Gooooooooooooooooooal! I made it to the end!
Thing #23: Is this really the end? Or just the beginning?
Yeah, of course it's not really the end. It may be the end of this particular set of exercises. It may or may not be the end of my posts on this particular blog. However, it's definitely not the end of my learning and growth. That will continue for as long as I live.
* What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
Google Documents is at the top of the list. Even if I can't access it at home (*cough* Firefox 1.0 *cough*), I'm finding it incredibly useful. It's replaced the flash drive in my pocket for documents I need to work on both in my cubicle and at the service desk.
I'm also liking YouTube quite a lot. Sure, there's a lot of junk, but there's also plenty of useful, informative content. Plus, if not for YouTube, I would never have gotten to see President Obama's inauguration and the various associated speeches and ceremonies. I am so glad this service exists.
* How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
Even though my supervisor gave me permission to do these exercises at work, I discovered that I really didn't have time. There is simply too much work to do at work, and I couldn't shoehorn these exercises in. Once I started doing the majority of them at home, I developed the homework mentality. (Yes, even though this wasn't technically a class, I actually referred to each of the things as "homework.") It's gotten me thinking about going back to school and getting an MLS. I don't know for certain that I'm ready to make that leap yet, but I feel much closer to it than ever before.
* Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
I'm not sure I'd call this unexpected, but I've had to face my essentially asocial online behavior. I love cool web 2.0 toys and tools I can play with on my own, but I'm not big into interacting with others. I love Delicious, and I tag all of my bookmarks for my own use, but I never think to look at other people's bookmarks. I love Google Documents for making my documents more portable, but I haven't shared any of them with anyone else. That's just part and parcel with my introverted nature. I need to be more conscious of the social part of the social web.
* What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
Not sure. I thought it was pretty well organized and most of the things seemed to flow fairly naturally into one another.
* If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again choose to participate?
You bet! This was great!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Thing #13 Revisited: I'm Just Not That Into Twitter
Well, I've given it two full weeks now, and I'm still not twitterpated with Twitter. Following only ten people, I receive so many tweets that every time I visit Twitter I have to go back multiple pages to see what I missed. I wish I could set it to show me the most recent tweet from everyone I'm following, so the people who tweet a lot don't crowd out the people who tweet only once a day or so. I honestly don't know how hard-core users who follow hundreds or thousands of people keep up with any of the threads. And I don't tweet much myself, because my life is just not that interesting. I dislike Twitter less than I imagined, but I just can't seem to really get into it.
Thing #22: Podcasts
Thing #22: Podcasts is one of the things I was dreading when I started this program, but by the time I reached it, I was enthusiastic. I'd had so many good experiences during Nebraska Learns 2.0 exercises that I was hyped and ready to go.
Unfortunately, my enthusiasm died quickly. Searching for podcasts was much less fun than searching for YouTube videos or blogs to follow. After more than two hours sifting through several different podcast directories, I still hadn't found anything to keep my interest. I'd listened to the beginnings of several podcasts on a variety of subjects, but hadn't made it to the end of any of them. They all bored me to tears. If they couldn't hook me within the first few minutes, I moved on. Don't waste my time.
I realize that, for me, the main problem with podcasts is that they're just like radio programs. When I listen to the radio, the instant I hear a DJ talking, I change stations until I hit one that's playing music. I can't stand talk radio.
Rather than sifting endlessly through directories of stuff trying to find one gemstone in an endless beach of common sand, I decided to check out blogs and comics I was already following to see if they had podcasts. That way, I stood a better chance of finding something to my liking. But even the podcast by the creators of one of my favorite webcomics bored me. It was still just like a radio show, with more random, tedious banter than interesting content. While the podcast was playing, I found myself reading unrelated blogs, just to keep myself from leaving the computer altogether.
I finally found some decent, non-chattering podcasts from NET. These were informative and enjoyable. Finally, I'd found podcasts produced by people who valued the listener's time! Not one word was wasted. Even so, I'd still rather read news than listen to it.
I added a couple of the NET podcasts to my Bloglines account--News & Features from NET Radio (audio) and Arts in Nebraska from NET Television (video). I'll follow them for a while to see if they grow on me, but right now I'm suspecting that I'll eventually drop them in favor of blogs and text-based news. The video podcast will probably be the first to go, because the .mp4 files take too long to download, even with DSL. YouTube is much faster.
For Library-related podcasts, I really enjoyed Uncontrolled Vocabulary. It was nice to hear the voices of people I follow in the blogosphere, like Michael Sauers and Tim Spalding. The podcast was focused, organized, and informative. However, I'm not sure I heard much info there that I hadn't also read on various blogs and mailing lists.
I'm not saying I dislike the concept of podcasts. Many people do prefer to get their input through audio-visual channels rather than reading. Podcasts are undoubtedly valued and valuable tools for many people, and I completely understand that. However, I just don't think they're for me.
Unfortunately, my enthusiasm died quickly. Searching for podcasts was much less fun than searching for YouTube videos or blogs to follow. After more than two hours sifting through several different podcast directories, I still hadn't found anything to keep my interest. I'd listened to the beginnings of several podcasts on a variety of subjects, but hadn't made it to the end of any of them. They all bored me to tears. If they couldn't hook me within the first few minutes, I moved on. Don't waste my time.
I realize that, for me, the main problem with podcasts is that they're just like radio programs. When I listen to the radio, the instant I hear a DJ talking, I change stations until I hit one that's playing music. I can't stand talk radio.
Rather than sifting endlessly through directories of stuff trying to find one gemstone in an endless beach of common sand, I decided to check out blogs and comics I was already following to see if they had podcasts. That way, I stood a better chance of finding something to my liking. But even the podcast by the creators of one of my favorite webcomics bored me. It was still just like a radio show, with more random, tedious banter than interesting content. While the podcast was playing, I found myself reading unrelated blogs, just to keep myself from leaving the computer altogether.
I finally found some decent, non-chattering podcasts from NET. These were informative and enjoyable. Finally, I'd found podcasts produced by people who valued the listener's time! Not one word was wasted. Even so, I'd still rather read news than listen to it.
I added a couple of the NET podcasts to my Bloglines account--News & Features from NET Radio (audio) and Arts in Nebraska from NET Television (video). I'll follow them for a while to see if they grow on me, but right now I'm suspecting that I'll eventually drop them in favor of blogs and text-based news. The video podcast will probably be the first to go, because the .mp4 files take too long to download, even with DSL. YouTube is much faster.
For Library-related podcasts, I really enjoyed Uncontrolled Vocabulary. It was nice to hear the voices of people I follow in the blogosphere, like Michael Sauers and Tim Spalding. The podcast was focused, organized, and informative. However, I'm not sure I heard much info there that I hadn't also read on various blogs and mailing lists.
I'm not saying I dislike the concept of podcasts. Many people do prefer to get their input through audio-visual channels rather than reading. Podcasts are undoubtedly valued and valuable tools for many people, and I completely understand that. However, I just don't think they're for me.
Thing #21: YouTube
When I first started the 23 Things, I was dreading this exercise, Thing #21: You too can YouTube. At that time, I had a dial up connection at home and no sound at work, so I was originally going to have to do this assignment "elsewhere," probably the library's public machines.
Well, things change. A little over a month ago, I managed to upgrade my home connection to the lowest grade of DSL. Suddenly, watching videos at home was not so unattractive. I still have to wait a few minutes for a video to load (on average, about twice the total run-time of the video), but that's not unreasonable, at least not compared to having to wait four or five hours to load a five minute video with a dialup connection. Maybe for some people, any load time is a deal-breaker. For me, it depends on how badly I want to see something.
Since getting DSL, I have wasted a lot of time on YouTube--the good, the bad, and the stupid. YouTube, like the open web, like the shelves of a grocery store, and even like the library, is filled with an immense variety of things. Saying you like or dislike YouTube is like saying you like or dislike a particular library. Some of the stuff on YouTube bores me. Some of it offends me. Some of it informs me. And some of it is just plain fun. The same can be said of any library. YouTube is like an online video library with no collection development policy.
I did not know how to imbed a video in a blog post before this exercise. It's fun learning new things about tools you already use.
Throughout Nebraska Learns 2.0, we have watched quite a few episodes of Common Craft, explaining everything from wikis to Twitter. Looking at other Common Craft episodes, I see that they cover much more than web 2.0 tools. There are episodes available to explain everything from money management to compact fluorescent light bulbs.
And so I present an episode of the Common Craft show that we didn't watch for these exercises: Zombies in Plain English. (Content warning: fake blood and implied violence.) Hide your brain and fire up your sense of humor.
Well, things change. A little over a month ago, I managed to upgrade my home connection to the lowest grade of DSL. Suddenly, watching videos at home was not so unattractive. I still have to wait a few minutes for a video to load (on average, about twice the total run-time of the video), but that's not unreasonable, at least not compared to having to wait four or five hours to load a five minute video with a dialup connection. Maybe for some people, any load time is a deal-breaker. For me, it depends on how badly I want to see something.
Since getting DSL, I have wasted a lot of time on YouTube--the good, the bad, and the stupid. YouTube, like the open web, like the shelves of a grocery store, and even like the library, is filled with an immense variety of things. Saying you like or dislike YouTube is like saying you like or dislike a particular library. Some of the stuff on YouTube bores me. Some of it offends me. Some of it informs me. And some of it is just plain fun. The same can be said of any library. YouTube is like an online video library with no collection development policy.
I did not know how to imbed a video in a blog post before this exercise. It's fun learning new things about tools you already use.
Throughout Nebraska Learns 2.0, we have watched quite a few episodes of Common Craft, explaining everything from wikis to Twitter. Looking at other Common Craft episodes, I see that they cover much more than web 2.0 tools. There are episodes available to explain everything from money management to compact fluorescent light bulbs.
And so I present an episode of the Common Craft show that we didn't watch for these exercises: Zombies in Plain English. (Content warning: fake blood and implied violence.) Hide your brain and fire up your sense of humor.
Nebraska Learns 2.0: My Favorite Posts
Reflecting on last night's post, I realized I ought to have listed all of my favorite Nebraska Learns 2.0 blog posts, if only for my own future reference. Some blogs merited more than one post in my list, because sometimes people say good things on a lot of subjects.
For Thing #11 (on technology):
For Thing #13 (Twitter):
For Thing #15 (SlideShare):
For Thing #16 (on Web 2.0 and Library 2.0):
For Thing #19 (web-based productivity software):
For Thing #21 (YouTube):
Addendum 1/26/2008 -- All of these have now been added to the Nebraska Learns 2.0 Favorite Posts wiki page.
For Thing #11 (on technology):
Clywdshire offers a some cautionary advice on technology and cites several interesting articles and books.
Rayma's Genealogy Blog talked about using Facebook to help identify unclaimed bodies. This blew me away. What an amazing and brilliant use of a technology for something that its creators probably never envisioned. This is technology at its best--generating creative and unexpected solutions to problems.
Susan's experiments in Library Land makes some fantastic points about the fleeting and migratory nature of social technology, the proliferation of IDs and passwords, and inconsistent corporate IT policies.
Upward & Onward may be getting in touch with her inner Luddite, but she makes an eerie point with her example of the emotionless texters in the crowd at a football game.
For Thing #13 (Twitter):
Learning As I Go cited an excellent article, "Is Twitter TOO good?" by Kathy Sierra, in addition to making some good points of her (?) own.
Upward & Onward cited another excellent article, "Twitter Nation: Nobody cares what you're doing," by Helen Popkin. And I love the use of Mr. Hyde Tweety.
For Thing #15 (SlideShare):
Clwydshire posted a beautiful slideshow of paper art.
For Thing #16 (on Web 2.0 and Library 2.0):
The Antiquarian Librarian reminds us not to get lost in the technology, but to stay focused on having meaningful interactions with people. Social networking sites are just another means to that end, and are in addition to, not in replacement of, face-to-face interactions both inside and outside the library. He talks about the library's role not only in preserving culture but in creating it.
Books and More synthesized one short, sweet, salient point from all the articles: the idea that we can not hope to teach all of our users how to use our systems, so we must change our systems to make them so intuitive our users don't need help.
Prairie Prose wrote, "I need to recreate my role in a world that thinks 'it's all on the internet,' but doesn't know how to find and evaluate what is there." Teaching how to evaluate sources, and building tools that help users do it themselves, seems to be a growing part of librarianship.
Susan's experiments in Library Land lifted up key points from several of the readings.
TheCorey may be right about "web 2.0" and "library 2.0" having devolved into meaningless terms that get slapped on various lousy projects to make them seem more trendy.
Upward & Onward leads with a cartoon that I think nearly everyone can identify with, then makes the excellent point that while we're considering what the library will be in the future, we must also consider what it will not be.
For Thing #19 (web-based productivity software):
Learning As I Go explored Google Documents in great detail. I was glad to learn about the ease of including special characters, which I had not discovered on my own. (For some reason, I was unable to post comments on this blog.)
For Thing #21 (YouTube):
In spite of his well-thought qualms about the bandwidth issue of YouTube, The Troglodyte Librarian provided some excellent examples of how his library is using it well for summer reading promos and might use it in the future for tutorials.
Addendum 1/26/2008 -- All of these have now been added to the Nebraska Learns 2.0 Favorite Posts wiki page.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Nebraska Learns 2.0: The Community
No "Thing" this time. I spent the whole evening looking at the blogs of all the Nebraska Learns 2.0 participants.
Yeah. All of them. Four and a half hours on a Saturday night. I can't promise that I read every single post on each blog, but I did visit every blog, and I did read at least a couple posts from each participant. For the handful I'd already been following via RSS, I re-read my favorite posts.
It's sad, but not surprising, how many folks made it only through the first couple of things, then dropped out. I was almost one of those, with my month-long lapse. I'm really glad I decided to pick it up again and run with it. I am determined to finish by the deadline.
It was definitely worth the time to visit all the participants' blogs, and not just because of all the pretty Flickr pictures or the fun YouTube videos. I really enjoyed reading everyone's comments on Things 11 and 16. A lot of folks wrote deep, thoughtful essays about technology and Library 2.0. I plan to add my favorites to the Nebraska Learns 2.0 wiki later, when I'm at a computer with a browser that's compatible with PBwiki.
Well, it's way past my bedtime, so I think I'm going to call it quits for tonight.
Yeah. All of them. Four and a half hours on a Saturday night. I can't promise that I read every single post on each blog, but I did visit every blog, and I did read at least a couple posts from each participant. For the handful I'd already been following via RSS, I re-read my favorite posts.
It's sad, but not surprising, how many folks made it only through the first couple of things, then dropped out. I was almost one of those, with my month-long lapse. I'm really glad I decided to pick it up again and run with it. I am determined to finish by the deadline.
It was definitely worth the time to visit all the participants' blogs, and not just because of all the pretty Flickr pictures or the fun YouTube videos. I really enjoyed reading everyone's comments on Things 11 and 16. A lot of folks wrote deep, thoughtful essays about technology and Library 2.0. I plan to add my favorites to the Nebraska Learns 2.0 wiki later, when I'm at a computer with a browser that's compatible with PBwiki.
Well, it's way past my bedtime, so I think I'm going to call it quits for tonight.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Thing #20: Web 2.0 Award Winners
Thing #20: Discovering Web 2.0 tools is a bit on the overwhelming side. There's just so incredibly much to choose from. Having a list of award winners to narrow it down helps, certainly. These resources have all been vetted. They probably wouldn't be on this list if they weren't good, stable, and reliable.
Biblio.com is a service to allow you to search independent bookstores for out-of-print works. Not so much "web 2.0" to my mind (no integral social component), but very useful. I found facsimiles of Topsell's History of Four-Footed Beasts, which made me drool and wish I had huge buckets of money laying around. I'll definitely be keeping this site in my Delicious file.
Lulu, on the other hand, is "web 2.0" to the hilt, and it looks very promising for self-publishing a wide variety of content. If someone wanted to create a memoir or photo album to distribute to family members and friends, this is a much nicer alternative to photocopying it and putting it in a three-ring binder. If one wanted to publish a little comic book for their friends, but also try to sell a few copies on the side without going to a huge amount of trouble, this could be the way to go. I like what Lauren Parker said about their goal being "to have 1 million users that sell 10 books instead of 10 authors that sell 1 million books."
Live Mocha helps people learning foreign languages find native speakers to practice with. This is pretty darned awesome. I might use it myself, but I will definitely keep it in mind if I have patrons at the desk who want help finding a language partner.
Upcoming Events & Things to Do would probably be good for me to check regularly, because I never know what cool things are happening around town until they're over and someone is telling me what an awesome event I missed. I also like that this site is smart enough to look at my IP address and automatically supply events for Omaha, rather than forcing me to input my location. Going, on the other hand, defaulted to Chicago, the nearest city that they consider "major." Sorry, but I don't consider an event that requires shelling out big bucks for air fare and hotel fees to be "nearby." I'll stick with Upcoming, since they give me actual relevant local content. I wish it included smaller cities, though. I'd love to see what events are coming up in Schuyler or Columbus, but the closest I could find on Upcoming was Norfolk. Still, that's not too bad.
From a library service standpoint, all of the genealogy sites on the list (My Heritage, Geni, and Amiglia) could be useful. I didn't sign up for any of them at this time, but I might later if I get serious about converting the family tree from that stack of photocopies in my file drawer. But any or all of these would be great to show a patron coming to the desk with a genealogy question.
I guess my favorite thing I encountered in this exercise was the SEOmoz Awards list itself. It's a good overview of the types of stuff out there, and I can refer back to it later when I have a particular need for a particular type of tool.
Biblio.com is a service to allow you to search independent bookstores for out-of-print works. Not so much "web 2.0" to my mind (no integral social component), but very useful. I found facsimiles of Topsell's History of Four-Footed Beasts, which made me drool and wish I had huge buckets of money laying around. I'll definitely be keeping this site in my Delicious file.
Lulu, on the other hand, is "web 2.0" to the hilt, and it looks very promising for self-publishing a wide variety of content. If someone wanted to create a memoir or photo album to distribute to family members and friends, this is a much nicer alternative to photocopying it and putting it in a three-ring binder. If one wanted to publish a little comic book for their friends, but also try to sell a few copies on the side without going to a huge amount of trouble, this could be the way to go. I like what Lauren Parker said about their goal being "to have 1 million users that sell 10 books instead of 10 authors that sell 1 million books."
Live Mocha helps people learning foreign languages find native speakers to practice with. This is pretty darned awesome. I might use it myself, but I will definitely keep it in mind if I have patrons at the desk who want help finding a language partner.
Upcoming Events & Things to Do would probably be good for me to check regularly, because I never know what cool things are happening around town until they're over and someone is telling me what an awesome event I missed. I also like that this site is smart enough to look at my IP address and automatically supply events for Omaha, rather than forcing me to input my location. Going, on the other hand, defaulted to Chicago, the nearest city that they consider "major." Sorry, but I don't consider an event that requires shelling out big bucks for air fare and hotel fees to be "nearby." I'll stick with Upcoming, since they give me actual relevant local content. I wish it included smaller cities, though. I'd love to see what events are coming up in Schuyler or Columbus, but the closest I could find on Upcoming was Norfolk. Still, that's not too bad.
From a library service standpoint, all of the genealogy sites on the list (My Heritage, Geni, and Amiglia) could be useful. I didn't sign up for any of them at this time, but I might later if I get serious about converting the family tree from that stack of photocopies in my file drawer. But any or all of these would be great to show a patron coming to the desk with a genealogy question.
I guess my favorite thing I encountered in this exercise was the SEOmoz Awards list itself. It's a good overview of the types of stuff out there, and I can refer back to it later when I have a particular need for a particular type of tool.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Thing #19: Google Documents
Thing #19: Apps, They're not just for desktops any more. Alas, another neat thing I can't use at home. My browser won't support it.
I love the idea of Google Documents, especially for those days when I forget my flash drive. In fact, I composed this post in Google Docs. And it's a great thing to show library patrons who need to work on their documents both at home and the library. The utility of this web-based document creation, editing, and storage is blazingly obvious. Of all the things we've seen in Nebraska Learns 2.0, I believe that this is the one that has the greatest potential to be useful to the widest spectrum of people. Flickr isn't for everyone. Neither is Twitter. Some people might not have a use for RSS (although that's harder for me to imagine), but everyone who uses a computer creates, uses, and shares documents of some type. And beyond its utility, the interface is intuitive and friendly. This app is pure gold, and I'm mighty grateful to you Nebraska Learns 2.0 folks for introducing me to it.
I have to disagree with the idea that web-based productivity software will be the death of Microsoft Office and other software products. First of all, at least at present, the web apps lack a lot of the functionality of the full software versions. I found the Google Documents slideshow function to be primitive, and it failed to import slides from an existing .ppt slideshow. I didn't do much with the Google Documents spreadsheet function, because I'm not a big Excel user, but it looked fairly basic to my untrained eye. But even with documents, which seems to be the nicest function, it's lacking a lot of the capabilities of Microsoft Word. For example, I imported one of my Word files (a template for printing DVD case inserts), and the formatting was blown all to heck. So you might not be able to put the final touches on a document that needs to look a certain way for printing.
Also, there's a security issue. Are Google Documents really private? Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure Google's robots aren't scanning the files? Are you absolutely sure they never, ever will? There will always be a handful of paranoid people (like me) who want to keep our most important files on our hard drives, which gives us at least the illusion of having control over them.
Lastly, there is the question of whether Google will really store your documents indefinitely. While Google as a whole seems to big to fail, they are not immune to the need to reorganize and kill off projects. While it's vanishingly unlikely that Google would ax Documents without giving people a chance to rescue or transfer their files, the possibility exists in theory.
Don't get me wrong. I love Google Docs, and I can tell I will be using it regularly and referring many others to it. For documents I need to share, or that I want to access from multiple computers, or which I intend to eventually put out on the open web anyway, it is fantastic and full of win. I think this is my favorite new tool I've picked up from these exercises.
I love the idea of Google Documents, especially for those days when I forget my flash drive. In fact, I composed this post in Google Docs. And it's a great thing to show library patrons who need to work on their documents both at home and the library. The utility of this web-based document creation, editing, and storage is blazingly obvious. Of all the things we've seen in Nebraska Learns 2.0, I believe that this is the one that has the greatest potential to be useful to the widest spectrum of people. Flickr isn't for everyone. Neither is Twitter. Some people might not have a use for RSS (although that's harder for me to imagine), but everyone who uses a computer creates, uses, and shares documents of some type. And beyond its utility, the interface is intuitive and friendly. This app is pure gold, and I'm mighty grateful to you Nebraska Learns 2.0 folks for introducing me to it.
I have to disagree with the idea that web-based productivity software will be the death of Microsoft Office and other software products. First of all, at least at present, the web apps lack a lot of the functionality of the full software versions. I found the Google Documents slideshow function to be primitive, and it failed to import slides from an existing .ppt slideshow. I didn't do much with the Google Documents spreadsheet function, because I'm not a big Excel user, but it looked fairly basic to my untrained eye. But even with documents, which seems to be the nicest function, it's lacking a lot of the capabilities of Microsoft Word. For example, I imported one of my Word files (a template for printing DVD case inserts), and the formatting was blown all to heck. So you might not be able to put the final touches on a document that needs to look a certain way for printing.
Also, there's a security issue. Are Google Documents really private? Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure Google's robots aren't scanning the files? Are you absolutely sure they never, ever will? There will always be a handful of paranoid people (like me) who want to keep our most important files on our hard drives, which gives us at least the illusion of having control over them.
Lastly, there is the question of whether Google will really store your documents indefinitely. While Google as a whole seems to big to fail, they are not immune to the need to reorganize and kill off projects. While it's vanishingly unlikely that Google would ax Documents without giving people a chance to rescue or transfer their files, the possibility exists in theory.
Don't get me wrong. I love Google Docs, and I can tell I will be using it regularly and referring many others to it. For documents I need to share, or that I want to access from multiple computers, or which I intend to eventually put out on the open web anyway, it is fantastic and full of win. I think this is my favorite new tool I've picked up from these exercises.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Thing #18: PBwiki
Somehow it seems cosmically wrong to be working on Thing #18: Playing around with PBwiki on the auspicious day of President Obama's inauguration. Nothing can compare to the power of that event, but I must work on these things whenever I have the opportunity. The deadline is near for Nebraska Learns 2.0, and I need to keep moving.
After looking at the discovery resources for PBwiki, I was very excited. It looked so very easy compared to Wikipedia and the Confluence wiki software we use at my library. I was thrilled by the promise of simplicity, a wiki easily accessible to all.
And then I clicked on edit, and discovered that PBwiki is completely incompatible with my computer (or at least my browser) at home. After numerous retries and reloads, I eventually got something other than a blank page. But the page I got was filled with strange code and odd blocks of color--definitely not a friendly display. So I gave up. (Side note: This was rather a surprise. I have no trouble editing Wikipedia articles from home, and I did not expect PBwiki to have higher browser requirements than Wikipedia.)
Now I'm at the library, using a decent computer. I went to PBwiki and clicked edit, and I got exactly what I should have: a simple, user-friendly, editable page. I edited a couple of pages on the Nebraska Learns 2.0 wiki, and it was easy and intuitive in a way I would never have expected from my previous experience with other wiki software. By hiding the markup code behind a rich text editor, they really made their wiki friendly and nonthreatening.
PBwiki would be great for a public wiki that a library wanted to share with its patrons. It would also make a very nice internal staff wiki. It's very nice. If I ever need to set up a wiki in the future, I would seriously consider using PBwiki as the platform.
After looking at the discovery resources for PBwiki, I was very excited. It looked so very easy compared to Wikipedia and the Confluence wiki software we use at my library. I was thrilled by the promise of simplicity, a wiki easily accessible to all.
And then I clicked on edit, and discovered that PBwiki is completely incompatible with my computer (or at least my browser) at home. After numerous retries and reloads, I eventually got something other than a blank page. But the page I got was filled with strange code and odd blocks of color--definitely not a friendly display. So I gave up. (Side note: This was rather a surprise. I have no trouble editing Wikipedia articles from home, and I did not expect PBwiki to have higher browser requirements than Wikipedia.)
Now I'm at the library, using a decent computer. I went to PBwiki and clicked edit, and I got exactly what I should have: a simple, user-friendly, editable page. I edited a couple of pages on the Nebraska Learns 2.0 wiki, and it was easy and intuitive in a way I would never have expected from my previous experience with other wiki software. By hiding the markup code behind a rich text editor, they really made their wiki friendly and nonthreatening.
PBwiki would be great for a public wiki that a library wanted to share with its patrons. It would also make a very nice internal staff wiki. It's very nice. If I ever need to set up a wiki in the future, I would seriously consider using PBwiki as the platform.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Thing #17: Wikis Ahoy!
Because I have experience with a couple of different wikis, I didn't expect to learn much from Thing #17: So what's in a wiki? To my delight, I was wrong. The Book Lovers Wiki didn't fit my mental model of what a wiki "looks" like. Also, on Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki I noticed the "Random Page" link on the left sidebar. It turns out that this also exists in Wikipedia; I just never noticed it because there is so much other stuff in Wikipedia's left sidebar that my eyes just gloss over it all. But the Random Page link is fun! It's wiki roulette! I believe I've just found my next source of entertainment.
One of the core tenets of wiki wisdom is that "anyone can edit" a wiki. While that may be true, I submit that wiki markup can be intimidating. I've edited in two different wikis: Wikipedia and the Confluence wiki we use at work. Their markup languages are completely different. Not only is neither one like html, neither one is like the other. This lack of standardization means that there is a learning curve not just for wikis, but for each wiki platform. Sure, if you just want to type in a line of text, it's no problem, but if you want to add a link or make a table, you have to learn the markup.
Our Confluence wiki has the option to edit pages in rich text, which does make it much more accessible, even if the rich text editor is a little on the buggy side. Everyone at work is encouraged to use the wiki. In fact, it's almost required. We use it for news, policies, procedures, meeting minutes, projects, discussions, and more. Even so, there are a few people who won't edit the wiki unless specifically told to. And there remains the perception that it is difficult, and some of my colleagues routinely come to me for help whenever they need to edit a page. I'm always glad to help. It's one of my official duties as a SpaceRanger, which is what "wiki power users" are called in my library, but also, I enjoy it. It's fun and interesting. And I always work directly in wiki markup rather than rich text, because I feel like I have better control over what the page will look like.
My library's wiki is strictly staff-only. It's not available to the public, and anonymous edits are not allowed. From Using Wikis to Create Online Communities, I do like the idea of using a wiki as a subject guide, especially if truly anyone could edit. The subject specialist librarian could moderate/shepherd it, to keep it accurate.
As for using a wiki to edit catalog entries, I think that might have to wait until OCLC comes around and makes WorldCat truly open. If all catalogers could edit all bib records, regardless of the encoding level, the bibs would become better. And while the general public should probably not be able to edit the MARC data or the authority-controlled fields, I think it would be great to let users add notes and summaries to records, not just tags and reviews. If a "vandal" were to add false or highly biased information, I'm sure the next cataloger to see it would take care of it. Or perhaps a passionate user might beat the catalogers to it.
One of the things people seem to fear about Wikipedia and other wikis is the threat not only of outright vandalism but of bias and unverified information being added to articles. Having read Wikipedia's content criteria in depth, I can say that such shenanigans are not tolerated on that site. The core Wikipedians are hypervigilant of any such abuses, and any malicious edits tend to be discovered and reversed very quickly. I don't mean "days" quickly, I mean "minutes" quickly. Yes, it is possible that you might see an article before it gets fixed. If you see something that just doesn't seem right, the simple solutions are to a) look at the history pages, and b) check back later to see the next version.
In Wikis in Plain English, when they showed the example of a user starting a page that said, "Pups are cute!" followed by someone changing it to, "Pups are messy!" I burst out laughing and thought, "And now the edit war begins."
Looking at a wiki's history pages can be very enlightening. Edit wars can be educational, if librarians and teachers use them as examples. Oftentimes, you can see both sides of a hotly-debated topic bared in a way you'd never observe from reading static articles.
But the most important thing to remember about wikis is that they are tools. Fabulous and awesome tools, and incredibly useful, but still tools. As Kate Sheehan said, "It’s easy to become enamored of social networking sites and Web 2.0 toys to the point where they seem like a panacea for everything that’s wrong with your library or your job. Slap a wiki on it and call me in the morning." In the end, it's not about the wiki; it's about the people.
One of the core tenets of wiki wisdom is that "anyone can edit" a wiki. While that may be true, I submit that wiki markup can be intimidating. I've edited in two different wikis: Wikipedia and the Confluence wiki we use at work. Their markup languages are completely different. Not only is neither one like html, neither one is like the other. This lack of standardization means that there is a learning curve not just for wikis, but for each wiki platform. Sure, if you just want to type in a line of text, it's no problem, but if you want to add a link or make a table, you have to learn the markup.
Our Confluence wiki has the option to edit pages in rich text, which does make it much more accessible, even if the rich text editor is a little on the buggy side. Everyone at work is encouraged to use the wiki. In fact, it's almost required. We use it for news, policies, procedures, meeting minutes, projects, discussions, and more. Even so, there are a few people who won't edit the wiki unless specifically told to. And there remains the perception that it is difficult, and some of my colleagues routinely come to me for help whenever they need to edit a page. I'm always glad to help. It's one of my official duties as a SpaceRanger, which is what "wiki power users" are called in my library, but also, I enjoy it. It's fun and interesting. And I always work directly in wiki markup rather than rich text, because I feel like I have better control over what the page will look like.
My library's wiki is strictly staff-only. It's not available to the public, and anonymous edits are not allowed. From Using Wikis to Create Online Communities, I do like the idea of using a wiki as a subject guide, especially if truly anyone could edit. The subject specialist librarian could moderate/shepherd it, to keep it accurate.
As for using a wiki to edit catalog entries, I think that might have to wait until OCLC comes around and makes WorldCat truly open. If all catalogers could edit all bib records, regardless of the encoding level, the bibs would become better. And while the general public should probably not be able to edit the MARC data or the authority-controlled fields, I think it would be great to let users add notes and summaries to records, not just tags and reviews. If a "vandal" were to add false or highly biased information, I'm sure the next cataloger to see it would take care of it. Or perhaps a passionate user might beat the catalogers to it.
One of the things people seem to fear about Wikipedia and other wikis is the threat not only of outright vandalism but of bias and unverified information being added to articles. Having read Wikipedia's content criteria in depth, I can say that such shenanigans are not tolerated on that site. The core Wikipedians are hypervigilant of any such abuses, and any malicious edits tend to be discovered and reversed very quickly. I don't mean "days" quickly, I mean "minutes" quickly. Yes, it is possible that you might see an article before it gets fixed. If you see something that just doesn't seem right, the simple solutions are to a) look at the history pages, and b) check back later to see the next version.
In Wikis in Plain English, when they showed the example of a user starting a page that said, "Pups are cute!" followed by someone changing it to, "Pups are messy!" I burst out laughing and thought, "And now the edit war begins."
Looking at a wiki's history pages can be very enlightening. Edit wars can be educational, if librarians and teachers use them as examples. Oftentimes, you can see both sides of a hotly-debated topic bared in a way you'd never observe from reading static articles.
But the most important thing to remember about wikis is that they are tools. Fabulous and awesome tools, and incredibly useful, but still tools. As Kate Sheehan said, "It’s easy to become enamored of social networking sites and Web 2.0 toys to the point where they seem like a panacea for everything that’s wrong with your library or your job. Slap a wiki on it and call me in the morning." In the end, it's not about the wiki; it's about the people.
Thing #16: Library 2.0
I read all the articles on the list for Thing #16: On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0. (They were short, anyway.) While I particularly enjoyed Away from the "icebergs" and Library 2.0 Debased, the one which really resonated with me most was To a temporary place in time by Dr. Wendy Schultz.
Dr. Schultz leads with, "The ongoing Library 2.0 debate frames library renewal within the current trends transforming our information infrastructure. But those trends themselves will evolve, even mutate, under pressure from emerging change." In other words, we won't suddenly "reach" Library 2.0 and then be done. Library 2.0 isn't even a fixed point on a line leading to the future, but rather a broad band that overlaps with everything that came before and everything that will come after. In fact, we shouldn't even be thinking of 2.0 as the future anymore, but the present. It's time to start moving toward 3.0.
I love her continuum. I love the Library 3.0 vision of people collecting librarians rather than books. Her portrait of Library 4.0 is even more beautiful: ". . . libraries as mind gyms; libraries as idea labs; libraries as art salons. But let’s be clear: Library 4.0 will not replace Libraries 1.0 through 3.0; it will absorb them." The past will not be discarded, but integrated. Her vision of the future is a best-case scenario, and we could easily miss it by lagging behind or charging off in a wrong direction. However, having a vision of the destination in mind will guide our path. And by the time Library 4.0 is becoming the norm, we could be talking about Library 5.0. More likely, we'll have long since thrown away those silly numbers, and we'll be talking about metamorphoses in new terms that may or may not exist yet.
At the end of her article, she comes around to, Library 4.0 as "a retreat, a sanctuary, a pampered experience with information . . . comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt." This echoes an idea I'm fond of, the library as Third Space--the place you choose to spend your time when you are not at home or at work. Library 2.0 is about being wherever our users are, meeting them in the virtual spaces. And that supports, rather than supplants, the tradition of welcoming our users to join us where we are. Some people come (physically) to the library to use our virtual space and our technology (i.e., to take advantage of our free Wi-Fi and our awesome equipment), and some people come to the library to decompress and have a brief respite from the omnipresent technology that saturates their lives. And both kinds of users--and everyone in between--are welcome. The library should be a social destination.
Dr. Schultz leads with, "The ongoing Library 2.0 debate frames library renewal within the current trends transforming our information infrastructure. But those trends themselves will evolve, even mutate, under pressure from emerging change." In other words, we won't suddenly "reach" Library 2.0 and then be done. Library 2.0 isn't even a fixed point on a line leading to the future, but rather a broad band that overlaps with everything that came before and everything that will come after. In fact, we shouldn't even be thinking of 2.0 as the future anymore, but the present. It's time to start moving toward 3.0.
I love her continuum. I love the Library 3.0 vision of people collecting librarians rather than books. Her portrait of Library 4.0 is even more beautiful: ". . . libraries as mind gyms; libraries as idea labs; libraries as art salons. But let’s be clear: Library 4.0 will not replace Libraries 1.0 through 3.0; it will absorb them." The past will not be discarded, but integrated. Her vision of the future is a best-case scenario, and we could easily miss it by lagging behind or charging off in a wrong direction. However, having a vision of the destination in mind will guide our path. And by the time Library 4.0 is becoming the norm, we could be talking about Library 5.0. More likely, we'll have long since thrown away those silly numbers, and we'll be talking about metamorphoses in new terms that may or may not exist yet.
At the end of her article, she comes around to, Library 4.0 as "a retreat, a sanctuary, a pampered experience with information . . . comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt." This echoes an idea I'm fond of, the library as Third Space--the place you choose to spend your time when you are not at home or at work. Library 2.0 is about being wherever our users are, meeting them in the virtual spaces. And that supports, rather than supplants, the tradition of welcoming our users to join us where we are. Some people come (physically) to the library to use our virtual space and our technology (i.e., to take advantage of our free Wi-Fi and our awesome equipment), and some people come to the library to decompress and have a brief respite from the omnipresent technology that saturates their lives. And both kinds of users--and everyone in between--are welcome. The library should be a social destination.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Thing #15: SlideShare
And with Thing #15: Presentations go social, it's time for SlideShare. The value of this thing is also quite obvious. I need no convincing.
If nothing else, seeing a lineup of slideshows on this site convinced me of the need to make more interesting title slides. Mine are boring, plain text on a white background. Looked great projected onto an uneven cinderblock wall. Not so great on the web.
I'm sorry that I have no audio track to sync with my slides. If I had known about SlideShare before I did my presentations, I would have probably gone to the effort of borrowing equipment that would have let me record one of my rehearsals, so I could add it.
My user name on SlideShare is akroeger, and I uploaded two presentations from last year. I really love how the notes I attached to each slide display below the presentation. That way, the lack of audio isn't a big deal, as the full text of my presentation is fully accessible without any special action on the viewer's part. I am not so thrilled, however, with the way paragraph breaks are stripped and bullets become garbled in the slide notes, turning a neat, orderly display into a massive, unreadable brick of text. But that's a relatively minor quibble.
I do have one not-so-minor quibble. I revised my slideshows to fix the notes so they'd display better. When I replaced the slideshows, however, SlideShare still displayed and played the old versions with the garbled notes. Even renaming the files before replacing them didn't work. (Yes, I did refresh the page.) I had to entirely delete the original presentations, then upload them anew. They're the way I want them now, but it shouldn't have been that much trouble.
Below is a presentation I did at last year's TSRT Spring Meeting. You'll have to go to SlideShare directly to see the notes.
If nothing else, seeing a lineup of slideshows on this site convinced me of the need to make more interesting title slides. Mine are boring, plain text on a white background. Looked great projected onto an uneven cinderblock wall. Not so great on the web.
I'm sorry that I have no audio track to sync with my slides. If I had known about SlideShare before I did my presentations, I would have probably gone to the effort of borrowing equipment that would have let me record one of my rehearsals, so I could add it.
My user name on SlideShare is akroeger, and I uploaded two presentations from last year. I really love how the notes I attached to each slide display below the presentation. That way, the lack of audio isn't a big deal, as the full text of my presentation is fully accessible without any special action on the viewer's part. I am not so thrilled, however, with the way paragraph breaks are stripped and bullets become garbled in the slide notes, turning a neat, orderly display into a massive, unreadable brick of text. But that's a relatively minor quibble.
I do have one not-so-minor quibble. I revised my slideshows to fix the notes so they'd display better. When I replaced the slideshows, however, SlideShare still displayed and played the old versions with the garbled notes. Even renaming the files before replacing them didn't work. (Yes, I did refresh the page.) I had to entirely delete the original presentations, then upload them anew. They're the way I want them now, but it shouldn't have been that much trouble.
Below is a presentation I did at last year's TSRT Spring Meeting. You'll have to go to SlideShare directly to see the notes.
What Business Are Libraries In?
Stepping away from the 23 Things for a moment, I want to point you to a really interesting post on Designing Better Libraries: "People Don’t Go To Libraries For Information . . . They Go There Because . . ."
After talking a bit about companies that failed because they misunderstood what business they were really in, they come around to libraries. "[L]ibraries think they are in the information business but they are really in the education or learning business."
Food for thought.
After talking a bit about companies that failed because they misunderstood what business they were really in, they come around to libraries. "[L]ibraries think they are in the information business but they are really in the education or learning business."
Food for thought.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Thing #14: Mmm, Delicious
Thing #14: Tagging & social bookmarking in Delicious. Woo! An easy one! I've already been on Delicious for a couple of months, and I love it! I loved it from the get-go, because it's usefulness is so blazingly obvious. I haven't gotten much into the social aspects of it yet, but I really love being able to annotate each bookmark. Further, even though I was always meticulous about keeping my bookmarks well organized into folders and subfolders, tagging them is superior in every way--easier to maintain, easier to search. Also, it's nice to be able to access my bookmarks when I'm away from home.
My Delicious user name is LunaMurphy. Keep in mind that I use Delicious strictly my personal bookmarks, so you won't see a lot of library-related entries. At work, we have a social bookmarking widget integrated into our staff wiki, so if I want to share bookmarks with my coworkers, I do it there. That wiki and those bookmarks are not publicly available, so I can't show you. It would be nice to share those more widely, though.
I love what the Holdridge Area Public Library has done with their tag cloud. That is an awesome way to share bookmarks with patrons. I imagine their subject specialists select which websites to add. It probably requires, if not a formal collection development policy, at least a similar ethos to selecting physical materials for the collection. What a great way to help patrons find the best stuff on the web without casting into the wide sea of Google.
My Delicious user name is LunaMurphy. Keep in mind that I use Delicious strictly my personal bookmarks, so you won't see a lot of library-related entries. At work, we have a social bookmarking widget integrated into our staff wiki, so if I want to share bookmarks with my coworkers, I do it there. That wiki and those bookmarks are not publicly available, so I can't show you. It would be nice to share those more widely, though.
I love what the Holdridge Area Public Library has done with their tag cloud. That is an awesome way to share bookmarks with patrons. I imagine their subject specialists select which websites to add. It probably requires, if not a formal collection development policy, at least a similar ethos to selecting physical materials for the collection. What a great way to help patrons find the best stuff on the web without casting into the wide sea of Google.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Thing #13: Twitter
All right, I've made it to the dreaded Thing #13: What are you doing?
One of the reasons I signed on to Nebraska Learns 2.0 was to force myself to explore certain social technologies that I have been deliberately avoiding. Twitter is one of those things.
I've known about Twitter for a while. I understand it, but it just never appealed to me. I definitely see the value of Twitter for libraries and businesses. Libraries can send out Tweets like, "Closed on Monday for the holiday," or "We now have Kindles available for checkout!" Businesses can send out, "Big sale on Tuesday. 20% off all linens," or "Nintendo Wii back in stock!" That totally makes sense to me.
For personal use, though, I have never seen the appeal. My life simply isn't that interesting. I don't see why anyone would care what I'm doing. Big things, I can post on my blog. But come on, look at the average length of posts in both of my blogs. Do you think I'm capable of saying anything to my satisfaction in 140 characters or less? Ha! Also, I like my privacy. I don't necessarily want people to know what I'm doing all the time. Thirdly, if I actually AM doing something interesting, the last thing I want to do is stop, go to a computer or get out my cell phone, and type a sentence or two.
I found myself nodding in agreement with most of what Kathy Sierra said in the Creating Passionate Users post "Is Twitter TOO good?" (which I heard about from Learning As I Go). Especially noteworthy is the Twitter Curve graph.
When I searched Twitter for things of potential interest, I found unomaha and decided to follow their Tweets so I can keep up with campus events. Otherwise, I saw a few interesting events happening around Omaha, mixed in with a series of Tweets that told a tale of a jilted lover worthy of a soap opera. I also found that a lot of other people are playing the same video game I am. (Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, if you must know.)
So, to answer the three questions about Thing #13:
1. Did you like micro-blogging?
So far, no. But I'm willing to give it some time to see if I catch the bug.
2. How could libraries use Twitter?
It can be another venue for news and announcements, supplementing rather than replacing existing venues. Really, it's good to send out announcements in as many formats as possible, so patrons can receive them however they prefer. Twitter could also be good for notification of interesting new books, media, and collections; receiving and responding to reference questions; and promoting new services and events.
3. How could you use Twitter?
The 140 character limit might be good for me, as it forces me to carefully consider every word that goes into a sentence. Given my natural tendency toward prolixity, some practice in succinct wordsmithing could be helpful.
I'll keep Tweeting for a few days and report back if my opinions change. My Twitter user name is LunaMurphy, if you want to look in on me.
One of the reasons I signed on to Nebraska Learns 2.0 was to force myself to explore certain social technologies that I have been deliberately avoiding. Twitter is one of those things.
I've known about Twitter for a while. I understand it, but it just never appealed to me. I definitely see the value of Twitter for libraries and businesses. Libraries can send out Tweets like, "Closed on Monday for the holiday," or "We now have Kindles available for checkout!" Businesses can send out, "Big sale on Tuesday. 20% off all linens," or "Nintendo Wii back in stock!" That totally makes sense to me.
For personal use, though, I have never seen the appeal. My life simply isn't that interesting. I don't see why anyone would care what I'm doing. Big things, I can post on my blog. But come on, look at the average length of posts in both of my blogs. Do you think I'm capable of saying anything to my satisfaction in 140 characters or less? Ha! Also, I like my privacy. I don't necessarily want people to know what I'm doing all the time. Thirdly, if I actually AM doing something interesting, the last thing I want to do is stop, go to a computer or get out my cell phone, and type a sentence or two.
I found myself nodding in agreement with most of what Kathy Sierra said in the Creating Passionate Users post "Is Twitter TOO good?" (which I heard about from Learning As I Go). Especially noteworthy is the Twitter Curve graph.
When I searched Twitter for things of potential interest, I found unomaha and decided to follow their Tweets so I can keep up with campus events. Otherwise, I saw a few interesting events happening around Omaha, mixed in with a series of Tweets that told a tale of a jilted lover worthy of a soap opera. I also found that a lot of other people are playing the same video game I am. (Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, if you must know.)
So, to answer the three questions about Thing #13:
1. Did you like micro-blogging?
So far, no. But I'm willing to give it some time to see if I catch the bug.
2. How could libraries use Twitter?
It can be another venue for news and announcements, supplementing rather than replacing existing venues. Really, it's good to send out announcements in as many formats as possible, so patrons can receive them however they prefer. Twitter could also be good for notification of interesting new books, media, and collections; receiving and responding to reference questions; and promoting new services and events.
3. How could you use Twitter?
The 140 character limit might be good for me, as it forces me to carefully consider every word that goes into a sentence. Given my natural tendency toward prolixity, some practice in succinct wordsmithing could be helpful.
I'll keep Tweeting for a few days and report back if my opinions change. My Twitter user name is LunaMurphy, if you want to look in on me.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Thing#12
Moving along at a nice clip, though still far from caught up, I've reached Thing #12: A thing about LibraryThing.
Of course, it's impossible to work in a library and not know about LibraryThing. It is one of the hot topics in libraries right now. My library, the Criss Library at UNO, uses the tags from LibraryThing for Libraries in our catalog. Look at the title Freakonomics to see an example. (Scroll down to the bottom of the record for the tags.)
I haven't started a LibraryThing account before now because I didn't really see the need for it in my personal life. It may seem surprising that as much as I love cataloging, I haven't cataloged my home library. But I do have my collections divided by subject, and I have no trouble finding anything whenever I want it. So my system works for me. Besides, LibraryThing has a fee if you want to catalog more than 200 books, and I'd go way over that.
But this exercise got me to thinking that LibraryThing can be used for many things. So I decided to use it to keep track of books I've borrowed from friends or libraries--things I've read and enjoyed enough that I might want to look it up again sometime, but which I do not actually own. I am not going to record books I disliked and wouldn't read again or books I loved so very much that I immediately ran out and bought my own copy so I'd always have it on hand (after all, those are on my shelves for me to see anytime). And, unfortunately, I'm not going to include the many, many books I really liked but have forgotten the titles of. Those are just gone forever. But with LibraryThing, maybe I can keep that problem from happening again.
And maybe later I may use it to keep track of books I'm interested in checking out later, instead of that five-page Word document I've got them all listed in.
I really only intended to add about ten books today, but once you start, it's hard to stop! I ended up adding thirty. My username is LunaMurphy, if you'd like to see my list.
I wasn't as happy with searching in LibraryThing. I searched for The Story of the Stone, an exact title, and it came back with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as the first hit, and the book I was looking for nowhere on the first five pages. It wouldn't do an exact phrase search with quotation marks, either. I went over to Amazon and found it on the first page (even though it still wasn't the first entry). Then I went back to LibraryThing with the author's name and found it more easily. For several of my books, I had to go to my library's catalog or to Amazon to get enough information to find it in LibraryThing.
I do, however, like that there is something resembling authority control on the tags. I tagged my books "do not own," and when connecting to other users, that tag is rendered "unowned." The LibraryThing tag info for "unowned" says, "Includes: unowned, @unowned, DoNotOwn, Don'tOwn, Don’tOwn, _NOT.OWNED, do no own, do not have, do not own, don't own, dont have, dont own, not owned, not-own, not-owned, notowned." Nice way to round up similar tags without forcing people to use a controlled vocabulary.
A side observation: LibraryThing is not afraid to try things that are helpful to readers but harmful to bookstores, things you'll never see from Amazon. Check out LibraryThing's Unsuggester. It's the antithesis of the typical "If you liked X, you might also like Y" recommendation system. Unsuggester offers the equally useful counter, "If you liked X, you'll probably hate Z." What better way to say, "That book sucked," than by saving other readers the pain of suffering through it?
Of course, it's impossible to work in a library and not know about LibraryThing. It is one of the hot topics in libraries right now. My library, the Criss Library at UNO, uses the tags from LibraryThing for Libraries in our catalog. Look at the title Freakonomics to see an example. (Scroll down to the bottom of the record for the tags.)
I haven't started a LibraryThing account before now because I didn't really see the need for it in my personal life. It may seem surprising that as much as I love cataloging, I haven't cataloged my home library. But I do have my collections divided by subject, and I have no trouble finding anything whenever I want it. So my system works for me. Besides, LibraryThing has a fee if you want to catalog more than 200 books, and I'd go way over that.
But this exercise got me to thinking that LibraryThing can be used for many things. So I decided to use it to keep track of books I've borrowed from friends or libraries--things I've read and enjoyed enough that I might want to look it up again sometime, but which I do not actually own. I am not going to record books I disliked and wouldn't read again or books I loved so very much that I immediately ran out and bought my own copy so I'd always have it on hand (after all, those are on my shelves for me to see anytime). And, unfortunately, I'm not going to include the many, many books I really liked but have forgotten the titles of. Those are just gone forever. But with LibraryThing, maybe I can keep that problem from happening again.
And maybe later I may use it to keep track of books I'm interested in checking out later, instead of that five-page Word document I've got them all listed in.
I really only intended to add about ten books today, but once you start, it's hard to stop! I ended up adding thirty. My username is LunaMurphy, if you'd like to see my list.
I wasn't as happy with searching in LibraryThing. I searched for The Story of the Stone, an exact title, and it came back with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as the first hit, and the book I was looking for nowhere on the first five pages. It wouldn't do an exact phrase search with quotation marks, either. I went over to Amazon and found it on the first page (even though it still wasn't the first entry). Then I went back to LibraryThing with the author's name and found it more easily. For several of my books, I had to go to my library's catalog or to Amazon to get enough information to find it in LibraryThing.
I do, however, like that there is something resembling authority control on the tags. I tagged my books "do not own," and when connecting to other users, that tag is rendered "unowned." The LibraryThing tag info for "unowned" says, "Includes: unowned, @unowned, DoNotOwn, Don'tOwn, Don’tOwn, _NOT.OWNED, do no own, do not have, do not own, don't own, dont have, dont own, not owned, not-own, not-owned, notowned." Nice way to round up similar tags without forcing people to use a controlled vocabulary.
A side observation: LibraryThing is not afraid to try things that are helpful to readers but harmful to bookstores, things you'll never see from Amazon. Check out LibraryThing's Unsuggester. It's the antithesis of the typical "If you liked X, you might also like Y" recommendation system. Unsuggester offers the equally useful counter, "If you liked X, you'll probably hate Z." What better way to say, "That book sucked," than by saving other readers the pain of suffering through it?
Thing #11 1/2
Nebraska Learns 2.0 used a Voki to deliver the instructions for Thing #11. A lot of participants responded using Vokis of their own. I wanted to make one, too, but I had trouble, even with my shiny new DSL connection. Whenever I tried to change the face shape or hair color or whatever, it would take what seemed like an unreasonably long time to load. Then, when I changed her shirt, her hair disappeared and after five minutes had not come back. The little spinning wheel just kept spinning, so I knew the program had just stalled out. I don't think this is Voki's fault. I think if I had a better computer with an up-to-date browser and all the latest plug-ins, it would have worked fine. I will probably revisit Voki when I replace my computer, but that's months away, if not a year or more.
So this is something to remember about technology. We still live in a world divided by haves and have-nots. The have-nots are further divided into choose-to-have-nots and unable-to-have-nots. Those who choose to have not usually have looked at a given technology and decided they are not interested. They are content. Those who are unable to have it, however, often want it and feel deeply hampered by their inability to get it (which is almost always related to money). And they are deeply hampered, if their economic situation prevents them from doing basic things, like posting their resume online from home.
And this is something libraries have to remember, too. Absolutely, we need to continue our efforts to keep up with the technologies used by our most saavy patrons, the ones who have computers at home that make the best computers in our libraries look substandard. But we have to remember not to leave behind the have-nots who come to us because we provide access to technology and equipment they could only dream of having at home. A good friend of mine called me the other day to tell me how amazing the public library's computers are, and how blown away she was by their speed and all the things she could do with them. Now I'm sure the librarians there feel their computers are old, outdated, and due for replacing, but this friend is using a ten-year-old machine with Windows 95, a dial-up modem, decrepit CRT monitor that turns everything green, and a browser that can't scroll to the right if a page is too wide, much less render Flash animation. So to her, the library's facilities are godly. I have other friends who don't have internet access at all from their homes, and still others who don't have computers. Not that they don't want them; they just can't afford them.
It's a balancing act for libraries, but it truly is imperative that we keep ourselves primed to serve those at both ends of the continuum. To be relevant to the haves, we need not only to understand the tech they're using, but to be able to offer them some level of service beyond what they can get from their friends. It's not enough to be there; we have to be useful while we're there. But at the same time, we have to remember that we are the lifeline of the have-nots, especially in this economy. It's a wide stance, but we really need to stand on both sides of the fence.
So this is something to remember about technology. We still live in a world divided by haves and have-nots. The have-nots are further divided into choose-to-have-nots and unable-to-have-nots. Those who choose to have not usually have looked at a given technology and decided they are not interested. They are content. Those who are unable to have it, however, often want it and feel deeply hampered by their inability to get it (which is almost always related to money). And they are deeply hampered, if their economic situation prevents them from doing basic things, like posting their resume online from home.
And this is something libraries have to remember, too. Absolutely, we need to continue our efforts to keep up with the technologies used by our most saavy patrons, the ones who have computers at home that make the best computers in our libraries look substandard. But we have to remember not to leave behind the have-nots who come to us because we provide access to technology and equipment they could only dream of having at home. A good friend of mine called me the other day to tell me how amazing the public library's computers are, and how blown away she was by their speed and all the things she could do with them. Now I'm sure the librarians there feel their computers are old, outdated, and due for replacing, but this friend is using a ten-year-old machine with Windows 95, a dial-up modem, decrepit CRT monitor that turns everything green, and a browser that can't scroll to the right if a page is too wide, much less render Flash animation. So to her, the library's facilities are godly. I have other friends who don't have internet access at all from their homes, and still others who don't have computers. Not that they don't want them; they just can't afford them.
It's a balancing act for libraries, but it truly is imperative that we keep ourselves primed to serve those at both ends of the continuum. To be relevant to the haves, we need not only to understand the tech they're using, but to be able to offer them some level of service beyond what they can get from their friends. It's not enough to be there; we have to be useful while we're there. But at the same time, we have to remember that we are the lifeline of the have-nots, especially in this economy. It's a wide stance, but we really need to stand on both sides of the fence.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Thing #11
Onward to Thing #11: Blog about Technology. The instructions say, "simply blog about anything technology related."
Anything? ANYTHING? Sit down and grab a snack. This is going to be long.
Technology is everything, literally everything, humans make, ever have made, or ever will make. That statue in the park? The tools used to carve it are technology. The front door of your house? The hinges, the pane of tempered glass, the doorknob, the lock, even the chain, as well as all the tools and machines used to make these pieces--all technology.
These days, people say "technology" when they mean "electronics." Computers, cell phones, iPods, Kindles, Blackberries, video game consoles, and so on. Or they mean "intangibles"--technology that has evolved beyond physical boundaries--operating systems, computer programs, the internet, the web (they are not the same), Flash animations, streaming video, etc.
Folks forget that the book is also technology. It's old technology, but still . . . think about all the materials and processes that go into making a book. Think about how books were made by hand and written by hand in medieval monasteries. Now think about how they are made today. Think about the "Espresso" machine at the New York Public Library, which prints e-books on demand. Think about how that changes the game for publishing as well as for libraries. The book has undergone some astonishing technological developments through its history.
Some people say print is dead. They've been saying it for a long time, and I'm sure they'll keep saying it. Sure, some people love to read books on their Kindles, but others love the feel of paper in their hands. They want books because they don't want to have to worry about batteries running dead or about dropping a $400 dollar device in the bathtub. They want books because they don't want their favorite novel to become unreadable when some technological advance somewhere down the line renders a particular file format obsolete. Books are never obsolete. Of course, they can rot. They can burn. They can crumble into dust. As long as you keep backing up your files and converting them into the latest "standard" format of the day, you can keep them forever.
Some people drive sedans. Some people drive pickup trucks. Big deal. Some people read on paper. Some read on screens. Big deal.
The point is, the book isn't going away, not so long as there are people who value the tactile sensation of paper upon their fingertips.
The other point is, it doesn't matter. Paper books. Electronic books. Whatever. The library's mission remains the same: providing access to information and entertainment. The way we do our business is transitioning, but that's nothing new. Think about the first library that got an online catalog. Heck, think about the first library that decided to include non-print media in their collection, maybe a sound recording or a movie. There had to be a first one somewhere. Go back even further. Think about the first library that dared to open its doors to the--gasp--public. Libraries are all about change. Always have been, always will be. Why? Because libraries are all about culture. Whatever the people want and need, we provide--we MUST provide, if we want to remain part of the culture. And remember, culture is as much I Can Has Cheezburger? as Shakespeare.
Before I retire, I fully expect to be downloading novels and movies directly into my brain, and sharing them to patrons. How will that work? Is that technically "circulating" the collection? What kinds of laws and social mores will regulate direct brain-to-brain file transfer? Yet I expect I'll probably still have shelves full of paper books, as well as movies on VHS, DVD, and at least three other physical formats, both at home and at the library.
But here's where it gets sticky. Some technologies go obsolete. For technologies requiring no additional tools to operate (e.g.: books, door hinges, etc.), this takes longer, if it happens at all; quite often they continue to thrive alongside other technologies because people still find them useful. But technologies that are not self-contained tend to fall by the wayside. How many libraries still have U-Matic tapes in their collection? Do you even remember what U-Matic is? And when the last U-Matic player breaks, the information on any remaining tapes is gone forever, unless someone thought to copy it to VHS, and then copy it again to DVD, and then copy it again to YouTube, and so on. Maybe you're using Word 2007 now, and your computer doesn't even have a floppy drive. Your colleague retires, and you find a bunch of diskettes filled with Word Perfect files. What can you do with them? The information is gone forever. Maybe it's just old procedures that were outdated anyway. Maybe it's the mythical Great American Novel. Dross will be lost to the sands of time, but so will treasures. But that's nothing new with the modern age. Medieval monks decided which books to copy and preserve, and which ones to let go. Dross was lost, but so were treasures. And this will continue to happen so long as people have opinions on what is cool and what is crap, in other words, until the end of time.
But even if the manifestations change (oh Lord, did I just bring up FRBR?), it's the content that is key. U-Matic, VHS, DVD, .avi, or whatever format you put it in, it's still an episode from The Muppet Show, and it's still funny. So libraries need to stay cognizant of the fact that we gather, search, and provide access to content, whatever the carrier. Evolving technology provides evolving tools to perform the same essential functions for society. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
How do you predict which technologies are going to stick? You can't, really. But here's one guideline. Technologies that are useful and make people's lives better will stick, and continue to evolve. Look at how quickly cell phones and GPS became integral parts of our culture. Why? Because they directly and immediately enriched people's lives. Technologies that are sufficiently entertaining will stick around, too, because people love to have fun. Case in point, the video game. Sure, things have changed a lot between Pong and World of Warcraft, but it's still all about fun. And sometimes people whip out the old Atari 2600 games just for a trip down nostalgia lane. (I do, from time to time, and my friends play them with me.)
But we must guard against a new Dark Age. Can you imagine losing our computers? That can't happen, right? Well, did you know that computers existed well before the 20th century? If you're nodding and thinking of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine, you'll have to go back a lot further. The ancient Greeks had computers over two thousand years ago. No joke. Look up the Antikythera Mechanism. Of course, they weren't surfing the web or sending out Tweets to all their pals, but it was still an astonishingly advanced piece of technology. How did such sophisticated tech vanish? Could it happen again? Think about it. (If you enjoy that line of thinking, read Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs.)
Libraries are in the best position to protect and preserve the "good stuff." New technology isn't to be feared, but explored. Some of it will be junk, and some of it will transform our lives. Creation and use of technology are what make humans human.
Anything? ANYTHING? Sit down and grab a snack. This is going to be long.
Technology is everything, literally everything, humans make, ever have made, or ever will make. That statue in the park? The tools used to carve it are technology. The front door of your house? The hinges, the pane of tempered glass, the doorknob, the lock, even the chain, as well as all the tools and machines used to make these pieces--all technology.
These days, people say "technology" when they mean "electronics." Computers, cell phones, iPods, Kindles, Blackberries, video game consoles, and so on. Or they mean "intangibles"--technology that has evolved beyond physical boundaries--operating systems, computer programs, the internet, the web (they are not the same), Flash animations, streaming video, etc.
Folks forget that the book is also technology. It's old technology, but still . . . think about all the materials and processes that go into making a book. Think about how books were made by hand and written by hand in medieval monasteries. Now think about how they are made today. Think about the "Espresso" machine at the New York Public Library, which prints e-books on demand. Think about how that changes the game for publishing as well as for libraries. The book has undergone some astonishing technological developments through its history.
Some people say print is dead. They've been saying it for a long time, and I'm sure they'll keep saying it. Sure, some people love to read books on their Kindles, but others love the feel of paper in their hands. They want books because they don't want to have to worry about batteries running dead or about dropping a $400 dollar device in the bathtub. They want books because they don't want their favorite novel to become unreadable when some technological advance somewhere down the line renders a particular file format obsolete. Books are never obsolete. Of course, they can rot. They can burn. They can crumble into dust. As long as you keep backing up your files and converting them into the latest "standard" format of the day, you can keep them forever.
Some people drive sedans. Some people drive pickup trucks. Big deal. Some people read on paper. Some read on screens. Big deal.
The point is, the book isn't going away, not so long as there are people who value the tactile sensation of paper upon their fingertips.
The other point is, it doesn't matter. Paper books. Electronic books. Whatever. The library's mission remains the same: providing access to information and entertainment. The way we do our business is transitioning, but that's nothing new. Think about the first library that got an online catalog. Heck, think about the first library that decided to include non-print media in their collection, maybe a sound recording or a movie. There had to be a first one somewhere. Go back even further. Think about the first library that dared to open its doors to the--gasp--public. Libraries are all about change. Always have been, always will be. Why? Because libraries are all about culture. Whatever the people want and need, we provide--we MUST provide, if we want to remain part of the culture. And remember, culture is as much I Can Has Cheezburger? as Shakespeare.
Before I retire, I fully expect to be downloading novels and movies directly into my brain, and sharing them to patrons. How will that work? Is that technically "circulating" the collection? What kinds of laws and social mores will regulate direct brain-to-brain file transfer? Yet I expect I'll probably still have shelves full of paper books, as well as movies on VHS, DVD, and at least three other physical formats, both at home and at the library.
But here's where it gets sticky. Some technologies go obsolete. For technologies requiring no additional tools to operate (e.g.: books, door hinges, etc.), this takes longer, if it happens at all; quite often they continue to thrive alongside other technologies because people still find them useful. But technologies that are not self-contained tend to fall by the wayside. How many libraries still have U-Matic tapes in their collection? Do you even remember what U-Matic is? And when the last U-Matic player breaks, the information on any remaining tapes is gone forever, unless someone thought to copy it to VHS, and then copy it again to DVD, and then copy it again to YouTube, and so on. Maybe you're using Word 2007 now, and your computer doesn't even have a floppy drive. Your colleague retires, and you find a bunch of diskettes filled with Word Perfect files. What can you do with them? The information is gone forever. Maybe it's just old procedures that were outdated anyway. Maybe it's the mythical Great American Novel. Dross will be lost to the sands of time, but so will treasures. But that's nothing new with the modern age. Medieval monks decided which books to copy and preserve, and which ones to let go. Dross was lost, but so were treasures. And this will continue to happen so long as people have opinions on what is cool and what is crap, in other words, until the end of time.
But even if the manifestations change (oh Lord, did I just bring up FRBR?), it's the content that is key. U-Matic, VHS, DVD, .avi, or whatever format you put it in, it's still an episode from The Muppet Show, and it's still funny. So libraries need to stay cognizant of the fact that we gather, search, and provide access to content, whatever the carrier. Evolving technology provides evolving tools to perform the same essential functions for society. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
How do you predict which technologies are going to stick? You can't, really. But here's one guideline. Technologies that are useful and make people's lives better will stick, and continue to evolve. Look at how quickly cell phones and GPS became integral parts of our culture. Why? Because they directly and immediately enriched people's lives. Technologies that are sufficiently entertaining will stick around, too, because people love to have fun. Case in point, the video game. Sure, things have changed a lot between Pong and World of Warcraft, but it's still all about fun. And sometimes people whip out the old Atari 2600 games just for a trip down nostalgia lane. (I do, from time to time, and my friends play them with me.)
But we must guard against a new Dark Age. Can you imagine losing our computers? That can't happen, right? Well, did you know that computers existed well before the 20th century? If you're nodding and thinking of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine, you'll have to go back a lot further. The ancient Greeks had computers over two thousand years ago. No joke. Look up the Antikythera Mechanism. Of course, they weren't surfing the web or sending out Tweets to all their pals, but it was still an astonishingly advanced piece of technology. How did such sophisticated tech vanish? Could it happen again? Think about it. (If you enjoy that line of thinking, read Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs.)
Libraries are in the best position to protect and preserve the "good stuff." New technology isn't to be feared, but explored. Some of it will be junk, and some of it will transform our lives. Creation and use of technology are what make humans human.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Thing #10
And now, Thing #10: Play around with Image Generators. I scanned through most of the image generators listed on the Nebraska Learns 2.0 website. A couple of them didn't really appeal to me, so I passed them by. However, I did blow the better part of my evening playing with this stuff.
Of the ones I played with, I'll start with the ones which left me with nothing worth showing you.
With Dynamic Einstein Picture, I had Einstein writing "I will not tear holes in space-time" over and over, like a kid staying after school. It wasn't really funny enough to save, and I can't imagine that there aren't several thousand variations on that theme out there.
The Comicbook Speech Bubbler was stupid, yet great fun. However, the saved images were defective. The text was perfectly aligned in the word bubble on the screen, but the lines were squished together and slightly overlapping in the jpg I downloaded. I tried multiple times, with the same result. So I just deleted them. Boo.
The Generator Blog lists scads of different image generators. Many of them are silly time wasters, good for a laugh and not much else, but one in particular really stood out for me: Hide Text, which allows you to convert text into an image. So if you have something (like your e-mail address) that you want people to be able to read with their eyes, but which will be invisible to search engines and robots, this is the way to do it.
FD's Flickr Toys included a link to Motivator, one of the few image generators I have played with in the past. About two years ago, I used it to make posters of Ranganathan's Five Laws featuring screenshots from the anime Read Or Die. If you've seen R.O.D., you might be amused by these. If you haven't seen it, you might just be bemused.
I scanned through FD's other entries, and cheered "Cheezburger!" when I saw the Lolcat Generator. This is my long-suffering cat Luna, who was very unamused by my shenanigans. In case you're not a mythology fan, the monsters are a griffin and a chimera.
What made my discovery of the Lolcat Generator truly funny, however, was the fact that mere minutes earlier, on the Custom Computer Keyboard, I had made a lolcat key.
Can you tell I'm a huge fan of I Can Has Cheezburger?
Then, after all that silliness, I came to ALA's Mini-READ posters. Look at their website. So austere. So dignified. I know READ posters are supposed to feature people reading books, but I don't have any pictures of myself reading (and I'm having a bad hair day, so I don't want to snap one now), and I won't post a picture of a friend or family member without their permission, so I went with this massive pillar of books which was on display in the National Library in Prague in 2005. Nothing says "READ" like a mountain of literature.
I'm going to finish with the first image generator I looked at this evening, because it actually turned out to be my favorite. Dumpr has an "Amazing Circles" generator that held me mesmerized. I made a dozen bubbles out of my 2005 Czech Republic vacation photos. I leave you with one of my favorites. If you want to see the rest, check out my other blog.
Of the ones I played with, I'll start with the ones which left me with nothing worth showing you.
With Dynamic Einstein Picture, I had Einstein writing "I will not tear holes in space-time" over and over, like a kid staying after school. It wasn't really funny enough to save, and I can't imagine that there aren't several thousand variations on that theme out there.
The Comicbook Speech Bubbler was stupid, yet great fun. However, the saved images were defective. The text was perfectly aligned in the word bubble on the screen, but the lines were squished together and slightly overlapping in the jpg I downloaded. I tried multiple times, with the same result. So I just deleted them. Boo.
The Generator Blog lists scads of different image generators. Many of them are silly time wasters, good for a laugh and not much else, but one in particular really stood out for me: Hide Text, which allows you to convert text into an image. So if you have something (like your e-mail address) that you want people to be able to read with their eyes, but which will be invisible to search engines and robots, this is the way to do it.
FD's Flickr Toys included a link to Motivator, one of the few image generators I have played with in the past. About two years ago, I used it to make posters of Ranganathan's Five Laws featuring screenshots from the anime Read Or Die. If you've seen R.O.D., you might be amused by these. If you haven't seen it, you might just be bemused.
I scanned through FD's other entries, and cheered "Cheezburger!" when I saw the Lolcat Generator. This is my long-suffering cat Luna, who was very unamused by my shenanigans. In case you're not a mythology fan, the monsters are a griffin and a chimera.
What made my discovery of the Lolcat Generator truly funny, however, was the fact that mere minutes earlier, on the Custom Computer Keyboard, I had made a lolcat key.
Can you tell I'm a huge fan of I Can Has Cheezburger?
Then, after all that silliness, I came to ALA's Mini-READ posters. Look at their website. So austere. So dignified. I know READ posters are supposed to feature people reading books, but I don't have any pictures of myself reading (and I'm having a bad hair day, so I don't want to snap one now), and I won't post a picture of a friend or family member without their permission, so I went with this massive pillar of books which was on display in the National Library in Prague in 2005. Nothing says "READ" like a mountain of literature.
I'm going to finish with the first image generator I looked at this evening, because it actually turned out to be my favorite. Dumpr has an "Amazing Circles" generator that held me mesmerized. I made a dozen bubbles out of my 2005 Czech Republic vacation photos. I leave you with one of my favorites. If you want to see the rest, check out my other blog.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Thing #9
Two in one day? Yes indeed! Trying to make up for lost time. Here is Thing #9: More Flickr Fun.
Flickrvision - New photos pop up on a map, wherever they are. This would be fun if one was seeking random inspiration, but that's the only practical application I can think of for it. I watched it for several minutes and saw some interesting pictures, and also some incredibly boring ones. On several occasions, a popup popped up blank, with only a note saying the photo was "unavailable." I can only guess that these may be pictures the Flickr member opted not to share publicly, or perhaps deleted immediately after uploading. Too bad there isn't a mechanism for excluding them from the popups. Sometimes the pictures came quickly, sometimes not. When they came slowly, the whole experience was boring. I probably won't visit this site again. I have plenty of other sources for random inspiration.
Flickr Color Pickr - Pick a color from a mosaic, and it shows an array of photos containing predominantly that color. Now this one I imagine a real use for, especially if someone is building a photo mosaic and wants each small photo to behave like a pixel within a larger picture. I know there are programs that create such mosaics automatically, but if you wanted to create an original work of art not existing as a source picture, this could be useful. Also, if you wanted a picture to match a given background, decor, or mood, this might be a good way to search. You even have limited control over the types of pictures the come up, if you want only pictures of doors, graffiti, or urban decay. This could be a big bucket of fun for artists and creative designers. And it has much better potential for sparking random inspiration than Flickrvision, because you control the pace.
Montagr - And this site does automatically what I described above: rendering a larger image out of a mosaic of smaller images. However, the resolution isn't great, and the montages aren't very identifiable. For the few I looked at, I could not identify what the montage was trying to depict. They provide the source picture the program is trying to render, and each time I thought, "Okay, I can kind of see it, but not really . . . no, no. That really looks absolutely nothing whatsoever like it." It ended up looking more like abstract art. Also, the montages take a very long time to load, even with broadband.
Spell with Flickr - This is really fun, and potentially very useful for graphic design. However, the site is frankly ugly, and once you've spelled a word with pictures of letters, it's not terribly obvious how to return to the main page to enter another word. (It's a very tiny link labeled "Entry form" in the middle of the page.) Clunky site design aside, this app is just plain cool. If you enter the same word twice (or if you keep refreshing the results page), you get different images spelling it out, so you could keep retrying until you get one that fits your aesthetic.
There were scads of third party apps listed in the Great Flickr Tools Collection. Just reading the list would have taken me all night, to say nothing of trying any of them. I'm sure there's an app for just about anything you could possibly want to do, but I'm not sure how you'd find an app in that incredibly long, unordered list. They need to break their tools down into categories or something. (They need a cataloger!) I did try a couple of them, but neither worked with my (horribly outdated) browser.
Flickrbits has the same problem. A big list of apps without any discernible order. If you're just browsing for something to play with, that's fine. Finding something specific is more difficult.
From that list, I picked Bubblr, which is a neat concept (allowing you to add dialogue/thought balloons to images and create your own comic strips), but I found it clunky in the execution. It's not very forgiving about letting you correct errors or edit the order of your images once selected. I got frustrated before I even had a complete comic.
I was just about ready to quit looking at Flickr apps when I noticed The Internet Inferno: Dante's hell as seen by Flickr. You descend into Hell (scroll down the page). Each circle of torment is populated by images that happened to be tagged with the name of the sin associated with the layer of hell. Some of the images are disturbing, but a lot of them are just weird. Many make little sense. Sometimes It's a mystery why a particular photo was tagged so that it ended up where it did. I mean, I wasn't surprised to see a sloth under Sloth--in fact I would have been disappointed if I hadn't--however, I am still puzzling as to why a goose appeared under Envy, or a bunch of lizards under Avarice. The page took a long time to load, but it was bizarrely fascinating. It's not particularly interactive, so it may be best to view this page as a creative work in and of itself, a work of art that changes every time you visit.
Anyway, of the six Flickr apps I looked at tonight, the only ones I am likely to revisit are Flickr Color Pickr and Spell with Flickr. But who knows what I'll discover in the future.
Which of these tools and toys might be of use in a library setting? Any of them. You never know what kind of question someone might have. It's good to have a passing familiarity with many many strange things as possible, because what seems esoteric to me might be the absolute perfect thing for someone else.
Flickrvision - New photos pop up on a map, wherever they are. This would be fun if one was seeking random inspiration, but that's the only practical application I can think of for it. I watched it for several minutes and saw some interesting pictures, and also some incredibly boring ones. On several occasions, a popup popped up blank, with only a note saying the photo was "unavailable." I can only guess that these may be pictures the Flickr member opted not to share publicly, or perhaps deleted immediately after uploading. Too bad there isn't a mechanism for excluding them from the popups. Sometimes the pictures came quickly, sometimes not. When they came slowly, the whole experience was boring. I probably won't visit this site again. I have plenty of other sources for random inspiration.
Flickr Color Pickr - Pick a color from a mosaic, and it shows an array of photos containing predominantly that color. Now this one I imagine a real use for, especially if someone is building a photo mosaic and wants each small photo to behave like a pixel within a larger picture. I know there are programs that create such mosaics automatically, but if you wanted to create an original work of art not existing as a source picture, this could be useful. Also, if you wanted a picture to match a given background, decor, or mood, this might be a good way to search. You even have limited control over the types of pictures the come up, if you want only pictures of doors, graffiti, or urban decay. This could be a big bucket of fun for artists and creative designers. And it has much better potential for sparking random inspiration than Flickrvision, because you control the pace.
Montagr - And this site does automatically what I described above: rendering a larger image out of a mosaic of smaller images. However, the resolution isn't great, and the montages aren't very identifiable. For the few I looked at, I could not identify what the montage was trying to depict. They provide the source picture the program is trying to render, and each time I thought, "Okay, I can kind of see it, but not really . . . no, no. That really looks absolutely nothing whatsoever like it." It ended up looking more like abstract art. Also, the montages take a very long time to load, even with broadband.
Spell with Flickr - This is really fun, and potentially very useful for graphic design. However, the site is frankly ugly, and once you've spelled a word with pictures of letters, it's not terribly obvious how to return to the main page to enter another word. (It's a very tiny link labeled "Entry form" in the middle of the page.) Clunky site design aside, this app is just plain cool. If you enter the same word twice (or if you keep refreshing the results page), you get different images spelling it out, so you could keep retrying until you get one that fits your aesthetic.
There were scads of third party apps listed in the Great Flickr Tools Collection. Just reading the list would have taken me all night, to say nothing of trying any of them. I'm sure there's an app for just about anything you could possibly want to do, but I'm not sure how you'd find an app in that incredibly long, unordered list. They need to break their tools down into categories or something. (They need a cataloger!) I did try a couple of them, but neither worked with my (horribly outdated) browser.
Flickrbits has the same problem. A big list of apps without any discernible order. If you're just browsing for something to play with, that's fine. Finding something specific is more difficult.
From that list, I picked Bubblr, which is a neat concept (allowing you to add dialogue/thought balloons to images and create your own comic strips), but I found it clunky in the execution. It's not very forgiving about letting you correct errors or edit the order of your images once selected. I got frustrated before I even had a complete comic.
I was just about ready to quit looking at Flickr apps when I noticed The Internet Inferno: Dante's hell as seen by Flickr. You descend into Hell (scroll down the page). Each circle of torment is populated by images that happened to be tagged with the name of the sin associated with the layer of hell. Some of the images are disturbing, but a lot of them are just weird. Many make little sense. Sometimes It's a mystery why a particular photo was tagged so that it ended up where it did. I mean, I wasn't surprised to see a sloth under Sloth--in fact I would have been disappointed if I hadn't--however, I am still puzzling as to why a goose appeared under Envy, or a bunch of lizards under Avarice. The page took a long time to load, but it was bizarrely fascinating. It's not particularly interactive, so it may be best to view this page as a creative work in and of itself, a work of art that changes every time you visit.
Anyway, of the six Flickr apps I looked at tonight, the only ones I am likely to revisit are Flickr Color Pickr and Spell with Flickr. But who knows what I'll discover in the future.
Which of these tools and toys might be of use in a library setting? Any of them. You never know what kind of question someone might have. It's good to have a passing familiarity with many many strange things as possible, because what seems esoteric to me might be the absolute perfect thing for someone else.
Flowers for Kafka (Thing #8)
Good gravy, has it really been since Nov. 26 since I've been able to work on this? Yikes. Well, it's looking more and more like I won't be able to finish the 23 Things by the end of January. But I'm not giving up quite yet, anyway.
So, here goes . . . Thing #8: Discover Flickr.
The Online Photo Sharing in Plain English video was very convincing, of course, but creating a Flickr account and adding my photos is the kind of thing I could end up spending a lot, lot, lot of time on. I know me. I'd spend hours and hours writing the descriptions for each photo. And right now, that's just not an option. So to keep this short, I'm afraid I'm going to have to do the first exercise, which is just choosing any photo in Flickr and blogging about it.
Back in 2005, I had the opportunity to visit the Czech Republic for two weeks. It was one of the most exciting and wonderful experiences of my life. I took somewhere between 700 and 800 pictures with my digital camera. (And yes, they are all just rotting on my hard drive. I'll do something about that some other time.) But there was a statue that I remember clearly, which I did not get a picture of. So I searched Flickr for a picture of that statue. And here it is.
This statue honors Franz Kafka. Kafka is forever linked to my Prague vacation in my mind because I read a comprehensive book of his short stories on the way there, not only on the flight, but also during my eight or so cumulative hours sitting in airports. So by the time I actually reached Prague, the absurd writings of Prague's crazy son were well in my mind. So of course I had to check out places where Kafka lived, dined, etc. I even ate at the Franz Kafka restaurant. (Which has excellent food, by the way, if you're ever in Prague.)
Now, there are a lot of pictures in Flickr of this particular Kafka statue, but I chose this one because that bright red bouquet of flowers caught my eye. That is obviously not part of the statue. Did the photographer put it there? Or did she find it that way? If not her, then who thought to place flowers in the empty neck of Kafka's human steed? Why? What was the meaning behind it? It reminds me of when I was on Charles Bridge and found a coral necklace fastened around one of the lamp posts. There's a story there, a mystery. And it is almost assuredly lost to history. However, it can inspire creative minds to craft new stories. A sighting like this is fuel for the imagination.
So that's one use for Flickr--a place to cast around, looking at photos of the familiar which happen to capture some small detail of the unusual--sparks for the imagination.
So, here goes . . . Thing #8: Discover Flickr.
The Online Photo Sharing in Plain English video was very convincing, of course, but creating a Flickr account and adding my photos is the kind of thing I could end up spending a lot, lot, lot of time on. I know me. I'd spend hours and hours writing the descriptions for each photo. And right now, that's just not an option. So to keep this short, I'm afraid I'm going to have to do the first exercise, which is just choosing any photo in Flickr and blogging about it.
Back in 2005, I had the opportunity to visit the Czech Republic for two weeks. It was one of the most exciting and wonderful experiences of my life. I took somewhere between 700 and 800 pictures with my digital camera. (And yes, they are all just rotting on my hard drive. I'll do something about that some other time.) But there was a statue that I remember clearly, which I did not get a picture of. So I searched Flickr for a picture of that statue. And here it is.
This statue honors Franz Kafka. Kafka is forever linked to my Prague vacation in my mind because I read a comprehensive book of his short stories on the way there, not only on the flight, but also during my eight or so cumulative hours sitting in airports. So by the time I actually reached Prague, the absurd writings of Prague's crazy son were well in my mind. So of course I had to check out places where Kafka lived, dined, etc. I even ate at the Franz Kafka restaurant. (Which has excellent food, by the way, if you're ever in Prague.)
Now, there are a lot of pictures in Flickr of this particular Kafka statue, but I chose this one because that bright red bouquet of flowers caught my eye. That is obviously not part of the statue. Did the photographer put it there? Or did she find it that way? If not her, then who thought to place flowers in the empty neck of Kafka's human steed? Why? What was the meaning behind it? It reminds me of when I was on Charles Bridge and found a coral necklace fastened around one of the lamp posts. There's a story there, a mystery. And it is almost assuredly lost to history. However, it can inspire creative minds to craft new stories. A sighting like this is fuel for the imagination.
So that's one use for Flickr--a place to cast around, looking at photos of the familiar which happen to capture some small detail of the unusual--sparks for the imagination.
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