Learning about Libraries and Technology

Moving over to WordPress

2008-06-14T13:58:00.002-04:00

Well, I finally decided to move this blog over to WordPress. WP made it very easy to import all of my Blogger posts to the new WordPress blog - much easier than I thought it would be (thanks, WordPress!). Even though WordPress offers its own statistics, I went ahead and ran the feed through FeedBurner just to see the difference in what each offers.

Here is the new feed:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/wordpress/OgPn

I hope the few of you that are there will keep reading...

Social Networking: Yahoo! for Teachers

2008-03-22T17:52:00.005-04:00

Yahoo! recently released a new social network for teachers allowing them to share learning materials.

Once you have an account, you will be able to explore projects added by other educators by state, grade level, and subject.

You can also connect with other teachers at other schools in your city, county, state - or anywhere!

What looks most interesting is the Gobbler, a tool that allows teachers to build a project by saving images, clippings, links, and other information from websites to your projects in Yahoo! Teachers. You can also create handouts or worksheets using the document creator and add it to your project. All your projects can be saved in a portfolio and shared with other teachers, and they can share their projects with you.

To get an account and check out this new network, go to the Yahoo! Teachers home http://teachers.yahoo.com/ to sign up for an invitation. You will be sent a password for the Beta site. The Beta site will then allow teachers to register for an account.

BAM Challenge: March Review - How to Make an American Quilt

2008-03-22T17:33:00.004-04:00

OK, this time I'm not late with my review for the Book-a-Month Challenge.

The March theme was Crafts for Challenge #3 in honor of March being National Craft Month. Since I love quilts and quilting is one the crafts I want to learn someday, I read How to Make an American Quilt by Whitney Otto. This is the story of several women in a quilting group in a small town in California. A different woman's story is told in each chapter, and for each story, the author provides an analogy to some aspect of quilt-making. As each woman's story is told, the reader also gets occasional glimpses of the other women through another's eyes. It's an engaging look into the lives of several very different women who still manage to come together to create quilts.

I'm ready and waiting for the April challenge!

Database Tips: Where did my My NoveList account go?

2008-03-08T14:27:00.004-05:00

EBSCO released the new interface for NoveList and NoveList K-8 this week. Here is a preview if you don't subscribe. If you do subscribe, the "Tour NoveList" link on the main page provides training materials and a video tutorial.

Now that NoveList is on the EBSCOhost platform, you may have noticed that your My NoveList account, if you have one, is missing. The personal accounts for NoveList have now been combined with My EBSCOhost accounts. So, if your NoveList lists or searches aren't now appearing in your My EBSCOhost account (as is the case with mine), you can log in to your My NoveList account by adding "~1" to the username for your My NoveList account.

For example:
Username: jsmith
Password: books2008

will now be

Username: jsmith~1
Password: books2008

I spent some time over the last two days recreating most of my lists in My EBSCOhost account because I didn't see an easy way to move them over. However, it was a good exercise in getting to know how the new interface works. This also means you won't have to keep track of separate accounts for My EBSCOhost, My NoveList, and My NoveList K-8 since they will now all be in the My EBSCOhost account.

BAM Challenge: February Review - In the Heart of the Valley of Love

2008-03-08T11:21:00.008-05:00

Again, I'm a little late with my review for the Book-a-Month Challenge. But, hey, I'm still hangin' in there!

The February theme was Heart for Challenge #2. I read In the Heart of the Valley of Love by Cynthia Kadohata. The setting is Los Angeles about 50 years in the future. The government rations water and gas. Pollution and sickness are rampant. Loss of loved ones to death or police arrest is quite common. Yet, despite the gloom, we see how people find hope through the main character, Francie, a teenage girl on the brink of adulthood. She, her family, her friends, and her boyfriend still seek love and friendship in the midst of chaos and desolation. I am most impressed by Kadohata's ability to juxtapose hope and despair in the same sentence.

Two down, and ten to go! Bring on the March challenge! I have my book ready.

Tech Tips: I heart Del.icio.us

2008-02-23T13:37:00.004-05:00

I love del.icio.us! It's my favorite social bookmarking application (although I will confess I haven't tried too many others since I like this one so much). You can find my del.icio.us account here and see how much I love it by all the tags and bookmarks. :-)

Getting Started
It's quite easy to set up an account and start bookmarking. Since del.icio.us is web-based, you can bookmark pages and see your bookmarks from any computer. You can also assign multiple tags to each bookmark and then organize your tags making it easy to find all the great recipe sites you've bookmarked - or whatever your interest is. You can also build a network of friends on del.icio.us to see what your friends are bookmarking. Since privacy can be an issue, del.icio.us offers a "do not share" checkbox beside each bookmark, so you can choose if there are ones you do not want to share.

Must Have Add-Ons
If you use Firefox, there are browser add-ons that make bookmarking much easier.

1) The del.icio.us buttons add-on simply adds a del.icio.us button and a TAG button in your browser navigation bar. You can bookmark any page as you find it by clicking the TAG button.

2) The Delicious Bookmarks add-on is an updated version of del.icio.us buttons, which also provides a sidebar that lets you browse and search your bookmarks easily.

Delicious Bookmarks :: Firefox Add-ons via kwout

You only need one of these - not both. My only issue with add-ons is that I have yet to find an add-on that lets you manage multiple del.icio.us account easily. I actually have a few accounts, and I want an add-on that lets me choose the account(s) when I add a bookmark. I know it would be hard to create, but I bet there's a developer out there looking for a challenge. ;-)

Blogging Settings
The blogging settings also offer some nice goodies. If you have a blog, you can include daily blog posts of the pages you have bookmarked in del.icio.us. Also, you can add a link roll to your blog (as I just did):

Learning about Libraries and Technology via kwout

Del.icio.us for Georgia Libraries
I have a second account here that I set up as an example of how librarians may use a del.icio.us account at their library, particularly for a reference desk in Georgia. I have been experimenting with a ranking system for the subject category tags with the idea that a librarian could give a 1- to 5-start rating to a site based on how good it is for a particular subject. Like I said, it's an experiment, and I may change it. Let me know what you think.

Ideas: Brevity is a Virtue

2008-02-13T17:31:00.004-05:00

I saw this post on the EDTECH list referring to a newspaper article that encourages people to write a novel of their life story in six words. I immediately envisioned six-word life stories from all over the world coming through a Twitter feed since its short format and international reach provides a great medium for this type of publishing.

So, here's my attempt at my life in six words:

Learned a lot, but still learning.

You can find it on Twitter.

So, what's your life story - in six words?

Update: I also found Mary Ann Bell's post about this on her blog, which is a great blog to read, by the way. :-)

BAM Challenge: January Review - A Wrinkle in Time

2008-02-12T19:30:00.000-05:00

Well, I confess I'm a bit late on my January review for the Book-a-Month Challenge. But, alas, circumstances beyond my control intervened, and I am now catching up.

The January theme was Time for Challenge #1. I chose A Wrinkle in Time by the late Madeleine L'Engle. This is a fiction work aimed at a juvenile audience, but it's certainly a book adults can enjoy as well. I had not read any of her books before this, but I now appreciate the loss that was felt in the world when she passed away last year. She has certainly been added to my list of favorite authors.

*Warning! Spoilers ahead!*

A Wrinkle in Time is a sweet story of courage in the face of evil and fighting for loved ones. Time (and space) travel is possible by traveling through the fifth dimension, which is the wrinkle in time. Meg Murry, her brother, and their friend travel through time and space to save her father from evil. I love that the author had the children work together using their individual gifts to accomplish their mission. I think this can be a great lesson to young people.

Thanks for the challenge! Now, on to the February challenge...

Library of Congress and Flickr - What Does This Mean for Other Libraries?

2008-02-03T19:41:00.000-05:00

As you may have already heard, the Library of Congress and Flickr recently launched a pilot project in which images from LoC's collections have been added to their Flickr page. The purpose of this project is to increase access to the collections and to obtain more metadata in the form of tags for the images.

In order to do this, Flickr created a new model of publication for publicly held collections, which they call "The Commons." This is how anyone is able to tag images on LoC's Flickr page.

And, the response has been awesome! Look at all the tags!

Since I read this news story, I've been pondering if this may encourage smaller libraries to upload their special collections to Flickr as well. I recognize that digitizing photos requires cost, particularly for smaller libraries with limited resources. However, unique collections of historical and cultural items are certainly an asset of our nation's libraries, and I hope this makes it easier to show them off. We'll see what the future holds as we continue to watch this project.

Tech Blog: SEGA Tech has Great Tech Tips

2008-02-03T19:12:00.000-05:00

I try to keep up with good technology blogs from people in Georgia, particularly if they are related to education or libraries. I found SEGA Tech (Southeast Georgia Technology) a few months ago. I learn something every time I read a post, but there have been two particular posts that have helped me solve endlessly frustrating tech problems.

1) My home laptop is a few years old. I have particularly noticed that Firefox has been running quite slowly the last few months. Along came this post, The seven steps to a faster Firefox. Browse faster! I followed the steps, and, although Firefox is still a little slow on my laptop, I have seen a big improvement in performance. YAY!

2) Since I do some limited tech support at work, I need to be familiar with both Firefox and IE since they are the most common browsers among our users. Although my preference is Firefox (and, oh, let me count the reasons), I often use IE7 at work (and have kept IE6 on my home laptop in case we need to do testing or troubleshooting). With IE7, I have been quite frustrated that I cannot change the homepage. My homepage comes up, but I can't navigate to another site - argh! Then, I found this post, Fix for Internet Explorer Runounce Error. Ahh! The joy of finally finding the fix to an annoying little problem!

Keep up the great work, guys! I'll be reading!

New Blog Feed - Now in FeedBurner

2008-02-03T18:42:00.001-05:00

I just started running my blog feed through FeedBurner so I can track statistics. Blogger is supposed to redirect my traffic through FeedBurner automatically, but please resubscribe to this feed if you have any trouble. Thanks!

Since I'm on the subject, I should mention that setting up my feed in FeedBurner was quite easy. All I had to do was plug in my blog URL, create an account, and make a few clicks, and now I can track number of subscribers, number of hits, and some other feed information. FeedBurner also provides several options for a "chicklet" (or widget) to place on my blog for users to subscribe. It's nice when something is so easy!

Outreach Ideas: Putting the Library in the Path of Its Users

2008-02-03T18:11:00.000-05:00

I posted this message to the PUBLIB-L list not too long ago and decided to go ahead and add it here as well. My message was in response to a poster discussing his library's recent community survey and their findings from that survey.

==============
My response:
I had a random - though related - thought as I read Paul's email.

Paul said the community is interested in what the library is doing, but he also said that their primary means of reaching people isn't as much as they would like.

It occurred to me that it may be helpful to offer tailored information for some area business and outreach groups. For example, I was working out at my local fitness center (Curves - love it!) the other day thinking I really needed some good books with health recipes, meal plans, and other tips for planning healthy meals (and now would be a good time for it - gotta catch people before they give up on that New Year's resolution!). If my Curves trainer could have handed me a list of health/fitness related items at my local library or a flier promoting library services that would help me find health/fitness resources, I would be quite likely to go check them out.

Now, I know this won't work for most businesses and organizations. I know this wouldn't work in some communities. I know some businesses wouldn't be willing to keep a list of handouts/fliers.

But, what about local daycare centers? Maybe a promotional flier or a quarterly list of new resources to let parents know they can find parenting books, children's books, etc. would be welcome.

Maybe the local gardening club would like to know about the gardening resources at the library.

Or, if the library has access to an automotive repair database or repair manuals, maybe the local mechanics would like to know that.

Would a local travel agency be willing to let their customers know the library has travel guides available?

Maybe religious organizations in the area would appreciate finding out about any religious fiction or nonfiction in the library.

If there are community centers in your area that serve persons with disabilities or senior adults, it may help if they know the library has large print books, or Braille books, or books on CD, or that the library offers certain services for those groups.

OK, I'll stop rambling now. The ideas just started flowing, and I started typing. It just seems this could be an opportunity to reach users at their point of need. It is also a way to put library resources in their daily path. Their daily path may not be to the library (or they may not even know the library can help them with that particular thing). But, if we put something in their path to show how we can help them, maybe they'll try it out.

So, is anyone doing this type of outreach? How do you do it? Is it successful? Do people appreciate it?
===============

You can see the thread here at the PUBLIB Archives

Tech Tips: Book Art

2008-01-02T21:28:00.000-05:00

Need a headline for a flyer? Looking for Friday fun? Amaztype is a fun service from Amazon that lets you search for a word in the title or author's name of books, music, or videos. Amaztype then spells out the name in books.

I think this could be fun for headlines on websites, flyers, etc. I'm not sure how well these images would print out, but there may be a way to use this for displays of themes or particular authors.

found via A Library By Any Other Name

Reading: Book-a-Month Challenge

2008-01-02T21:13:00.000-05:00

Well, I decided I needed a challenge for the new year, so here we go.

Book-a-Month Challenge

A new theme is posted each month, and participants choose a book related to the theme. Ideally (and this is the most challenging part for me), we read the book and post a review on our website or blog. So, while I don't consider myself much of a review writer, I'll do my best to keep up and post reviews here over the next year.

Anyone else up for the challenge? I'd be happy to have a friend to keep me accountable.

Tech Tips: Kwout - Grab a Screenshot and Quote

2007-12-27T20:41:00.000-05:00

kwout | A brilliant way to quote via kwout

This is a snazzy way to grab a quick screenshot and add to a website or blog. Kwout gives you the code so that you can embed the screenshot image (with a link - see image above) to a blog or website. All I had to do was add the bookmarklet to my browser, and I now I just click the bookmarklet to grab the screenshot.

Hmmm...now I have to think of some more ways to use this...

Georgia News: Gov Gab Appreciates Georgia

2007-12-27T20:37:00.000-05:00

It's always nice for your state to be appreciated for its authors, among other things...

Curl Up With A Good Book This Winter

Tech News: Was Your Grandmother a Hacker?

2007-12-15T14:14:00.000-05:00

First Computer Programmers Inspire Documentary

This is just an awesome story. During World War II, the Army asked six women to program ENIAC, the first electronic digital computer (more info about ENIAC here, here, and here). According to the news article, these women were not recognized for their work until now. I can't wait to see the documentary about these women.

Research Tips: Zotero - Wow!

2007-12-15T14:03:00.000-05:00

Peter Brantley recently sent an announcement through the DLF-ANNOUNCE list saying that Zotero and the Internet Archive have formed a partnership to encourage online storage of scholarly materials into a "Zotero Commons" and to allow for scholarly collaboration, among other things. Read more here.

Zotero has been on my "trythis" list for some time now, so I decided to go ahead and try it out. Wow! I wish I would have had something like this during college.

As I am searching in my library catalog, many of the library databases, and on the internet, I can save articles, books, and sites in Zotero by simply clicking a document icon that appears in the URL field of my browser window. Then, to view, organize, and tag my saved items, I click the "Zotero" icon that appears in my browser's status bar, which produces an extra window pane at the bottom of the browser window. Then, when I have all my articles, books, websites, etc. organized, I can export them to create a bibliography in a quite a few citation styles and file formats.

Oh, yeah, and it's FREE!

You can download Zotero here and view two brief tutorials here to see an overview and a demonstration.

I've now been pondering ways I can use this, aside from the intended purpose of scholarly research.

1) Database presentations - When I present on particular databases, I often end up bookmarking vendors sites with information, title lists, training materials, and other items related to that database, so now I could keep track of all that in one labeled Zotero folder instead of my spreadsheets and bookmarks.

2) Reading lists - Since I can bookmark items from Amazon and WorldCat.org (and some databases, too), I could start building reading lists that could easily be exported as bibliographies to share with anyone.

3) Genealogy research - You can save images and files as attachments when you save a record. I haven't tested this with some of the genealogy databases yet, but it might help to keep track of all the family records and local histories.

Hmmm...I know there could be quite a few more creative uses. If you can think of anything, please share your ideas!

Tech Tips: Simple Search - with Graphics!

2007-12-15T13:55:00.000-05:00

I just took a look at SortFix . It's a simple, Google-style search box, but the neat part is that once you run a search you can choose more terms to add to your search or terms to exclude by dragging and dropping suggested search phrases into a series of boxes labeled "Add to Search" and "Remove." I tried a search and then tried a couple of additional searches by adding and excluding their suggested phrases, and it worked nicely.

The About Us page indicates that they also intend to help build search skills. I have to say, I think being able to move suggested phrases around to refine your search is a great tool. I would love to try this with a school project to see how kids react to it. It would be fun to run a search and then experiment with adding and excluding search phrases to see what happens. If someone out there gets a chance to do that, please let me know!

found via LISNews

Web Design Tips: Color Generators and Color Converters

2007-12-15T13:45:00.000-05:00

I used to have a nice MySpace layout - one of those free ones someone else was kind enough to create. Well, it suddenly disappeared, leaving my MySpace profile looking a little sad. I tried to find another free layout - and there are plenty of places to find MySpace layouts online (yep, just Google "MySpace layouts"), but I wanted a layout with nice colors and no large image in the background. I found several plain layouts with no images, but I didn't like any of the colors.

But, I did find a MySpace layout generator that lets you pick your own image and colors. YAY, I say, but now what colors do I choose?

Oh, wait! I remember that I had previously bookmarked a color scheme generator (love those!!). I was able to pick out several shades of purple that coordinated nicely. Oh, dear...the layout generator requires RGB values, but the scheme generator only gives the hexidecimal values!

Determined not to be derailed from my project, I googled again and found a nice Hex-to-RGB converter . YAY!

So, after taking several steps and going the long way around to do it, I finally updated the layout for my MySpace profile. Of course, the next day I found this site with RGB codes and hexidecimal values. That would have been easier. Ah, well...live and learn.

Tech News: Google - Recommendation Friend or Privacy Foe? Or Both?

2007-12-15T12:01:00.001-05:00

Google Reader recently added some updates - most of which I have appreciated so far. One update is that it now makes recommendations based on your current feed subscriptions and your Google web history. Read more about it in this article.

I mostly read library, education, and technology feeds (and combinations of those three subjects). So, Google Reader recommended these to me today.

Clicking on the View All link gives a longer list with number of subscribers to gauge popularity, and - best of all - the number of posts per week. I have to confess that I have unsubscribed to a couple of feeds simply because I couldn't keep up with the number of posts.

Now, I appreciate the recommendations, but this brings up the privacy question. So, how much does Google know about me...and the scarier part, how much is it sharing about me?

Of course, I also have to confess that I subscribed to several feeds that were recommended because they were from blogs that interested me. Google has lured me in with tantalizing (and scarily spot-on) recommendations. But, is Google evil? How long do I continue to trade privacy for customized services?

Firefox Extensions: Read it Later

2007-12-15T11:48:00.000-05:00

I read a lot of news, blogs, and discussion lists, but I don't always have time to read some of the great stuff that is out there. I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem. So, when I found this extension, I was glad to have something to help!

Read it Later is a Firefox extension that allows you to easily mark any website – a news article, a blog entry, a page with several links you want to visit, etc. – as something to read later.

The extension works by placing two buttons in your browser window that look like this (for me anyway):

To save a site, just click the first button, and it will look like this:

When you finally find time to catch up on reading your articles (if you ever do!), just click the second button for your list of saved items:

After you have read something, just click the first button again to remove it from the list.

IdeaShower has also created a nice YouTube video to show this as well. The buttons are different from mine, but it works the same way.

Updated 12/27/07: IdeaShower released a new update for this extension. I downloaded it, and it still kept the items I had already saved.

Libraries Reduce Clutter and Save Money

2007-11-27T10:03:00.000-05:00

Yep, it's true! Marybeth at the GovGab blog says so.

First of all, the GovGab blog was started around the end of September for this year, and I have found it to be full of interesting tidbits about government resources. It's certainly worth checking out if you haven't already.

Now, back to the point of this post, Marybeth writes about the benefits of using her local public library. She notes that she can save money and reduce clutter in her home by using her library. And she also points out that the library's best resource is - drum roll, please - the librarians!

Thanks for the appreciation, Marybeth!

Pardon My Disappearance: No, I'm not dead...

2007-11-27T10:01:00.000-05:00

My apologies to anyone, possibly all two of you, that have been kind enough to read my blog. After August, the busiest part of the semester hit and lasted for several months, and I couldn't find time to keep up with reading and news, much less blogging. I was also struggling with whether or not to even continue this blog. It does take a lot of time and energy, but I felt I had a good vision for what it could be. So, I've been pondering the direction of where to go with it.

My original intent of the blog was to provide how-to's and tips related to technologies we are using in libraries to educate users and provide access - with a little related tech news thrown in. I realized I wasn't doing this as well as I wanted. However, I think I now have more clarity about what I want to do. I am also still working to find my voice with blogging, so I feel I shouldn't stop now.

So, here's where I think I should go. I want to do reviews of browser tools and add-ons, social networking tools, educational technology tools, etc. For example, I recently downloaded this great Firefox extension called Read it Later, and I want to tell people about it because I think it would make life easier. I also am pondering a project to create subject guides using NetVibes or PageFlakes, but I am still thinking about how to organize those. I also want to do database tips - search tips, fun features, etc. - in library databases. This blog would actually be a bit Georgia-centric, but my intent is to include things that are - or could be - used in many libraries. I'm setting a goal of one or two postings a week - I mean, we all need goals in life, right? - at least I do to push myself a bit.

Well, what do y'all - or maybe singular you? - think? If anyone is actually still reading, please comment or send me an email at learninglibtech@gmail.com. I'd like to hear any ideas and feedback.

Did We Ever Truly Trust Wikipedia?

2007-08-21T12:58:00.000-04:00

WikiScanner Identifies Editors on Wikipedia
http://mashable.com/2007/08/14/wikiscanner/

WikiScanner, which is discussed in the article mentioned above, is a new site that allows anyone to see who is editing what on Wikipedia. It is interesting enough by itself to ponder the potential uses and abuses for this tool, but the New York Times recently published an article on what has actually been discovered through it. It seems most of the "obviously self-interested" edits have come from users in corporate networks.

Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/technology/19wikipedia.html

So, I guess the moral of the story is what we've been saying all along...be careful with information found on Wikipedia. I think it also strengthens the larger argument for the need to evaluate sources of information in the digital age. Where are you getting information? Who did it come from?

Update: A blog post about this