I've certainly learned a lot from completing these various "things". There are a few that stand out to me because I will probably continue to use them on a daily basis. Specifically RSS feeds, Google Docs, Podcasts, and LibraryThing.
As for the technology that I was already familiar with, I learned how one might apply them to a library setting. The number of tools available is startling. I'm sure by the time I finished learning how to use these, dozens of new ones have come along.
This has also been my first blog. Though I probably will never be a big "blogger" it is good to see what it is like having one.
Another great thing about this activity is that I feel more competent when it comes to current web 2.0 technology. Before whenever somebody said something about RSS feeds I had no idea what they were talking about. I feel like I've learned some of the lingo.
Activities similar to 23 things should be revisited by librarians every couple years so we can stay on the edge of web technology.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Thing 22: LibraryThing
The exercise for this was to simply add 5 books to our LibraryThing account. It was very hard to stop at five, I was finally able to pull myself away at 30. I have heard other students in SLIS talk about LibraryThing, but I never really knew what it was. How cool! It recommends books to you based on the books you add to your library!
I also really enjoy the "cloud" options it gives you. This allows you to see what kind of books you like to read. LibraryThing is a must for bibliophiles. It seems that there is also a significant community aspect to the website as well. There are plenty of reviews for books and a message board to discuss books with other readers.
I've never really had to do Reader's Advisory (all my reference work has been in an academic library) but I will be sure to recommend this website when I do.
One thing I would like to see, and maybe it's there and I just missed it, is a way to search books by tags other put on them. For example, there was a book of mine tagged "post-apocalyptic". I would like to see more books in that genre.
Here's the link to my library: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/hanear21
I also really enjoy the "cloud" options it gives you. This allows you to see what kind of books you like to read. LibraryThing is a must for bibliophiles. It seems that there is also a significant community aspect to the website as well. There are plenty of reviews for books and a message board to discuss books with other readers.
I've never really had to do Reader's Advisory (all my reference work has been in an academic library) but I will be sure to recommend this website when I do.
One thing I would like to see, and maybe it's there and I just missed it, is a way to search books by tags other put on them. For example, there was a book of mine tagged "post-apocalyptic". I would like to see more books in that genre.
Here's the link to my library: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/hanear21
Thing 20: Internet Security
While software updates and good passwords are important for protecting our myriad online accounts, I think the most overlooked aspect of our security is our online reputation. Facebook would be the first thing that comes to my mind, but there are plenty of other social networking site that are just as guilty.
The fact is that it is now so easy for people to find these profiles that we put up. When you Google somebody's name their Facebook almost always come up right away. If you have a very common name you just have to put the city they live in and there it is, at the top of the list.
Facebook in particular is notorious for changing it's online security settings. One day nobody can see you or find you, but the next your whole page is open to anyone. I think they are getting better at avoiding this, but if it happens when you are interviewing for a job you can bet they will look closely at what you do online.
Better than tweaking your preferences on Facebook would be to simply put nothing online that you don't want the whole world to see. It's almost a cliche to say so these days, but it's still very true. Since I finished high school I've been parsing my Facebook profile down and down.
The fact is that it is now so easy for people to find these profiles that we put up. When you Google somebody's name their Facebook almost always come up right away. If you have a very common name you just have to put the city they live in and there it is, at the top of the list.
Facebook in particular is notorious for changing it's online security settings. One day nobody can see you or find you, but the next your whole page is open to anyone. I think they are getting better at avoiding this, but if it happens when you are interviewing for a job you can bet they will look closely at what you do online.
Better than tweaking your preferences on Facebook would be to simply put nothing online that you don't want the whole world to see. It's almost a cliche to say so these days, but it's still very true. Since I finished high school I've been parsing my Facebook profile down and down.
Thing 19: Search Engines
Here I will search a common topic on several different kinds of search engines and discuss my results. My topic will be "Blacksmithing" (remember?). I'll describe the top 5 results from each search.
I searched "Blacksmithing" in Bing and got the following results:
1.) The Wikipedia article for "Blacksmith"
2.) A blacksmithing guide for the computer game World of Warcraft.
3 - 5.) And three informative websites about the art of blacksmithing.
Next I did the same search in Google:
The results were very similar to Bing. There was the same Wikipedia article, and then four websites about the game World of Warcraft.
I then searched Dogpile.com (a meta search engine):
Here the results seemed to be quite literally a mix of Bing and Google. The Wikipedia article was on top, and below that was a mix of websites about World of Warcraft and about the art of blacksmithing.
Overall, I'm not a big fan of metasearching (or federated searching) because often you have to sacrifice specificity for quantity of results. A single search engine's results of 7,530,000 is quite enough for me, thank you.
I searched "Blacksmithing" in Bing and got the following results:
1.) The Wikipedia article for "Blacksmith"
2.) A blacksmithing guide for the computer game World of Warcraft.
3 - 5.) And three informative websites about the art of blacksmithing.
Next I did the same search in Google:
The results were very similar to Bing. There was the same Wikipedia article, and then four websites about the game World of Warcraft.
I then searched Dogpile.com (a meta search engine):
Here the results seemed to be quite literally a mix of Bing and Google. The Wikipedia article was on top, and below that was a mix of websites about World of Warcraft and about the art of blacksmithing.
Overall, I'm not a big fan of metasearching (or federated searching) because often you have to sacrifice specificity for quantity of results. A single search engine's results of 7,530,000 is quite enough for me, thank you.
Thing 16: Google Docs
I just started using Google Docs this semester and it has proven to be extremely useful! As any MLS student knows, group work is a key component to most classes. Our groups use Google Docs because it allows us all to collaborate on a single document at the same time.
This was especially useful when we were working on a presentation. We were able to work on it in real-time without having to all be in the same place at once. When more than one person is in a document, they can see where the other person's cursor is at any given time. Plus, there is a chat feature on the side, so it makes it very easy to communicate without any third party software.
Since the documents are saved online or "in the cloud" there is no worry about who needs to hold onto the finished product. The creator of the document just invites those who need to see it. Also, as a Mac user, I don't have to worry about compatibility issues between different word processing software.
One has to wonder how long a product like this will be available for free, as I'm sure people would be willing to pay for it. This kind of product does much to lessen the tide of email correspondence we all have to deal with on a day to day basis. No more back and forth emails about the various drafts and changes that need to be done on a document. Everyone just logs in and can see the work in progress for themselves and change things as needed.
Of course there could be concerns about privacy issues. Where do these documents get saved, and are they in a secure place? Plus, we have no idea how long they will stay saved. Until we know more about the future of Google Docs I would not recommend using it as a long-term place to store important information.
This was especially useful when we were working on a presentation. We were able to work on it in real-time without having to all be in the same place at once. When more than one person is in a document, they can see where the other person's cursor is at any given time. Plus, there is a chat feature on the side, so it makes it very easy to communicate without any third party software.
Since the documents are saved online or "in the cloud" there is no worry about who needs to hold onto the finished product. The creator of the document just invites those who need to see it. Also, as a Mac user, I don't have to worry about compatibility issues between different word processing software.
One has to wonder how long a product like this will be available for free, as I'm sure people would be willing to pay for it. This kind of product does much to lessen the tide of email correspondence we all have to deal with on a day to day basis. No more back and forth emails about the various drafts and changes that need to be done on a document. Everyone just logs in and can see the work in progress for themselves and change things as needed.
Of course there could be concerns about privacy issues. Where do these documents get saved, and are they in a secure place? Plus, we have no idea how long they will stay saved. Until we know more about the future of Google Docs I would not recommend using it as a long-term place to store important information.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Thing 14: E-Books
I got my fiancee a Kindle last Christmas and we really enjoy it. E-Books are great but not everybody likes to read long texts on a backlit screen. It seems like E-Book readers are going to be quite popular for the next few years, we'll see if it's just a fad or not.
For this activity I searched for the book Fight Club. I did not expect to find it for free because it's relatively new. A few of the databases had the book, but I could only see a few pages. I know, though, that if I had searched for a book like Plato's Republic I would have found many copies available in full text.
At least having all of these free ebooks is a perfect excuse to catch up on reading the classics.
For this activity I searched for the book Fight Club. I did not expect to find it for free because it's relatively new. A few of the databases had the book, but I could only see a few pages. I know, though, that if I had searched for a book like Plato's Republic I would have found many copies available in full text.
At least having all of these free ebooks is a perfect excuse to catch up on reading the classics.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
A Thing Worth Mentioning: Jing!
I was looking over the 23 things list and decided to add something to it. There is a piece of software called Jing that has been essential during my time at the reference desk. Jing simply allows you to take screenshots and make videos. It is most useful when doing chat reference. Here's an example of how one might use Jing to easily explain how to find an online resource:
-The patron asks "Where can I find an electronic biography of Gandhi?"
- Here's the Jing screencast I made: http://screencast.com/t/odGMdFM66eK
This is so much easier than trying to explain how to do it through chatting. The patron doesn't need to have any prior experience to see what I'm doing in the video. It's less than a minute long and it allows us to take the patron through the process of searching, instead of just giving them the answer.
Jing is also useful for taking screenshots because you can manipulate the size of the capture box. So if you want to take a screenshot of just a small object on your screen you can do so. Here's the logo from UW libraries webpage:
Best of all, Jing is free! This is a resource that any library can take advantage of. I can't imagine doing chat reference without it!
-The patron asks "Where can I find an electronic biography of Gandhi?"
- Here's the Jing screencast I made: http://screencast.com/t/odGMdFM66eK
This is so much easier than trying to explain how to do it through chatting. The patron doesn't need to have any prior experience to see what I'm doing in the video. It's less than a minute long and it allows us to take the patron through the process of searching, instead of just giving them the answer.
Jing is also useful for taking screenshots because you can manipulate the size of the capture box. So if you want to take a screenshot of just a small object on your screen you can do so. Here's the logo from UW libraries webpage:
Monday, October 31, 2011
Thing 13: Podcasts
Podcasts are like radio shows that you can listen to whenever you want. There are podcasts about just about everything and I worked with them a great deal when I was studying Japanese. Since anyone with a microphone can make a podcast, there are many to choose from.
Most of the podcasts I have listened to were for practicing foreign languages. A particularly useful one was called JPod101. It was a weekly podcast that helped the listener understand a dialogue. I found it was very helpful because I had no other reliable method of listening to Japanese speech, seeing as I lived in Green Bay, Wisconsin at the time.
Another great thing about podcasts is that most of them are free. Podcasts can be quite entertaining and I listened to many over the summer when my job consisted solely of shelving books for 8 hours a day. I find it's easy to find interviews with celebrities you like. For example, I have a ton of Anthony Bourdain interviews from different podcasts.
Though I enjoy NPR, I can't think of many people my age who do. Podcasts seem to have taken the place of talk radio for my generation, and I suspect that will be the case for future generations as well.
Most of the podcasts I have listened to were for practicing foreign languages. A particularly useful one was called JPod101. It was a weekly podcast that helped the listener understand a dialogue. I found it was very helpful because I had no other reliable method of listening to Japanese speech, seeing as I lived in Green Bay, Wisconsin at the time.
Another great thing about podcasts is that most of them are free. Podcasts can be quite entertaining and I listened to many over the summer when my job consisted solely of shelving books for 8 hours a day. I find it's easy to find interviews with celebrities you like. For example, I have a ton of Anthony Bourdain interviews from different podcasts.
Though I enjoy NPR, I can't think of many people my age who do. Podcasts seem to have taken the place of talk radio for my generation, and I suspect that will be the case for future generations as well.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Thing 12: Videos
So YouTube has been around for a while, and most people have found it to be entertaining if nothing else. But I think it is good to think of how libraries may use it. Just as libraries have their own website, many have their own YouTube channel. Through their channel they can promote new features of the library, post recordings of public workshops, and present answers/tutorials for frequently asked questions. It is much easier to show someone how to use a database than it is to tell them, and YouTube allows a library to do this 24 hours a day.
Here's a video I found about libraries and the future of print materials:
Joking aside, there are plenty of educational videos posted by libraries. University of Washington has a nice page which gives tours of their libraries and teaches new users the basics of using them. They are both informative and fun! Here's one:
Here's a video I found about libraries and the future of print materials:
Joking aside, there are plenty of educational videos posted by libraries. University of Washington has a nice page which gives tours of their libraries and teaches new users the basics of using them. They are both informative and fun! Here's one:
Thing 11: Photo Fun
The point of Thing 11 is to get us to explore some of the easy photo editors/generators. These are fun little tools that allow you to easily make cool signs or add some flair to a web page. Half the fun of these was simply looking at all the available options. I'm sure I have seen some of these used on Facebook and in other social contexts but they could also be useful for libraries. I can see these being particularly useful for marketing purposes. These kinds of signs/fonts grab someone's attention much better than a simple bold font MS Word page would. Take the one I made, for example:
Monday, October 3, 2011
Thing 10: Images and Photos
The website Flickr allows us to post photos and tag them for others to search for. There also seems to be a lot of groups that post pictures of a certain theme (silly cats for example).
I have a strange fascination with blacksmithing so I chose that as my search term. This brought up many pictures of old men in overalls. I wanted something a little more in line with my glorified idea of blacksmiths. Luckily you can refine your search to "interesting" photos. I don't know exactly what Flickr means by "interesting" but it helped me find what I was looking for.
http://flic.kr/p/ahxwGh
http://flic.kr/p/7yDAkY
Another interesting feature of Flickr is their privacy settings. This allows you to limit who may see your photos. Privacy on the internet is a big concern and having these options makes it easier to post photos that you may not want everybody to have access to.
I have a strange fascination with blacksmithing so I chose that as my search term. This brought up many pictures of old men in overalls. I wanted something a little more in line with my glorified idea of blacksmiths. Luckily you can refine your search to "interesting" photos. I don't know exactly what Flickr means by "interesting" but it helped me find what I was looking for.
http://flic.kr/p/ahxwGh
http://flic.kr/p/7yDAkY
Another interesting feature of Flickr is their privacy settings. This allows you to limit who may see your photos. Privacy on the internet is a big concern and having these options makes it easier to post photos that you may not want everybody to have access to.
Thing 9: Tagging
I had never seen a website like Delicious until now and I wish I had sooner. I have found it to be a great tool for exploring things I am completely unfamiliar with. Let me give you an example: I am interested in exotic foods. Now I could easily conduct a search about this through any number of sites, but the results I get are likely to be very different. This is because search engines will use some kind of "relevance algorithm" to determine which sites (that they search) are most pertinent to my search. Delicious, on the other hand, relies on user feedback to display its results.
If someone tags a site with the terms "Japanese" and "food" then it will be displayed on my results page. I can then see how popular the results were by seeing how many users "saved" that page. If a site has thousands of "saves" it may be safe to assume that it is quite relevant to those tags assigned to it.
If an expert in a certain field tags a site it is very much like receiving her advice that the site is relevant and/or useful. We cannot know for sure who did the tagging but it would be very easy for collaborating researchers to tag sites in a recognizable way, allowing them to basically communicate. For example: If two researchers were working on a project they could agree to tag all relevant websites a certain way. Then they could search that tag later and easily retrieve them.
If someone tags a site with the terms "Japanese" and "food" then it will be displayed on my results page. I can then see how popular the results were by seeing how many users "saved" that page. If a site has thousands of "saves" it may be safe to assume that it is quite relevant to those tags assigned to it.
If an expert in a certain field tags a site it is very much like receiving her advice that the site is relevant and/or useful. We cannot know for sure who did the tagging but it would be very easy for collaborating researchers to tag sites in a recognizable way, allowing them to basically communicate. For example: If two researchers were working on a project they could agree to tag all relevant websites a certain way. Then they could search that tag later and easily retrieve them.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Thing 8: Wikis
Wikis are a type of collaborative website that usually attempts to provide a certain type of information. Of course there's Wikipedia, which attempts to provide information on everything. Wikis, though, are the same in style but differ in scope. That is, if we think of Wikipedia as a general encyclopedia, then Wikis are like subject encyclopedias.
Let's take for example the Wikipedia article on The Lord of the Rings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_rings) and the Lord of the Rings wiki (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page). We can see that Wikipedia offers a fairly long article with tons of links to other pages on characters, locations, etc. However the information is organized in a way that caters to a user looking for broad information about Lord of the Rings. The wiki on the other hand has almost 4000 pages just about Lord of the Rings. When you go to the homepage you can see Youtube videos, images, and news along with a more encyclopedic article. There is simply much more depth in the wiki than would be appropriate in Wikipedia.
Just like Wikipedia one must exercise caution when referencing wikis. Perhaps more careful as they can be edited by anyone and are less likely to be checked for accuracy. One of the key features of wikis is the ease with which one can edit them. One does not need to know HTML to edit a wiki and its very easy to link from one article to another.
Let's take for example the Wikipedia article on The Lord of the Rings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_rings) and the Lord of the Rings wiki (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page). We can see that Wikipedia offers a fairly long article with tons of links to other pages on characters, locations, etc. However the information is organized in a way that caters to a user looking for broad information about Lord of the Rings. The wiki on the other hand has almost 4000 pages just about Lord of the Rings. When you go to the homepage you can see Youtube videos, images, and news along with a more encyclopedic article. There is simply much more depth in the wiki than would be appropriate in Wikipedia.
Just like Wikipedia one must exercise caution when referencing wikis. Perhaps more careful as they can be edited by anyone and are less likely to be checked for accuracy. One of the key features of wikis is the ease with which one can edit them. One does not need to know HTML to edit a wiki and its very easy to link from one article to another.
Thing 7: Social Networking
Ok. I'm 24 years old. That means I was in high school when all these popular (especially Myspace and Facebook) social network sites appeared. Like most highschoolers my social life depended on them.
That being said, I've never looked closely at Facebook and considered why someone might choose to use it (besides the fact that EVERYBODY else does). It's worth noting that sites like Myspace allow much greater customization of one's homepage. It might even have been too customizable. The nice thing about Facebook is that you put in your information and your page comes out nice and neat.
Another appealing thing about Facebook is its fairly sophisticated privacy tools. If one knows how, it is easy to limit how much of one's profile is available to different people. That means when some old classmate from 10 years ago asks to be your friend, you don't have to worry that you're just giving away all your contact info to some guy who just wants you to join some goofy pyramid scam. Instead, you can create limited profiles and share only the info that you want to share. The problem with this (and it's a big one) is Facebook constantly updates and changes these privacy settings and learning the ins and outs of them can be both time consuming and quite tricky.
Most importantly though, Facebook is THE social network site. It doesn't matter how cryptic their privacy settings are, or how difficult it is to customize your profile. If you're under 30 it's assumed you are on Facebook, and like I said earlier, your social life may depend on it.
After thinking about it though, I do think Facebook is a good product. It could not have gotten so popular if it wasn't. People always have complaints about the privacy settings and the IM tool they have is frankly horrible. But at the end of the day Facebook dominates the social network world and I imagine it will for a long time to come.
That being said, I've never looked closely at Facebook and considered why someone might choose to use it (besides the fact that EVERYBODY else does). It's worth noting that sites like Myspace allow much greater customization of one's homepage. It might even have been too customizable. The nice thing about Facebook is that you put in your information and your page comes out nice and neat.
Another appealing thing about Facebook is its fairly sophisticated privacy tools. If one knows how, it is easy to limit how much of one's profile is available to different people. That means when some old classmate from 10 years ago asks to be your friend, you don't have to worry that you're just giving away all your contact info to some guy who just wants you to join some goofy pyramid scam. Instead, you can create limited profiles and share only the info that you want to share. The problem with this (and it's a big one) is Facebook constantly updates and changes these privacy settings and learning the ins and outs of them can be both time consuming and quite tricky.
Most importantly though, Facebook is THE social network site. It doesn't matter how cryptic their privacy settings are, or how difficult it is to customize your profile. If you're under 30 it's assumed you are on Facebook, and like I said earlier, your social life may depend on it.
After thinking about it though, I do think Facebook is a good product. It could not have gotten so popular if it wasn't. People always have complaints about the privacy settings and the IM tool they have is frankly horrible. But at the end of the day Facebook dominates the social network world and I imagine it will for a long time to come.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Thing 6: Microblogging
Things 6 is microblogging. It's like a status update on facebook, though somehow more...
I have chosen Twitter as it seems the most popular. I think I'm a little behind since I've never really even used Twitter until now. It doesn't take long to see the usefulness of it. It seems to make it quite easy to interact with people you might never get to other wise.
I can't see myself using it as a way to update other people, though. I don't frequently use facebook for that either though so I guess that's no surprise. I think Twitter will be most useful for me as another type of "feed." I'll use it to keep up to date about things like local news, upcoming events, and the latest movies!
I have chosen Twitter as it seems the most popular. I think I'm a little behind since I've never really even used Twitter until now. It doesn't take long to see the usefulness of it. It seems to make it quite easy to interact with people you might never get to other wise.
I can't see myself using it as a way to update other people, though. I don't frequently use facebook for that either though so I guess that's no surprise. I think Twitter will be most useful for me as another type of "feed." I'll use it to keep up to date about things like local news, upcoming events, and the latest movies!
Friday, September 16, 2011
Thing 5
So here's my first post, and against all logic it begins with thing 5.
Thing 5 is, naturally, blogging itself. Blogger is (or was?) a very popular tool for creating a blog very quickly. The templates are nice and allow those of us who know nothing of HTML to make our blogs not only intellectually stimulating, but visually appealing. At first glance, it looked to me like there were very few options when designing the layout and background. But as I got into it I realized the templates can be tweaked and customized. Also, for those who wish, there seemed to be a way to add HTML code. This really opens up the door to customization.
As one can see from my page, I have no sense of visual style and have opted for a simple template.
Stay tuned for Thing 6: Microblogging!
Thing 5 is, naturally, blogging itself. Blogger is (or was?) a very popular tool for creating a blog very quickly. The templates are nice and allow those of us who know nothing of HTML to make our blogs not only intellectually stimulating, but visually appealing. At first glance, it looked to me like there were very few options when designing the layout and background. But as I got into it I realized the templates can be tweaked and customized. Also, for those who wish, there seemed to be a way to add HTML code. This really opens up the door to customization.
As one can see from my page, I have no sense of visual style and have opted for a simple template.
Stay tuned for Thing 6: Microblogging!
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