I started using Good Reads when some of my librarian friends got me into it, and I've since lured my coworkers into the fun. I like it because it's a great way to keep track of the books I've read and enjoyed, and much neater than my paper reading log (though I'm very thankful to Joyce Saricks for giving it to me!). Also, of course, it's now the first place I go to look for titles I'll enjoy reading based on what my friends did or did not enjoy. But wow, LibraryThing is really fun! I didn't think I'd be that drawn in by it, but I love how much information it has on all the titles. Since I'm one of those people who has my nonfiction books arranged in Dewey order on my bookshelves, LibraryThing is going to help me legitimately catalog my books. And for me, the two sites have different purposes, besides wasting twice as much time: LibraryThing seems more concrete, and I'm going to use it specifically to catalog books that I own. Good Reads is for books I've read, but don't necessarily own. The jury's still out on whether I'm going to spring for the $25 lifetime membership...
As far as tagging goes, I have been quite negligent in tagging the posts in this blog, assuming that almost no one is reading. I definitely see their usefulness, however. And Technorati is one of those great tools that pulls the tagging function out of individual blogs and uses it to facilitate an ongoing conversation of bloggers.
Finally, del.icio.us, which I use regularly and enthusiastically. I started by exporting all of my browser bookmarks to my del.icio.us account, and as a result some of my tags are too general and kind of a mess. But all my links are in one place and it's great! I'm also working on a del.icio.us page for the library's "helpful links" page. It opens up a lot of options, not only for displaying the links on the website, but also for staff and members of the community to suggest links through del.icio.us. See: library links and my links.
I have found that assigning tags is rather an intuitive art, and it's usually necessary to apply a number of tags, ranging from general categories to the very specific, all for the ultimate purpose of findability. I especially enjoy that aspect of the social Web: namely, all the tools that people can use to catalog, formally or informally, information that they'd like to come back to or share with others.
Friday, August 10, 2007
tech training week 7--instant messaging
FPPL colleagues: has anyone signed on to Meebo yet? I like that it is a proxy for several popular IM services in one. I use Google chat occasionally in my email account, but that's about as far as it goes for me. Our new email client has a chat function that I can enable if there's interest in using it for internal communication.
Bloomingdale Public Library uses a Meebo widget on their website to provide chat reference. This would be very easy to implement if we were interested in providing another option for virtual reference in addition to our email form. It seems that there is a growing number of libraries using chat reference with varying levels of interest from patrons. I think this could be especially resonant with the younger generations who use chat and SMS in their daily lives.
On another note, when you're checking out the Meebo widget on the Bloomingdale website, take a look at how their site is set up... this fall, we're going to implement the same content management system they're using to design their website. What do you think?
Bloomingdale Public Library uses a Meebo widget on their website to provide chat reference. This would be very easy to implement if we were interested in providing another option for virtual reference in addition to our email form. It seems that there is a growing number of libraries using chat reference with varying levels of interest from patrons. I think this could be especially resonant with the younger generations who use chat and SMS in their daily lives.
On another note, when you're checking out the Meebo widget on the Bloomingdale website, take a look at how their site is set up... this fall, we're going to implement the same content management system they're using to design their website. What do you think?
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
social networking (week 6)
On social networking and libraries....
I think that whether we have a presence on various social networking sites or not, it's important for us to be informed about and open to them. Lots of libraries have MySpace pages--some of them are pretty cool, some of them are really boring. It doesn't seem like any of them see all that much action, but it says something to me about the library and its staff that they're on MySpace in the first place. It says that they're interested in meeting their communities where they stand; in finding ways to be relevant to their target populations. And I think that's an essential pursuit. Louise and I have discussed establishing a MySpace page for the library, which we will probably do eventually. On the new website, we will almost certainly have an RSS feed for library news, events and commentary. In my daily work life, I feel that I am a more valuable reference librarian to the whole of our population if I am well-versed in the variety of options people have for communicating electronically.
Sites like Facebook and MySpace are increasingly a primary means of social communication, and not just for "kids" either. I have MySpace and Facebook accounts, both of which I use regularly to communicate with friends and/or colleagues. Some might consider me a kid--compared to the average age of our profession--but none of us is getting any younger, and none of this is going away any time soon. I also use LinkedIn, a social networking site focused on professional contacts. They all have their merits for me. I have the most friends and family members on MySpace. And they are all actually friends--meaning people I know personally, bands I've seen play, and a select group of other organizations I support or identify with. Facebook is the most fun, and is easier to use than MySpace. And LinkedIn has a totally different purpose, based on professional contacts that you can vouch for and vice versa. Each of them has been valuable to me for keeping in touch with or finding people I wouldn't be in touch with otherwise, or simply for being an easy way to communicate with people I am related to or see regularly.
I think that whether we have a presence on various social networking sites or not, it's important for us to be informed about and open to them. Lots of libraries have MySpace pages--some of them are pretty cool, some of them are really boring. It doesn't seem like any of them see all that much action, but it says something to me about the library and its staff that they're on MySpace in the first place. It says that they're interested in meeting their communities where they stand; in finding ways to be relevant to their target populations. And I think that's an essential pursuit. Louise and I have discussed establishing a MySpace page for the library, which we will probably do eventually. On the new website, we will almost certainly have an RSS feed for library news, events and commentary. In my daily work life, I feel that I am a more valuable reference librarian to the whole of our population if I am well-versed in the variety of options people have for communicating electronically.
Sites like Facebook and MySpace are increasingly a primary means of social communication, and not just for "kids" either. I have MySpace and Facebook accounts, both of which I use regularly to communicate with friends and/or colleagues. Some might consider me a kid--compared to the average age of our profession--but none of us is getting any younger, and none of this is going away any time soon. I also use LinkedIn, a social networking site focused on professional contacts. They all have their merits for me. I have the most friends and family members on MySpace. And they are all actually friends--meaning people I know personally, bands I've seen play, and a select group of other organizations I support or identify with. Facebook is the most fun, and is easier to use than MySpace. And LinkedIn has a totally different purpose, based on professional contacts that you can vouch for and vice versa. Each of them has been valuable to me for keeping in touch with or finding people I wouldn't be in touch with otherwise, or simply for being an easy way to communicate with people I am related to or see regularly.
searching and browsing (week 5, belated)
Having heard good things about Dogpile, I decided to compare results from it and our ever-present Google in a search for "library 2.0." In the first 20 results for each, there were only 6 hits that the two search engines had in common. Of those 6 hits, only one was in the same position in both Dogpile and Google, and that was the first hit. Totally unscientific, but it seems to make a good case for trying multiple search engines. Some interesting tidbits: only Dogpile returned an entry on Wikipedia, Google returned the same link twice in the first 20 results, and Dogpile seemed to include more links to ads in their list of search results.
On another search engine note, I've discovered Sputter, which is kind of a one-stop-shop for search engines. It has a really attractive interface, too.
As far as browsing goes, I abandoned Explorer long ago. I'm a Mac user at home and began using Safari as soon as it was available. Then, as Firefox increased in popularity, I decided to try it out and really haven't looked back. It's a great browser. And I'm addicted to tabbed browsing. I always prefer to have links open in a new tab rather than a new window. I also enjoy having a tabbed homepage--here at work when I start up Firefox, my starting tabs are the staff wiki, my Gmail account (which I have synced with my work email address), and my Google notebook, which I use to keep track of my tasks. Anything else I do gets opened in new tabs.
And that concludes week 5.
On another search engine note, I've discovered Sputter, which is kind of a one-stop-shop for search engines. It has a really attractive interface, too.
As far as browsing goes, I abandoned Explorer long ago. I'm a Mac user at home and began using Safari as soon as it was available. Then, as Firefox increased in popularity, I decided to try it out and really haven't looked back. It's a great browser. And I'm addicted to tabbed browsing. I always prefer to have links open in a new tab rather than a new window. I also enjoy having a tabbed homepage--here at work when I start up Firefox, my starting tabs are the staff wiki, my Gmail account (which I have synced with my work email address), and my Google notebook, which I use to keep track of my tasks. Anything else I do gets opened in new tabs.
And that concludes week 5.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Wikis
For some reason, when I think "wiki," I sort of get the song "Iko Iko" in my head.
But on to business.... here are some good library-land wikis that were on my radar:
Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki
Library Instruction Wiki
Improve ALA Wiki
Teen Tech Week Wiki
And I decided that I'd start my own wiki to pull together all of the web design resources I've been amassing as a fledgling webmistress with only a very basic foundation of web design skills. I used the Wiki Matrix, which returned 20 results based on my answers to a few questions about the requirements I would have for my wiki. Based on these results, I chose WetPaint, which was also favorably reviewed in this article in School Library Journal.
So without further ado, here is my wiki: Library Websites for Eager Novices. I wanted to call it Library Web Design for Eager Novices, but apparently that title is one measly character longer than the title field is allowed to have. Like this blog, it's been another case of "I never saw the point, but now that I'm doing it I'm finding it very useful and enjoyable." It's really bringing home for me the implications and exciting possibilities of readily-editable, user-created content on the Web.
And finally, for my FPPLD colleagues, I've made some contributions to the staff wiki. Quite some time ago I added several items to the "Reference Corner," and split that area into Local Ready Reference and Reference on the Web. And the other day, I added a couple items to the suggested materials area--I had a few that I had forgotten to add to our statistics sheet when they came up, so I just decided to skip that step and add them directly into the wiki. I might just continue doing that--what do we think about that? One less thing for Vanessa to worry about? In addition, I also added items to the Staff Computer FAQ's (printing and the cardinal rule(s) of troubleshooting) as well as the Public Computer FAQ's.
But on to business.... here are some good library-land wikis that were on my radar:
Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki
Library Instruction Wiki
Improve ALA Wiki
Teen Tech Week Wiki
And I decided that I'd start my own wiki to pull together all of the web design resources I've been amassing as a fledgling webmistress with only a very basic foundation of web design skills. I used the Wiki Matrix, which returned 20 results based on my answers to a few questions about the requirements I would have for my wiki. Based on these results, I chose WetPaint, which was also favorably reviewed in this article in School Library Journal.
So without further ado, here is my wiki: Library Websites for Eager Novices. I wanted to call it Library Web Design for Eager Novices, but apparently that title is one measly character longer than the title field is allowed to have. Like this blog, it's been another case of "I never saw the point, but now that I'm doing it I'm finding it very useful and enjoyable." It's really bringing home for me the implications and exciting possibilities of readily-editable, user-created content on the Web.
And finally, for my FPPLD colleagues, I've made some contributions to the staff wiki. Quite some time ago I added several items to the "Reference Corner," and split that area into Local Ready Reference and Reference on the Web. And the other day, I added a couple items to the suggested materials area--I had a few that I had forgotten to add to our statistics sheet when they came up, so I just decided to skip that step and add them directly into the wiki. I might just continue doing that--what do we think about that? One less thing for Vanessa to worry about? In addition, I also added items to the Staff Computer FAQ's (printing and the cardinal rule(s) of troubleshooting) as well as the Public Computer FAQ's.
Tech competencies
Lots of discussion of tech competencies in library blogland at the moment....
Sarah Houghton-Jan (Librarian in Black) is co-teaching a webinar on core competencies for library staff on July 25th. Unfortunately I'll be staffing the reference desk at that time, but it should be well worth checking out if anyone has the time! WebJunction is a great resource, by the way. They recently produced this very useful pdf document listing a wide range of recommended competencies. I'm also going to take their free class about designing library websites this month.
Here's Emily Clasper's take on these competencies, with some great comments adding to her ideas. (Her blog, Library Revolution, is one of my favorites.)
And finally, David Lee King's work-in-progress list of basic competencies of a 2.0 librarian.
Good stuff!
Sarah Houghton-Jan (Librarian in Black) is co-teaching a webinar on core competencies for library staff on July 25th. Unfortunately I'll be staffing the reference desk at that time, but it should be well worth checking out if anyone has the time! WebJunction is a great resource, by the way. They recently produced this very useful pdf document listing a wide range of recommended competencies. I'm also going to take their free class about designing library websites this month.
Here's Emily Clasper's take on these competencies, with some great comments adding to her ideas. (Her blog, Library Revolution, is one of my favorites.)
And finally, David Lee King's work-in-progress list of basic competencies of a 2.0 librarian.
Good stuff!
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
about cell phones and signs....
I agree with minimizing the negativity. If it were up to me, I wouldn't make signs that said "NO," or "Absolutely Not," or "NO EXCEPTIONS!!" Also, if it were up to me, I would be tolerant of people who were using their cell phone in the library but being reasonably quiet and respectful. My unasked-for two cents, inspired by this funny comic strip:
online office applications rock!
Allow me to rhapsodize....
Calendar is great because you can color code and sync your different calendars. So when I look at my calendar, I can see my work schedule, personal engagements, computer classes, holidays and phases of the moon. It's always helpful to know when the full moon coincides with a day at the reference desk! And I have my agenda displayed on my iGoogle homepage. I tend to prefer my paper calendar to mastermind my schedule, but if I had an iPhone or Blackberry or some such gadget, I would depend on my Google Calendar. One feature I think is cool is that you can have your agenda emailed to you each day.
I love the new interface for Google Documents--it's pretty to look at, and you can now add documents to folders. I also discovered that if you're logged on to Google and you download a file, you can download it directly into your Documents. The documents are still fully functional with Word or Excel, and it's a great file storage option. There are, of course, options available in Word or Excel that you don't have through Google, but all the "essentials" are there, and after using Google services for a while I've learned that they're always tinkering with them and improving their functionality.
Both of these services are great for collaboration. We've all been using the time off spreadsheets, but think of the possibilities for larger projects! To use a personal example, I've been planning my sister's wedding shower. I have a spreadsheet with 2 tabs--the party details, and the guest list. All of the bridesmaids, as well as my mom (the benefactress), have access to the documents, so everyone can add ideas, or addresses, what have you, and it updates in real time. So everyone has access to the latest incarnation of the project planning. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking we could potentially use this for brainstorming the new reference desk needs (fingers crossed!), scheduling, program planning (new computer classes and content, other new ideas), or just about anything we wanted to examine and innovate!
And that's my ode to Google.
Calendar is great because you can color code and sync your different calendars. So when I look at my calendar, I can see my work schedule, personal engagements, computer classes, holidays and phases of the moon. It's always helpful to know when the full moon coincides with a day at the reference desk! And I have my agenda displayed on my iGoogle homepage. I tend to prefer my paper calendar to mastermind my schedule, but if I had an iPhone or Blackberry or some such gadget, I would depend on my Google Calendar. One feature I think is cool is that you can have your agenda emailed to you each day.
I love the new interface for Google Documents--it's pretty to look at, and you can now add documents to folders. I also discovered that if you're logged on to Google and you download a file, you can download it directly into your Documents. The documents are still fully functional with Word or Excel, and it's a great file storage option. There are, of course, options available in Word or Excel that you don't have through Google, but all the "essentials" are there, and after using Google services for a while I've learned that they're always tinkering with them and improving their functionality.
Both of these services are great for collaboration. We've all been using the time off spreadsheets, but think of the possibilities for larger projects! To use a personal example, I've been planning my sister's wedding shower. I have a spreadsheet with 2 tabs--the party details, and the guest list. All of the bridesmaids, as well as my mom (the benefactress), have access to the documents, so everyone can add ideas, or addresses, what have you, and it updates in real time. So everyone has access to the latest incarnation of the project planning. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking we could potentially use this for brainstorming the new reference desk needs (fingers crossed!), scheduling, program planning (new computer classes and content, other new ideas), or just about anything we wanted to examine and innovate!
And that's my ode to Google.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
blogland and rss feeds
I am a regular reader of quite a few library-related blogs, as well as some non-library blogs. I link to a bunch of them on the right. I find that reading the blogs is a great way to keep up with what's happening in the library world and technology, and I've learned so much that I never would have come across otherwise. It's great to read the paper publications (Public Libraries especially!), but nothing beats the up-to-the-instant reporting and response time of the many librarian bloggers out there.
I had tried Bloglines back in library school but never really kept up with it. Now I use Google Reader, along with the whole suite of Google services I use regularly (privacy be damned, I suppose), and I like it. Although subscribing to RSS feeds with an aggregator means you miss out on the visual experience of each individual blog's own site, but the convenience of having all your faves in one place far outweighs that.
As I've subscribed to various feeds, I noticed that there are different types of RSS feeds, and some sites have as many as three options for the type of feed one can subscribe to--there's RSS 1.0, RSS 0.92, RSS 2.0, XML, Atom.... I dug around for some answers, and the short answer seems to be that feeds have evolved along with other web technology over time. The newer options (RSS 2.0 and Atom), support different types of "payload," which as I understand it, basically means that they can handle more advanced pieces of technology like embedded podcasts and HTML, as well as prescribing various levels of standardization. How's that for a short answer?
I had tried Bloglines back in library school but never really kept up with it. Now I use Google Reader, along with the whole suite of Google services I use regularly (privacy be damned, I suppose), and I like it. Although subscribing to RSS feeds with an aggregator means you miss out on the visual experience of each individual blog's own site, but the convenience of having all your faves in one place far outweighs that.
As I've subscribed to various feeds, I noticed that there are different types of RSS feeds, and some sites have as many as three options for the type of feed one can subscribe to--there's RSS 1.0, RSS 0.92, RSS 2.0, XML, Atom.... I dug around for some answers, and the short answer seems to be that feeds have evolved along with other web technology over time. The newer options (RSS 2.0 and Atom), support different types of "payload," which as I understand it, basically means that they can handle more advanced pieces of technology like embedded podcasts and HTML, as well as prescribing various levels of standardization. How's that for a short answer?
Monday, June 25, 2007
wrapping up week 1...
It has been fun to see everyone else's blogs, which is giving me insight into how the massive community of library bloggers has evolved. I think the key for me, after this tech training is over, will be to remember that I have a blog and hopefully find ways to continue using it.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
I have a blog now
Honestly, I've been a little resistant to the idea of setting up my own blog. I'm into using new technology, I read quite a few blogs regularly with my Google Reader, and I use other forms of social software.... but never felt as if I had enough to say to justify a whole blog. (OK, I did try LiveJournal for a little while, but didn't see the point!) So now I have this wee little practice blog to chronicle my tech training process. And I suppose I will have a lot to say about that!
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