hmrh librarian

QuarkBase: Everything about a website

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 01:53:00 +0000

For those of us who often do library instruction sessions about website evaluation, there may be a new tool that can help with that task. Check out QuarkBase. According to their website, QuarkBase"is a mashup of over 30 data sources and many algorithms gathering information from Internet on various topics like social popularity, traffic, associated people, etc." There are other good web traffic sites out there. What is nice about this site, though, is that it has the added bonus of giving info from Twitter, Technorati, delicious, and digg. A very cool site to look into.

To learn more, visit this review of QuarkBase on Technology Review.

Library Learning Space

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:50:00 +0000

Looking for some ideas to help you rethink your teaching and learning space in the library? Check out this site. It is a place to go to see how other libraries are using their space for instruction. They have a nice image gallery where visitors can leave comments as well as pages on furniture ideas, info on vendors, floor plans, and a place for discussion. I have seen a lot of talk on various listservs on the library as space topic, especially as it pertains to instruction--how to make the library more functional, how to be more creative with instruction rooms, how to make better use of what we have (since few of us have the money to renovate or build new space), what kind of laptop cart should be used, and what about furniture choices/options. If you have been asking these kinds of questions, you should definitely visit this site.
Image--Emory's Center for Interactive Teaching / Woodruff Library, Emory University

Virtual classroom at the University of Central Florida puts teachers to the test

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Wed, 21 May 2008 12:42:00 +0000

As a UCF College of Ed grad, I was very interested in this article about the way they are training their future teachers. I do think it is great that Lockheed Martin is getting involved. (They are a major employer in Orlando, are right down the road from UCF, and likely employ many UCF graduates considering UCF has a large engineering program.) I imagined myself "practicing" teaching this way, and I admit I was apprehensive. I am not sure which would be more intimidating, the virtual students or the real ones.

Google Calendar Sync

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:41:00 +0000

It has been a while since I have posted. I have been trying to decide exactly where to go with my blog. In the meantime, my colleague and I recently discovered a wonderful tool that you will hopefully find as useful as we did. Many people have found work-arounds to syncing their Outlook and Google calendars for a while. Well, Google has finally created an official way to do it. Announcing Google Calendar Sync!

I work in an environment in which there are five library team members: two librarians and three library staff. The other librarian and I are constantly in and out of the office in meetings and instruction sessions and the other team members have appointments and meetings, as well. We do not have an administrative assistant who keeps up with where we are throughout the day, so we needed some kind of tool to help keep us organized so I could keep track of appointments, sick and vacations days, and so the other team members would know where the librarians were if that information was needed. We wanted to find a way to create a shared calendar for our team that was accessible via the web but that would sync with all of our Outlook calendars. We couldn't seem to find a simple way to do this with Outlook. So, we turned to Google. While there have been ways to do this in the past that weren't too complicated, it was exciting to find that Google had finally released their own tool that would sync one way or both ways. This works perfectly for us! We each created personal calendars that we sync with our Outlook calendars. Next, I created a separate "Work Calendar" for our team; then, I "shared" this calendar with each team member. This is not a public calendar since it may contain personal appointments that we want our team members to know about, but not the world. We can add appointments to this calendar in Google or in Outlook. Since it syncs both ways, the appointments will show up in both calendars. There is an advantage to adding events and appointments in Google: there is an option when editing an event's details to copy to another calendar. This makes it very easy to not only add it to one calendar, but to then copy it to a second calendar. (In our case, we copy it to the team's Work Calendar.) So, when we are in Google, we can add an appointment to our personal calendar, and then choose to copy it straight to the Work Calendar so we share it with our colleagues.

What we discovered, though, is that to make your Work Calendar events appear on your Google calendar, you need to make sure that 1) you are using the Google account that is affiliated with the same account as your work email address. We found that not all of our appointments and events were being added to our Google calendar when we were trying to sync our Outlook calendar with a Google calendar affiliated with our Gmail accounts. 2) You can only sync your Outlook calendar with your Primary Google calendar. If you are like me, you have more than one Google Calendar. Make sure you are dedicating your appointments and main events to the first calendar on your list of calendars in Google. That is the one it will sync with your Outlook calendar.

I hope this all makes sense. Feel free to email me if you have any questions. I am no expert, but I can share our experiences. Happy Syncing!

Online Photo Sharing Tutorial

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:50:00 +0000

The folks at Commoncraft are at it again with another great video tutorial, this time covering Online Photo Sharing. I love their no-frills approach. Clear, concise, and easy to understand. Check it out!

Learning 2.0--Mashup Editors

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:28:00 +0000

I worked with Yahoo Pipes to try and create my own mashup. Creating a mashup wasn't the difficult part; what I had the most trouble with was coming up with something original. I read through the Mashup Award Winners page and found lots of ideas, but I wanted something more related to libraries. What I really wanted to do was to come up with something that could somehow show relevant data from EKU's catalog (eQuest) mashed with starred reviews from School Library Journal or another well-respected children's literature review source. I know, I know. Way too ambitious. I could have done something simple with Yahoo Pipes that would have fulfilled the Option 1 choice of this learning activity, but I didn't want to just copy what the video tutorial showed us. I do want to revisit this in the future and find a way to apply the potential of a mashup to our catalog. I have ideas brewing, but I am waiting for Encore to emerge and to see if there aren't ways to blend it with an API to form a really cool mashup.

Another cool mashup that I found: Auction Reminder. OK...I am gonna stop posting about mashups now. I promise.

Learning 2.0-- LOLcat mashup

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:53:00 +0000

I couldn't resist posting one more mashup. If you are a LOLcat fan, if you just like cats, or if you just want a good laugh, try the LOLinator. Too cute! :)

Learning 2.0-- Mashups...with one "wii-qwest"

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:33:00 +0000

As we approach the home stretch of our formal Learning 2.0 program journey, we take on the task of exploring Mashups. I confess that this has been one of the more confusing applications for me. I think I am making it more difficult than it really is, though. A mashup, as I can figure, is taking data from two or more different sites and putting onto one site turning it into something useful. I remember looking through the flickr mashups earlier in the semester and found several that I liked. I wanted to try to find some mashups unrelated to flickr this time, so I explored the web mashups directory and looked through the top picks. I found a great one related to shopping that I thought was especially appropriate as I think about good deals for Christmas. Secretprices.com has a great all in one site: it is a place you can find information on products, where the best deals are for those products, product reviews, and even price comparisons. It is truly one stop shopping! That is my kind of mashup. Now, if it could only help me find a deal on a Wii...

Learning 2.0-- Podcasting

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:25:00 +0000

This week's lesson required us to explore some podcast directories and find a podcast that interested us. I had already found a few library-related podcasts that I was subscribing to, so I wanted to look for some new ones. I found a children's book review podcast, Book Voyages, and an interesting Educational Technology podcast, The TechTeacher Podcast. I am hopeful that these two sites will not only help me with collection development but will also allow me to stay current with trends in children's literature and educational technology as it relates to teaching.

Learning 2.0--YouTube

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:20:00 +0000

I have been exploring YouTube for a while now. In fact, I recently uploaded a private video of my little boy singing at church so my sister and mom could see it since they couldn't be there. It was great! This is one of the things I love about YouTube (not related to libraries)--the ability to see events that you wouldn't normally get to see. I have noticed that people are using their cell phones and even their digital video cameras to videotape events and even segments of events, such as concerts, and upload them to YouTube. We can all now see concerts we couldn't afford to attend or didn't get to go to because the event was too far away. Also, YouTube has allowed us to be eyewitnesses to events. Some might feel this is an invasion of privacy; others feel this is just the kind of extra set of "eyes" that can help prosecute criminals who commit crimes while unknowingly being caught on a cellphone or videotape. Of course, YouTube can also catch us at a vulnerable moment, like the well-known Miss Teen USA incident involving Miss South Carolina. It is interesting how a technology like YouTube has changed history in many ways. The Miss Teen USA incident, while embarrassing for Miss South Carolina, would likely have been forgotten in a shorter amount of time without a tool like YouTube.

This technology can have great implications for education and libraries, too. Libraries have posted lots of videos promoting their services and even instruction sessions and tutorials on YouTube and other video sharing sites. These are great tools to use to reach library users with a form of media that is appealing and familiar to them. These video sites, along with many of the other Web 2.0 tools, also allow for users to create content, a more friendly approach for libraries. Libraries have even had contests open to their patrons encouraging them to make creative videos either promoting a particular library service or tied to a holiday. The best videos were then uploaded to YouTube. Maybe the best thing about events like this is that it helps the library not just feel like a fun place to be, but that the people who work inside are approachable and "real."

Here is a video from the Allen County Public Library video contest:

Here is a fun video I found related to databases:

What "accent" do you have?

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:21:00 +0000

OK, I just finished reading a friend's blog and saw her entry about accents. She had taken a quiz that showed where she was from based on her "accent." My results showed that I had "no accent." It said I was from the midland. Well, that part of the quiz didn't really "work." However, the other part of the description, "...for all we know you could be from Florida..." was spot on. :0) Take the quiz and see what accent you have.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The Inland North
The South
The West
The Northeast
Philadelphia
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Learning 2.0--Web-Based Applications

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 18:31:00 +0000

We were directed to check out the UCD Library 2 go's blog post that lists web-based applications that might be useful to students during their college careers. I decided to check out the library's site a little further. I was intrigued by the idea that this library was 1) creating a blog and 2) pointing students to web-based applications that would potentially take the place of products like Word and Powerpoint, software programs that librarians are seemingly always being asked to offer technical support on the use of. So, I went to the library's homepage to find out more. [On a side note--It was neat to see a meebome widget on the front of their homepage. :) ] I think most (all?) of the applications may be new to many of the students. I knew about Zotero, and was a little surprised that they mentioned it considering they have a license for EndNote on their campus. I think the most useful applications would be Zotero and Google docs.

Also, students who need to incorporate surveys into their studies will find Survey Monkey useful; a user can survey up to 100 particants with up to 10 questions with their basic version for free.

A recent addition to UCD's blog that I think students will also find helpful is the post on online photography and image tools. More and more students are connecting with each other through social networking sites. Part of the connection is personalizing their sites with images; the tools mentioned in this post offer advice on photo editing, photo sharing and even photography blogs. In fact, I think I am going to check this post out further for myself! :)

Learning 2.0--Processing Words on the Web

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:27:00 +0000

I have been working with Google docs and its presentation application and have really enjoyed them. Things I like: the ability to work on a document at the same time as my co-workers, no need to email a file back and forth between my co-workers, and a clean and simple interface. Things I don't like: dependence on an Internet connection. If you are at a conference and have your presentation in Google docs, you must have an Internet connection in order to present. This isn't always a problem, but with Bill G's product, your technology requirements seem easier to meet. For students, Google docs presents lots of advantages, not the least of which is the $0 price tag. It is exciting to think about the possibilities of collaboration if students could meet online at the same time to work on a project in Google docs. They could add content and edit and see those changes happening live. There would be no downtime as in traditional file swapping via email. Of course another benefit is the ability to access the document from any computer. The file resides on the web, making it accessible from any internet connection. With Google docs, you can also export the file as a Word file if you wanted to open it in Word later.

Web-based applications offer a great alternative to the high-priced office suite applications. They offer equitable functionality at a great price (free!) and can even provide more benefits than their software counterparts.

Photosynth...Oh the possibilities!

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:19:00 +0000

I saw this video and was amazed. I guess I am behind the times since this was posted back in May, but I still thought it was worth sharing in case a few others had not seen it yet. Wow...how far we have come with digital images and how cool to see the possibilities of how to connect photos from all over the world to make them even more meaningful. Now this is "big picture" thinking.

Learning 2.0--More about wikis

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 17:09:00 +0000

Now that we have actually added content and/or edited a wiki, we have a little more experience with the look and feel of how it works. We have all seen, and (be honest!) used wikipedia and even our own Learning 2.0 wiki, but how can we do more with a wiki beyond this experience? What I like about wikis is the idea that they invite connection and collaboration. That collaboration doesn't have to take place while people are sitting across from each other at a conference table. It can happen within a school building or a library. It can happen within an organization. It can happen between one classroom in Kentucky and another classroom in Germany. A wiki provides a forum for invention, discussion, creation and sharing. There are lots of potential uses for wikis in an educational setting. Students can collaborate on projects by posting documents, editing content, adding images, sharing feedback about group members' work, and embedding links to appropriate resources, just to name a few ideas. A wiki can be a good environment for problem solving skills to be put to work. Then, as the students work through different stages of the project, the teacher can offer comments via the wiki. (S/he can get notified when new content is added or when content has been edited on the wiki.) Teachers can also use wikis to share ideas and resources, post lesson plans, and collaborate on projects with others who may not even be in their school.

Because wikis do allow such wide access (or at least potential wide access), those who would use wikis need to evaluate how much access they want for their wiki. There are restrictions that administrators of the wiki can place on it, including who has rights to edit content. Those who have administrative rights can get notifications of changes in order to monitor content, if necessary. The notifications can also serve users and contributors so that they will be aware of progress on current work being done on a project, or if a document has been edited so that group members can go in and see changes.

Some examples of school wikis:
Arbor Heights Elementary School wiki
Carman Elementary School wiki
Westwood High School wiki
Salisbury High School Chemistry wiki

Learning 2.0--Gettin Wiki With It

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:08:00 +0000

In this week's lesson, we were asked to explore some wikis to see how they are being used in libraryland. My favorite is the Libsuccess Wiki. I have found this to be such a useful tool as a librarian, especially in the early stages of implementing an instant messaging program here at EKU. I consulted this repeatedly during those months before we started our IM service in order to get names, to see examples of other schools' websites, and to look for ways that other libraries were promoting their IM service. Having the libsuccess wiki was one of the most valuable resources for me as I prepared my info for our IM workgroup. It has many more components that make it a rich resource for librarians, including links to websites that provide marketing ideas and success stories, suggested resources for online training, ideas for management and leadership, and, as I mentioned before, a huge section for information on online reference. If you haven't already been there, you should definitely check out the Libsuccess Wiki.

Microsoft Office Rival

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:32:00 +0000

You know about OpenOffice and Google Docs, but have you heard of IBM's Lotus Symphony? It is obviously getting some attention. See the full article here.

Learning 2.0--Del.icio.us

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:28:00 +0000

According to their website, del.icio.us "is a social bookmarking website" whose primary use is to allow a user to store links to his/her websites in one place so s/he can access them from any computer. When I first heard about del.icio.us,a few years ago, I immediately liked the idea because of the frustration of having to try to remember websites I visited at home and at work. If I went from one computer to another, I had to try and recall the address of the website, or I would have to Google the site to call it up on the computer I was at. Del.icio.us could solve that problem, yay!, so I created an account. I also discovered that several libraries are using del.icio.us instead of traditional subject guide pages. I originally learned about this at the 2007 ALA midwinter conference from a roundtable discussion I attended. I was excited at the possibilities, especially since patrons could contribute to the tags for the subject guides and could even add sites. How cool would it be to see what sites your fellow library users found to be most useful? I think the del.icio.us interface is not the prettiest, but its function and purpose is terrific, especially if libraries want to find ways to offer more user-centered services.

Learning 2.0 Tagging part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:43:00 +0000

I'm baaaaack. Well, after a very long hiatus, I am finally getting back into the swing of the Learning 2.0 lessons. The semester got started and I was drowning in a sea of instruction and other duties, but I am ready to get back on track.

We were directed by our Discovery Exercise #2 to explore Encore with a number of searches and to discuss the effectiveness of the tag clouds. My first search was for "differentiation," a term that is heard often in the context of education and teaching. So, I was expecting to find resources dealing with education when I did my search. The first item that appeared in the results list (at Michigan State Univ) was an education-related title. However, the tag cloud that appeared had no terms related to education. After clicking on the "more" button that appeared below the tag cloud, I was led to the larger cloud that did contain a few more phrases related to education. I had to click on "individualized instruction" (a phrase that appeared in a tiny font size) to find relevant titles. The tag cloud that appeared on the initial screen might not benefit education majors in this instance. In fact, seeing all of the biology and math related terms in the cloud might even confuse students. The concept behind the tag cloud is beneficial, however, with a search like "death penalty." In that search, capital punishment appears as a phrase in very large print along with many other very relevant terms and phrases that would certainly give a user ideas for related concepts.

I think the appeal of tag clouds lie in the visual ability to identify terms that are more "relevant" or appear more often in a catalog search. In the most recent search for "death penalty," for example, "capital punishment" was the more popular term and had more entries in the catalog than "executions and executioners." This wasn't indicated by a number (as is typical in a results list of a catalog search), but rather by font size. I think this visual indicator may appeal to students. Instruction will be key to our implementation of Encore and the benefits of features like the tag clouds. Showing students to go deeper than the first screen, to click on relevant "tags" to run a new search and to see titles that are relevant to that new term or phrase will be helpful. I think students will like not having to come up with new terms on their own; in that respect, the tag clouds are also very helpful. In an instruction session I would likely also demonstrate a non-example to students, though, to show that tag clouds are not perfect; the differentiation example shows that while tag clouds can be helpful and visually appealing, they aren't always instantly useful. If students are willing to put the time into clicking deeper, the "more" button can help them think through the terms and to get more ideas. Quality research isn't a quick process; I think it is worth reminding students of that in our instruction sessions.

Tagging--part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:33:00 +0000

Well, I must admit I dreaded this week's lesson. I confess, it was because I associated it with cataloging. (No offense, I promise.) I respect catalogers. I am jealous that I don't know enough about cataloging. I avoided it in library school. I avoid it still. Now, tagging isn't exactly cataloging, but I can't help but link it with that c word. The appeal of tagging over straight LCSH, though, is that it makes more sense, common sense. (imho) Tagging tends to use more brief terms and language that is more like everyday words that one might use to describe a "thing." Of course, therein can lie a problem with tagging, too. Simple isn't always best. Still, imho, it is more "friendly." I like searching flickr, for example, using tags. I think I find things much easier using one or two terms. (Trying to search google with one or two terms is difficult, though.) Tagging is less limiting than LCSH; a person can use more terms to describe a book, photo, movie, etc. and is not limited to the parameters of LCSH. I like the flexibility of tagging.

Getting back to the learning activity...in the spirit of the impending college football season, I chose to search "college football." In Google, I got 96,900,000 hits; in eQuest, I had less luck with only 34 results. I am not surprised given that we are not a library that is likely to collect many books/items on football. I don't think I chose a term/phrase that allowed me to see the benefits of tagging over LCSH, but reading some of the other blog posts have helped me to realize that tagging, while a flexible, more common sense option for areas outside of libraries, may not be the perfect solution for cataloging items inside of libraries where consistency still seems to be important for some library patrons. As Margaret's original post in the Learning 2.0 Lesson points out, we don't all use the same words to describe things. It seems important, though, to find ways to offer patrons flexibility in their search options. Perhaps we can allow patrons to add tags to items' records in the future to allow such flexibility? This makes the search more meaningful for users of the catalog, and it can inform librarians when it comes to collection development decisions because we can see what items are being "touched" in the catalog. The University of Pennsylvania is doing this with their PennTags. Maybe more libraries will incorporate this kind of idea in the future.

Rollyo

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 18:08:00 +0000

Well, I have been taking a break from Learning 2.0 and now am back in action. I have just been exploring Rollyo. I admit I haven't entirely mastered this tool yet, but I see potential for this, especially if a person has a laundry list of favorite sites s/he likes to search. I don't necessarily do that very often, but it could come in handy if I applied myself and found a strong list of reputable sites that I knew had good content in a particular area of interest. The limit of 25 sites might be problematic, but reality is that I would probably have a hard time finding 25 right now on any one area, so for me 25 isn't an issue.

OK...have been doing some more exploring and I just thought of a possible use for this in an educational setting. If a teacher wanted her students to do a search, but wanted them to limit that search within a certain group of websites (reputable ones, or ones that had particularly relevant info on a particular topic), that teacher could create a searchroll for the class and have them search only those websites. While this may be limiting their search, it could point them to some highly relevant content. And, it could allow the teacher to introduce some websites to her students that might be of use to them in a later assignment. Just a thought. I am sure there are many other potential uses for Rollyo. In fact, I saw a few searchrolls that seemed to be promoting sites (for business/marketing purposes). Interesting.

Here's my roll.

Learning 2.0--Library Thing

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 16:54:00 +0000

This week's lesson is all about LibraryThing. I confess that while I think this could be a great tool for some, it just wasn't something I got excited about. (probably because I am drowning with other things to do this week, not because it isn't a great tool) A few features I did like about LibraryThing were the ability to see what other tags were used to describe a book, to view ratings of books, and to see reviews. For those who really enjoy good discussion of books, the groups are neat, too. For now, here is my measly beginning of a bookshelf. Don't be too cruel fellow laborers.

Lolcats meets the iphone

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 18:01:00 +0000

For TADL Folk
Originally uploaded by mstephens7

For lolcats and iphone fans...

Marketing exec's take on Library 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:35:00 +0000

People outside of library land are talking about Library 2.0. Check out Rohit Bhargava over at Influential Marketing Blog. His recent entry, "Librarians Blogging And The Birth Of Library 2.0" speaks highly of librarianship as "one of the most important careers of the future." Bhargava, a VP of Marketing in Washington DC, comments that librarians are playing a role in organizing web content and making it more accessible to people. (I am reminded of the video. ("Web 2.0: the machine is us/ing us," created by Michael Wensch, an anthropologist at Kansas State University.) Bhargava also lists several 2.0 bloggers, including Michael Stephens, David Lee King, Meredith Farkas, and Jenny Levine. I thought this was particularly relevant to our group of library staff as we are in the midst of our Learning 2.0 journey. I liked his view of us. What do you think?

Found on LiB

RSS continued

noreply@blogger.com (Cindy J) — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 20:04:00 +0000

The second lesson this week encouraged us to add more feeds. I didn't really need more feeds (as I mentioned in my earlier post), but I found myself reading other people's blogs this week, which led me to add another blog. (Thanks for the tip, Kelly!) I have previously used my Bloglines for news feeds and blogs, but today I thought of something else. While playing around in Flickr, I discovered that you can add a feed for comments and new photos. So, whenever one of my contacts adds a new photo or if someone comments on one of my photos, I will be updated via Bloglines. This was something I hadn't thought I using my Bloglines for until this week. Very nice!