ill-luminaria

Thing 24: Zamzar the File Converter

2008-11-05T15:33:00.004-05:00

Who thinks up the names for these sites?
The 24th thing is Zamzar - Helene Blower's new best friend according to her 2007 Learning 2.1 posting. The website answers the not-so age-old question: "Have you ever wanted to convert files without the need to download software?" with a way to convert a file into another format.
The Discovery Exercise suggests that we convert a Word document into a pdf file, something I've only been able to do with the aid of the elderly but stalwart scanner in ZZ.
Hmmmmm...... How long does this take? It's only converting one measly sentence. Well- this seems to be a case of check your e-mail tomorrow for an answer and the magic .pdf.
What Helene says she really likes it for is to convert YouTube videos to .mpg files so you can use them in a PowerPoint presentation when you don't have ready (or reliable) access to the Internet. I always wondered how that could be done. That I would find useful.
As far as recommending this to customers- well- they may be disappointed. This is not (Zamzar! It was ONE sentence! What's the deal here?) for the impatient or on-demand user.
Not that I know anyone like that.

LATER- Caveat- it will take a few hours for the file to be converted and sent to you- at least that's how long it took for my sentence-long document to get to me. There are advanced features on Zamzar that you can take advantage of if you are willing to pay for them.

My MP3 and Me

2008-10-29T08:24:00.004-04:00

Finally, finally, finally- I got my MP3 player on October 16th. And- finally, finally, finally- I was able to download audiobooks from Overdrive. This is what I've learned in the process:

Some MP3 player manufacturers assume that you already know how to use an MP3 player. The instruction book that came with the player was more of an "Okay, this is how to get started, now figure it out for yourself" book.
It's a big, big mistake to listen to big, big books on this player. It's better to start out with small books and leave Pillars of the Earth until later. Not only does it take forever for big tomes to download, it takes much longer to listen to a book than to read it. And....
If you doze off while reading a book, it's easy to find where you left off. If you doze off while listening to an audiobook, you have to flip back and listen multiple times to find where you dozed off.
Some audiobook narrators should market their voices as sleep aids.
Dozing off while listening to books where characters are being maimed, dying by various means, being abused, etc. when you are in doze-mode is injurious to your dream state.
My cats and my housemate are envious of the player- though I think one of my cats just wants the earphones.
I wondered how JPL got these in bulk for -what I found out- was $20 under list price. These have to have been seconds. The ear buds are weird. The earbuds I got and a colleague got have one side a foot longer than the other. One of my staff noticed the same thing with her MP3. I ended up getting another set of earphones to use with it.
But, I like my MP3. I'll use it. It'll be great for long trips. BUT...
I have to develop restraint. While I used to be able to watch TV and do homework as a teen, I can't multitask as well as I used to. Watching TV, skimming the newspaper, AND listening to an audiobook isn't working for me.

Still waiting for my MP3 player.....

2008-10-13T14:05:00.004-04:00

The promised MP3 player is still not in my hot little hands. I'm going to have to go back over what I learned in Learning 2.0 when-- and possibly if-- I ever receive it. The second session of JPL's Learning 2.0 initiative. After a hiatus of nearly 2 months, I'm going forward and looking at what Learning 2.1 has to offer. I've signed up on the Learning 2.1 wiki. So- I'll start to look at the first of these this week. The best thing about doing this on my own is that there's no pressure to get it looked at and done in one week because there's another lesson hitting the mailbox on Monday.

Whew! -The 23rd thing (for now)

2008-08-18T16:26:00.009-04:00

I have mixed feelings about this "end of the beginning". One is relief at not having another thing to do among all the "happened over the weekend" stuff when I get to work on Monday. One is a let-down feeling that I'm sure will surface next week because part of me looked forward to the new challenges this training brought.

My favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey: Easy and honest answer! Hands down favorite was Play Week. I found the Web 2.0 Awards interesting. Both Bloglines and del.icio.us are helpful. It was great to find an RSS reader that was web-based and great to have Favorites I can access from any computer.
How this program assisted or affected my lifelong learning goals: It's enhanced my lifelong learning and made me stretch myself a bit more. In fact, I should be 10 feet tall by now.
Take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised me: I kinda scoffed at the idea of blogs but I've been won over. I can see some practical uses beyond online journaling and cyber-exhibitionism. I'm hoping that I can get an ILL Informational blog approved by the higher ups that would answer the FAQs not covered by the policy FAQs. The beta version is at: http://jplinterlibraryloan.blogspot.com/ .

What can be done differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept:

I would suggest either doing a self-paced tutorial-- kind of like the old LAP (Learning Assisted Program) packs ca 1970's--instead of the weekly releases. Some of the weeks seemed more labor intensive than others. While I knew to peek at PLCMC's program to see what was coming up, I knew I couldn't count on our lessons being the same as PLCMC's -- though they often were. It would have been great to have been able to pace myself and be able to fit the lessons in with my workload a bit better. Half my staff dropped out because they couldn't fit the lessons in with their workloads.
I -and many of my colleagues- got the impression that this supposed to be geared toward newbies. There were a lot of times that I stumbled upon what I was supposed to do, rather than had it spelled out for me. Instructions needed to me more spelled out. My staff and I coached each other through this and nlisted the help of other participants from time to time.
Speaking of which- having coaches on the sidelines help. We did have the online help offered during specific time periods in the later weeks but on-demand coaching would have been great. Having them a bit earlier would have been more helpful. Now that a group of us has been through this, we may be the source of a cadre of coaches for the next group.
The program needs to be constantly updated and tweaked. It definitely is not a "copy and run" training. At times- links failed to link or I found myself at a site with a different name. When you're just learning, this can be unsettling.
Having it come at the end of the FY as it did provided less of an incentive to follow through. My staff and I had already completed our training requirements so dropping out of this training didn't have any great consequences for them-- apart from missing out on the MP3 player. The MP3 player- hint, hint, hint.

If offered another discovery program like this in the future, would I again chose to participate: Yes. In fact there are opportunities out there in Library 2.0-land which I'll look at later after a short break:
http://explorediscoverplay.blogspot.com/
http://www.librarybytes.com/
No doubt others have already done this, but why not have a version of this for our library users (albeit without the MP3 prize) accessible from the JPL website?

Thanks for this opportunity. All in all, it was a great experience.

MP3 Playa?--#22 Audiobooks

2008-08-18T15:26:00.004-04:00

This and being able to download videos to a portable device would be what I would like. (I think we've already established in my last post that my cousin is to remain in the dark about this? Agreed?) Did I locate a title that I might want to try out and download once I have my player? Why, yes, I did. There was a collection of Twilight Zone radio dramas featured. Way kewl. When I was commuting to college, I would tune in to this show on the drive back at night over mostly unlit country roads. Very spooky- just the setting for my very own TZ episode. The collection is trying to load onto Overdrive right now and is taking its own sweet time, I might add.

I don't suppose that I can get that MP3 player soon- like before this current storm (on track to visit Jacksonville) hits?

Revenge of the POD People- #21-POD-CASTS

2008-08-18T14:53:00.009-04:00

My dear cousin the MAC-maniac who is semi-retired at the moment has tried for many long years to convert me to Apple-ism. His latest thing is to get me to get an iPod and download the Pod-casts he recommends. I'm still waiting for the prices to come down but part of me resists having one more thing to do and part of me is resisting his nagging just because it is nagging. I have to have a compelling reason to lay out the expenditure and time. It would be a bit different if he were giving me one-- of course.

Still- I can see some reasons to shell out the dough. A friend of mine plans to buy an iPod and load it with books and videos so she can carry with her on her trip to Serbia and Ukraine so she won't be bored during the long plane ride. That I can agree with. With airlines laying on the excess baggage charges, it would be nice to have lighter carry-ons. So (don't tell my cousin), I'm open to the possibilities - if I could afford the iPod with the bigger screen for video viewing, that is!

I added the RSS feed for North Suburban Library System director Sarah Long's Longshots podcasts to my Bloglines account. I found this via Media-fly beta which is the search engine connected to Podnova. I was glad NOT to have to load one more piece of software to my poor overworked PC. Did I find anything useful here? Well....the podcast froze up halfway through the Podcast on the uses of podcasting. Nice bit of irony, that. It was interesting up to the point it stopped. The voice quality wasn't good since it was a recorded phone conversation. I can see podcasting readings of stories for children, downloading of podcasted books for teens and adults, downloading recordings of lectures and talks, downloading episodes of TV shows for playback whenever and wherever you wish. But---shhhhhh--- don't let my cousin know I'm weakening!

Into the Home Stretch- Lesson #20: You-Tubing

2008-08-18T10:33:00.013-04:00

I tried - I really tried to find a good example of a "How to make an ILL request" video but the ones I found were either not close enough to what we do or were really ---ummm----BORING.
So- I went with something halfway entertaining- a library cat. This one also had the advantage of having some suspense. How many of the books would stay on the shelves?

Not exactly what you had in mind???
Oh, all right!
Presenting the most entertaining mash-up video EVER on the subject of copyright.
Really!
Trust me!
How many of these cartoons can you name?

All together now! What the heck is copyright law?

And now- the questions and answers:

What did you like or dislike about the site and why did you choose the video that you did? Likes:There's a lot here to see and choose from. There's little if no regulation so anyone can post. Dislikes:There's really no quality control and some of the videos are hard to make out. You have gems like the copyight video and some really very poorly done videos. I expect this to be the site that gets regulated like Napster did. I chose the videos I did because they were library-related. Can you see any features or components of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library websites? Yes- I mentioned that I saw some library instructional videos that could be marketed as insomnia cures.On the other hand, if you make an enteratining instructional video- such as this Disney mash-up- people can laugh as they learn and they'll come back to see what else you have to offer.

#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

2008-08-11T15:18:00.008-04:00

And the pertinent questions (and answers) are:
I chose Pandora Radio.
Submitted for your approval. Say- you were up late watching the Olympics or your neighbor - fresh from her viewing of Mama Mia!- plays all her ABBA albums at mega-decibel levels until the wee-wee hours of the morning. You're trying to stay awake and multiple cups of coffee aren't doing the trick. You know that a certain songs- like Morning Dance by Spiro Gyra- energize you. You wonder if there are other songs out there that will have the same effect. Pandora can help you find the songs you need to hear right now
What did you like or dislike about the tool?What were the site’s useful features? . I really like that Pandora can locate other artists similar to the artists I like and other tunes similar to a song I like. I like that Pandora asks for my input to make sure it's getting me what I want- a thumbs up or thumbs down. When I've used this site in the past, there have been times that Pandora is having a bad day and completely missed the mark. At times like those, I've wished that there was something stronger than a thumbs down. You not only hear the similar tunes, you see what albums they appear on. One drawback would be that on a day like today where -according to ITD- the web provided by JPL and the City of Jacksonville is at 80%+ capacity; music files get interrupted because there's so much demand on resources. During the busy times, you get chopped up versions of songs which really takes the joy out of the enjoyment for me. Can't complain too much; it IS free, after all.
Could you see any applications for its use in a library setting? Not directly. I can see that it might be a source for music collection development a sort of music version of the Readers' Advisory "If you like" lists. To me, this is more of a personal use site than a social networking site but there is a social networking side to it.

Zoho-mania!--#18 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops

2008-08-11T14:37:00.002-04:00

Whoa! That was so easy! The only things I found that I disliked about Zoho are:

They didn't feature the font that I usually use. You know- the City of Jacksonville approved font Century Gothic. And they didn't allow odd sizes of the font- like 11.
It had a very busy toolbar array.

Other than that, getting started with it was pretty intuitive. I didn't give Zoho Writer too many challenges when I was composing my blog entry on it. Everything transferred over and the fact that the font (Tahoma) doesn't exist in Blogger.com-land fazed neither Zoho or Blogger.

In some ways- it was easier composing the blog entry in Zoho and then transferring it over to Blogger.

WOW!!! Olympic Opening Moments - a Zoho Exercise

2008-08-11T14:27:00.003-04:00

I was really impressed by the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremonies last Friday night (8/8/08). I'm still trying to figure out how they were able to:

make the big torch (known at other Olympics as the Olympic cauldron) appear out of nowhere.
make the people-powered movable type work so well
and wondering what I missed that occurred during the commercials.

I'm hoping that someone does a DVD of the entire show.

The Uninivited- Crashing the Sandbox Party- Test #17

2008-08-05T13:30:00.008-04:00

So..... I dutifully attempted to do the exercise for Playing Around with PBWiki only to find out that I needed an invitation to the JPL Learning 2.0 Sandbox. It would not let me in. I did not have an invitation and did not know the secret word. So, I sent out some SOSes. And NO ONE ANSWERED ME! sniff! No one told me that it was exclusive invitation! HA! We'll just see about that!

So- I guessed it. And I got in there and played around in the sandbox. Don't worry. I raked the sand so it's not that obvious that I was there.

Wiki Tiki Tavi- # 16 So what's in a wiki?

2008-08-05T11:56:00.006-04:00

Assignment: What did you find interesting? What types of applications within libraries might work well with a wiki?
I work with and have been published in a Resource Sharing Wiki: shareill. It's a great tool for ILL staff to use and saves a lot of searching through the Internet for information we need. It was also very easy to add information and correct information. The shareill wiki does make it clear, though: "if you aren't open to what you write being changed around, don't post here."

I like the way wikis have been used by other libraries in this exercise. It would be easier if JPL's recommended websites could be in a wiki that's accessible by JPL librarians as in the SJCPL Subject Guides. It would speed up correcting defunct websites. I also like the way other libraries used the wiki as a way to get customer input and build community oriented sites. I was puzzled by the Bull Run Public Library site. It's more of a Twitter-type site with the short bits of information they give. I was concerned about the ads showing up in some of the wikis.

So- I can see how libraries could use wikis in two different ways- for building community and support through customer participation and for making it easier for staff to update information for recommended websites while exercising some professional and local control over the content. But as the shareill founders said- you can't count on what you place in the wiki being unchanged. Librarians pride themselves as trying to provide accurate verifiable information and that's not always a given in a wiki set-up.

Tagged Out: #15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ... and another rant!

2008-07-23T13:22:00.011-04:00

Library 2.0 - It's many things to many people. What does it mean to you?

I have to say this: What's changed? True- this is not the library of my childhood. That's a good thing; my public library was a bookmobile. But- in a way- what we do these days is to get the "goods" of the library to the people we serve like the bookmobile did. We've found different ways to do it. In many cases, just as we've had to adapt to changing economic conditions, to "do more with less" (a phrase that is due a rant in itself), so changing technological conditions are another part of the evolution in services. It's not like we upgraded suddenly into a Library 2.0 revolution. In my view, the concepts described in all the Library 2.0 are just evolutionary blips on the greater library/librarianship continuum.

And now- my somewhat-connected rant: This training has not provided a smooth journey of discovery. What the creator of this training -and all those who appropriated it- failed to realise is that -verily- the Internet is an inconstant creature. You can't build a set-it and forget-it course around it. Sites -even those that look rock-solid- disappear. Sometimes, you can find the information elsewhere on the Web but -often- the whole shebang is gone-baby-gone. Those rock-solid sites with well-written information don't change as the technology changes. So newbies to the former next-big-thing site find that they can't understand what the Internet Sage is talking about in his or her beginner's guide because the next-big-thing site has morphed in the meantime and changed the site around, renamed buttons, eliminated buttons, and -now- it's changed so much that the guide is no longer useful.

The appalling thing- from a training standpoint- is that this is the nature of the beast and that any training based on this beast has a built in redundancy factor. It makes exploring and attempting to work with the Internet both aggravating and exciting. The job of an Internet tour guide has become one where the seasoned fearless leader encounters detours, dead ends, and dragons that weren't there when they last took the journey-- even if that journey only took place a month or a week before. Before you sit back and say- "Whew! I'm glad that's not my job." , I remind you that, dear heart, it is. As library workers at any level, we guide travellers through the Internet maze on a daily basis. Everyone- parents, students, teachers, government leaders, business people, et al - needs to have more than a working knowledge of the Internet. Surfing the Internet has gone from a pleasurable pastime to a tool we use everyday. While the library profession and the view of the public formerly portrayed librarians as being professional know-it-alls, experts in the field, and founts of all knowledge, with the Internet, the best we can realistically hope for is to be knowledgeable guides. We can help customers avoid pitfalls and steer them in the right direction. Instead of being the sages on the mountain-tops that seekers of wisdom consult, we become fellow travellers on the journey with them. I think that change is an improvement in our relationship to our customers.

Tag-a-logging: Exercise #14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati

2008-07-23T11:30:00.007-04:00

And the Exercise says: Take a look at Technorati and try doing a keyword search for “Learning 2.0” in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory. Are the results different?

Okay, folks. A pet peeve that is growing larger as I go through this course. The language in this training doesn't match the language in the source we're directed to. It's no one's fault. Change is the order of the day. It's unsettling as it is inevitable. It does, however, make it difficult for a newbie to follow along and complete this training. I wonder if we'll lose a lot of people along the way just because they couldn't figure out what the training was asking them to do in the exercises.

I clicked on the Advanced Search on Technorati when working on these exercises. I did a Tag search for Learning 2.0. A tag search got me 1,026 hits. A URL search got me 860 hits. If you put it in quotes- "Learning 2.0", you get 241 hits. TO put in quotes or not to put in quotes? Dispensing with the punctuation always gets more hits:
Keyword Seach: with " : 8743 Without " : 8745
Phrase Search: with " : 0!!! Without " : 464
I'll bet most people don't use the quotes when searching for something on this site. I tried it with Interlibrary Loan. 266 with, 499 without.

Explore popular blog, searches and tags. Is anything interesting or surprising in your results?

It's interesting to see what others are find noteable and valuable on the Web. I found some sites that I added to my del.icio.us listings. I really wasn't surprised to see that Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams was in the top spot for YouTubes faves.

I've been tagging since the beginning of my blogging without knowing why. It must be that old cataloging class making its mark on me. I claimed this blog and another in Technocrati. I'm holding off on doing the watchlist for now. It would truly amaze me if anyone thought that any of my blog posts were noteworthy.

Tag! You're It! Lucky Lesson #13 on del.icio.us

2008-07-22T15:35:00.013-04:00

I've loved and lost many a list of websites because I moved computers or because some IT person re-imaged my PC without giving me a chance to snag my Favorites. In some cases, this was a good thing. My new lists were now made up of the sites I could readily remember and those I used frequently. Starting out fresh also got rid of defunct sites. At work my focus narrowed from collecting sites that helped me answer frequently asked questions & Reader's Advisory sites to collecting specific ILL-related sites that helped me and my staff do our work.

I kinda like del.icio.us. I was first introduced to del.icio.us at an ILL conference. The speaker included it in a super-sonic speedy overview of Web 2.0 tools that she couldn't live without. As my eyes recovered from glazing over, I really didn't couldn't see how I was going to use this knowledge and I relegated the information to my internal "Things I'll Get Around to Looking at When I Have the Time" file. The big drawback I have with del.icio.us is that it's a bit clunky to use- when compared to the coupla clicks efficiency of putting a site in Favorites or in Links. I'm not that crazy about the tagging. Possibly, that's because I don't have a handle on that part yet. I'd rather categorize the sites in general categories of use. The overlapping nature of some of the tags puts some sites in the "wrong" bundle. It's a lot like cataloging sites -as opposed to categorizing them the way you can in Favorites by organizing them by a file name.

Back to the Exercise:
Explore the site options and try clicking on a bookmark that has also been bookmarked by a lot of other users. Can you see the comments they added about this bookmark or the tags that they used to categorize this reference?
I looked at a blog called: LibraryTechtonics: Tagging on Flickr & del.icio.us. It was saved by 77 other people. The comments are brief- most of them talk about the blog though I've noticed a comment that was more about the tagger than about the blog post. Many of used used the same tags for this article.
What del.icio.us doesn't do is this: it doesn't cull out the dead sites. I skimmed and sampled what I was most interested in on the PLCMC del.icio.us site. During a brief viewing, I found 2 dead sites.

Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about this tool. This is it.
Can you see the potential of this tool for research assistance? Definitely. If -say- the JPL Fiction Department had a del.icio.us site with helpful Reader's Advisory. Or Popular could have a del.icio.us site with music, film, TV, etc. sites. It could be set up so that staff throughout the system could contribute sites that helped them answer customers' questions. You could tap the expertise of all the staff to help answer customers' questions. Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere? It is that too. I discussed that more earlier in this post.

I have a del.icio.us badge on this blogspot.

Learning 2.0 Withdrawal Symptoms Hit

2008-07-22T09:24:00.008-04:00

This is the second morning in a row that I haven't been able to get this week's lessons. I wonder what's going on. I took a look at the PLCM Learning 2.0 site to see what we would have been looking at and found some dead links. If anyone has done the same thing, click here to find the article: The Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.us Users.

"#12 Add a JaxCat Search Gadget"

2008-07-14T09:19:00.003-04:00

I added the JaxCat Search Gadget to my blog and to my iGoogle page. There--> it is. It wouldn't display correctly on my Dots template, so I switched templates. That necessitated my going back and changing a previous post. My blog page is getting pretty crowded.

The question for this Discovery Exercise was: "How else can a search box to our catalog be useful outside of our library's webpage?" I can see one way: as a promotional tool. Right now, Jacksonville iGoogle users are getting the gadget for another county's public library. When I set up my iGoogle page, I discovered that a Jacksonville tab came with it. I clicked on that and one of the boxes I saw was for St. Johns County Public Library-- NOT JPL. JPL's gadget was nowhere in sight. I wonder what has to be done to get Google to automatically display JPL's gadget instead of SJCPL's?

#11 A Thing about LibraryThing

2008-07-14T08:26:00.006-04:00

LibraryThing is an interesting tool if you want to catalog your collection AND want to be part of a social network discussing books. I'm a member of a mystery book discussion listserv and I have trouble keeping up with those ongoing discussions.

I wondered if there was also a DVDThing or a MusicThing out there and Googled DVDThing. There was an ongoing discussion on the LibraryThing site about that very thing. Some of the posters were enthusiastic about it and wanted something that had all the qualities of LibraryThing. Others felt that LibraryThing should stick to books.

My link to LibraryThing is in the right hand column of this blog.

#10: Image Generators - Bead Art, Wordle, Map Maker

2008-07-08T09:59:00.020-04:00

Well, this lesson was quite an eye-opener!

I'm really surprised that the lawyers - the Disney lawyers, in particular- haven't gone after this Comic Strip image generator.

Using the Dummies art at SignGenerator.org- I created this book-that-never-was.

Lydia San Marco- beaded version (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/beads.php). Kinda looks like she's looking through a thick screen door, doesn't it?

This is the Wordle (http://wordle.net/) I created for this blog. This is my favorite of the bunch and is highly addictive as you can see by my creations on the Wordle site.

Places I visited as a child or teen

The blue states are the ones I visited or lived in.

#9 Exploring RSS Search Tools

2008-07-07T11:44:00.004-04:00

The questions posed in this exercise were:

Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? Feedster wasn't one of them. When I couldn't access it, I Googled it and found this: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/blog_search_feedster_quietly_dies.php That article mentioned some other feed finders to try. So, I moved on down the list. Syndic8 was a disappointment. Topix was good in that it defaulted to items of local interest - though: How did "IT" know?
Which Search tool was the easiest for you? I found Bloglines' search tool to be the easiest for me to use. It was basically one stop shopping. I could add new sites to my public Blogline account right there.
Which was more confusing? Apart from the confusion with the dead Feedster- Sydic8 was the most confusing and least helpful.
What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? The hurricane and weather feeds will be helpful. There's not much out there for useful ILL blogs. A lot of non-librarians use the service and either praise or express disappointment in it. Gratifyingly, praise is in the vast majority of the posts.
Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? Well, there is "Captain ILL". (Example: http://captainill.blogspot.com/2008/04/interlibrary-loan-of-day_24.html) who for some reason chooses to post in other languages very once in a while.
What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds? Ummmm. I have been using Google Alerts for a while now to find search the web to find items on "Interlibrary Loan" and on "Jacksonville Public Library". It doesn't always give me THIS "Jacksonville Public Library" and "Interlibrary Loan" gets me A LOT of posts on ILL customers use of the service. Google Alerts sends me an e-mail with links to items it finds on websites and in blogs.

Here's my take on RSS-dom. My FeedReader alerts me whenever new stuff comes in. Google Alerts does the same thing, though it does it once a day or once every couple of days. Bloglines will be another site I will need to remember to go to in order to access the posts. They all have a huge advantage over doing searches on a topic or remembering to check a site for an update. Now- the problem! Some of the websites I need to check up on do not- for whatever reason- "work" with RSS. Very ironic in one case since one of them is exploring new, innovative ways to use Interlibrary Loan!

#8- RSS and newsreaders

2008-07-07T09:55:00.004-04:00

http://www.bloglines.com/public/Cambie is my public Blogline account link.
I've been working with RSS readers since January 2007 when I found out that the ILLiad Customer Service Interface was going to add an RSS component in the next upgrade. At the time, the OCLC Help Desk pointed me to newsreaders that required me to download software to my desktop and then have to upgrade to newer versions. Bloglines is a lot easier and accessible from any computer. That's a big plus. Now, to the questions at hand:

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
The convenience. As the video in the training pointed out- it comes to you so you don't have to access the websites to get the information you want.
How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?
I see me using this more in my work life. My work is so tied to computers that my off-time is usually off-line. I can see entries from Library Journal that I'm interested in. Wall Street Journal runs a column on recommended books. Many of them are no longer in print so there will be ILL requests from all across the country for the few libraries that still have these books on their shelves. It's good to get forewarning. There are some ILL-related blogs that I don't access on a frequent basis. This will help me keep up with those blogs.
How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?
At JPL, we already are. If you use ILL, you can get notifications that your book has come in via RSS. JPL also has other RSS feeds available:http://jpl.coj.net/res/rssfeeds/index.html They help keep customers informed about new services and library programming.

#7 The Technology Blog Rant

2008-06-30T10:55:00.005-04:00

There is just much, too much out there and this course hasn't even scratched the surface of everything that's out there! Definitely TMI! When I look at the blogs done by others in the library field that just go on and on and realize how much time they've spend on them, I wonder how anything gets done. It's all fascinating but it's also a bit overwhelming. I wonder how the Internet can maintain this rate of growth and also wondering what's new around the corner.

I'm very impressed by the blogs that others at JPL have done and frustrated that mine is so plain by comparison and -since- I am in the middle of a project, it's also frustrating that it'll just have to stay that way. It's also a bit irksome that I can't get my pictures from Webshots to Blogspot- though it looks like others are doing it. I'm currently updating information in our ILLiad database and tagging all the libraries that lend to us for free. There's 50 typed pages of them. I have to stop now and then to give my eyes and my fingers a rest.

Whew!

#6 More Flickr Fun- Spell with Flickr

2008-06-30T09:55:00.004-04:00

I was really intrigued with the Spell with Flickr API. I tried to display what was created on this blog using then word I typed (books!) but Blogger wouldn't show the images. Frustrating. I thought the Flickr Color Picker was interesting. Again- couldn't find out if this was something I could download and share.

I was also intrigued by http://flickrvision.com/. This site shows a map and flashes pictures as they are loaded on in each location. It's fascinating to watch what's being posted in near-realtime throughout the world.

ILLiad Conference artwork

2008-06-30T08:33:00.005-04:00

I was startled to see this on Flickr.

ILLiad artwork
Originally uploaded by Atlas Systems

I attended the 2008 ILLiad Conference in Virginia Beach last year and was at the Art Center where this was created. The person who took this picture has moved on from an ILL job to a job at EBSCO. I'm having a "Wait a minute! How did I miss this!" moment.

I chose this picture because I was at this conference and think this piece of artwork was very cleverly done. This is a certainly a more attractive logo than the one Atlas is currently using for its ILLiad product!

7 1/2 Lifelong Learning Habits

2008-06-23T07:30:00.000-04:00

As part of the Jacksonville Public Library's Learning 2.0 course requirements, I've set up this blog and this entry will deal with the 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners. The Habits are:

Habit 1: Begin with the end in mind
Habit 2: Accept responsibility for your own learning
Habit 3: View problems as challenges
Habit 4: Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
Habit 5: Create your own learning toolbox
Habit 6: Use technology to your advantage
Habit 7: Teach/mentor others
Habit 7 ½: Play

The most challenging for me will be the first one: Begin with the end in mind. While I know that I'm taking this course to become familiar with "what's out there", I'm not sure how I'll be using this knowledge or where that learning will take me. Blogging is one example. I think that it's much like keeping a diary or a journal. The last time I tried to discipline myself to write something every day was in junior high school. I did well for the first few months and then my discipline would break down. I've seen a number of blogs by librarians and by ILL staff. Google Alerts mines what's out there and sends me alerts with links to web pages and blogs about Interlibrary Loan. What I see is ranges from very scholarly musings to items that have me thinking that these people have way too much time on their hands.

The easiest habits are the remaining 6 1/2 habits:

One of the attractions of being a librarian was that I was always going to be learning something new and that what I had already learned -no matter how insignificant it may seem on the surface-invariably became valuable and helped me in my work. It wasn't just a matter of accepting responsibility for my learning. It was a matter of learning to assimilate all sorts of information.
I learned early on to view problems as challenges and as having some solution.
I have confidence in my learning abilities; my chosen profession is tailor-made for a lifelong learner.
I find that toolbox I use as a librarian is helpful to me as a learner.
Using technology to my advantage is not just a good habit, it's a means to survival.
I share what I've learned with others because that was the work culture when I first came to JPL and worked in General Services. General Services had a very collegial atmosphere; my colleagues were my instructors and I was theirs. We were open to learning from one another. A frustrating barrier to encouraging a similar culture of shared information is staff aren't fully open to new information; they cut others off with an impatient "Oh, I know all about that" so they miss gaining a deeper understanding of a subject and discourage mutual learning opportunities.
The very easiest habit would be play. When we first started using computers, we were encouraged to play Solitaire to hone our mousing skills. When the Internet first came on the scene, we didn't have much opportunity for instruction on its use. We learned as we went along and that took the form of looking up things that interested us. I joined a mystery readers' listserv. It not only helped my in my work but I learned about Internet resources beyond those associated with mysteries because the posts often went off-topic.

I've been in this profession a while. Some of my younger colleagues would claim that I've been here since dinosaurs roamed the book stacks but it hasn't been quite that long. Saber tooth tigers and woolly mammoths, maybe; not dinosaurs. I've seen colleagues leave the profession because they felt that the advent of technology meant that the very reason they got into the profession (helping people find the resources they need) was disappearing. Had they stayed beyond that awkward learning and adjustment period, they might have discovered that technology was just another tool and that our customers' need for their help and how they went about helping them wasn't disappearing. It was just changing.