Or is it?
Well, it's the end for me with Rss feeds, wikis, and social networking sites. We just don't mesh. But it may be only the beginning for me with GoogleDocs, Flickr, and eMedia.
I'm glad that I did all it. Even those of the "things" I'll probably never use again.
It was a good to be exposed to so many things I probably wouldn't have tried on my own. And now I don't have to have a blank look on my face when some kid in the J room starts talking about podcasts.
I would definitely participate in something like this again, but I'd like to see it run a little longer. My home computer my become an antique soon, so I had to do most of this at work. It was hard for me to find the time to get everything completed, as you can see by the fact that I'm posting this on December 24th.
Overall a good learning experience.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Devil of the Desert Against the Son of Hercules
Just one of the many fine titles available for viewing through QBPL's eMedia service.
I have to shamefacedly admit that I had no idea we offered eMovies. eBooks yes. But eMovies? I may have to get a reader.
The ebooks are just not for me. Particularly the eAudio. I've never liked audio books in any format. My mind wanders. I really need to see the words myself. I guess I'm more visual. But this movie thing now...
I have to shamefacedly admit that I had no idea we offered eMovies. eBooks yes. But eMovies? I may have to get a reader.
The ebooks are just not for me. Particularly the eAudio. I've never liked audio books in any format. My mind wanders. I really need to see the words myself. I guess I'm more visual. But this movie thing now...
Open the podcast bay doors, HAL
I thought PodcastAlley looked good for someone who knew what she was doing. That's not me. I've never done anything with podcasts before and had absolutely no idea what to search for, so I thought the directory on Podcast.net was fabulous. I found some podcasts of old time radio shows which was fun. I'm not sure what I'd use it for. Although I did hear on the news this morning that Queen Elizabeth gave her annual Christmas message by podcast. This year she's got a YouTube page. The times they are a-changin'.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
You can learn a lot from Lydia
And I guess you can learn something from YouTube, too. I probably won't use it very often, but I had a blast looking at some 1970s tv commercials. Ah yes, I remember it well.
But here's my favorite clip of all time.
But here's my favorite clip of all time.
And the award goes to....
Biblio.com! #2 award winner in Web 2.0's books category.
It's similar to Alibris, which I've used for years. Both are networks of independent booksellers dealing in used and/or rare books. The advanced search lets you search not only by title or author, but also binding, price, publisher and provides limits for first editions, signed copies, or only copies with dust jacket. Once you've performed your search you can narrow your results by copies in VG or better condition. Definitely a plus in buying second hand books and a necessity in buying rare books or first editions.
One thing missing from Biblio that's available on Alibris is a rating system for the sellers.
I'm sure I'll be spending far too much money on Biblio!
It's similar to Alibris, which I've used for years. Both are networks of independent booksellers dealing in used and/or rare books. The advanced search lets you search not only by title or author, but also binding, price, publisher and provides limits for first editions, signed copies, or only copies with dust jacket. Once you've performed your search you can narrow your results by copies in VG or better condition. Definitely a plus in buying second hand books and a necessity in buying rare books or first editions.
One thing missing from Biblio that's available on Alibris is a rating system for the sellers.
I'm sure I'll be spending far too much money on Biblio!
A. GoogleDocs
Q. What do you get when you multiply ten duotrigintillion by 1 dwarf with glasses?
Or I guess it could be "what do you get when you want to create documents, presentations, or spreadsheets and be able to access them from any computer at work, home, or anyplace else with internet access?"
I usually save anything I'm working on in the library to my h: drive, but now I can access stuff from home too! Writeboard either requires you to bookmark the address of your document or go the extra step to set up a backpack. With GoogleDocs I could just log in with my regular Google account password and access all my stuff in one place. Super!
Or I guess it could be "what do you get when you want to create documents, presentations, or spreadsheets and be able to access them from any computer at work, home, or anyplace else with internet access?"
I usually save anything I'm working on in the library to my h: drive, but now I can access stuff from home too! Writeboard either requires you to bookmark the address of your document or go the extra step to set up a backpack. With GoogleDocs I could just log in with my regular Google account password and access all my stuff in one place. Super!
Social networking and the anti-social librarian
From a personal perspective, I'm not a fan of Facebook or MySpace. Who has the time for this stuff?! I have enough trouble keeping up with my actual life to create a virtual one too.
From a professional perspective, I'm abivalent. I see the value of meeting our teens where they live and they seem to live on social networking sites (though MySpace more than Facebook). Maybe they'd visit a library page. We'll find out soon enough. The YA librarians here are creating a CEL/YA page. They're pretty excited about it and I do hope it's a grand success. iRead would be nice to see on there. If we could get them more excited about reading and/or attending library programs I'm all for it! Yet, I'm not at all certain that they'll be attracted to a library page. And I have some security concerns. Maybe my mother told me one too many times not to talk to strangers.
From a professional perspective, I'm abivalent. I see the value of meeting our teens where they live and they seem to live on social networking sites (though MySpace more than Facebook). Maybe they'd visit a library page. We'll find out soon enough. The YA librarians here are creating a CEL/YA page. They're pretty excited about it and I do hope it's a grand success. iRead would be nice to see on there. If we could get them more excited about reading and/or attending library programs I'm all for it! Yet, I'm not at all certain that they'll be attracted to a library page. And I have some security concerns. Maybe my mother told me one too many times not to talk to strangers.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
"And" and "the"
Remember when Dick Cavett interviewed Mary McCarthy? McCarthy told Cavett that every word Lillian Hellman ever wrote was a lie, including "and" and "the." Lillian has long since left this world, but if she were still here would she write a wiki?
I cringe every time I see a child or teen using Wikipedia for research. I know we've all seen book, newspapers, and journals containing errors. But on the whole I always hope that since the print material has been vetted, if not by the author, at least by the editor. And in the case of print material (or even computer databases) held by a library, by at least one librarian. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of some posters to wikis.
That being said, I do like Princeton Public's BookLoversWiki. Where the content is personal opinion I think it's a great idea. Staff and customers alike can post summaries and reviews of books they're reading. It could be a tremendous amount of work for anyone maintaining the site. It's certainly alot of work for us "J" librarians during Summer Reading Club to keep up with checking the kids' book reviews.
On to thing #17, I did add to a wiki. And every word, including "and" and "the" are true to the best of my knowledge. During my trip to London last year, I went to an apparently little visited museum in London, the Leighton House Museum.
I cringe every time I see a child or teen using Wikipedia for research. I know we've all seen book, newspapers, and journals containing errors. But on the whole I always hope that since the print material has been vetted, if not by the author, at least by the editor. And in the case of print material (or even computer databases) held by a library, by at least one librarian. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of some posters to wikis.
That being said, I do like Princeton Public's BookLoversWiki. Where the content is personal opinion I think it's a great idea. Staff and customers alike can post summaries and reviews of books they're reading. It could be a tremendous amount of work for anyone maintaining the site. It's certainly alot of work for us "J" librarians during Summer Reading Club to keep up with checking the kids' book reviews.
On to thing #17, I did add to a wiki. And every word, including "and" and "the" are true to the best of my knowledge. During my trip to London last year, I went to an apparently little visited museum in London, the Leighton House Museum.
It was a beautiful house and I do love pre-Raphaelite art, so I added an entry for it to World66.
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people. - G.K. Chesterton
How could not love to read when you can read things like that?
Anyway, for no particular reasonj and in no particular order, here is a list of some of the books I've read this year.
Anyway, for no particular reasonj and in no particular order, here is a list of some of the books I've read this year.
- Thank You, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse
- Foreign Devils on the Silk Road - Peter Hopkirk
- K2: the Savage Mountain - Charles Houston, et.al.
- The Siege of the Alcazar - Cecil Eby
- Miniatures of French History - Hilaire Belloc
- Edmund Campion - Evelyn Waugh
- The Case of the Gilded Fly - Edmund Crispin
- Mawson's Will - Lennard Bickel
- Anabasis - Xenophon
- Worthy is the Lamb - Thomas Nash
- Martin of Tours: Soldier, Bishop, Saint - Regine Pernoud
- Two Against the Ice - Ejnar Mikkelsen
- The Armies of the Raj - Byron Farwell
- The Art of Dying Well - St. Robert Bellarmine
Away from the "icebergs" or where's global warming when you need it
A paraphrase, with apologies to mothers everywhere, "technology is as technology does."
I am enjoying the whole 2.0 learning experience. Many of the "things" are things I wouldn't have tried otherwise and I'm glad to have the opportunity thrust upon me to check them all out. Though I may not have liked everything I've tried so far, on balance I think these are good tools for libraries to use in achieving our customer service goals. But it seems to me that there are a number of people out there who are confusing the tools with the goals and making acquisition and use of the tools an end in itself.
There are wonderful things available via computer. Newspaper and journal archives are now available online or in databases rather than clumsy microfilm rolls and readers. Historical photos and documents and public domain texts are available on sites from the National Archives, Library of Congress, Project Gutenberg and others. Not to mention the just plain fun stuff, like IMDB (which I use almost daily!). I work on a couple of the library's tech committees and have taught Youth Services' database training class almost every year since it began. But there are still bits of information or even entire topics of information that aren't well represented outside of the traditional print world. And, working in youth services where some of the homework research assignments can be quite surprising and not a little obscure at times, I'm a big fan of the "just in case" collection and use it often. And print resources are universally accessible in a world with people on two sides of a technical divide. No special equipment, programs, or technical expertise needed.
I love the technology. I just hope we don't confuse the media with the message, the tools with the goal.
I am enjoying the whole 2.0 learning experience. Many of the "things" are things I wouldn't have tried otherwise and I'm glad to have the opportunity thrust upon me to check them all out. Though I may not have liked everything I've tried so far, on balance I think these are good tools for libraries to use in achieving our customer service goals. But it seems to me that there are a number of people out there who are confusing the tools with the goals and making acquisition and use of the tools an end in itself.
There are wonderful things available via computer. Newspaper and journal archives are now available online or in databases rather than clumsy microfilm rolls and readers. Historical photos and documents and public domain texts are available on sites from the National Archives, Library of Congress, Project Gutenberg and others. Not to mention the just plain fun stuff, like IMDB (which I use almost daily!). I work on a couple of the library's tech committees and have taught Youth Services' database training class almost every year since it began. But there are still bits of information or even entire topics of information that aren't well represented outside of the traditional print world. And, working in youth services where some of the homework research assignments can be quite surprising and not a little obscure at times, I'm a big fan of the "just in case" collection and use it often. And print resources are universally accessible in a world with people on two sides of a technical divide. No special equipment, programs, or technical expertise needed.
I love the technology. I just hope we don't confuse the media with the message, the tools with the goal.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative. - G.K. Chesterton
As the founder of the New York City G.K. Chesterton Society, I'm obviously a huge fan. I'm also extremely used to receiving blank stares when I mention him or any of his writings. Imagine my surprise when I searched Technorati for blog posts referencing GKC and found not just 1 or 2, but 4,191! But even with all that, I'm afraid I share GKC's doubtfulness about progress. After all, progressing down a road is wonderful only as long as we're going in the right direction.
I'm not really a reader of blogs(and am only writing this one as a work project/learning experience). Though I have found a few interesting ones, the whole blogosphere seems a bit like publishing your diary and expecting everyone else in the world to find it fascinating.
So, what did I think of Technorati? If you're into blogging and blog reading it's useful. It worked well. I found it easy enough to use. I'm just not sure how it compares to the superlative.
I'm not really a reader of blogs(and am only writing this one as a work project/learning experience). Though I have found a few interesting ones, the whole blogosphere seems a bit like publishing your diary and expecting everyone else in the world to find it fascinating.
So, what did I think of Technorati? If you're into blogging and blog reading it's useful. It worked well. I found it easy enough to use. I'm just not sure how it compares to the superlative.
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