The biggest challenge during this 'course' was finding the time to complete the activities. Summer's a bad time for stuff like this - our gate count explodes, and there really is no time for thoughtful investigation of new information, unless you are in a really quiet spot for a good length of time. I didn't want to rush through this - I wanted to learn, and I think I did.
My least favorite thing was a tie between Digg and Twitter, but I think Digg would have to win if it came to a must choose. Digg is dumb in my opinion, and Twitter at least has some redeeming qualities. I definitely cannot see using Digg ever in the future. My favorite thing is Facebook. So useful, so intuitive, and so helpful for networking and contacts. I can see a library using this for younger generations to connect.
It's hard to say which technologies our library would use. What I do intend to do in the very near future is revisit a lot of these things and mess around and try to understand each of them better. That takes a commitment to reflect over the course of time what might work and what might not. I do think I will use the Flickr mashups in conjunction with the CC licenses to make cool flyers and advertisements. I would really love to develop an in house training session, over the course of many months, for everyone interested who didn't get a chance to participate or finish. I think if we put our heads together some good potential uses of the technology would surface. 23 things might get reduced to 10 or 12, but that's OK.
Onward and upward....
Friday, August 28, 2009
Podcast - Hook Line And Sinker
I like podcasts, even though I am not normally an auditory learner. I like when they are short and to the point, and maybe get me excited about learning something new by going to an event, reading a new book, or checking out a new website.
The podcasts residing on the LibSuccess.org site were pretty interesting for the most part. I LOVED the Boulder PL's teen podcast section - while the quality wasn't all that great, it was wonderful to hear the teens weigh in on current events, art exhibits, and more at their library. This could be a hit with our teens, if we could set up a podcast team and post it on the library website. The booktalks by adults were, well, only as good as the written preparation. I checked out some on books that I have read and ones that I have not. The booktalks for books I had not read actually got me interested in reading the book, or adding it to our collection. Then I checked out MedlinePlus's podcasts, and found them informative and accurate but boring. I think they should hire the guys who do RadioLab and have them make podcasts on medical topics! I found the audio quality OK on most of the ones I listened to, although the teens tended to 'eat' the mike a little too much, but that's OK.
I can see many possibilities for podcasts with our library. I would love to do something like the Lincoln City Libraries "Casting About" podcast - sort of like The View on books. And I did add it to my Google Reader subscriptions. You could perhaps get more people excited about coming to the library and checking out some interesting titles. Another use of podcasts would be advertisements for programs coming up - if you incorporated snippets of the performers or presenters, you might be able to whet more appetites and boost attendance. Something to think about to be sure.
I used to subscribe to a farm related podcast, but stopped because it became too much to keep up with. I might, however, revisit subscribing to podcasts if I find some consistently interesting ones and keeping the subscriptions to maybe two or three.
The podcasts residing on the LibSuccess.org site were pretty interesting for the most part. I LOVED the Boulder PL's teen podcast section - while the quality wasn't all that great, it was wonderful to hear the teens weigh in on current events, art exhibits, and more at their library. This could be a hit with our teens, if we could set up a podcast team and post it on the library website. The booktalks by adults were, well, only as good as the written preparation. I checked out some on books that I have read and ones that I have not. The booktalks for books I had not read actually got me interested in reading the book, or adding it to our collection. Then I checked out MedlinePlus's podcasts, and found them informative and accurate but boring. I think they should hire the guys who do RadioLab and have them make podcasts on medical topics! I found the audio quality OK on most of the ones I listened to, although the teens tended to 'eat' the mike a little too much, but that's OK.
I can see many possibilities for podcasts with our library. I would love to do something like the Lincoln City Libraries "Casting About" podcast - sort of like The View on books. And I did add it to my Google Reader subscriptions. You could perhaps get more people excited about coming to the library and checking out some interesting titles. Another use of podcasts would be advertisements for programs coming up - if you incorporated snippets of the performers or presenters, you might be able to whet more appetites and boost attendance. Something to think about to be sure.
I used to subscribe to a farm related podcast, but stopped because it became too much to keep up with. I might, however, revisit subscribing to podcasts if I find some consistently interesting ones and keeping the subscriptions to maybe two or three.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Developing 23 Things For My Library
There are many of the technologies presented that could prove to be beneficial to my library. What I would develop to help the staff get comfortable using some of these technologies would be a series of specific exercises,from which a staff member could choose, connected to each "thing" involving scenarios that relate to the community which we serve, . Then I would have everyone share their results, and discuss why they would or would not like to see any particular "thing" incorporated into our resources/offerings. I would encourage generous and honest input of pros and cons for each 'thing'. For a particular 'thing' which everyone likes, I would probably have our library create an internal test pilot program, so we could play and succeed and fail safely. ;-)
I think I would also choose different articles and videos for some of the technologies than what were included here.
I think I would also choose different articles and videos for some of the technologies than what were included here.
As The LibWorm Turns
I found uneven results through my searches within LibWorm. I think the site could be vastly improved with a more robust, advanced search feature that employs Boolean terms. It seemed to me that there were a lot of hits from sites/blogs in the UK.
On my first phrase search, I entered "chick lit" and got a lot of blogs. Some of those went to the entire blog itself and did not narrow it down to the particular posting within the blog, which is totally unuseful. Perhaps that is a function of how the blog is set up. There was already one dead link within the first 5 hits. Lots of book reviews of course, and I definitely needed to put the phrase in quotations.
I did like the subject area and category sections. There was a mixed bag of results, which is kind of fun. Under Young Adults, I got a hit for a conservative blogger complaining about Obama's health care policy-proposal, so I am not quite sure how that fits into the scheme of library related RSS feeds. There were lots of foreign language feeds that came up under "Public Libraries"; it would be nice to be able to filter those out. I especially liked the Medical category and subject areas - very interesting stuff. And, I found an amusing blog in the Personal blog section that I think I will follow!
I am not so sure how useful the tags are; some of the terms within the clouds are just way too broad. I did click on "copyright" and got some pretty interesting feeds, and that term alone might yield some good results.
What LibWorm needs is more refinement, with an Advanced Search and filters. Fun site to visit, but watch your time!
On my first phrase search, I entered "chick lit" and got a lot of blogs. Some of those went to the entire blog itself and did not narrow it down to the particular posting within the blog, which is totally unuseful. Perhaps that is a function of how the blog is set up. There was already one dead link within the first 5 hits. Lots of book reviews of course, and I definitely needed to put the phrase in quotations.
I did like the subject area and category sections. There was a mixed bag of results, which is kind of fun. Under Young Adults, I got a hit for a conservative blogger complaining about Obama's health care policy-proposal, so I am not quite sure how that fits into the scheme of library related RSS feeds. There were lots of foreign language feeds that came up under "Public Libraries"; it would be nice to be able to filter those out. I especially liked the Medical category and subject areas - very interesting stuff. And, I found an amusing blog in the Personal blog section that I think I will follow!
I am not so sure how useful the tags are; some of the terms within the clouds are just way too broad. I did click on "copyright" and got some pretty interesting feeds, and that term alone might yield some good results.
What LibWorm needs is more refinement, with an Advanced Search and filters. Fun site to visit, but watch your time!
Monday, August 17, 2009
Wiki Wiki Wiki
I finally was able to figure out how to enter text into my Wiki page, thanks to Jesse. Thanks, Jesse!! Turned out I had to click on the EasyEdit button once, then close it out, then click on it again before I could access the text box.
Anyway, I am not a huge fan of wikis. I used one in a group project during library school, and while I could appreciate having an online document available at any time, I did not like that we could not save previous versions. It bothered me that we couldn't go back to what we had originally written, especially if we had changed things extensively. I thought the wiki that we used was very intuitive and easy to use, but I just have a preference for having a 'paper trail', so to speak.
I do use Wikipedia for current cultural things - especially celebrity ephemera that I just do not pay attention to on a regular basis. I decided to test Wikipedia's accuracy on a serious subject, and searched ADHD. The page had 14 sections, and there were at least 500 revisions to it. I found all of the information I read was pretty accurate and balanced, which is a good thing. There were 43 discussion forums, and that was interesting to see. I think from this I can conclude that Wikipedia's powers that be are being fairly vigilant about accuracy on stuff that matters, and that is good. I wouldn't recommend that a student use this as his/her major source for information, but it is a good place to start, even just to get ideas on what to research.
The explanation of wikis on the North Texas 23 Things says, "Some libraries use internal wikis to manage their policies and procedures." This is an example, to me, where a paper trail is important. If there is a 'history' section like in Wikipedia, perhaps this would work.
But I do love the name, Wiki!
Anyway, I am not a huge fan of wikis. I used one in a group project during library school, and while I could appreciate having an online document available at any time, I did not like that we could not save previous versions. It bothered me that we couldn't go back to what we had originally written, especially if we had changed things extensively. I thought the wiki that we used was very intuitive and easy to use, but I just have a preference for having a 'paper trail', so to speak.
I do use Wikipedia for current cultural things - especially celebrity ephemera that I just do not pay attention to on a regular basis. I decided to test Wikipedia's accuracy on a serious subject, and searched ADHD. The page had 14 sections, and there were at least 500 revisions to it. I found all of the information I read was pretty accurate and balanced, which is a good thing. There were 43 discussion forums, and that was interesting to see. I think from this I can conclude that Wikipedia's powers that be are being fairly vigilant about accuracy on stuff that matters, and that is good. I wouldn't recommend that a student use this as his/her major source for information, but it is a good place to start, even just to get ideas on what to research.
The explanation of wikis on the North Texas 23 Things says, "Some libraries use internal wikis to manage their policies and procedures." This is an example, to me, where a paper trail is important. If there is a 'history' section like in Wikipedia, perhaps this would work.
But I do love the name, Wiki!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Libraries On YouTube
I concentrated on videos resulting from a search of "library event", which brought up 3,370 results. One was a promotional video for a fundraiser involving Chef Martin Yan, urging people to buy tickets as proceeds benefited the library. Another was a video of a past event at a public library, involving a knitting group and a visit by the Guinness world record holder for speed knitting. Then I went to the videos showing gaming events at various libraries. These were decidedly very boring - no voice over, and some were several minutes of just a shot of Guitar Hero on a TV screen. I think the only people that visited those were the kids who had participated, just to see if they could spot themselves.
There's potential here for promotion of library events, promotion of the library as a place that has a diverse offering of presentations, concerts, etc.. There are many people that might come to see the library as a great place to visit as a result. I think a library could make a video, post it on YouTube, but also post it on their library site. There's lot of people that don't visit YouTube, so you would need to do both. I wonder to myself how libraries have handled getting permission from all of the people visible in a video to include them without "fuzzying" their face. When people arrive at an event, do they automatically receive a permission form, and how does a library identify those on a video that perhaps did not or would not give permission to have their faces shown? Posting on YouTube, after all, is a forum for world-wide exposure, and some people might not want that. I would be interested to hear how other libraries have handled this.
There's potential here for promotion of library events, promotion of the library as a place that has a diverse offering of presentations, concerts, etc.. There are many people that might come to see the library as a great place to visit as a result. I think a library could make a video, post it on YouTube, but also post it on their library site. There's lot of people that don't visit YouTube, so you would need to do both. I wonder to myself how libraries have handled getting permission from all of the people visible in a video to include them without "fuzzying" their face. When people arrive at an event, do they automatically receive a permission form, and how does a library identify those on a video that perhaps did not or would not give permission to have their faces shown? Posting on YouTube, after all, is a forum for world-wide exposure, and some people might not want that. I would be interested to hear how other libraries have handled this.
Google Docs
Based on the video, Google Docs looks to me like a very useful tool for large corporate environments. The fact that it is web-based might help with people who are very mobile and need to communicate this way. I am not sure of its application in smaller public libraries, however. I did like that I could save my document as a pdf, which I did. I did not like that the choices for fonts were so limited, however. And, I could not find an option that specifically said, "Share with Others." I did email the document to another of my email addresses, and it came through fine. If I had sent it as a word-like document the receiver could edit it - much like a wiki.
A co-worker of mine utilized Google Docs to send a proposed revision to a library policy, and what we really liked about it was that every receiver could insert their comments into the document without removing the original language, with the comments, name, and time clearly visible. This, to me, is what makes the features of Google Docs superior to some of the web-based wikis.
Keeping up with all of the changes through the googledocs blog, would to me, be mind-numbing. I would much rather have Google post changes in folders easily accessible from the Google Docs site, and not have to go to a separate blog.
The ability for the form responses to automatically fill in a spreadsheet appealed to me - this would be very efficient when dealing with a lot of co-workers' responses.
It might have been nice to read about examples of actual libraries using this feature, and what they think of it.
A co-worker of mine utilized Google Docs to send a proposed revision to a library policy, and what we really liked about it was that every receiver could insert their comments into the document without removing the original language, with the comments, name, and time clearly visible. This, to me, is what makes the features of Google Docs superior to some of the web-based wikis.
Keeping up with all of the changes through the googledocs blog, would to me, be mind-numbing. I would much rather have Google post changes in folders easily accessible from the Google Docs site, and not have to go to a separate blog.
The ability for the form responses to automatically fill in a spreadsheet appealed to me - this would be very efficient when dealing with a lot of co-workers' responses.
It might have been nice to read about examples of actual libraries using this feature, and what they think of it.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
LibraryThing
I am going to start this post and add to it as I get more time to investigate LibraryThing. It's pretty obvious that this is a 'rich' site, especially for book lovers. My initial reaction is that for a depository of books I much prefer GoodReads - simpler, and not so cluttered. But I can see there's more to LT than just bookshelves. To Be Continued...
OK. I am hooked. Library Thing is WAY COOL. I know that I will be visiting this site often. There's so much to see, and do. I am just going to have to put my blinders on, though, as it would be easy to get overwhelmed by all those things to see and do.
My comment about GoodReads being simpler and not so cluttered still stands. LibraryThing's collection/bookshelf abilities are much more robust. I don't think I have enough time to re-enter everything I have added to my GoodReads account, but if someone is looking for a more detailed way to catalog their books, LT would be a good choice. I found the connections to others' shelves very intriguing; I entered a book from a rather obscure mystery writer from Australia, and the next time I signed on, there were listings for others who have his books on their shelves. Cool.
I even signed up for the Early Reviewers program; too late for August, but I wanted to try it out for September. "I See Dead People's Books" was very interesting. Mark Twain is one of my favorites and I enjoyed reading the history of his collection, including the links to where some of it now resides. And I have been to his home in Hartford, which BTW, is a fascinating place with a great tour.
Librarians Who LibraryThing wasn't as interesting to me; I think it's just too big for the time I have to surf/wander around.
In the groups, I stumbled upon one called Book Mooching, and got a really good posting of how to do a hollowed out book - something for a teen program, maybe. I liked the author reviews, and the section on what people are reading - all very good stuff.
It took me awhile to find MARCThing; I had to search for it in help. I read the blog posting, but I have to admit that for this kind of tech stuff I need hands on demonstrations in order to understand what it actually does. It sounds useful, but I just can't say I totally understand it.
I found ISBN Check and ThingLang more easily, after I read on the NT23 blog that someone else was having trouble, and where they were. I read what they were, but I didn't get how you would go about using them, i.e. where the functions actually resided on LT. Maybe I will figure that out at a later time. They seemed very useful to me.
It would be fun for a library's staff to share their home libraries with each other. I am not sure how efficient it would be to LT in any way for a library's collection. I would love to attend a workshop where that is all laid out and explained, so I would have enough time to concentrate on it.
In the end, I think LT is a winner.
OK. I am hooked. Library Thing is WAY COOL. I know that I will be visiting this site often. There's so much to see, and do. I am just going to have to put my blinders on, though, as it would be easy to get overwhelmed by all those things to see and do.
My comment about GoodReads being simpler and not so cluttered still stands. LibraryThing's collection/bookshelf abilities are much more robust. I don't think I have enough time to re-enter everything I have added to my GoodReads account, but if someone is looking for a more detailed way to catalog their books, LT would be a good choice. I found the connections to others' shelves very intriguing; I entered a book from a rather obscure mystery writer from Australia, and the next time I signed on, there were listings for others who have his books on their shelves. Cool.
I even signed up for the Early Reviewers program; too late for August, but I wanted to try it out for September. "I See Dead People's Books" was very interesting. Mark Twain is one of my favorites and I enjoyed reading the history of his collection, including the links to where some of it now resides. And I have been to his home in Hartford, which BTW, is a fascinating place with a great tour.
Librarians Who LibraryThing wasn't as interesting to me; I think it's just too big for the time I have to surf/wander around.
In the groups, I stumbled upon one called Book Mooching, and got a really good posting of how to do a hollowed out book - something for a teen program, maybe. I liked the author reviews, and the section on what people are reading - all very good stuff.
It took me awhile to find MARCThing; I had to search for it in help. I read the blog posting, but I have to admit that for this kind of tech stuff I need hands on demonstrations in order to understand what it actually does. It sounds useful, but I just can't say I totally understand it.
I found ISBN Check and ThingLang more easily, after I read on the NT23 blog that someone else was having trouble, and where they were. I read what they were, but I didn't get how you would go about using them, i.e. where the functions actually resided on LT. Maybe I will figure that out at a later time. They seemed very useful to me.
It would be fun for a library's staff to share their home libraries with each other. I am not sure how efficient it would be to LT in any way for a library's collection. I would love to attend a workshop where that is all laid out and explained, so I would have enough time to concentrate on it.
In the end, I think LT is a winner.
Digg This - NOT!
Digg just did not appeal to me at all. It seems to me to be a site for people with a LOT of time on their hands, and I mean a LOT. College students, I am sure, would love it, as they can avoid studying and completing homework.
Lots of ephemera on this site, which is not necessarily bad, but surfing around looking at it is a huge time sink, and frankly, I don't have that kind of time to waste. I much prefer Google News as an aggregator. Yes, I will miss the obscure stuff, and Digg could find that for me. But I can't see myself accessing Digg more than once every couple of weeks, if that. I think I would just get tired of it. And I don't have any innate need to be 'popular', as Digg invites you to be.
And I am not quite sure how Digg fits into a public library setting - unless you could have one person dedicated to reading it every day to find interesting things to promote. Which is not going to happen, as we all know. Yes, I think maybe a small network of friends might benefit from sharing news things they find, but really it all seems like overkill to me. More Noise, Noise, Noise - another friendly curmudgeonly observation.
Lots of ephemera on this site, which is not necessarily bad, but surfing around looking at it is a huge time sink, and frankly, I don't have that kind of time to waste. I much prefer Google News as an aggregator. Yes, I will miss the obscure stuff, and Digg could find that for me. But I can't see myself accessing Digg more than once every couple of weeks, if that. I think I would just get tired of it. And I don't have any innate need to be 'popular', as Digg invites you to be.
And I am not quite sure how Digg fits into a public library setting - unless you could have one person dedicated to reading it every day to find interesting things to promote. Which is not going to happen, as we all know. Yes, I think maybe a small network of friends might benefit from sharing news things they find, but really it all seems like overkill to me. More Noise, Noise, Noise - another friendly curmudgeonly observation.
Delicious
I like the online aspect of bookmarking in terms of being able to 'carry' your bookmarks from computer to computer. I also like the idea of sharing bookmarks with colleagues - the video's example of teachers sharing sites they have found can easily be replicated in a library setting. So many times, I find myself asking a co-worker where I might best find some particular type of information, and the response is either an email, or having to write down the url or remember name of the site. I added the Fort Worth Public Library, KERA, and GoodReads to my bookmarks.
If you just create a network of people with whom you would like to share bookmarks, it could prove very useful in a work setting, any work setting. I also appreciated seeing a choice to make a bookmark private, as I thought originally that one would have to create two accounts - one for work and one for personal bookmarks.
This may be a tool I would use often, and I am going to think about that in the coming weeks. I am a member of GoodReads and constantly use that site to post reviews of books I have read, and share with friends. The online nature of the 'file' means I can access it anywhere if I want to refer to a particular book. The same thing applies to Delicious.
If you just create a network of people with whom you would like to share bookmarks, it could prove very useful in a work setting, any work setting. I also appreciated seeing a choice to make a bookmark private, as I thought originally that one would have to create two accounts - one for work and one for personal bookmarks.
This may be a tool I would use often, and I am going to think about that in the coming weeks. I am a member of GoodReads and constantly use that site to post reviews of books I have read, and share with friends. The online nature of the 'file' means I can access it anywhere if I want to refer to a particular book. The same thing applies to Delicious.
Twitter, Tweets, and All That Noise
I really do not like Twitter. I signed up a few months ago just to see what the fuss was about, and just abandoned my account within a couple of days, which from what I read is not unusual.
This whole notion of letting the whole world know every single thing you are thinking and doing at every moment of time is just nonsense. When Governor Rick Perry tweets that he just finished a sandwich at some shop in Austin, why should I care? Sure, the sandwich shop owner loves it, it's a free plug. But do we really need to know this stuff? No, we don't.
Ashton Kuchter has over a million Twitter friends. Why should I care? I don't. And in 140/160 characters, there's no chance for thoughtful reflection (a point observed by many), which to me negates the value of a post on some important issue right off the bat.
Twitter is all of these people all over the world trying to proclaim that they are worth noticing. I think there are far better and more interesting ways to do that, because, yes, people are worth noticing, but not in the way Twitter has become. Twitter is, to me, an orgy of narcissism.
Except for the really meaningful use of Twitter - reporting events as they happen. I appreciated that during the recent protests in Iran, the only news outlet not blocked was Twitter, because Twitter didn't have a single server site. So the news got out.
If Twitter could be used for this purpose, it deserves to stay. Or as a kind of reminder message service, e.g. "Be sure to stop by the library tonight for a fabulous cello concert!"
I just finished reading a book called The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness. The setting is a world of incessant noise - all the males can hear all of the other males' thoughts, besides what they actually say. Here is what a character has to say about it:
" 'Everything. That's what New World is. Informayshun [sic], all the time, never stopping, whether you want it or not. The Spackle knew it, evolved to live with it, but we weren't equipped for it. Not even close. And too much informayshun becomes just Noise. And it never, never stops.' " (p.391).
So there ya go. Noise, Noise, Noise. Why would I want that?
This whole notion of letting the whole world know every single thing you are thinking and doing at every moment of time is just nonsense. When Governor Rick Perry tweets that he just finished a sandwich at some shop in Austin, why should I care? Sure, the sandwich shop owner loves it, it's a free plug. But do we really need to know this stuff? No, we don't.
Ashton Kuchter has over a million Twitter friends. Why should I care? I don't. And in 140/160 characters, there's no chance for thoughtful reflection (a point observed by many), which to me negates the value of a post on some important issue right off the bat.
Twitter is all of these people all over the world trying to proclaim that they are worth noticing. I think there are far better and more interesting ways to do that, because, yes, people are worth noticing, but not in the way Twitter has become. Twitter is, to me, an orgy of narcissism.
Except for the really meaningful use of Twitter - reporting events as they happen. I appreciated that during the recent protests in Iran, the only news outlet not blocked was Twitter, because Twitter didn't have a single server site. So the news got out.
If Twitter could be used for this purpose, it deserves to stay. Or as a kind of reminder message service, e.g. "Be sure to stop by the library tonight for a fabulous cello concert!"
I just finished reading a book called The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness. The setting is a world of incessant noise - all the males can hear all of the other males' thoughts, besides what they actually say. Here is what a character has to say about it:
" 'Everything. That's what New World is. Informayshun [sic], all the time, never stopping, whether you want it or not. The Spackle knew it, evolved to live with it, but we weren't equipped for it. Not even close. And too much informayshun becomes just Noise. And it never, never stops.' " (p.391).
So there ya go. Noise, Noise, Noise. Why would I want that?
#11 - IM, Anyone?
I am not a big fan of IM as a tool in my personal life - I much prefer texting. I can see, though, how teens and tweens would like it, especially having many IM windows open at the same time.
I have used IM (specifically MSN Messenger) for group projects while in library school - that was very helpful when deadlines approached and we had to figure out who was doing what, and what kind of editing needed to be done, etc. I liked that you could see if a person in your group was online at any given time, and you could connect with them.
In the library setting, I see IM as an extremely useful tool, if you're in a library that would FULLY support it. I experienced the use of IM for reference questions as part of an assignment for a class, and was really disappointed. This was online chat, which to me is the same thing. It was obvious the librarian at the other end was also helping patrons at her desk in addition to my queries. That caused a lot of delay in getting answers to my question, and the librarian didn't have software to let me know that she was still searching or doing whatever. So I felt left out in the cold; in fact a couple of times I typed "Are you still there?" I tried to use online chat through UNT as well for questions. There were times when no one was there during the posted 'chat' hours, or I experienced the same 'dead air' feeling during a chat. But I did like the times when the librarian could send me a link to a site through the chat, and I could also get a transcript emailed to me especially if there were instructions given during the conversations. This would be extremely helpful in a lot of reference interviews when patrons are trying to find out the steps to access information through a database or other online portal - typing out the steps is much quicker than writing them out by hand. And I have a lot of patrons that need this stuff in writing. And I'm a fast typist.
A lot of people like the anonymity of IM transactions, especially students who don't want to look stupid in a face to face experience, and this is where IM could really work its magic. But for IM to work in a library setting, the library has to support it as a dedicated system - when someone IMs the librarian, it has to be equivalent to the patron standing in front of that person and getting the librarian's full attention. And the librarian has to have a way to tell the patron that he/she is still working on the answer, eliminating the dead air and feeling that you have been abandoned. In this age of continual budget cuts, I am skeptical that this will occur any time soon.
I have used IM (specifically MSN Messenger) for group projects while in library school - that was very helpful when deadlines approached and we had to figure out who was doing what, and what kind of editing needed to be done, etc. I liked that you could see if a person in your group was online at any given time, and you could connect with them.
In the library setting, I see IM as an extremely useful tool, if you're in a library that would FULLY support it. I experienced the use of IM for reference questions as part of an assignment for a class, and was really disappointed. This was online chat, which to me is the same thing. It was obvious the librarian at the other end was also helping patrons at her desk in addition to my queries. That caused a lot of delay in getting answers to my question, and the librarian didn't have software to let me know that she was still searching or doing whatever. So I felt left out in the cold; in fact a couple of times I typed "Are you still there?" I tried to use online chat through UNT as well for questions. There were times when no one was there during the posted 'chat' hours, or I experienced the same 'dead air' feeling during a chat. But I did like the times when the librarian could send me a link to a site through the chat, and I could also get a transcript emailed to me especially if there were instructions given during the conversations. This would be extremely helpful in a lot of reference interviews when patrons are trying to find out the steps to access information through a database or other online portal - typing out the steps is much quicker than writing them out by hand. And I have a lot of patrons that need this stuff in writing. And I'm a fast typist.
A lot of people like the anonymity of IM transactions, especially students who don't want to look stupid in a face to face experience, and this is where IM could really work its magic. But for IM to work in a library setting, the library has to support it as a dedicated system - when someone IMs the librarian, it has to be equivalent to the patron standing in front of that person and getting the librarian's full attention. And the librarian has to have a way to tell the patron that he/she is still working on the answer, eliminating the dead air and feeling that you have been abandoned. In this age of continual budget cuts, I am skeptical that this will occur any time soon.
More Facebook
I did all of the things in this 'thing', but on my personal Facebook page. I prefer to keep that page as private as possible.
My wall is still pretty plain, as I want to add meaningful things, not fluff or clutter.
I joined four groups: Autism Awareness, Diabetic Dogs, Historical Fiction Appreciation, and Depression Glass, and became a fan of YALSA. I am curious as to how much 'traffic' I will get on the groups - people contacting me, etc. It will be a good experiment.
And I finally found where all of the groups I joined are listed - on the Profile page. I was pretty proud of myself for finding it all by myself. :-)
My wall is still pretty plain, as I want to add meaningful things, not fluff or clutter.
I joined four groups: Autism Awareness, Diabetic Dogs, Historical Fiction Appreciation, and Depression Glass, and became a fan of YALSA. I am curious as to how much 'traffic' I will get on the groups - people contacting me, etc. It will be a good experiment.
And I finally found where all of the groups I joined are listed - on the Profile page. I was pretty proud of myself for finding it all by myself. :-)
Facebook Rules!
I recently created a Facebook account to keep tabs on my daughter's Facebook account. I didn't expect to like Facebook at all, did not expect that I would spend much time on it. But I am.
Lo and behold, I have come to LOVE Facebook. I found that I could see what was happening in my nieces' lives without having to wait for an email from one of my siblings. I found a friend I had not spoken to in years, and we are making plans to see each other again when I go up north this fall.
The interface of Facebook is pretty easy. I agree that you have to be more 'real' than on other social networking sites. However, it seems you can limit who sees your stuff a lot better than on MySpace, which by the way, I absolutely abhor.
I didn't fall for giving all of the personal information in the profile - who in their right mind would do that (young teenage kids who don't think, that's who). I didn't even, yet, provide a photo of myself, instead choosing to embed one from a trip to DisneyWorld that doesn't have me in it.
My greatest teacher to all of the ins and outs of Facebook are my daughter and my nieces. I have found myself asking them questions about this and that, each little detail they might have on their pages that I don't have, etc. I like that a private message posted on my page from a 'friend' also comes intact to the email account I provided. And no, I did not give my email password out. Duh.
I think Facebook, for families separated by distance (and that means a lot of families these days), can be a wonderful way to share in all that's happening in all of the lives - one stop photo and message center (better than Flickr for that purpose, in my mind).
There are some caveats; something I heard recently about photos being able to be seen by visitors other than friends, which seems like a software flaw. And as with all social networking sites, you have to watch what you post. I am not thrilled that some of the teenagers in my 'friends' list tend to latch onto forums and things that have titles which I find inappropriate for my page, but which show up in the highlights, but that's the nature of teenagers.
I don't know if I would use Facebook for professional networking - I think I would rather used LinkedIn for that.
Lo and behold, I have come to LOVE Facebook. I found that I could see what was happening in my nieces' lives without having to wait for an email from one of my siblings. I found a friend I had not spoken to in years, and we are making plans to see each other again when I go up north this fall.
The interface of Facebook is pretty easy. I agree that you have to be more 'real' than on other social networking sites. However, it seems you can limit who sees your stuff a lot better than on MySpace, which by the way, I absolutely abhor.
I didn't fall for giving all of the personal information in the profile - who in their right mind would do that (young teenage kids who don't think, that's who). I didn't even, yet, provide a photo of myself, instead choosing to embed one from a trip to DisneyWorld that doesn't have me in it.
My greatest teacher to all of the ins and outs of Facebook are my daughter and my nieces. I have found myself asking them questions about this and that, each little detail they might have on their pages that I don't have, etc. I like that a private message posted on my page from a 'friend' also comes intact to the email account I provided. And no, I did not give my email password out. Duh.
I think Facebook, for families separated by distance (and that means a lot of families these days), can be a wonderful way to share in all that's happening in all of the lives - one stop photo and message center (better than Flickr for that purpose, in my mind).
There are some caveats; something I heard recently about photos being able to be seen by visitors other than friends, which seems like a software flaw. And as with all social networking sites, you have to watch what you post. I am not thrilled that some of the teenagers in my 'friends' list tend to latch onto forums and things that have titles which I find inappropriate for my page, but which show up in the highlights, but that's the nature of teenagers.
I don't know if I would use Facebook for professional networking - I think I would rather used LinkedIn for that.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Tagging - You're It!
My personal conclusion about tagging is still undecided. I know for sure that it could never replace subject headings and the control and precision that comes with them. It has the potential of complementing subject headings because of its reliance on natural language - seems to me that if you somehow marry the two, you get the thesaurus you need to navigate what can be the confusing world of subject headings.
I think this passage from the Wikipedia article lays out pretty well the pitfalls of tagging -
"In a typical tagging system, there is no explicit information about the meaning or semantics of each tag, and a user can apply new tags to an item as easily as applying older tags. Hierarchical classification systems can be slow to change, and are rooted in the culture and era that created them.[10] The flexibility of tagging allows users to classify their collections of items in the ways that they find useful, but the personalized variety of terms can present challenges when searching and browsing.
When users can freely choose tags (creating a folksonomy, as opposed to selecting terms from a controlled vocabulary), the resulting metadata can include homonyms (the same tags used with different meanings) and synonyms (multiple tags for the same concept), which may lead to inappropriate connections between items and inefficient searches for information about a subject." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_(metadata)
Thus, you get increased retrieval, possibly increased relevance, but you clearly sacrifice precision in the process, especially if the process is open to everyone and anyone.
An example of this would be to go onto Flickr and search for "depression glass" under the Tags Only feature (with the quotations). You get 1359 results, and one particular photographer has used that tag for just about every one of her photos, so I saw a silver plate ladle, a cross stitch table runner, and a framed print of a child praying. Other users had employed that tag for tatting lace, a picture of a 1969 Macy's flea market, and a black glass gravestone, of all things. Without the quotations, you get 339 results, some related to depression as a mental health condition, clearly not what a searcher probably wants. It was interesting to me that I got a lower retrieval rate without the quotations; the quotation search found some accounts which had used a tag combining the words into depressionglass or a tag of depression glass as a phrase, and the quotations had the system search for intact phrases. The 338 result search clearly was doing a Boolean search, requiring depression and glass to be two separate tags within a record. As expected, depression alone gave way to 20,000+ results, and glass alone yielded 810,000+ results.
This is not unlike problems we have in cataloging, where the individual cataloger decides on subject headings that may or may not match the user's notion of what a particular title is about, or where one cataloger's poorly done record is replicated a million times through copy cataloging and now hundreds of library catalogs are affected (I have just experienced the frustration with this problem while trying to create a bibliography of books on disasters and survival). So, no system is perfect.
When you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen you can arrive at a wonderful meal, or a mish-mosh. It just depends. I think tagging is definitely here to stay, and I hope that tagging will evolve into something that will allow a user to impose, intuitively, more precision at the point of search, so that each search does not yield more results than can be waded through in a reasonable amount of time.
I think this passage from the Wikipedia article lays out pretty well the pitfalls of tagging -
"In a typical tagging system, there is no explicit information about the meaning or semantics of each tag, and a user can apply new tags to an item as easily as applying older tags. Hierarchical classification systems can be slow to change, and are rooted in the culture and era that created them.[10] The flexibility of tagging allows users to classify their collections of items in the ways that they find useful, but the personalized variety of terms can present challenges when searching and browsing.
When users can freely choose tags (creating a folksonomy, as opposed to selecting terms from a controlled vocabulary), the resulting metadata can include homonyms (the same tags used with different meanings) and synonyms (multiple tags for the same concept), which may lead to inappropriate connections between items and inefficient searches for information about a subject." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_(metadata)
Thus, you get increased retrieval, possibly increased relevance, but you clearly sacrifice precision in the process, especially if the process is open to everyone and anyone.
An example of this would be to go onto Flickr and search for "depression glass" under the Tags Only feature (with the quotations). You get 1359 results, and one particular photographer has used that tag for just about every one of her photos, so I saw a silver plate ladle, a cross stitch table runner, and a framed print of a child praying. Other users had employed that tag for tatting lace, a picture of a 1969 Macy's flea market, and a black glass gravestone, of all things. Without the quotations, you get 339 results, some related to depression as a mental health condition, clearly not what a searcher probably wants. It was interesting to me that I got a lower retrieval rate without the quotations; the quotation search found some accounts which had used a tag combining the words into depressionglass or a tag of depression glass as a phrase, and the quotations had the system search for intact phrases. The 338 result search clearly was doing a Boolean search, requiring depression and glass to be two separate tags within a record. As expected, depression alone gave way to 20,000+ results, and glass alone yielded 810,000+ results.
This is not unlike problems we have in cataloging, where the individual cataloger decides on subject headings that may or may not match the user's notion of what a particular title is about, or where one cataloger's poorly done record is replicated a million times through copy cataloging and now hundreds of library catalogs are affected (I have just experienced the frustration with this problem while trying to create a bibliography of books on disasters and survival). So, no system is perfect.
When you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen you can arrive at a wonderful meal, or a mish-mosh. It just depends. I think tagging is definitely here to stay, and I hope that tagging will evolve into something that will allow a user to impose, intuitively, more precision at the point of search, so that each search does not yield more results than can be waded through in a reasonable amount of time.
Ning and Nang
I checked out Ning, declining to create my own account. I found it pretty intuitive and easy to navigate, although the wealth of information on the site is a bit mind-boggling.
My first search for a network was depression glass, as I wanted to see if I could find information about depression glass rather than site after site of sellers of depression glass. I got 289 hits, many of which were not relevant; interestingly, several networks related to careers and women, i.e. the glass ceiling thing, were included in the results. Depression Glass in quotations came up with zero hits, so clearly there's little out there just on depression glass.
Rather than click through pages and pages of network listings, I chose the first hit, The Vintage Village, because it had depression glass in its tags. But from what I could tell as a I surfed around, it was mainly pages of sellers of various types of vintage collectibles. I did find a couple of pages that discussed and posted pictures of vintage jewelry marks, and this would be very helpful for my vintage jewelry collecting. In one section, the only thing related to depression glass was a link to About.com, which I have found to be pretty useless in the past.
I then searched for networks connected to the city in which my farm sits, just to see what I would get. 377 hits, many of which were alumni associations for universities in Illinois. I did find a network of Illinois librarians listed, and clicked on that - it only had 24 members, so obviously not a very large group. Perhaps all the Illinois librarians are too busy to network! There was an alumni site for my undergrade university, with 2077 members - but wouldn't Facebook or LinkedIn be a better choice for business networking?
Then I tried drum corps, and found 475 networks, and clicked on the Drum Corps Historical Society, looking for information on the Santa Clara Vanguard, because a friend of mine used to travel with the corps in the summer. I wondered to myself why I would go through Ning to get to information on SCV, when I could easily just Google SCV and go to the source. Maybe someone doing research would like to access every single thing about a group or topic.
My conclusion - Ning is fun, could be useful for hobbies and such, and I like the 'folders within folders kind of ideology about the setup. But in terms of creating a presence on the web for your library, I think a page would get lost. Ning, to me, is like most of these social networking sites - a time sink. I am still searching for a good article on how to manage this stuff efficiently. So far Google Reader has been the most useful.
My first search for a network was depression glass, as I wanted to see if I could find information about depression glass rather than site after site of sellers of depression glass. I got 289 hits, many of which were not relevant; interestingly, several networks related to careers and women, i.e. the glass ceiling thing, were included in the results. Depression Glass in quotations came up with zero hits, so clearly there's little out there just on depression glass.
Rather than click through pages and pages of network listings, I chose the first hit, The Vintage Village, because it had depression glass in its tags. But from what I could tell as a I surfed around, it was mainly pages of sellers of various types of vintage collectibles. I did find a couple of pages that discussed and posted pictures of vintage jewelry marks, and this would be very helpful for my vintage jewelry collecting. In one section, the only thing related to depression glass was a link to About.com, which I have found to be pretty useless in the past.
I then searched for networks connected to the city in which my farm sits, just to see what I would get. 377 hits, many of which were alumni associations for universities in Illinois. I did find a network of Illinois librarians listed, and clicked on that - it only had 24 members, so obviously not a very large group. Perhaps all the Illinois librarians are too busy to network! There was an alumni site for my undergrade university, with 2077 members - but wouldn't Facebook or LinkedIn be a better choice for business networking?
Then I tried drum corps, and found 475 networks, and clicked on the Drum Corps Historical Society, looking for information on the Santa Clara Vanguard, because a friend of mine used to travel with the corps in the summer. I wondered to myself why I would go through Ning to get to information on SCV, when I could easily just Google SCV and go to the source. Maybe someone doing research would like to access every single thing about a group or topic.
My conclusion - Ning is fun, could be useful for hobbies and such, and I like the 'folders within folders kind of ideology about the setup. But in terms of creating a presence on the web for your library, I think a page would get lost. Ning, to me, is like most of these social networking sites - a time sink. I am still searching for a good article on how to manage this stuff efficiently. So far Google Reader has been the most useful.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
RSS Feeds
My comment about RSS feeds is that, just like blogs, there can be a point where you get sucked into a world of TMI (too much information) and TMMI (too much meaningless information). Then the technology becomes the end instead of the means, and one finds it extremely difficult to absorb and digest everything that is being posted on the feeds.
I wonder to myself what kind of ratio there is to total rss feeds and rss feeds used in a meaningful way. A million to 1? And how much time is spent creating rss feeds, blogs, plus Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, etc. posts? Seems every newspaper in the world has a presence on all of those. Is it just a matter of creating one text and uploading to multiple sites?
Using Google Reader to subscribe and manage the RSS feeds you want to view is much easier than I-Tunes, in my opinion.
Just as an aside, a really good portrait of feeds gone awry is M.T. Anderson's novel Feed, in the YA section. If that ever comes to pass, hold on to your hats...
I wonder to myself what kind of ratio there is to total rss feeds and rss feeds used in a meaningful way. A million to 1? And how much time is spent creating rss feeds, blogs, plus Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, etc. posts? Seems every newspaper in the world has a presence on all of those. Is it just a matter of creating one text and uploading to multiple sites?
Using Google Reader to subscribe and manage the RSS feeds you want to view is much easier than I-Tunes, in my opinion.
Just as an aside, a really good portrait of feeds gone awry is M.T. Anderson's novel Feed, in the YA section. If that ever comes to pass, hold on to your hats...
Blog Readers
A very very useful tool!!! This is one I will pass on to my spouse, as he loves to read newspapers from around the country.
From what I could tell, this replaces the original email updates that Google News used to offer, and in my opinion, much more efficient, as the email updates tended to just clutter my inbox and build up to a point that 'update' became a meaningless term. I like the way I can control when I view something.
My husband and I are both news junkies, and I can see Google Reader being heavily used for this. I added rss feeds from NPR shows and a couple of newspapers. It was interesting to see how many subscribers there were for each. The NYT feed of course had the most 1.7+ million.
I also searched, in vain, for the rss feed for the Librarians' Index to the Internet. I had tried to add them through I-Tunes but found I developed computer problems, which may be related to Bloglines more than my computer. But I thought Google Reader might accomplish the same thing. Unfortunately, a search through Google Reader yielded everyone else's mention of the LII feed, but not the feed itself, including a feed from Bloglines talking about how Bloglines was down for maintenance. I'll keep trying...
From what I could tell, this replaces the original email updates that Google News used to offer, and in my opinion, much more efficient, as the email updates tended to just clutter my inbox and build up to a point that 'update' became a meaningless term. I like the way I can control when I view something.
My husband and I are both news junkies, and I can see Google Reader being heavily used for this. I added rss feeds from NPR shows and a couple of newspapers. It was interesting to see how many subscribers there were for each. The NYT feed of course had the most 1.7+ million.
I also searched, in vain, for the rss feed for the Librarians' Index to the Internet. I had tried to add them through I-Tunes but found I developed computer problems, which may be related to Bloglines more than my computer. But I thought Google Reader might accomplish the same thing. Unfortunately, a search through Google Reader yielded everyone else's mention of the LII feed, but not the feed itself, including a feed from Bloglines talking about how Bloglines was down for maintenance. I'll keep trying...
Image Generators
I enjoyed using the FX app from Big Huge Labs, and this one is titled, "Corn Never Looked So Bad". It reminds me of some Blair Witch Project or M. Night Shyamalan film, or maybe a post-catastrophe world. I'm half expecting to see a zombie come walking through the corn!
My farm doesn't look this bad. Really. The actual photo shows corn stalks tall and green and gorgeous.
Flickr Mashups
I think I would title this one, "Magic, Magic, Everywhere". These are photos of a recent trip to Disney World, and I don't think anyone would dispute that it is a magical place.
I enjoyed looking at all of the different ways to manipulate photos from Flickr. It seems like it would be useful if you had a large collection of photos with which to work, ones that you didn't have to spend oodles of time finding the proper CC license to use. Professional photographers, I am sure, just love this kind of stuff.
I used Big Huge Labs to create this - I appreciate the many and diverse methods offered through that portal.
Library 2.0, Random Thoughts and Musings
My reactions to Library 2.0, at the risk of becoming the class curmudgeon...
I read the Blyberg blog post and watched the Wesch video posted on Shifted Librarian. If we look at Sarah Houghton's definition and stop, right after "community needs", it's pretty obvious that there is nothing revolutionary about Library 2.0. There may have been a time in the 80s when libraries were not considered to be relevant, but I fail to see anything of the sort today. Indeed, libraries are even more utilized today simply because someone/something needs to help people make sense of the glut of information out there. Even those living in very affluent communities are warming to the idea that they just can't become fully informed over the Internet. At least that's my perspective.
I agree with Blyberg's statement that "libraries will feel increasing pressure to provide services that both compliment and diverge from Google." Google has actually done libraries a big favor; Google has shown people the value of knowing. So I am really not all that worried about Google supplanting libraries. Google will never get all the world's knowledge digitized - not mathematically possible, never mind financially possible. And Google will never help all people make sense of what they see on the net.
Spending so much time mulling over just what Library 2.0 is takes away precious time from providing the services that an individual community needs. I sometimes see a quiet desperation on the part of organizations in this regard, i.e. we've got to get on the technology bandwagon, or we're sunk. It's been my experience that organizations which focus on those they serve, without worrying about whether they match the way some other organization discharges their duties, are in the end the most successful. It's also been my experience that without community input and buy in and assistance, any attempt to serve that seems 'new and fresh' has a huge risk of failure, not whether or not there's a cute fancy name attached to what they do.
Thinking that we have to offer gaming, have to do blogs, have to be on Twitter, etc., is pretty short-sighted and wastes energy. What we have to do is serve our population, of all ages. I resented Blyberg's description of a "dwindling elderly population, the soon-to-retire baby boomers", as if those generations are to be dismissed as important. What I have found as I have gone through life is that a balance of young, stars-in-our-eyes ideas and "yeah, but" wisdom seems to work pretty darn well in developing products, systems, and services that last and have staying power. Think of the adoration Craig's List has gotten for so many years - new, fresh, exciting, freeing of pesky regulations, etc. Until someone is murdered as a result of its Wild West atmosphere. Think of the MySpace issues with bullying, including adult impersonators doing the bullying, and the result. MySpace doesn't look so great after that, right? Maybe there's a need to pull on the reins, which some think is anathema, but which helps, in the end.
Change, of course, has always been a part of human existence. And I am sure that the perception of the rate of change has always been one of, “things are moving too fast”.
And then there's the Wesch video posted on the Shifted Librarian link. All nice and glitzy, resounding, pounding, emotionally exciting background music. A clever, “Matrix-like” title. But, it told me this – 1) things are changing in an amazing way, and 2) you (meaning me) had better have brain wiring that is capable of keeping up with this video, because if you don’t, you (meaning me) won’t be able to keep up with the things that are changing in an amazing way.
I say hogwash. I think we are at least two generations away (maybe more) from the majority of the worldwide human population having brain wiring capable of keeping up with that video. And I think it’s disrespectful to present a concept in such a manner with any other expectation. There may have been something there, but how could someone not a geek comprehend it? My ADHD son, whose brain wiring requires multiple things happening quickly and simultaneously, would absorb it without difficulty. But what would he absorb? I saw no thoughtful analysis of the issue. At the end, Wesch flashed a dozen conceptual words that he claimed we must reassess: “copyright, authorship, identity, ethics, aesthetics, rhetoric, governance, privacy, commerce, love, family, ourselves.” (I paused the video multiple times to write them down) All of which require much more than the flash of the word on the screen to make sense of them. Shakespeare certainly didn't think that his themes of love, ambition, and human frailty could be examined as such.
Where is the invitation to think in that kind of presentation? Does Wesch assume that we with the ‘slow caveman brains’ are incapable of weighing in on the issues? Does he believe that non-geeks are not able to learn this stuff because we don’t learn this stuff at his expected rate?
I am not arguing for a ‘stop the presses’ approach to change within libraries. What I believe is that when the introduction of a change is tailored to a specific generational group, we all lose. My experience with ‘flavor of the quarter’ management theories (MBO and TQM come to mind immediately) has taught me that without adequate reflection of a new concept, without adequate and varied experiential input, and especially without buy-in from key players on all levels, change sputters, falters, spins wheels, and leads to demoralization, apathy, and resentment.
It really is OK to want to see Library 2.0 as something which "challenges library orthodoxy on almost every level"; but in the end, half of what is being considered will be disregarded as unusable. So let's not think that the challenge needs to be accomplished in a week.
I read the Blyberg blog post and watched the Wesch video posted on Shifted Librarian. If we look at Sarah Houghton's definition and stop, right after "community needs", it's pretty obvious that there is nothing revolutionary about Library 2.0. There may have been a time in the 80s when libraries were not considered to be relevant, but I fail to see anything of the sort today. Indeed, libraries are even more utilized today simply because someone/something needs to help people make sense of the glut of information out there. Even those living in very affluent communities are warming to the idea that they just can't become fully informed over the Internet. At least that's my perspective.
I agree with Blyberg's statement that "libraries will feel increasing pressure to provide services that both compliment and diverge from Google." Google has actually done libraries a big favor; Google has shown people the value of knowing. So I am really not all that worried about Google supplanting libraries. Google will never get all the world's knowledge digitized - not mathematically possible, never mind financially possible. And Google will never help all people make sense of what they see on the net.
Spending so much time mulling over just what Library 2.0 is takes away precious time from providing the services that an individual community needs. I sometimes see a quiet desperation on the part of organizations in this regard, i.e. we've got to get on the technology bandwagon, or we're sunk. It's been my experience that organizations which focus on those they serve, without worrying about whether they match the way some other organization discharges their duties, are in the end the most successful. It's also been my experience that without community input and buy in and assistance, any attempt to serve that seems 'new and fresh' has a huge risk of failure, not whether or not there's a cute fancy name attached to what they do.
Thinking that we have to offer gaming, have to do blogs, have to be on Twitter, etc., is pretty short-sighted and wastes energy. What we have to do is serve our population, of all ages. I resented Blyberg's description of a "dwindling elderly population, the soon-to-retire baby boomers", as if those generations are to be dismissed as important. What I have found as I have gone through life is that a balance of young, stars-in-our-eyes ideas and "yeah, but" wisdom seems to work pretty darn well in developing products, systems, and services that last and have staying power. Think of the adoration Craig's List has gotten for so many years - new, fresh, exciting, freeing of pesky regulations, etc. Until someone is murdered as a result of its Wild West atmosphere. Think of the MySpace issues with bullying, including adult impersonators doing the bullying, and the result. MySpace doesn't look so great after that, right? Maybe there's a need to pull on the reins, which some think is anathema, but which helps, in the end.
Change, of course, has always been a part of human existence. And I am sure that the perception of the rate of change has always been one of, “things are moving too fast”.
And then there's the Wesch video posted on the Shifted Librarian link. All nice and glitzy, resounding, pounding, emotionally exciting background music. A clever, “Matrix-like” title. But, it told me this – 1) things are changing in an amazing way, and 2) you (meaning me) had better have brain wiring that is capable of keeping up with this video, because if you don’t, you (meaning me) won’t be able to keep up with the things that are changing in an amazing way.
I say hogwash. I think we are at least two generations away (maybe more) from the majority of the worldwide human population having brain wiring capable of keeping up with that video. And I think it’s disrespectful to present a concept in such a manner with any other expectation. There may have been something there, but how could someone not a geek comprehend it? My ADHD son, whose brain wiring requires multiple things happening quickly and simultaneously, would absorb it without difficulty. But what would he absorb? I saw no thoughtful analysis of the issue. At the end, Wesch flashed a dozen conceptual words that he claimed we must reassess: “copyright, authorship, identity, ethics, aesthetics, rhetoric, governance, privacy, commerce, love, family, ourselves.” (I paused the video multiple times to write them down) All of which require much more than the flash of the word on the screen to make sense of them. Shakespeare certainly didn't think that his themes of love, ambition, and human frailty could be examined as such.
Where is the invitation to think in that kind of presentation? Does Wesch assume that we with the ‘slow caveman brains’ are incapable of weighing in on the issues? Does he believe that non-geeks are not able to learn this stuff because we don’t learn this stuff at his expected rate?
I am not arguing for a ‘stop the presses’ approach to change within libraries. What I believe is that when the introduction of a change is tailored to a specific generational group, we all lose. My experience with ‘flavor of the quarter’ management theories (MBO and TQM come to mind immediately) has taught me that without adequate reflection of a new concept, without adequate and varied experiential input, and especially without buy-in from key players on all levels, change sputters, falters, spins wheels, and leads to demoralization, apathy, and resentment.
It really is OK to want to see Library 2.0 as something which "challenges library orthodoxy on almost every level"; but in the end, half of what is being considered will be disregarded as unusable. So let's not think that the challenge needs to be accomplished in a week.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Flickr
I skipped right to Flickr because I was comfortable starting with it, having been on its site several times.
Of course, I searched under "farms", got a bazillion images pulled up, all beautiful. Too many of course. So off to Advanced Search, which I found to be simple, if not simplified. I chose to limit the images to those with Creative Commons licenses. That brought the number down into the 200,000 range.
But the unfortunate part was that no image I saw contained any of the icons used by Creative Commons to indicate what type of CC license the image holds. I even clicked on a couple of images, and found no CC icons attached, so I don't know what to think of that. In my mind, that wasn't very useful if you were looking for an image to put onto a newsletter or something. And it isn't helpful for students who go to Flickr to find an image to put into a report, because, well, don't they come to believe that everything is copyright free? It's hard to explain fair use and education purpose and such to kids.
Which brought me to think, what is the current purpose of Flickr? As I understand it, originally it was a way for non-computer savvy people to post their personal photos onto the web so that their friends, and relatives, and others could see them, and they could manage/edit them more easily. An easier way than sending gobs of attachments in emails. Having a private group for this purpose appeals to me, but clearly a lot of people are putting a lot of photos out there on the web for anyone to see; their own reality show, perhaps.
Which leads to another question - has Flickr become image overload with all those free accounts uploading all those images every day, every year? Enter the tags to try to limit the number of results, up or down. But which tag works, which tag is the best choice? Which tag did that fabulous picture you saw last week, and want to see again this week, use? It can be a little much in terms of the amount of time one needs to find an image, imho.
This is obviously not Flickr's only use. I saw professional images as well. So it seems that Flickr has evolved into an additional tool for professional photographers - a digital portfolio and 'store'.
Final question - Is Flickr an appropriate portal to display library images, i.e. images gathered during library events (assuming those in the shot give permission), as a way to promote the library? Or has that purpose come and gone, replaced with Facebook pages or some other social networking site? I don't know that answer to this one.
Of course, I searched under "farms", got a bazillion images pulled up, all beautiful. Too many of course. So off to Advanced Search, which I found to be simple, if not simplified. I chose to limit the images to those with Creative Commons licenses. That brought the number down into the 200,000 range.
But the unfortunate part was that no image I saw contained any of the icons used by Creative Commons to indicate what type of CC license the image holds. I even clicked on a couple of images, and found no CC icons attached, so I don't know what to think of that. In my mind, that wasn't very useful if you were looking for an image to put onto a newsletter or something. And it isn't helpful for students who go to Flickr to find an image to put into a report, because, well, don't they come to believe that everything is copyright free? It's hard to explain fair use and education purpose and such to kids.
Which brought me to think, what is the current purpose of Flickr? As I understand it, originally it was a way for non-computer savvy people to post their personal photos onto the web so that their friends, and relatives, and others could see them, and they could manage/edit them more easily. An easier way than sending gobs of attachments in emails. Having a private group for this purpose appeals to me, but clearly a lot of people are putting a lot of photos out there on the web for anyone to see; their own reality show, perhaps.
Which leads to another question - has Flickr become image overload with all those free accounts uploading all those images every day, every year? Enter the tags to try to limit the number of results, up or down. But which tag works, which tag is the best choice? Which tag did that fabulous picture you saw last week, and want to see again this week, use? It can be a little much in terms of the amount of time one needs to find an image, imho.
This is obviously not Flickr's only use. I saw professional images as well. So it seems that Flickr has evolved into an additional tool for professional photographers - a digital portfolio and 'store'.
Final question - Is Flickr an appropriate portal to display library images, i.e. images gathered during library events (assuming those in the shot give permission), as a way to promote the library? Or has that purpose come and gone, replaced with Facebook pages or some other social networking site? I don't know that answer to this one.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Hi, All -
I never thought I would create or manage a blog in my lifetime, but here I am. I work in a small public library, in both the Youth and Adult Services departments, and love every minute of it.
The origins of my blog title come from the fact that I co-own and manage a family farm in Illinois. Love farms, love libraries. Ask me about corn or soybeans, or ask me to find a book to help you finish your history paper, at the eleventh hour. It's all good!
I am looking forward to learning the 23 Things, and perhaps connect with other librarians (or farmer librarians, too). I hope you enjoy my musings.
I never thought I would create or manage a blog in my lifetime, but here I am. I work in a small public library, in both the Youth and Adult Services departments, and love every minute of it.
The origins of my blog title come from the fact that I co-own and manage a family farm in Illinois. Love farms, love libraries. Ask me about corn or soybeans, or ask me to find a book to help you finish your history paper, at the eleventh hour. It's all good!
I am looking forward to learning the 23 Things, and perhaps connect with other librarians (or farmer librarians, too). I hope you enjoy my musings.
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