I've finished. Woo!
Reflections:
RSS rocks for work-purposes! I was never able to understand what it could really be used for or anything...I love it! I leave it open in a FireFox tab whilst I'm working and check it twice a day (or more if I'm a bit bored).
Blogging is interesting. I tried taking my blog a few different ways and someone had a criticism about each of them (one rather public one too). The only one that everyone seemed to like was me gossiping about myself and I'd run out of ideas too quickly...I'm just not that interesting (although I have to admit that yes, I am the father of Hooba-Jooba Spears, Britney and I did the deed and now I'm forced to pay maintenance to her even though she earns a squillion dollars and I am a public librarian). Honestly I don't think my blog will continue much longer after this program, I'll try...but I couldn't even keep a diary (and I've tried that too). Maybe I should set a time aside once per week to write what I've done and learnt, someone might care (or not).
I've also learnt that history is more interesting than blogs. Out of all the blogs I've read for this program, this is by far my favourite.
Criticisms:
The way that we ran the program left some staff disinterested. I know that we're only half way through the program currently, but there are a number of staff who have made their blog and nothing else (or not even made their blog). Finding time in each day to do the activities is very difficult. Personally I did a lot of the work and readings at home. I think it may have been better if we'd organised some 'groups' of people to go off-desk at the same time and do the activities together. This would have motivated people more and also stipulated a time where they could 'play'.
Part time library staff are also at a big disadvantage, it's difficult to do all of these activities in 15 minutes a day when you work 2 days per week and the entire shift is spent on the desk.
Congratulations:
I'd like to congratulate everyone who made this program possible, especially Helene Blowers for putting it together and Lynette Lewis for going through the 800 or so blogs each week. I'd also like to congratulate anyone who has attempted any of this, just think of all the things you've learnt!
#22 Audiobooks (or "The end is in sight ")
HAHAHA. Oh you have to do this.
I listened to the start of David Copperfield done by some computer voice. It's rather funny. Click on cprfd001.mp3. It contains the contents of the book. For example; ''Tommy rattles, ex ex vee eye eye" hehehe.
I think that computer-generated voices will need a bit more work. Without tones, the book sounds ridiculous and boringly read. Good audiobooks are read by good readers. Compare the above against Briar Rose read by a human. Her voice and tones aren't fantastic, but at least she knows where and how long to pause.
Anyways, this activity was supposed to be about audiobooks. I think it's a very good idea for them to be online (maybe not in my library's area where home computer usage is very low, but in general they are a fantastic idea). In fact, I've mentioned LibriVox before. LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Unfortunately the files are not streamed like those from Project Gutenberg and I had to download individual chapters to my computer...but it's still free!
I think these would be great in the catalogue. If I could (somehow) link the 505 Contents note to the actual chapters of each of these e-books, I'd love it. I'm listening to Three Hundred Tang Poems, Volume 1 in Chinese. It's recorded in Mandarin and Hokkien, with some chapters in Taiwanese or Cantonese. I wish I could do it...hmmm...nope, not easily I can't. Bugger.
I listened to the start of David Copperfield done by some computer voice. It's rather funny. Click on cprfd001.mp3. It contains the contents of the book. For example; ''Tommy rattles, ex ex vee eye eye" hehehe.
I think that computer-generated voices will need a bit more work. Without tones, the book sounds ridiculous and boringly read. Good audiobooks are read by good readers. Compare the above against Briar Rose read by a human. Her voice and tones aren't fantastic, but at least she knows where and how long to pause.
Anyways, this activity was supposed to be about audiobooks. I think it's a very good idea for them to be online (maybe not in my library's area where home computer usage is very low, but in general they are a fantastic idea). In fact, I've mentioned LibriVox before. LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Unfortunately the files are not streamed like those from Project Gutenberg and I had to download individual chapters to my computer...but it's still free!
I think these would be great in the catalogue. If I could (somehow) link the 505 Contents note to the actual chapters of each of these e-books, I'd love it. I'm listening to Three Hundred Tang Poems, Volume 1 in Chinese. It's recorded in Mandarin and Hokkien, with some chapters in Taiwanese or Cantonese. I wish I could do it...hmmm...nope, not easily I can't. Bugger.
#21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!
Hmm, I didn't go so well with this exercise. I am not really an 'audio' person. I don't listen to the radio and would much rather watch something than listen to it (ie I'd rather read a book than have someone read it to me).
I did a search of Podcast Alley for Liechtenstein and came up with a 'school' in Liechtenstein that supposedly does them. I am a tad confused as to what the school is though because, after watching the podcasts (which all turned out to be videos), it looks like it is a school for Jonny Knoxville wannabees. Ah well.
The search engine sucks, I tried finding a podcast on Dana International (an Israeli singer) and ended up with all the podcasts with the word Dana OR the word International in it. I couldn't figure out how to get only the ones with both.
I then just randomly clicked on one of the podcasts on the front page (some Harry Potter one called MuggleCast) and the first entire minute and a half was taken up with ads...one for something called GoDaddy.com with some lecherous sounding man...ugh.
Just a note...the size of some of the podcasts is HUGE. The one I started listening to was 24meg for 44 minutes. I guess that's not too much really...not compared to video files.
If I see podcasts of things I'm interested in then I might listen to them, otherwise I don't really see myself doing this on any regular basis.
For a library, I think it would be good to podcast interviews with local residents for a local history project, or even podcasts of speakers that come to the library (if you can get the permission of the speaker that is). I've seen some libraries do podcasts about their libraries...'the reserve collection is kept on the second floor of the Dumbledoor Library'...that kind of thing (yes, I'm still listening to the H.Potter podcast). I'm not sure about this, I guess for people who are more audio-based it would be a good idea.
I did a search of Podcast Alley for Liechtenstein and came up with a 'school' in Liechtenstein that supposedly does them. I am a tad confused as to what the school is though because, after watching the podcasts (which all turned out to be videos), it looks like it is a school for Jonny Knoxville wannabees. Ah well.
The search engine sucks, I tried finding a podcast on Dana International (an Israeli singer) and ended up with all the podcasts with the word Dana OR the word International in it. I couldn't figure out how to get only the ones with both.
I then just randomly clicked on one of the podcasts on the front page (some Harry Potter one called MuggleCast) and the first entire minute and a half was taken up with ads...one for something called GoDaddy.com with some lecherous sounding man...ugh.
Just a note...the size of some of the podcasts is HUGE. The one I started listening to was 24meg for 44 minutes. I guess that's not too much really...not compared to video files.
If I see podcasts of things I'm interested in then I might listen to them, otherwise I don't really see myself doing this on any regular basis.
For a library, I think it would be good to podcast interviews with local residents for a local history project, or even podcasts of speakers that come to the library (if you can get the permission of the speaker that is). I've seen some libraries do podcasts about their libraries...'the reserve collection is kept on the second floor of the Dumbledoor Library'...that kind of thing (yes, I'm still listening to the H.Potter podcast). I'm not sure about this, I guess for people who are more audio-based it would be a good idea.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
#20 You too can YouTube
I love YouTube. I use it to watch music clips and parts of old comedy shows (like FastForward). I am quite glad that they merged with GoogleVideo (as having it compete was a bit silly when they did the same thing but YouTube's interface was better).
For a library website, I really like the 'Related Videos' feature. We could use that in the catalogue for related books. Or we might even catalogue YouTube videos. If there was anything of value to my community, I cannot see any reason we wouldn't catalogue the media. We could possibly even embed the player in the catalogue record (although what MaRC tag I'd use for that I don't know!). Maybe I'll try it and see what happens. Wish me luck!
I've tried to embed one of my favourite YouTube clips below...hopefully it works! All I've done is copy the 'Embed' text below.
For a library website, I really like the 'Related Videos' feature. We could use that in the catalogue for related books. Or we might even catalogue YouTube videos. If there was anything of value to my community, I cannot see any reason we wouldn't catalogue the media. We could possibly even embed the player in the catalogue record (although what MaRC tag I'd use for that I don't know!). Maybe I'll try it and see what happens. Wish me luck!
I've tried to embed one of my favourite YouTube clips below...hopefully it works! All I've done is copy the 'Embed' text below.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools
I was going to pick LuLu as my tool for this activity. It is an online publishing house that (I think) is going to revolutionise the publishing industry. It allows ANY writer to self-publish and LuLu will only print the copies that you pay for (so if you only want to print 12 copies of your work, 12 copies get printed). It will also sell your books for you so, if it costs $5 to print a book, you can charge $10 through LuLu and make a profit. Nice huh?
I've chosen not to do LuLu though because I've known of it before. A friend of mine was looking for somewhere to publish a book that he made and I gave it to him then.
Instead I have chosen Care2, a 'global network of organizations [sic] and people who Care2 make a difference'. My first comment is that the site is VERY full of information, a little too crowded in my opinion. In fact, finding out exactly what the site was was rather difficult. As near as I can gather, it's a 'profile' site for people who 'care' (like MySpace or Facebook where you advertise yourself for friends instead of to find someone who wants to help you change things).
Good things: The interesting search ways. Instead of just 'searching' for something you click on a term which brings up more terms for you to click on. After a while you receive a list of members. http://www.care2.com/c2c/people/tag/books/Gone+with+the+Wind <--that is a link to all people who like the book Gone with the Wind. I clicked on 'find people', then chose 'interested in books' and then 'Gone with the Wind'.
The site itself is very similar to any other profile site (ie MySpace) but you can give other users butterflies for being a Care2 member (ie you earn them for being good).
Finding petitions to sign is also very easy. You can create your own (ie Landrights for gay sperm whales), advertise it and have people 'sign' it online. Most of the petitions seem to be American based (about the US president or US politicians).
Bad things: Crowded, crowded, crowded!
VERY American based. I don't know if that's a cultural thing, but it's a tad daunting.
To do anything you need to sign in (I hate that kind of stuff, but that's a personal thing).
I've chosen not to do LuLu though because I've known of it before. A friend of mine was looking for somewhere to publish a book that he made and I gave it to him then.
Instead I have chosen Care2, a 'global network of organizations [sic] and people who Care2 make a difference'. My first comment is that the site is VERY full of information, a little too crowded in my opinion. In fact, finding out exactly what the site was was rather difficult. As near as I can gather, it's a 'profile' site for people who 'care' (like MySpace or Facebook where you advertise yourself for friends instead of to find someone who wants to help you change things).
Good things: The interesting search ways. Instead of just 'searching' for something you click on a term which brings up more terms for you to click on. After a while you receive a list of members. http://www.care2.com/c2c/people/tag/books/Gone+with+the+Wind <--that is a link to all people who like the book Gone with the Wind. I clicked on 'find people', then chose 'interested in books' and then 'Gone with the Wind'.
The site itself is very similar to any other profile site (ie MySpace) but you can give other users butterflies for being a Care2 member (ie you earn them for being good).
Finding petitions to sign is also very easy. You can create your own (ie Landrights for gay sperm whales), advertise it and have people 'sign' it online. Most of the petitions seem to be American based (about the US president or US politicians).
Bad things: Crowded, crowded, crowded!
VERY American based. I don't know if that's a cultural thing, but it's a tad daunting.
To do anything you need to sign in (I hate that kind of stuff, but that's a personal thing).
#18 Web-based Apps: They're not just for desktops
Let's see, signing up to ZoHo was fairly easy. I entered some details and they sent me a confirmation email. I didn't even have to access the confirmation email to use it either (which, as I'm doing this whilst watching tv on my couch, is quite good as I sent it to work).
Saving documents was easy, as was posting them to Blogger (in fact, it was MUCH easier than from flickr which required me to set up a whole bunch of things). I don't know if that means ZoHo has a better working relationship with Blogger or they're just better hackers.
Features-wise...all the standard modern word processing stuff is there; styles, headings, etc. Personally I like Google Docs better, maybe because of their spreadsheet capabilities.
Saving documents was easy, as was posting them to Blogger (in fact, it was MUCH easier than from flickr which required me to set up a whole bunch of things). I don't know if that means ZoHo has a better working relationship with Blogger or they're just better hackers.
Features-wise...all the standard modern word processing stuff is there; styles, headings, etc. Personally I like Google Docs better, maybe because of their spreadsheet capabilities.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Evil Gypsy Lady
Certain people have made comments about my inability to blog regularly. If my memory serves me correctly, these may be the same people who insinuated I have too much time on my hands at work for blogging too much!
Anyways, it is a Sunday night and I am watching the end of Mr & Mrs Smith (average action film starring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pit). Whilst watching Brangelina argue and shoot things is fun, I thought I might blog a bit too.
The topic of today's blog is Evil Gypsy Lady (EGL for short). EGL was a patron of mine when I worked at a certain library service. She seemed to take great offence to the fact that I was:
a) male
b) not going to pull every Jackie Collins novel ever published out of my ar$e for her to borrow.
I remember asking someone else to serve her one time. I then felt really guilty for asking Ms. Librarian to do this as I knew it wouldn't end well. EGL proceeded to call Ms. Librarian a 'b!tch' and tell her that she 'hoped she got lost in the desert with no camels or water'. She then proceeded to use a four letter word starting with f (not fork) in front of children at the top of her voice and had to leave. I believe she received a politely worded letter from our CEO telling her not to come back.
EGL is easily distinguished by the tea-cosy she wears on her head and the shawl that she wears. She hates male librarians and is in love with Jackie Collins. Her nickname came about when she 'cursed' Ms. Italian for not procuring an early Jackie Collins novel. Poor Ms. Italian (who, by the way, is living more happily than ever...which just goes to show that EGL's cursing powers were rather bad).
Anyways, it is a Sunday night and I am watching the end of Mr & Mrs Smith (average action film starring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pit). Whilst watching Brangelina argue and shoot things is fun, I thought I might blog a bit too.
The topic of today's blog is Evil Gypsy Lady (EGL for short). EGL was a patron of mine when I worked at a certain library service. She seemed to take great offence to the fact that I was:
a) male
b) not going to pull every Jackie Collins novel ever published out of my ar$e for her to borrow.
I remember asking someone else to serve her one time. I then felt really guilty for asking Ms. Librarian to do this as I knew it wouldn't end well. EGL proceeded to call Ms. Librarian a 'b!tch' and tell her that she 'hoped she got lost in the desert with no camels or water'. She then proceeded to use a four letter word starting with f (not fork) in front of children at the top of her voice and had to leave. I believe she received a politely worded letter from our CEO telling her not to come back.
EGL is easily distinguished by the tea-cosy she wears on her head and the shawl that she wears. She hates male librarians and is in love with Jackie Collins. Her nickname came about when she 'cursed' Ms. Italian for not procuring an early Jackie Collins novel. Poor Ms. Italian (who, by the way, is living more happily than ever...which just goes to show that EGL's cursing powers were rather bad).
#17 Playing around with PBWiki
Hmm, added my link. I like the WYSIWIG editor but it failed on me when trying to add the link (error in the page) and I had to go to the old-fashioned editor.
Our library is going to be using a pbwiki wiki (because of the WYSIWIG editor) for an 'Ideas box' where staff can log ideas and discuss them in an online environ. I am hoping it might get ideas floating across the entire library service instead of keeping them confined to a branch. It will be confined to library staff and password protected, even just to view it. I'd like to have it hosted on an internal server, but I don't want to spend money on something like this if it turns out staff are notgoing to use it (and I can just convert it across if it works well).
Because of the Ideas Box, I've had a bit of a play around with wikis. I even tried setting one up on my webserver (it comes bundled with it) but it had WAY too many options that I had not a clue about (and the server is slow). Honestly, I bought the space just so I could have my email address...one day I might put something on there, but mostly I just use it to test stuff for work.
Our library is going to be using a pbwiki wiki (because of the WYSIWIG editor) for an 'Ideas box' where staff can log ideas and discuss them in an online environ. I am hoping it might get ideas floating across the entire library service instead of keeping them confined to a branch. It will be confined to library staff and password protected, even just to view it. I'd like to have it hosted on an internal server, but I don't want to spend money on something like this if it turns out staff are notgoing to use it (and I can just convert it across if it works well).
Because of the Ideas Box, I've had a bit of a play around with wikis. I even tried setting one up on my webserver (it comes bundled with it) but it had WAY too many options that I had not a clue about (and the server is slow). Honestly, I bought the space just so I could have my email address...one day I might put something on there, but mostly I just use it to test stuff for work.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
#16 So what’s in a wiki?
Wiki wiki wiki! I quite like wikis, in fact I've editted some things on wikipedia. Not much, but a few things.
Looking at Library Success, there are a couple of things that caught my eye.
Services in a multi-lingual environment.
Very interesting for Brimbank as we're a community that has a very strong multi-lingual focus (we collect in about 16 different languages, the newest being Bosnian). Some of the information about brochures and the like was interesting, I might even make some editings on there if we do anything fancy.
Staff training.
Also interesting, more because of the programs that were implemented (although no mention of the Learning 2.0 model on there)
That's all for now.
Looking at Library Success, there are a couple of things that caught my eye.
Services in a multi-lingual environment.
Very interesting for Brimbank as we're a community that has a very strong multi-lingual focus (we collect in about 16 different languages, the newest being Bosnian). Some of the information about brochures and the like was interesting, I might even make some editings on there if we do anything fancy.
Staff training.
Also interesting, more because of the programs that were implemented (although no mention of the Learning 2.0 model on there)
That's all for now.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
And here's to you Mrs Robinson...
Guess who is pregnant? That's right, it's Mrs Robinson and she's pregnant to me!
I love library gossip. Let's see some of the things I've been gossiped about since I started working in libraries.
1. Who I sleep with (men, women, no-one).
2. That I'm a virgin.
3. That I'm a giant ho (same person who thought I was a virgin changed their mind and decided I was a ho).
4. That I'm dating/sleeping with:
a) Monica (Library Tech Extraordinaire)
b) Tracy (bet ya didn't hear that!)
c) Ruth (80 year old Doveton woman)
d) Perren (a friend from highschool)
e) Paul the shelver
f) Steven the lecturer
g) Suzie (cataloguer at Latrobe Uni)
h) Eda the fashionable librarian
i) Mrs Robinson
Actually, that's about it. Why do library staff need to know who I'm sleeping with? It's not any of them! (I have a policy of never dating a co-worker).
Although, finding out that Mrs Robinson is pregnant was new. And if she's pregnant, I must be the father because we've talked on the phone and I called her Honeypie (Lucy, if you're reading this you'll know that my swear-jar is empty if I'm honeypie'ing people). Just for everyone else, honeypie is what a former co-worker used to call people who irritated her on the phone.
Example:
"Look Honeypie *grinds teeth*, if the power is out then your computer will not work no matter how much you yell at me...no, not even if you plug it into another powerpoint".
I love library gossip. Let's see some of the things I've been gossiped about since I started working in libraries.
1. Who I sleep with (men, women, no-one).
2. That I'm a virgin.
3. That I'm a giant ho (same person who thought I was a virgin changed their mind and decided I was a ho).
4. That I'm dating/sleeping with:
a) Monica (Library Tech Extraordinaire)
b) Tracy (bet ya didn't hear that!)
c) Ruth (80 year old Doveton woman)
d) Perren (a friend from highschool)
e) Paul the shelver
f) Steven the lecturer
g) Suzie (cataloguer at Latrobe Uni)
h) Eda the fashionable librarian
i) Mrs Robinson
Actually, that's about it. Why do library staff need to know who I'm sleeping with? It's not any of them! (I have a policy of never dating a co-worker).
Although, finding out that Mrs Robinson is pregnant was new. And if she's pregnant, I must be the father because we've talked on the phone and I called her Honeypie (Lucy, if you're reading this you'll know that my swear-jar is empty if I'm honeypie'ing people). Just for everyone else, honeypie is what a former co-worker used to call people who irritated her on the phone.
Example:
"Look Honeypie *grinds teeth*, if the power is out then your computer will not work no matter how much you yell at me...no, not even if you plug it into another powerpoint".
Gnoos
I've just registered for Gnoos. It's an aussie blog search engine. Kind of like all of the other blog search engines we've been using but only for Australian content. It's worthwhile looking at if you want some local blogs.
Also, in response to my last blog post, I stick by it all :P Technology is fast advancing and we've not really had anything like this since the industrial revolution. It will take at least a generation for all of the new gizmos and gewgaws to infiltrate right through. I may not see it in my life, but I believe it's inevitable. Inevitably inevitable (Team America quote for those of you who know it).
Also, in response to my last blog post, I stick by it all :P Technology is fast advancing and we've not really had anything like this since the industrial revolution. It will take at least a generation for all of the new gizmos and gewgaws to infiltrate right through. I may not see it in my life, but I believe it's inevitable. Inevitably inevitable (Team America quote for those of you who know it).
Friday, October 5, 2007
#15 On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ...
I found this exercise fascinating. The very first thing I noticed was, of the five speakers listed in the exercise, only one was female. For a female dominated industry, I find that quite sad. Why aren't more females spouting the crap that us males spout? Equal rights rah rah. I find it even more pathetic because all of the strong advocates of Web 2.0 technologies in libraries that I know are female. I liase with librarians in New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria, and only two male librarians spring to mind who advocate this, the other 20 or so are female. (Maybe it's because the only people talking about this are either academic librarians who have to justify their employment with innovative research or upper management of IT companies wanting us to use their products...or is that just my jaded view?)
Back to Library 2.0. The most interestesting article to me was 'To better bibliographic services' by John Riemer. As a cataloguer, he talks about using existing metadata (our library catalogues) to enhance our collections. This is something close to my heart, I believe that all libraries do way too much duplication and that there should be easy ways of acquiring all kinds of things. Book data is very easy to acquire (log in to LibrariesAustralia, edit my holdings and ta-da, I have a catalogue record for my library) but data for other media are lacking. Even something as commonplace as a Naruto DVD required me to make the record myself (we are a small, poor public library, we do title cataloguing for such works and I wouldn't even bother making it available to everyone else, it would be lovely if someone did full cataloguing with tables of contents, etc). Even better would be linked tables of contents/chapter listings. With audio this would be brilliant and could link to snippets of the music that are available on various CD sites. I understand there'd be copyright implications, even for 10 second snippets of music, but it would still be nice.
Sorry, got distracted (it happens so easily). Actually, the distraction works for me. One of his 'hints' is to adopt web features...things like linking in to data that is already available (ie snippets of music). Maybe even link to reviews. We're hoping to get something similar working at Brimbank Libraries with a link to LibraryThing. Hopefully, we'll be able to get LibraryThing to connect to our data and give suggestions for other books to read. This is currently available in things like Bowker's FictionConnection but, well, this doesn't integrate as easily as LibraryThing would (and costs a crapload more).
I also thought Wendy Schultz's article 'To a temporary place in time...' was interesting, mostly because I don't really agree with her forecasting. Firstly, she assumes that libraries will be a quiet place in the future (ha! I wish they were quiet now...has she ever been in a public library?) and that just got my goat. I don't want my library to be quiet. Quiet areas, yes. Comfortable, yes. Quiet everywhere? No. I'd rather my public library be comfortable and cosy, like a living room. I want couches. I want a fireplace. I want someone to serve me a hot chocolate and bring me the latest Who Weekly and call me sir. Personally, I think libraries are going to end up as entertainment only venues. We'll have free gadgets (virtual reality spaces), free reading material (the latest Virginia Andrews books, sure she'll be 986 years old and dead for 900 of them but she'll still churn them out) and somewhere you can dump the kids whilst you go shopping (storytime 7.1). Our specialist skills will all fall flat, very few people go to a public library to get research done. Academic and school libraries will still exist (if only to help teach scholars proper was to search the Googlenet) but public libraries won't be for that kind of stuff.
I was interviewed recently as part of a research project looking into the library services for Baby Boomers and I think I'm quite jaded. If the physical library exists at all in 100 years, it will be as a data storage centre. Although people say they can't live without books, in all honesty, they're going to all die off soon enough (myself included) and new technologies will emerge that supercede paper. They can already create a screen that is as thin as two credit cards, and technology will only get better. I'm fairly certain that I'll see something that supercedes paper as a reading medium in my lifetime. After all, I'm young enough that I don't need a book to do anything really, sure I don't like reading for fun on a computer, but I'd much rather read a recipe on one than store 600 cookbooks on a shelf in the kitchen.
Maybe I'm just too jaded today.
/end rant
Back to Library 2.0. The most interestesting article to me was 'To better bibliographic services' by John Riemer. As a cataloguer, he talks about using existing metadata (our library catalogues) to enhance our collections. This is something close to my heart, I believe that all libraries do way too much duplication and that there should be easy ways of acquiring all kinds of things. Book data is very easy to acquire (log in to LibrariesAustralia, edit my holdings and ta-da, I have a catalogue record for my library) but data for other media are lacking. Even something as commonplace as a Naruto DVD required me to make the record myself (we are a small, poor public library, we do title cataloguing for such works and I wouldn't even bother making it available to everyone else, it would be lovely if someone did full cataloguing with tables of contents, etc). Even better would be linked tables of contents/chapter listings. With audio this would be brilliant and could link to snippets of the music that are available on various CD sites. I understand there'd be copyright implications, even for 10 second snippets of music, but it would still be nice.
Sorry, got distracted (it happens so easily). Actually, the distraction works for me. One of his 'hints' is to adopt web features...things like linking in to data that is already available (ie snippets of music). Maybe even link to reviews. We're hoping to get something similar working at Brimbank Libraries with a link to LibraryThing. Hopefully, we'll be able to get LibraryThing to connect to our data and give suggestions for other books to read. This is currently available in things like Bowker's FictionConnection but, well, this doesn't integrate as easily as LibraryThing would (and costs a crapload more).
I also thought Wendy Schultz's article 'To a temporary place in time...' was interesting, mostly because I don't really agree with her forecasting. Firstly, she assumes that libraries will be a quiet place in the future (ha! I wish they were quiet now...has she ever been in a public library?) and that just got my goat. I don't want my library to be quiet. Quiet areas, yes. Comfortable, yes. Quiet everywhere? No. I'd rather my public library be comfortable and cosy, like a living room. I want couches. I want a fireplace. I want someone to serve me a hot chocolate and bring me the latest Who Weekly and call me sir. Personally, I think libraries are going to end up as entertainment only venues. We'll have free gadgets (virtual reality spaces), free reading material (the latest Virginia Andrews books, sure she'll be 986 years old and dead for 900 of them but she'll still churn them out) and somewhere you can dump the kids whilst you go shopping (storytime 7.1). Our specialist skills will all fall flat, very few people go to a public library to get research done. Academic and school libraries will still exist (if only to help teach scholars proper was to search the Googlenet) but public libraries won't be for that kind of stuff.
I was interviewed recently as part of a research project looking into the library services for Baby Boomers and I think I'm quite jaded. If the physical library exists at all in 100 years, it will be as a data storage centre. Although people say they can't live without books, in all honesty, they're going to all die off soon enough (myself included) and new technologies will emerge that supercede paper. They can already create a screen that is as thin as two credit cards, and technology will only get better. I'm fairly certain that I'll see something that supercedes paper as a reading medium in my lifetime. After all, I'm young enough that I don't need a book to do anything really, sure I don't like reading for fun on a computer, but I'd much rather read a recipe on one than store 600 cookbooks on a shelf in the kitchen.
Maybe I'm just too jaded today.
/end rant
#14 Getting not-so-technical with Technorati
Today's post comes courtesy of my friend's laptop and is made using Windows Vista. An interesting experience which involves lots of pretty (but useless) things that slow down my 'computer experience'.
Anyways, today I looked at Technorati. Oddly enough, a search for Learning 2.0 (in the blogs tab) does NOT bring Helene Blowers blog up first. Luckily it's on the first page, but LibraryBytes is down the bottom of the first page when I performed my search. She's lower down because she has less 'Authority' (click on the word to read Technorati's definition).
Because Library 2.0 is kind of boring to search for (I think I've had enough of it for this week), I searched for Liechtenstein (bet you didn't see that coming!). As of today (October 5, 2007), there were 3663 blog posts about Liechtenstein (the first was a Runescape guide of all things), 33 blogs about Liechtenstein (including one called the Liechtenstein National Blog which wasn't in any of the languages spoken in Liechtenstein) and some videos and photos of Liechtenstein which were mostly crap. For some reason, a lot of sites on Liechtenstein are in Japanese...I'm wondering if it's a popular Japanese tourist destination...then again, one of the sites was on getting an internship in Liechtenstein so maybe Japanese bankers want to work there due to the lack of tax.
With the search results, they seem to be chronologically ordered for blog posts and popularly ordered for blogs. Great for blogs I guess, bad for posts. The Runescape thing only mentioned Liechtenstein because Runescape now has more players than Liechtenstein has residents (34,247 residents of Liechtenstein according to the CIA World Factbook entry.
All in all, I think Technorati is probably the best blog search engine of them all (even if it's not the most comprehensive, it was very easy to use) and I've signed up and all so that other people can read the boringness that is my life.
Speaking of my life, hi to all the CCLC readers out there!!!
Anyways, today I looked at Technorati. Oddly enough, a search for Learning 2.0 (in the blogs tab) does NOT bring Helene Blowers blog up first. Luckily it's on the first page, but LibraryBytes is down the bottom of the first page when I performed my search. She's lower down because she has less 'Authority' (click on the word to read Technorati's definition).
Because Library 2.0 is kind of boring to search for (I think I've had enough of it for this week), I searched for Liechtenstein (bet you didn't see that coming!). As of today (October 5, 2007), there were 3663 blog posts about Liechtenstein (the first was a Runescape guide of all things), 33 blogs about Liechtenstein (including one called the Liechtenstein National Blog which wasn't in any of the languages spoken in Liechtenstein) and some videos and photos of Liechtenstein which were mostly crap. For some reason, a lot of sites on Liechtenstein are in Japanese...I'm wondering if it's a popular Japanese tourist destination...then again, one of the sites was on getting an internship in Liechtenstein so maybe Japanese bankers want to work there due to the lack of tax.
With the search results, they seem to be chronologically ordered for blog posts and popularly ordered for blogs. Great for blogs I guess, bad for posts. The Runescape thing only mentioned Liechtenstein because Runescape now has more players than Liechtenstein has residents (34,247 residents of Liechtenstein according to the CIA World Factbook entry.
All in all, I think Technorati is probably the best blog search engine of them all (even if it's not the most comprehensive, it was very easy to use) and I've signed up and all so that other people can read the boringness that is my life.
Speaking of my life, hi to all the CCLC readers out there!!!
Thursday, October 4, 2007
#13 Tagging, folksomonies & social bookmarking in Del.icio.us
Maybe I'm too much of a cataloguer, but I like tagging stuff with uniform tags. I understand how tagging works (and I quite like the idea of people tagging within a library catalogue), but I do understand that it needs a wide userbase to work (ie, of the 60,000 active Brimbank borrowers, I doubt any more than 200 would add any tags to our catalogue, this wouldn't be very helpful). Tagging in a union catalogue would be of more use if all of the member libraries had access to the tags.
Anyways, an online favourites thing like del.icio.us might be of use, I update some of my favourites every time I log on (ie for webcomics where I read them sporadically, they have to be updated to the last time I read them) and I didn't see that as very easy with del.icio.us.
Umm, it's rather late and I'm a tad uncaring about this at the moment (bad I kn0w) so I'll natter some more tomorrow.
Oh! I added a 'search Brimbank's catalogue' thing to my sidebar. I always wondered if it would work so I want everyone to search for a book in our catalogue. Go search. Now. (Although it's possibly screwed because our webserver is cracking the irits this week). Try anyway!
(I also have a del.icio.us tag in my sidebar...gee that word is hard to type)
PS Library User Calculator. Cool (although none of our magazines are $2...and who buys a movie for $4? Are they only buying crap?)
Anyways, an online favourites thing like del.icio.us might be of use, I update some of my favourites every time I log on (ie for webcomics where I read them sporadically, they have to be updated to the last time I read them) and I didn't see that as very easy with del.icio.us.
Umm, it's rather late and I'm a tad uncaring about this at the moment (bad I kn0w) so I'll natter some more tomorrow.
Oh! I added a 'search Brimbank's catalogue' thing to my sidebar. I always wondered if it would work so I want everyone to search for a book in our catalogue. Go search. Now. (Although it's possibly screwed because our webserver is cracking the irits this week). Try anyway!
(I also have a del.icio.us tag in my sidebar...gee that word is hard to type)
PS Library User Calculator. Cool (although none of our magazines are $2...and who buys a movie for $4? Are they only buying crap?)
