of them, I am familiar with e-books and e-audio. Ironically, the last time I was "assigned" to take a look at them was when I was in LATI 5 years ago. Wow, what a difference. At that point, use of laptops was not as widespread as it is now. There were also far fewer handheld devices (palms, pdas) than there are now. The majority of the participants in that class were of the opinion that sitting in front of a desktop monitor reading "Sense and Sensibility" would be about as pleasant as a root canal.
Today, though, the use of ebooks and especially eaudio is much more realistic and seems much more pleasant. Laptops and handheld devices offer much more portability than their 75-pound predecessors.
I looked around on Overdrive (which BCPL subscribes to through the Maryland cooperative) and Gutenberg (which I hadn't looked into much before). Both were very easy to use; patrons needed little instruction for selecting and downloading titles. The pros of MP3 player use of eaudio is obvious -- you can take the selection anywhere without having to worry about changing discs or tapes. Now, I think it is much more realistic to have people read ebooks from their laptops or pdas.
Another situation where I can appreciate having so many classic titles always available from Overdrive or always free from Gutenberg is during the summer. It is reading list season and inevitably students wait until the last minute. Now, instead of having them wait 2 days for Huck Finn or Jane Austen, librarians can say "Okay, we have a hard copy coming for you. In the meantime, let me show you this way that you can get started on it either on your mp3 player or on your computer at home." That way, they can get started on the assignment without having to wait an additional 48 hours.
I did browse the downloadable videos available on Overdrive too. There were a few Imax movies that looked interesting, but the rest of the collection was, um, pretty eclectic to say the least. What a, um, wide range.
Today, though, the use of ebooks and especially eaudio is much more realistic and seems much more pleasant. Laptops and handheld devices offer much more portability than their 75-pound predecessors.
I looked around on Overdrive (which BCPL subscribes to through the Maryland cooperative) and Gutenberg (which I hadn't looked into much before). Both were very easy to use; patrons needed little instruction for selecting and downloading titles. The pros of MP3 player use of eaudio is obvious -- you can take the selection anywhere without having to worry about changing discs or tapes. Now, I think it is much more realistic to have people read ebooks from their laptops or pdas.
Another situation where I can appreciate having so many classic titles always available from Overdrive or always free from Gutenberg is during the summer. It is reading list season and inevitably students wait until the last minute. Now, instead of having them wait 2 days for Huck Finn or Jane Austen, librarians can say "Okay, we have a hard copy coming for you. In the meantime, let me show you this way that you can get started on it either on your mp3 player or on your computer at home." That way, they can get started on the assignment without having to wait an additional 48 hours.
I did browse the downloadable videos available on Overdrive too. There were a few Imax movies that looked interesting, but the rest of the collection was, um, pretty eclectic to say the least. What a, um, wide range.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
week 9, thing 23: program summary
It seems like, after (almost) completing this program, that web 1.0 was all about finding. How fantastic Google was, bringing back 23 million results at every search. But now, web 2.0 seems like it is all about sharing --- how can I pass this site onto my friends? How can I highlight this for others?
It was rough to squeeze this program in and finish on time (although now, of course, we have an extension ha ha), but I think that is partly due to the 9 weeks taking place primarily in the summer, when summer reading club is in full swing, staff are on vacation, and really, let's not kid ourselves, we're not getting a whole lot done. I would have a pocket of time and catch up, MAYBE get one item ahead and then very quickly fall behind again.
After completing this list, I don't portend to be an expert on any of these technologies. I do appreciate the exposure to these tools though, to see what is out there, and what people are doing. It is unfortunately difficult to see what many people are doing because our of the restriction on high bandwidth sites.
I also appreciate the chance to look up from the daily grind, think about the implications of what these new tools mean for public libraries, and how they will impact users in the future.
It was rough to squeeze this program in and finish on time (although now, of course, we have an extension ha ha), but I think that is partly due to the 9 weeks taking place primarily in the summer, when summer reading club is in full swing, staff are on vacation, and really, let's not kid ourselves, we're not getting a whole lot done. I would have a pocket of time and catch up, MAYBE get one item ahead and then very quickly fall behind again.
After completing this list, I don't portend to be an expert on any of these technologies. I do appreciate the exposure to these tools though, to see what is out there, and what people are doing. It is unfortunately difficult to see what many people are doing because our of the restriction on high bandwidth sites.
I also appreciate the chance to look up from the daily grind, think about the implications of what these new tools mean for public libraries, and how they will impact users in the future.
week 6, thing 14: technorati
"...number of blogs doubles just about every 6 months with over 51 million blogs ... estimated that Technorati will have tracked its 100 millionth blog in just 5 months."
Of course, these numbers seemed astounding. Don't these people have jobs? (or maybe it's millions of librarians all working on their 23 things...)
Reading about tagging made me think of the university that intentionally did not add sidewalks until it was evident where students were walking. Their paths determined where the sidewalks were eventually poured.
The concept of a folksonomy (wikipedia: "a group of people cooperating spontaneously to organize information into categories") seems like a natural progression of cataloging online resources. How are most people thinking of these online resources? What kinds of terms are they using to describe sites and blogs? How many people would honestly use "cookery" to describe books that are about different types of cooking (that subject term in the Dewey system has always irked me)?
That would be an interesting study in classification as well as language - what why are people using the particular words they select for tags?
Of course, these numbers seemed astounding. Don't these people have jobs? (or maybe it's millions of librarians all working on their 23 things...)
Reading about tagging made me think of the university that intentionally did not add sidewalks until it was evident where students were walking. Their paths determined where the sidewalks were eventually poured.
The concept of a folksonomy (wikipedia: "a group of people cooperating spontaneously to organize information into categories") seems like a natural progression of cataloging online resources. How are most people thinking of these online resources? What kinds of terms are they using to describe sites and blogs? How many people would honestly use "cookery" to describe books that are about different types of cooking (that subject term in the Dewey system has always irked me)?
That would be an interesting study in classification as well as language - what why are people using the particular words they select for tags?
week 9, thing 21: podcast tools
From the explanation: The word podcast is used to refer to a non-musical audio or video broadcast that is distributed over the Internet. What differentiates a podcast from regular streaming audio or video is that the delivery method for podcasts is often done automatically through RSS.
Yahoo: Think of a podcast as a radio show. Each show consists of a series of individual episodes that you can listen to how you want — on your PC, using your MP3 player, or with just a web browser.
I looked for Oakland Raiders in podcast.net. The 4 most recent entries I found were from December 2006. I then looked up swimming and again, enduranceplanet.com's last entry was December 2006. Then browsing Entertainment, the most recent entry still was 12/06.
Podcast Alley was much more informational. I liked the layout better - you only see the title initially and then can click on that to get more details about the podcast. The results were much more recent too. The one I listened to, from 9/19/07, included one sports commentator in the studio and a phone commentator. These were sports reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle. If you register, you can also comment on different podcasts.
The most useful aspect of this type of communication is the portability. You aren't chained to your television, you aren't chained to your desktop computer - it's a very transportable information tool. You can hear and see different segments on all subjects from an mp3 or ipod.
Yahoo: Think of a podcast as a radio show. Each show consists of a series of individual episodes that you can listen to how you want — on your PC, using your MP3 player, or with just a web browser.
I looked for Oakland Raiders in podcast.net. The 4 most recent entries I found were from December 2006. I then looked up swimming and again, enduranceplanet.com's last entry was December 2006. Then browsing Entertainment, the most recent entry still was 12/06.
Podcast Alley was much more informational. I liked the layout better - you only see the title initially and then can click on that to get more details about the podcast. The results were much more recent too. The one I listened to, from 9/19/07, included one sports commentator in the studio and a phone commentator. These were sports reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle. If you register, you can also comment on different podcasts.
The most useful aspect of this type of communication is the portability. You aren't chained to your television, you aren't chained to your desktop computer - it's a very transportable information tool. You can hear and see different segments on all subjects from an mp3 or ipod.
Friday, September 14, 2007
week 8, thing 19: web 2.0 winner
www.arcaplay.com
I am a classic video game sucker - I do not like really involved plot lines and the massively multiplayer games seem like too much work. I just want to kill time and shoot things up and drive around - what's wrong with that? Having said that, I was really satisfied with arcaplay. It doesn't have a lot of the high-tech graphics of sites like shockwave or yahoo, and that is fine with me. All of the games load in the same window which is a godsend, because the ads and ads within windows seem to jam up computers with slower connections. This has the social capability for younger gamers (you can include arcaplay games in myspace profiles) but the games themselves are really attractive to older gamers like me (who remember dig dug and burger time and pole position).
Thank you 23 things for allowing me to travel down this memory lane! :)
I am a classic video game sucker - I do not like really involved plot lines and the massively multiplayer games seem like too much work. I just want to kill time and shoot things up and drive around - what's wrong with that? Having said that, I was really satisfied with arcaplay. It doesn't have a lot of the high-tech graphics of sites like shockwave or yahoo, and that is fine with me. All of the games load in the same window which is a godsend, because the ads and ads within windows seem to jam up computers with slower connections. This has the social capability for younger gamers (you can include arcaplay games in myspace profiles) but the games themselves are really attractive to older gamers like me (who remember dig dug and burger time and pole position).
Thank you 23 things for allowing me to travel down this memory lane! :)
week 9: thing 20, you tube
This is a video from my favorite hair band, Poison. (I was not at this show, but did see them when they came to town.) It was pretty easy to be able to add clips, once I entered my email a few times, although I wasn't sure which password and email they were asking for. Interesting that youtube is connected with popular blog sites already, like blogger, facebook, etc. There's so much interconnectedness and working together (like I mentioned earlier about yahoo-flickr, google-blogger, etc).
What would this mean for libraries? I can see how it would allow us to give online patrons a better idea of the community - from schools to street layout to our locations. Video clips would also allow us to show interested organizations what our meeting rooms look like and what types of equipment they have.
What would this mean for libraries? I can see how it would allow us to give online patrons a better idea of the community - from schools to street layout to our locations. Video clips would also allow us to show interested organizations what our meeting rooms look like and what types of equipment they have.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
week 7, thing 16: learnin' 'bout wikis
One of the things I liked about the slide presentation was the RocWiki - "The people's guide to Rochester." It was a perfect use for wikis that I never thought about before --- a full guide to a city, completely created by residents for other residents or visitors. I think I had previously thought of wikis as being used for "things" like astronomy or stamp collecting. I had not considered wikis as being helpful to groups like city residents or conference attendees. I would guess that the likelihood of vandalism and spam would become smaller the more focused your subject became (although I could be wrong...).
When I went into the RocWiki (it was linked to in the What is a Wiki? presentation), I was even more impressed with the product than with the idea. It links to local resources, often providing business information like street address, phone number, and/or web links. Some entries had comments under them --- commenting on the quality of service at an auto repair center and offering each other directions to a home brewing supply warehouse!
This wiki was marvelous. It combined the regional geography of a phone book with the user feedback often found on department store and travel service, and the community-building aspects of different social groups.
The ALA 2006 New Orleans wiki had all the great stuff that a conference brochure does, plus more. I like the flexibility that the wiki offers - you can link to the web site if you want the concrete details - keynote speakers, times, etc. - but if there's something you forget to mention (like bus routes or public transportation from other parts of the city), someone else can always add that to the wiki. Plus, "bars" and "wifi" are usually not categories you see in a lot of conference handouts ;)
Another thing I liked about the Rocwiki, the ALA conference, and the Book lover's wiki from Princeton were the easy to navigate layouts. Granted, this is because they're made with either the frontpage, mediawiki or pbwiki software (is it software? a close enough descriptor).
When I went into the RocWiki (it was linked to in the What is a Wiki? presentation), I was even more impressed with the product than with the idea. It links to local resources, often providing business information like street address, phone number, and/or web links. Some entries had comments under them --- commenting on the quality of service at an auto repair center and offering each other directions to a home brewing supply warehouse!
This wiki was marvelous. It combined the regional geography of a phone book with the user feedback often found on department store and travel service, and the community-building aspects of different social groups.
The ALA 2006 New Orleans wiki had all the great stuff that a conference brochure does, plus more. I like the flexibility that the wiki offers - you can link to the web site if you want the concrete details - keynote speakers, times, etc. - but if there's something you forget to mention (like bus routes or public transportation from other parts of the city), someone else can always add that to the wiki. Plus, "bars" and "wifi" are usually not categories you see in a lot of conference handouts ;)
Another thing I liked about the Rocwiki, the ALA conference, and the Book lover's wiki from Princeton were the easy to navigate layouts. Granted, this is because they're made with either the frontpage, mediawiki or pbwiki software (is it software? a close enough descriptor).
week 7, thing 17: sandbox
You can find my entry under ill haiku. I didn't make a list of any favorite things, just copied the haiku I used for the Google documents exercise. But I guess you could say they are some favorites.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
week 6, thing 13: delicious
Delicious is a pretty interesting way to keep sets of links to articles, blogs, and recipes. I can see using it to get more information on hobbies or other recreational pursuits, for discovering sites you've never seen before.
Another interesting use of delicious mentioned in the tinyurl was the use of tags by a group. Everyone writes a post and then includes the same tag (alal2) on their post. That tag allows everyone to view each other's posts. This is easier than setting up a group on a site like Yahoo. With that, members of the group have to gain access to post on the group's sites by the moderator.
I did find serious fault with one of the Delicious marketing plugs. The site read, "Writing an article? ... Slaving away on your dissertation? Keep track of all the source materials and commentary that you find online." Now if you are just collecting sites for an article that you are going to write next Thursday, then bookmarking a list of sites does seem okay. But a dissertation? I hope that anyone who is writing a dissertation is aware that, in the time it takes to complete their work, online sources will change. Seems risky to save everything on delicious. Why not copy and paste into a disk file or a web-based email draft, or even a google doc (now that i know what one of those is and how it works) or save as an htm file? I did like the way that delicious allowed you to mark sites, highlight information, and make notes for later.
(I am adding this part later...) Now that I am more familiar with other sites that use tags, I'm slowly getting used to the concept. It's kind of like a basic cataloging system that is created by a community. I have come back and experimented with delicious a couple more times and some of the "popular" sites have really been a lot of fun.
Another interesting use of delicious mentioned in the tinyurl was the use of tags by a group. Everyone writes a post and then includes the same tag (alal2) on their post. That tag allows everyone to view each other's posts. This is easier than setting up a group on a site like Yahoo. With that, members of the group have to gain access to post on the group's sites by the moderator.
I did find serious fault with one of the Delicious marketing plugs. The site read, "Writing an article? ... Slaving away on your dissertation? Keep track of all the source materials and commentary that you find online." Now if you are just collecting sites for an article that you are going to write next Thursday, then bookmarking a list of sites does seem okay. But a dissertation? I hope that anyone who is writing a dissertation is aware that, in the time it takes to complete their work, online sources will change. Seems risky to save everything on delicious. Why not copy and paste into a disk file or a web-based email draft, or even a google doc (now that i know what one of those is and how it works) or save as an htm file? I did like the way that delicious allowed you to mark sites, highlight information, and make notes for later.
(I am adding this part later...) Now that I am more familiar with other sites that use tags, I'm slowly getting used to the concept. It's kind of like a basic cataloging system that is created by a community. I have come back and experimented with delicious a couple more times and some of the "popular" sites have really been a lot of fun.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
week 8, things 18 and 19: google docs
a few haiku from the masters
In the spring rain,
All things grow beautiful
- Chiyo-Ni
Like the morning glory
How fleeting is my life
Today... and then...?
- Moritake
Without my journey,
And without the spring,
I would have missed this dawn.
- Shiki
At the ancient pond
A frog jumped
With a splash.
- Basho
If seen by day
A firefly
Is just a red-necked bug.
- Basho
All from "The Moon in the Pines: Zen Haiku." Johnathan Clements. Viking Studio; 2000.
I used Google docs to jot a few of these down, just to get familiar with sharing and posting. It was pretty interesting to be working in Googledocs, then to click on post and have it automatically published on my blog. Another one of the benefits when you have a wide array of online services - you give users the convenience of not having to do a lot of work to share their work within your partner services.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
week 4, thing 9: merlin
I didn't have too much time to spend exploring Merlin, but I did subscribe to the Merlin feed. Seems like the Learning Links components are concise, clear definitions and examples of different web tools and sites.
I think that the importance of sites like this will be to help us keep up with our patrons. Not just the ones who come into the branch, but also the ones we serve online (while I am working on this, I am also monitoring askusnow). While it's not going to happen overnight, the public's skills with computers will rise and we're going to have to be at least familiar with navigation/operation of the tools they are using (who hasn't gotten used to myspace, whether they like it or not?).
look at this ill librarian strollin'! tha kid is chillin'!
I think that the importance of sites like this will be to help us keep up with our patrons. Not just the ones who come into the branch, but also the ones we serve online (while I am working on this, I am also monitoring askusnow). While it's not going to happen overnight, the public's skills with computers will rise and we're going to have to be at least familiar with navigation/operation of the tools they are using (who hasn't gotten used to myspace, whether they like it or not?).
look at this ill librarian strollin'! tha kid is chillin'!
week 4, thing 8: bloglines
I did not have any experience with rss before this exercise. My goodness, what a dream! I like that rss allows you to separate the wheat from the chaff. On news sites, it is possible to skim the headlines of news articles without looking through all the side banners and clicking to separate pages. On blogs, you don't have to get bombarded with all of the pictures and other images that sometimes accompany personal blogs.
I think that of all of the tools I have looked at so far in this program, this is the one I will continue to use.
Several months ago, CNN started pulling out the top details of each of their news stories on their site, so that you could get the main ideas without reading the whole article.
It was easy to locate the different feeds in my bloglines account, the icons help distinguish between different corporate feeds and blogs (blank page icons).
I also liked how if you had been away from your account for a couple of days, you have the option of marking all your items as read. This is even easier than clearing out your email inbox.
http://www.bloglines.com/public/illcommunication
(hopefully that will work and my mastery will be demonstrated)
I think that of all of the tools I have looked at so far in this program, this is the one I will continue to use.
Several months ago, CNN started pulling out the top details of each of their news stories on their site, so that you could get the main ideas without reading the whole article.
It was easy to locate the different feeds in my bloglines account, the icons help distinguish between different corporate feeds and blogs (blank page icons).
I also liked how if you had been away from your account for a couple of days, you have the option of marking all your items as read. This is even easier than clearing out your email inbox.
http://www.bloglines.com/public/illcommunication
(hopefully that will work and my mastery will be demonstrated)
week 5, thing 12: rollyo
Rollyo would be helpful if you were interested in particular subjects and wanted information or updates from sites or blogs that you trusted or wanted to limit your information to.
I see the primary benefit of rollyo (as with RSS) as saving users time. Instead of sifting through 10,000 Google results, or spending a half-hour typing and clicking on 20 different sites, this culls the information on your requested sites into one simple screen, just as bloglines does.
It seems like when the internet first exploded, people were interested in all of the information that was available. It is interesting to see all of these tools that are now helping people sift through and personalize the information they receive, as well as to save themselves unnecessary time navigating around on the net.
On rollyo, my search engine is titled "silver and black" and my profile is under sjsmith. I am pretty sure that I made it public. It's an Oakland Raiders search engine.
http://rollyo.com/sjsmith/silver_and_black/
I see the primary benefit of rollyo (as with RSS) as saving users time. Instead of sifting through 10,000 Google results, or spending a half-hour typing and clicking on 20 different sites, this culls the information on your requested sites into one simple screen, just as bloglines does.
It seems like when the internet first exploded, people were interested in all of the information that was available. It is interesting to see all of these tools that are now helping people sift through and personalize the information they receive, as well as to save themselves unnecessary time navigating around on the net.
On rollyo, my search engine is titled "silver and black" and my profile is under sjsmith. I am pretty sure that I made it public. It's an Oakland Raiders search engine.
http://rollyo.com/sjsmith/silver_and_black/
Saturday, August 4, 2007
week 5, thing 10: online image generator
For this exercise, I did the postcard generator. How much fun...
Here's the link, in case the image doesn't come through:
http://www.exilim-tours.com/ecard/?id=5adaacd4531b78ff8b5cedfe3f4d5212
Thursday, August 2, 2007
week 3, thing 7: another techie thing - engines linking with partners
I had noticed it before, but with bloglines, it's definitely evident. Search engines seem to have partnered with our discovery sites.
yahoo = flickr
google = blogger
ask = bloglines
What is the point of this?
"About Ask Jeeves, Inc.
As the 6th largest global web property (ComScore Media Metrix, March 2005), Ask Jeeves Inc. delivers world-class information retrieval products through a diverse portfolio of Web sites, portals and downloadable applications. Ask Jeeves' search and search-based portal brands include: Ask Jeeves (Ask.com, Ask.co.uk and es.Ask.com), the Ask Jeeves Japan joint venture (Ask.jp), Ask Jeeves for Kids (AJKids.com), Bloglines (bloglines.com), Excite (excite.com), iWon (iwon.com), My Way (myway.com) and Fun Web Products (funwebproducts.com). Additionally, Ask Jeeves owns the differentiated search technology Teoma, as well as natural language processing, portal and ad-serving technologies. Ask Jeeves generates revenue from advertisers seeking to reach the company's broad-based online audience."
from http://www.irconnect.com/askj/pages/news_releases.html?d=80865
A similar statement came from yahoo: "Why is Yahoo! Photos closing?
For some time now we’ve supported two great photo sharing services, Yahoo! Photos and Flickr. But even good things come to an end, and we’ve decided to focus all our efforts on Flickr – the award winning photo sharing site that Time Magazine has even called “completely addictive."
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/photos/photos3/closing/closing-01.html
Last week, I also saw that users of the photo service, Shutterfly, can now opt to pick their photos up at their local Target stores.
I suppose that, like other companies, search engines have to look at their audience's needs and try to meet them all. General information, specialized news, shopping, communicating with others, music, maps... little things, small things, these companies want to cast as wide a net as possible, so that you're using them (or one of their companies) for multiple tasks in your life.
yahoo = flickr
google = blogger
ask = bloglines
What is the point of this?
"About Ask Jeeves, Inc.
As the 6th largest global web property (ComScore Media Metrix, March 2005), Ask Jeeves Inc. delivers world-class information retrieval products through a diverse portfolio of Web sites, portals and downloadable applications. Ask Jeeves' search and search-based portal brands include: Ask Jeeves (Ask.com, Ask.co.uk and es.Ask.com), the Ask Jeeves Japan joint venture (Ask.jp), Ask Jeeves for Kids (AJKids.com), Bloglines (bloglines.com), Excite (excite.com), iWon (iwon.com), My Way (myway.com) and Fun Web Products (funwebproducts.com). Additionally, Ask Jeeves owns the differentiated search technology Teoma, as well as natural language processing, portal and ad-serving technologies. Ask Jeeves generates revenue from advertisers seeking to reach the company's broad-based online audience."
from http://www.irconnect.com/askj/pages/news_releases.html?d=80865
A similar statement came from yahoo: "Why is Yahoo! Photos closing?
For some time now we’ve supported two great photo sharing services, Yahoo! Photos and Flickr. But even good things come to an end, and we’ve decided to focus all our efforts on Flickr – the award winning photo sharing site that Time Magazine has even called “completely addictive."
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/photos/photos3/closing/closing-01.html
Last week, I also saw that users of the photo service, Shutterfly, can now opt to pick their photos up at their local Target stores.
I suppose that, like other companies, search engines have to look at their audience's needs and try to meet them all. General information, specialized news, shopping, communicating with others, music, maps... little things, small things, these companies want to cast as wide a net as possible, so that you're using them (or one of their companies) for multiple tasks in your life.
Friday, July 27, 2007
week 5, thing 11: linking to library thing catalog
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/sjsmith8670
library thing reminds me of a more down-to-earth version of novelist. i think the word i might be thinking of is community, which makes me think of wiki. there's the human factor, whereas
i also found it incredibly deep, again for lack of a better word. the fact that it links to loc and amazon allows it to provide such a wide variety of information on titles... it had all sorts of editions, versions, publishers, etc. for just the little bit of information i entered for all of my titles.
instead of just one set of tags, you get tags from users all over the world. and these people are not just librarians or catalogers - which is a good thing!
you can see what other people who have enjoyed your favorite titles have also read. this more "humanistic" way of suggesting items is more user-friendly. sometimes you just want to find a book that has nothing to do with the book you just read, you just want the language and the story to be "right." if you found someone with similar tastes, you'd be able to find a book that just seemed "right," without having to type in endless keywords and then get back a set of titles from 2001 and 1999 that you would have to wait 3 weeks to get through interlibrary loan.
this is wordy, and it doesn't completely explain my feelings, but hopefully you get the idea. it's friday and has been a long week, give me a break ;)
library thing reminds me of a more down-to-earth version of novelist. i think the word i might be thinking of is community, which makes me think of wiki. there's the human factor, whereas
i also found it incredibly deep, again for lack of a better word. the fact that it links to loc and amazon allows it to provide such a wide variety of information on titles... it had all sorts of editions, versions, publishers, etc. for just the little bit of information i entered for all of my titles.
instead of just one set of tags, you get tags from users all over the world. and these people are not just librarians or catalogers - which is a good thing!
you can see what other people who have enjoyed your favorite titles have also read. this more "humanistic" way of suggesting items is more user-friendly. sometimes you just want to find a book that has nothing to do with the book you just read, you just want the language and the story to be "right." if you found someone with similar tastes, you'd be able to find a book that just seemed "right," without having to type in endless keywords and then get back a set of titles from 2001 and 1999 that you would have to wait 3 weeks to get through interlibrary loan.
this is wordy, and it doesn't completely explain my feelings, but hopefully you get the idea. it's friday and has been a long week, give me a break ;)
Thursday, July 26, 2007
week 3, thing 7: write about anything techie
This comes after playing around a little on Flickr (and I mean a little - do not pretend to have any idea of all of its features):
All through the school year, we (educators, teachers) emphasize the importance of including citations, according to whatever style guidelines your assignment calls for. We emphasize the importance of crediting the source of articles, books... primarily print- or text-based mediums. It is important to keep the original intact.
But with Flickr, it's different. Not only can I take your pictures (who hasn't indulged in a little shameless cut and paste?), I can doctor them up a thousand ways with mashups, and then save them. Messing around with the original is the point.
Granted, playing a game of sudoku with hamster pictures is not the equivalent of writing a paper and crediting sources using a particular format. However, this exercise has made me think about the difference between visual/audio file sharing and the "usual" written word.
All through the school year, we (educators, teachers) emphasize the importance of including citations, according to whatever style guidelines your assignment calls for. We emphasize the importance of crediting the source of articles, books... primarily print- or text-based mediums. It is important to keep the original intact.
But with Flickr, it's different. Not only can I take your pictures (who hasn't indulged in a little shameless cut and paste?), I can doctor them up a thousand ways with mashups, and then save them. Messing around with the original is the point.
Granted, playing a game of sudoku with hamster pictures is not the equivalent of writing a paper and crediting sources using a particular format. However, this exercise has made me think about the difference between visual/audio file sharing and the "usual" written word.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
week 3, thing 6: flickr mashups
Good afternoon,
Before exploring much deeper into flickr, I had to figure out what a mashup was... duh...
A mashup, for the unfamiliar, is a hybrid web application that uses data from an outside source to drive a web service. Mashups can be created using data culled from RSS feeds, public databases, or any open data source.
(from: http://www.webmonkey.com/06/08/index4a.html)
From that article, I used captioner!, which allows you to add cartoon balloons to pictures. I tried saving one captioned picture and then posting it to this site, but the caption didn't get saved. Another staff member was able to save his caption, so I guess I would just need to spend a little more time with it. Did some good ones of places and people... webmonkey is right, it really does bring out your juvenile streak :)
I enjoy sudoku, so I also looked at the flickr sudoku mentioned. My goodness, how hysterical. I was given a sudoku with 9 different pictures of hamsters! I switched the set of pictures, putting in the tag, "pig," and got even better pictures. This is a little more difficult to complete than the pencil and paper version; with the pictures (which fill entire squares), it's hard to distinguish between rows and columns. I didn't finish (but, for the record, could have).
I had a little trouble getting back to the list of flickr applications once I got to the home page. It seems like the basics (uploading, searching) are relatively easy, but there's so much to do on Flickr, you'd have to spend quite a while exploring.
Before exploring much deeper into flickr, I had to figure out what a mashup was... duh...
A mashup, for the unfamiliar, is a hybrid web application that uses data from an outside source to drive a web service. Mashups can be created using data culled from RSS feeds, public databases, or any open data source.
(from: http://www.webmonkey.com/06/08/index4a.html)
From that article, I used captioner!, which allows you to add cartoon balloons to pictures. I tried saving one captioned picture and then posting it to this site, but the caption didn't get saved. Another staff member was able to save his caption, so I guess I would just need to spend a little more time with it. Did some good ones of places and people... webmonkey is right, it really does bring out your juvenile streak :)
I enjoy sudoku, so I also looked at the flickr sudoku mentioned. My goodness, how hysterical. I was given a sudoku with 9 different pictures of hamsters! I switched the set of pictures, putting in the tag, "pig," and got even better pictures. This is a little more difficult to complete than the pencil and paper version; with the pictures (which fill entire squares), it's hard to distinguish between rows and columns. I didn't finish (but, for the record, could have).
I had a little trouble getting back to the list of flickr applications once I got to the home page. It seems like the basics (uploading, searching) are relatively easy, but there's so much to do on Flickr, you'd have to spend quite a while exploring.
week 3, thing 5: flickr
i took a look at flickr last night and was amazed. i browsed using the world map. i recently took a trip to france and plugged in arles france just for kicks. at first i was looking for the results on the page with the map, but then realized you have to focus in a little (in this case, that meant clicking on "lots").
i didn't like the slideshow feature, where the map stays in place and the results just slide back and forth in a little bubble. however, i can see how it would be helpful if you were doing several different searches or were not picky about your results.
i was amazed by all the images as well as by the geotags. i even found pictures from my armpit of a hometown... woo-hoo! i also sent a few pictures that i found to friends, just for fun.
aside from the humor factor, libraries and patrons could make use of flickr too. it seems like it would be an easy way for students to find "real" pictures of places for reports, or for travelers to get a better sense of where they're going (as opposed to the bureau of tourism websites which always show the best sides of everything), or for people who like to decorate their own greeting cards/letters/stationery/scrapbooks.
flickr also provides users with the chance to join groups, which can be private or public. these would be particularly helpful for users with interests that are partly visual, or could be shared visually somehow... i'm thinking here like gardening, orchids, antique cars, things like that.
It's amazing that someone in France can take a picture, then I can copy it, put it up using Snapfish, and make my own prints of other people's pictures!
i didn't like the slideshow feature, where the map stays in place and the results just slide back and forth in a little bubble. however, i can see how it would be helpful if you were doing several different searches or were not picky about your results.
i was amazed by all the images as well as by the geotags. i even found pictures from my armpit of a hometown... woo-hoo! i also sent a few pictures that i found to friends, just for fun.
aside from the humor factor, libraries and patrons could make use of flickr too. it seems like it would be an easy way for students to find "real" pictures of places for reports, or for travelers to get a better sense of where they're going (as opposed to the bureau of tourism websites which always show the best sides of everything), or for people who like to decorate their own greeting cards/letters/stationery/scrapbooks.
flickr also provides users with the chance to join groups, which can be private or public. these would be particularly helpful for users with interests that are partly visual, or could be shared visually somehow... i'm thinking here like gardening, orchids, antique cars, things like that.
It's amazing that someone in France can take a picture, then I can copy it, put it up using Snapfish, and make my own prints of other people's pictures!
week 2, thing 3: easy and difficult habits
of the 7 and a half habits, i think that the two habits i have the most difficulty with are the first and ironically the last. the stuff in the middle i am okay with. beginning with the end in mind is difficult because i'm often not really sure what the end is going to be.
when we have had branch workplans to develop new areas or layout collections differently, we have no idea what the end result is going to look like. i guess that's where a good vision statement comes in -- just having an idea that you want to do x and y and you want your work to result in z for groups s and t. seems like that can be your "guiding light" when you don't have a very concrete end set out for you.
it's also difficult to "play" at work. there's too much to do! and we don't have a pool or a bike here. i guess in a larger sense it means to let your brain noodle around when faced with challenges, to not throw any ideas out prematurely, and to keep a sense of humor in hectic times.
when we have had branch workplans to develop new areas or layout collections differently, we have no idea what the end result is going to look like. i guess that's where a good vision statement comes in -- just having an idea that you want to do x and y and you want your work to result in z for groups s and t. seems like that can be your "guiding light" when you don't have a very concrete end set out for you.
it's also difficult to "play" at work. there's too much to do! and we don't have a pool or a bike here. i guess in a larger sense it means to let your brain noodle around when faced with challenges, to not throw any ideas out prematurely, and to keep a sense of humor in hectic times.
week 1, thing 2: pointers from learners
good afternoon.
i found the tutorial from charlotte-mecklenburg pretty interesting. they pointed out that learning stretches across so many things (for lack of a better word). developing a new swim stroke, brushing up on french, and communicating better with trainees - all of that is learning. how can you not be a lifelong learner with that sort of a spectrum?
i also liked that they pointed out that a toolkit can consist of not only electronic and print resources, but people too! people who might have skills that you don't already possess... this is a big system - if no one here can help me out, chances are good that someone at another branch or in ao can.
i found the tutorial from charlotte-mecklenburg pretty interesting. they pointed out that learning stretches across so many things (for lack of a better word). developing a new swim stroke, brushing up on french, and communicating better with trainees - all of that is learning. how can you not be a lifelong learner with that sort of a spectrum?
i also liked that they pointed out that a toolkit can consist of not only electronic and print resources, but people too! people who might have skills that you don't already possess... this is a big system - if no one here can help me out, chances are good that someone at another branch or in ao can.
week 1, thing 1: about the program
i am pretty excited about getting involved with this, after just taking a quick skim through the activities. i like it because it starts out with several things that i am familiar with (blogging, uploading pictures) and then goes up from there to things that i have no idea about (technorati, library thing).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
