TKSCILS598F08

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 02:58:00 +0000

This is me, standing around in a Japanese-inspired cafe, in Second Life. My name is Mira Delicioso, and despite (or because of?!) the Dorothy Gale get-up, I was hit on by an avatar from Brasil my first day in SL. That, and the creepy weirdness of both Orientation & Help Islands, made for a stellar first impression!

Haven't been to Info Island yet, but plan to go. Right now, though, Mira's chillaxin' in Gabrielle's designated 'safe space'! Updates to follow.

The Johnson Reading

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:02:00 +0000

The Johnson reading has direct implications for education. However, I don't think what he's talking about in the book "EBIGFY" should be news to educators who know Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. Breaking up lessons to apply to multiple learning styles and strengths should come naturally to seasoned instructors: and in fact, there ought to be very little "stand-and-deliver" instruction at this point. Most schools are supposed to be engaged in collaborative learning that engages students, not lectures. This is not always the case in higher ed - but it ought to be.

In a collaborative model, gaming and particularly multiplayer games which encourage group problem solving ought to be a learning tool. It might be worth having educators read the Johnson book just to shed light on what kind of learning games facilitate, and then play some educational games. Also, why not work in tandem with people who create games to develop new software? If I'm not mistaken, didn't the man responsible for the 'last lecture' make educational games for children? (Alice, maybe, was the name?)

I don't want young people to get the kind of 'education' offered in Feed. But I don't believe it's an 'either/or' proposition with learning. Everyone can learn, but the 'how' of learning varies depending on the individual. Educators and librarians ought to have every tool at their disposal to make this happen for students.

Rate the Class.

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 23:51:00 +0000

I’ve really enjoyed this class. Certainly, things in the class ARE going to change: that’s the nature of the subject. However, I think the current mix is a good one. I also believe that the skills we learned progressed in the correct order, and I was impressed that each week’s assignment built on the previous week’s knowledge.

One minor, minor point: while it may be useful for everyone to sign up for and try every type of im account (yahoo, gmail, aol, msn), I only used two between our meebo assignment and the rest of the homework. Perhaps paring the amount of mock accounts down would save time – then you could just add more to that week’s group assignment! =8P

I learned some really amazing things this semester. The best part was that most of this stuff outside of blogging was new and somewhat scary. (Screencast! imovie! Podcast! Avatar?!) Yet it was fun, far easier than I thought it would be, and completely interesting and engaging! I can’t wait to have free time to play around more!!

So my only advice is: keep it up! And share anything new with us ‘alums’ once we hit the end of the class, proper.

Debi Creams Tara at Tetris: Film at 11

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:08:00 +0000

Well, actually: film below. It's not pretty!

Tetris keeper!

Which System?

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:43:00 +0000

The answer to the question "which system?" depends upon the user population of your library. Who comes there and uses the consoles? Teens? Adults? Children? Perhaps you want to survey your user population, or see how much volume use games take up in your computer usage, or track who has used the previous console(s)/how many times it has been checked out, if you have a prior system. If you're not seeing much use of the current system, is it due to obsolescence or disinterest? You want to know this before potentially breaking the budget on something few would use.

You may also want to see what user preferences are. Do they have systems at home? If I know that the majority of my YA population has a particular system at home, do I want to duplicate those systems, or introduce something new? Also, is this for in-library use, in a game room, or to check out?

Finally, what is my budget? What do other libraries use, and what has their experience been with certain systems?

I think my 'dream system' would be a Wii. My reasoning would be that there would be plenty of cross-use among adults and teens, and it is still exclusive enough to be something not everyone would have at home. The availability and expense could be prohibitive; however, it would have a longer shelf-life, being relatively new, than an older system that might be replaced in a year by newer technology. You don't want to purchase something cheap that no one wants to use. The Wii has enough excitement factor built in to generate use and enthusiasm.

Screencast Best Practices

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:14:00 +0000

I tend to take the hand-held, 'burn tape', cinema verite approach to screencasting: just start, and see what happens. Multiple takes give you a better chance of finding something you want to use.

I find that if I script it, it sounds scripted, so I don't write anything down. I do, however, have a general idea of what I want to say and what I want the viewer to take away from the screencast.

I also attempt to practice, if I can. This was not the case in this week's screencast, where I had little idea of the game, the interactive function of the game, and the ways that Facebook operated things like 'challenges' or chat while in the game. I was also operating in a time-crunch: I literally sat down, opened a game, began to set up Jing - and then there was Debi, who had agreed to give me a half-hour on a Friday night (we won't even talk about the time difference between NJ and WI!). But an important thing I learned when I began shooting film is that you need to factor in the unexpected - and sometimes the things you don't plan are far more entertaining than those you do. So I've applied the same approach to screencasts when it's appropriate. In the context of a game, where fun and confusion are part of the reality, this week's off-the-cuff aspect makes sense.

I practice more when I am focused on instruction and clarity. I want to make sure the links work and the transitions are smooth. I put a lot of 'screen rehearsal' into the 'how to use IRIS' screencast because there were a number of links, screens, and tasks to integrate, and I wanted to be sure to make this simple and fluid.

I also factor in that the technology won't work, or work as expected. It's what happened with equipment at my school's film program, and it's what happens with all technology every day, everywhere. It's something you did or some glitch or some simultaneous perfect storm - but you have to roll with it. Re-shoot, reconfigure, re-do. Deal with the frustration that your perfect take vanished, or stopped in mid-cast.

And, last but not least, try to enjoy the process for the process. Could you do this before? No? Then, look at the cool thing you just learned!

George Will: Wrong Again

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:27:00 +0000

I must admit that this week's reading and gaming assignments have changed my perspective a bit. I should have realized, given high school friendships with D&D gamers, the complexity of games. Most of the people I knew who played these games were brilliant at math and in the computer classes where they learned Basic and Fortran, so I certainly did not believe these games were for lightweights. However, it was hard to see the connection between D&D and early computer/video games like Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, or Atari Pong. I did recognize the 'addictive' properties of games, which was one huge reason I didn't play them: the idea of investing hours of my time in this type of activity seemed extremely wasteful. What possible benefit could I get from perfecting my score at Pac-Man?

But then along came Steven Johnson - and Tetris. Johnson's argument about the increasing sophistication of games and the kinds of skill and perseverance needed to achieve mastery rings true. I doubt he can convince George Will, but it seems to me that the mental skill needed to balance several levels of tasking - the immediate goal vs. the overarching goal - and the sheer number of hours devoted to multiple approaches at problem-solving actually makes today's gamers more able to understand and decode similar real-world problems. I also like what Johnson said about framing discussions of current culture as comparisons to previous cultural shibboleths: the infamous reading vs. gaming. These are false comparisons, since both exercise different skill sets. I enjoyed Johnson's 'description' of reading as seen through the eyes of a game-based culture: sometimes you need to see the argument from the other side!!!

But why Tetris? Well, at first it was the challenge: what is this game, exactly, and why is it so popular? How do you play? Why did this happen while playing? Then, competitively: what does the other person know about this game that I don't? Is it game knowledge, intuition, facility, speed at the controls? All of the above? Finally, it's the 'aha!' moment in miniature: it's a pattern recognition game! It's a visual/spatial exercise! You have to line up the cubes in unbroken chains! Mostly, it's what Johnson means when he talks about probing - the kind of thrill of discovery, and satisfaction after a period of frustration, that the game provides.

Some games may deliver the stupid. But my sense is that gamers become bored with the stupid. Game creators don't want players to become bored - they want them to engage with the game and get the next version. The demand for increasingly complex games is a good sign - just as the demand for increasingly complex forms of entertainment is a good sign. Let's face it: humans need diversion. They always have. The fact that demand for complex diversion is increasing is a sign of an increasingly complex society.

George Will and his ilk in the chattering classes would have much more credibility if they actually explored the areas they profess to deplore. My sense is that Will is stuck somewhere in his idea of a cultural golden age, and he thinks we should be, too. Fortunately, humans continue to evolve despite these 'tsk-tsk'ing naysayers nattering on about our impending doom.

How to Give Good Karma (at least on Facebook!)

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:29:00 +0000

Please watch the attached to use this 'ap' on Facebook:

2008-11-24_1918

Ning

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 19:54:00 +0000

OK, this I like, although I want to play around with the skin a bit.

A Ning is easy to set up, offers many features - such as an events calendar, photos, and videos - that would be great in a work environment, and has an administrative passcode so that only selected people can control the content. If you worked in a place that could spend a great deal of money on a website, then a Ning might seem redundant. But if you weren't able to spend a large section of your budget on a site, or wanted an internal system independent of a public site, then a Ning would be a great option. Since you can restrict access to an internal group, there might be great functionality for a department, unit, or working group.

Say for example your working group had a project on a timeline. You could track progress and meetings on the events calendar, set up blog posts of meeting minutes and results, upload pictures of the project if applicable, upload screencasts and video demonstrations, etc. You'd also have a living document of the process if anyone wanted to check your progress.

In a PL setting, you often have adult users attempting to conduct business from the library. A Ning would be a great tool to offer them as well, because it would give them another kind of internet 'presence' as well as a way to organize and network.

Aside from the graphics, I don't really see a downside. Again, impressed with the easy set-up and the 'drag-and-drop' functions. I need to check how easy it is to edit what you've got once you've committed - but if that checks out, I'm all for it!

danah boyd...

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 19:09:00 +0000

Maybe I should have read danah boyd's second article before diving into the 'Facebook is trending adult' statement. I can only base what I say on my impression of the site; the observation in an article in the NY Times Style section (usually about 1-2 years behind actual social trends); and the attitude of Rutgers students writing in the Daily Targum. That last audience, at least in the arts pages, dismisses Facebook and promotes MySpace. However, given the band-focus of MySpace boyd notes in the first article, and perhaps the fringe element she discusses in the second, there could be an explanation for that. And perhaps it's just cool for college kids to call Facebook 'lame'... I also wonder what boyd would make of the presence of Barack Obama on MySpace. Did this election (in which some teens were able to vote) have some impact on the allure of MySpace? For the record, I did not hear anything about Obama on Facebook.

So what do librarians take from all this? Allow teens access to both sites. Don't, as the armed services apparently did, try to draw some "good" vs. "bad" or "class" distinction from a social networking site. I don't think libraries are in the business of censorship in the first place, but librarians ought to be 'site-neutral' when discussing either SNS. It was kind of amazing, actually, to see this kind of 'good-site-vs.-bad-site' issue, anyway: sites are sites, and subject to the faults and virtues of their users and administrators. If you were to be a library that banned access to both sites, or refused to allow teens to access SNS, you'd hardly be serving your young adult population. You would actually be sending a clear message that the library wasn't for the likes of them - 'get off my lawn!', so to speak. So if you're concerned about predators, etc., on SNS, maybe it's better to have that message incorporated in a workshop about how to 'trick out' your page than to ban access outright.

Also, be prepared for 'NextGen' SNS, as well as the aging population of current SNS users. We are all different, wanting different things from different sites, and our ability to consume and digest the novel is only growing. We need to think beyond the current SNS - part of the point of the first article, actually - and adapt to what happens next. While it was cool to see some of what we've used in class brought on board in Facebook - video, microblogging, chat - that is only going to expand. So, we need to keep reading, keep learning, keep moving slightly ahead of the users - or we'll still be stuck on the 2009 version of Friendster in a decade.

The 'Sticky' Wicket

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:22:00 +0000

I'll preface this by saying that, as delighted as I was that we would be using and working with the much-talked-about MySpace and Facebook, I did take to mind the advice of the great Chuck D. and Public Enemy. Simply put, "Don't Believe The Hype." What would attract me to either of these places, and why would I want to spend my time there? I work full time at a beyond demanding job, part time at a great environment, and have carried a virtually uninterrupted class load since fall '07 - so time is tight. And wouldn't I rather spend that time with live humans in actual social settings? Yes, I would.

Given that, I was stunned by how fast I got into Facebook, accepting a college buddy's 'friend' request, getting and giving flair, engaging in 'superpoking', even uploading a set of travel pictures. Sadly, given what I'd heard about MySpace, that's been a harder sell and not sticky to me at all - yet. I'll definitely work on that, since most of my future clientele will be MySpacers and not Facebookers. Why do I say that? Mainly, because Facebook is living up to its reputation as a more 'adult' or GenX/Boomer place, taking on some of the 'class reunion' aspects of priveleged subscriber sites like Classmates, and some of the professional networking aspects of sites like LinkedIn.

Why are these sites 'sticky', and why would you spend hours of time there? Because it's all about you: you creating your identity and your world in your place for others to get to know who you are. You change and your life changes - and you can alter your page and your space to reflect that change. Your friends are an important part of your life, and if you can't see them, then you can visit their page and 'be in touch' with them. (Likewise, adult users might say that their professional contacts are important, and you can let them know what you're doing in that capacity and see if there are any possible cross-pollination prospects.) You can find friends you 'lost', or lost track of, if they have a page. You can also expand your social groups, if you choose, by 'friending' bands, politicians - hey, if I can 'friend' Michael Moore, Neil Young, and Henry Rollins on MySpace & Facebook, then why the hell wouldn't I?! (I think I can only Twitter Hillary Clinton...)

Again, I need to spend more time on MySpace - but I can already see that using Facebook would be like offering me unlimited access to Vosges Caramel Toffee. Uh, oh.

How to (mis)use IRIS

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 23:49:00 +0000

For anyone who hasn't stumbled across IRIS in their travels, here's a 'how-to' - provided you have a net ID, password, student ID, and pin number! Enjoy!

Rutgers Library - using Iris

My Favorite SCILS598F08 Videos!

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:19:00 +0000

I was pretty impressed with everything, but if I have to choose...

1. How to clean your house...

Can I please hire these kids?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FLYRObljBM

2. Bah Humbug!

Tis the season...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7jSaoXlJmA

3. Cardigans, cardigans, cardigans!

Need anyone say more?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjKWfJwUOdU

Thanks, everyone, for making a 'top list' tough!

Storm King Art Center

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 04:24:00 +0000

Storm King is, as you'll see on this 'tour', a beautiful, modern art sculpture park in NY.

Click To Play

A Recipe From One Of My Favorite Characters

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 03:50:00 +0000

Zelda Fitzgerald: 20s it-girl, jazz-age flapper, model for Nicole Diver and Daisy Buchanan in her husband's books - and occasional cook. This, from a series of recipes published in a women's magazine. Seriously.

You might also find it at a link here after it uploads properly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-cMohrQXzI

Education vs. Entertainment Video

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:34:00 +0000

The imp in me says, does it really have to be an either/or situation? Couldn’t a smart educator integrate entertainment into a video lesson? I think they could…

But let’s say for a moment that the two can’t relate, that education is education and entertainment is entertainment. While the survey conducted Pew Internet & American Life Project does show a high consumption of comedy viewing (31%) by adults, it also provides a very healthy statistical number (22%) to represent educational video viewers. The great news in this survey is that this percentage reflects a multigenerational interest in learning how to do something. And I suspect that number will probably increase as more and more of the population pursues their education online, and as more and more content becomes available.

The real issue may be that a popular site, like YouTube, has far more creators, both amateur and professional, posting comedy than posting instructional material. And it may be that educators are slightly late to the party when it comes to posting online content on YouTube. But I’ll never forget how much of an impact that instructional YouTube video we watched the first week of this class had on me – and how that led to someone in the class finding a YouTube hosted academic rebuttal, and so on. There’s fantastic potential here, and people have started to tap into it – and that’s for everyone’s benefit!

SCILS598F08 - One Big, Happy, Caffeinated Family!

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:00:00 +0000

Looking over everyone's Flickr photos, I had to laugh: we're more alike than different, at least in terms of what we've photographed as our 'educational experience':

Commuter students are just obsessed with getting to campus through the obstacle course: taking the bus, the car, the train; navigating through the road signs, the Rte. 18 construction; and once here, finding the available parking lot and having copious amounts of quarters for the meters.

Once here, the SCILS Lounge and its vending machines are a focal point: Pepsi, bad coffee, and what I hesitate to call 'tea' all assist us in our need to be eternally caffeinated. So many pix of home tea and coffee paraphernalia, with the occasional bottle of energy boost, lead me to believe we are very, very wired, and alternatively, very, very tired. We are also very, very hungry: another SCILS Lounge vending machine beautifully stocked with brightly colored treats, Panera, Au Bon Pain - we want to eat and run, or eat and work, often in front of our laptops or while sitting in class in those awful, tiny chairs. The pic of the open laptop paired with a bowl of soup says it all.

We love books. We love taking pix of the books. We love stacking the books or showing the books in the bookcase or showing how many books we've had to buy for all our classes. We also want to show off our (allegedly) messy desks and our laptops. We're all working hard & we want you all to know it!

We also like our leisure time, and spending off-hours with our pets (who like to sleep on our books and desks) and our people (who don't).

We've got our differences: mushrooms, edible or no, are not an item I acknowledge as food. On the other hand, while I've never had biscuits and gravy, they look good! Kinds of cars and laptops and pets vary.

The Chocolate Cheesecake 'Story'

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:24:00 +0000

Hopefully, this takes - and you'll have a great recipe for a very yummy chocolate cheesecake!

http://www.switchpod.com/users/tkscils598f08/ChocolateCheesecake17CC18.mp3

Blogs v. Podcasting

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:02:00 +0000

I think the advantages/disadvantages might come down to individual preferences for media consumption and retention; in my case, it's down to how I learn best.

I've learned over the years that I can truly get sucked into audio and lose track of the rest of the world, especially during certain types of audio that require extended attention, like books on tape or spoken word monologue files. It's why I listen to neither while driving. But weirdly, this rapt attention does nothing for my retention. If I'm listening to something, it goes away rapidly. The same can't be said for what occurs when reading. If I read or see it, I'm not only more likely to recall and understand it, I'm more likely to quote it back to you. I'm a visual learner. It's why, for me, listening to vodcasts requires several replays, but what's going on visually always registers.

However, podcasts have the virtue of making things more human:

We can hear voices, personalities, nuance: all hard to convey in text
We can add soundtracks, and sound fx, and use silence - text can't
We could convey in a short bit of sound all the message we need - we might need a lot of words to 'say' the same
It's more communal, say, then reading alone - or gives that impression.
Many of us are used to the concept of 'story time', in which someone read to us.

Add to this the idea that you've created a recording that's accessible to all at their convenience, and the virtues of podcasting are apparent.

Luckily, at this point, we're not in an 'either/or' position as far as text blogs and audio podcasts. We can have both.

Working With The "Long Tail"

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 15:50:00 +0000

Can libraries as a whole effectively utilize the "long tail" of our collections? Is it worth it? What would we have to do?

I think, again, we're trying to do this. I see it in the way we are attempting to make archival materials accessible online. At Rutgers, the collection policy states that we concentrate on collecting materials and manuscripts specific to NJ, and Rutgers, but there's a lot of overlap. For example, I processed part of a collection that was donated by Rutgers professor Angus Gillespie. This collection is ongoing, because Professor Gillespie has a few specific roles: current instructor, author, major player in the annual Folklore Festival, etc. If you view Professor Gillespie's work generally, his total collection is long tail; someone has to be interested in access to this particular person, in this particular time period. His concentration on folklore could be seen as a niche interest that might not necessarily guarantee shelf space in a university scrambling for space. However, once you create finding aids and electronically encode them so that anyone can access your collection materials, you're going to see far more use of those collections because you've made them available globally. You still have to find space - but you can now justify its use.

The finding aid for Angus Gillespie's papers will ultimately be available for search on Google. That's going to be a great help, as he's already become known for a small portion of his entire collection: a book he wrote on the World Trade Center prior to 9/11. These four boxes were the portion I processed, and it was easy to determine how valuable the interviews and ephemera Gillespie collected would be to future researchers. Now, rather than trying to track down all books on the WTC, they would have more rapid access to materials. But even if you didn't know this aspect of Gillespie's career, and approached him as an expert in folklore, you could determine it because of access to the entire finding aid. That's pretty cool.

Also, from an archival perspective, the use of encoded finding aids presents a chance to unify collections online in a way they are not currently organized. It could help institutions solidify present collections by physically aquiring them. It could point potential donors in the right direction. It could help researchers and library users plan collection visits in more logical ways, saving time and money. It would be convenient to have a better idea of what you'd find in a given collection. All of this is going to take time, money, effort, expertise - but better to bite the bullet and do it than turn away collections that will matter to someone. It's true we can't save everything - but I'd argue that it's harder to determine what to save when you're still trying to figure out what you have. Getting everything up online is one way to serve long tail, niche interests we may not have considered.

Anderson & Ants with Megaphones

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 13:26:00 +0000

Briefly: I think libraries have been doing what Anderson is talking about for a while now. Most libraries have been looking at both pre- and post- filter data when they consider what books to purchase. Librarians may look at Booklist, or any reputable pre-filter, to see what might interest patrons before the book hits the market; they may look at the New York Times Book Review, or the Review of Books, or Amazon lists, to see what's popular afterward. Some libraries work with companies that purchase books for them; all libraries need to have a sense of what their community might be about. Libraries need to function as predictors of what might move --

-- But always - always - library staff are responsive to the needs of their community. So if someone asks for a book the library doesn't have, the job is to get the book (film/audio/electronic journal) if at all possible. That might mean ordering a single copy, or it might mean using interlibrary loan. It might mean considering that electronic journal in the next bundled consortium purchase. It may mean tallying how many requests there are for any given item.

See, I'd argue that, at this point, most libraries are innately long tail, because the 'ants with megaphones' are their patrons. "What do our library users want?" is an eternal question. We're not in the position of saying, 'these are the resources we have - if you don't like it, take a hike!' Because at this point, people can and will do just that.

Tuition remission.

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:14:00 +0000

Tuition remission.
Originally uploaded by tkscils598f08

A major part of my educational experience. I've worked at Rutgers since November 2004, right after the election. In the beginning, I worked as a temp. Once I became a FT employee, I was eligible for the benefit and was able to finally apply to the SCILS program.

So, to me, this picture - of my Rutgers paycheck - stands for all the labor I've put into Rutgers over the past four years, as an employee (both at my job, and p/t at Carey) as well as a student. Not every college does this: and they should. It's a fantastic benefit.

My educational odyssey at this linky.

Class educational odyssey here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/scils598f08-edexperience/

Google Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 22:49:00 +0000

Ah, statistics! Google Analytics provides numbers, percentages, graphs, pie charts - but it all adds up to about 65 visits to this site here. And some of the things that are inspiring the (I'm assuming) non-class member visits are downright, er, odd.

That said, the most popular browser used to get here is, no surprise, firefox with 51. IE is a distant second with 14; chrome and safari tie at one each.

Many people are connecting via cable - 46, to be exact. Then it all drops off: 9 T1 users, 5 dialup, 3 DSL. However, 4 'unknown'?! What does 'unknown' encompass? Perhaps it's those 'intertubes' certain congressmen keep referring to...

Wet Paint iz E-Z!

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:58:00 +0000

If you're unfamiliar with wikis, wet paint is an easy way to begin using them. The instructional video on the main page is a great, basic explanation of why you might use a wiki. Then, a simple three step process gets you started and, voila! You are working on your new wiki!

"Basic" and "beginner" are good words to describe wet paint. For example, large icons and buttons for editing and uploading are easy to read, understand, and use. There are several basic text choices and a few pages of pretty backgrounds for the casual/new user. If you were working with a population with little computer experience, this would be an excellent resource - I could see library patrons creating pages easily here.

Of course, we've been "spoiled" by pbwiki, and in many respects I like pbwiki better. It has its secrets to reveal and I get the idea that it would only get better as you knew more about it. It has the potential to expand its usefulness as you learn - not the case with wet paint. But, wet paint probably was designed for people who could be intimidated by technology - and really shouldn't be. So while I like pbwiki, wet paint would be a first recommendation for someone who wants to throw something up on the web quickly and doesn't have the time/interest/intrepidness to explore more wiki options.

Libraries & Long Tail

noreply@blogger.com (TKSCILS598F08) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:23:00 +0000

Is the library world as a whole ready to benefit from Long Tail? Maybe.

I think librarians have known for a long time about the so-called ‘niche’ market, because they know their constituency. And to an extent, libraries already practice some elements of the Long Tail strategies discussed in the reading. For example, when libraries work as a consortium to buy bundled electronic journals for their patron’s use, they create access to a multitude of resources, save shelf space, and lower costs. Libraries have also offered podcasts and ‘rentable’ iPods, sparing some CD and DVD space while offering patrons a unique service.

But books are still an issue: the reason people come to the library, and the reason storage space is a problem. Libraries would need to adopt the same virtual shelving as Amazon, the same delivery system as Netflix, and the same downloadable service as iTunes to continue to serve growing Long Tail constituencies. They would largely need to rid themselves of objects, or rid themselves of the concept of ‘perpetually held’ objects. I am not saying that it could not work, or that discrete parts of discrete libraries do not make parts of this work already. But it would be tough to ask an archivist to reconfigure their special collection in this way. On the other hand, less space needed for books, more space available for archives… Could be a selling point!

We’re already reconfiguring what it means to be a librarian, and what it is we’re talking about when we talk about a library in 2008. Could we see the emergence of the library ‘superstore’? What will that look like?