Friday, December 28, 2007
Amy the Audiobook Addict
First, I took the Digital Media Tour, which I found to be amazingly detailed. If you cannot figure out how to access/use Overdrive after viewing that tutorial, you may as well give up on audiobooks... Next, I browsed and searched Overdrive in every possible way - by author, subject, immediate availablity, etc. Very very very easy to locate titles, but not many of the titles/authors I was seeking were included. I would have to say that the limited choice of books is the biggest drawback of Overdrive at the current time. I did select a couple of interesting titles: one is on HOLD and one is now Checked Out. (I don't think I would ever actually sit & listen at the computer, although I practiced using the Bookmark feature.) It was simple to download the Media Console, then simple to download my checked-out title, and subsequently totally simple to download it via the TRANSFER icon to my MP3!!! Listening to CDs in the car is great - but I only wish it was legal to listen on my scooter to audiobooks with headphones. And now let me leave y'all, and this great TLC 2.0 program, with a holiday audiobook video finale!
Monday, December 24, 2007
Facing Up to Facebook (I'm shy - no, really)
Friday, December 14, 2007
PODCASTS = Invasion of the Time, Mind & Body Snatchers
I added http://digg.com/movies to my Newsreader. I must admit it has tons of great stuff for those of us who enjoy movies almost as much as books. But again, only Amy's pod-clone might actually have the time to page through them all, since there is no realistic method of sorting. However, I can see that an instructional or advisory library podcast could be effective - just not as much FUN for our customers as You Tube
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Fun with YOU TUBE
And now be sure to get one more dose of Spaced Out Disco here, all you futuristic dancing librarians!
Friday, December 7, 2007
Web 2.0 Awards: best Real Estate site
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Testing Zoho Boring Paragraph
Blog Entry WARNING for the aimless babbling below: I did not write this in my blog - instead I wrote it directly into ZOHO and then "published" it right to my blog. Pretty cool.
This is my first ZOHO document; it is strictly a testing device.
This is because I really have no time to write even one measly paragraph. I just want to test how to save, insert, colorize, etc. my documents in ZOHO. I will also be testing the Import function, since I have about a zillion already-created documents. (It worked - yea! And after I imported the document, I exported it as a PDF!!!) I have been meaning to try out Google Docs & Spreadsheets for a long time, but that nasty old time issue delayed even a cursory try. The reason I want to try is simple: collaboration! My colleagues and I are constantly editing mutual documents, attaching and re-attaching them to cumbersome emails, so this will be much more efficient. I also imported my spreadsheet from the prior fiscal year into ZOHO SHEETS and wanted to publish it below via the proscribed code, rather than publish it to a separate blog post, but it was waaaaayyy too big.
P.S. I see a ZOHO toolbar icon for INSERT LAYER; anybody know what that means? Also, I see FAQs here in Zoho but I do not see a general HELP/search for dummies like me. Yikes.
Technorati Tags zoho, applications
Monday, November 26, 2007
Wiki Posting Frenzy
Wow - don't you think that PBwiki is totally The Bomb?! I am hoping to use it to begin a wiki for my section here at BCL. Hey, maybe a total COMPIS wiki would be even better??? That way, everyone in Periodicals, Interlibrary Loan, and the Computer Center could put in their collective two cents; believe me, between us we've got a LOT to say! Anyhow, I added this blog to the NSUlibs Wiki and also to the BCLtlc wiki page, where I put in the obligatory Kilroyesque shout-out. But the best part was adding a couple of entries to the NSU Wiki FAVORITES! I started by putting in a link to ShareILL, an interlibrary loan wiki to which I contribute. The ILL Custom Holdings there are a perfect fit for wikization, because they a constantly evolving. Then I had to decide between linking or embedding my Favorite Brian Setzer Xmas videos under Favorite Music - I decided to try one of each in the wiki. Since the holidays are upon us, check out the very hippest & most compact version of The Nutcracker you'll ever hear. I guarantee that you're going to love it, ho ho ho!
WackyWikis
Friday, November 16, 2007
Rolling my own with Rollyo
Monday, November 12, 2007
Library Thing
Image Generators
http://www.signgenerator.org/books/dummies/
Sunday, November 11, 2007
selfish Library 2.0 thoughts
As part of the Discovery exercises, I read Chip Nigles' essay entitled "To more powerful ways to cooperate." He stresses the importance of the Open WorldCat website on several levels. First of all, it does something the WorldCat database cannot do: once a user has established an account, he/she can build (via marking) an entire bibliography, refered to as a "list" on the site, and subsequently share it. What a great tool for students doing a research paper together! In the database, users can only convert one bib record at a time into a citation, then paste them into a Word document to build their bibliography.
In both formats, however, user participation is encouraged (wiki style) using their Review This Item feature. I am proud to say that when this new feature was added to the database, long before the emergence of Open WorldCat , I was among the first to add a very brief plot summary (OCLC #365453) under Add/View Comments! (It is called Public Notes on the website.) There I was, using Web 2.0, without even knowing it!!! Also, Open WorldCat has the easiest social sharing link of all time - simply click on Share It and you can send to Facebook, Del.icio.us, etc.
The next step for ILL at BCL is for our customers to request interlibrary loans from the Open WorldCat site, instead of from the WorldCat database. This is already being done in the Northwest via the experimental WorldCat Local program. Since customers vastly prefer the site to the database, this is coming soon to a library near you! Unless, of course, BCL wants to get left in the dust...
P.S. I would like to hear what my MARC-oriented colleagues think of LibraryThing, in terms of Web 2.0. Can y'all really be that loose?!!
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Schadenfreude of tagging, technorati, geeks & stars
I viewed the Geeks on Tour site but did not find the labeling aka tagging section real helpful on the HOW behind it. I found a more academically-minded cite site (sorry) entitled CITEULIKE. This organizes papers via tags; as an ILLer, it may help me locate some grey literature. Anyhow, you can see that I have tagged this post with LOTS of labels; also changed my blog settings so all labels appear as a separate sidebar as well as just beneath the body of the post.
I would rather not blog about a hobby (boring!) but I will just briefly mention the recent preponderance of celebrity Schadenfreude.
It seems that people are taking more and more pleasure in the misfortunes of others lately, especially current movie/pop stars. Don't you think that's sad & bad?! Anyhow, I hope someone comments on the many tags I chose for this post! I commented on another BCL staffer's labeling but looks like most are forgetting to assign tags to their posts.
I also got this semi-rant claimed via Technorati! Once I registered to CLAIM my Blog, I copied/inserted the necessary code in the Edit HTML screen - easy! Then I edited all my prior posts so that they would have the Technorati Faves icon, too.
del.icio.us certainly is
I've always been a mega-bookmarker, but like most nerds I rarely went back because I could not find the good stuff. Not to mention the fact that I had different favorites on my home computer, library computer, and laptop. Thus, I am an instant fan of del.icio.us, because tagging to just one place makes a lot more sense to me.
I have already mentioned how much it appeals to me to get other people to do my research for me. I had stumbled across a few librarians' websites and/or del.icio.us accounts of interest to me, and subsequently set them up to feed into my newsreader. However, the domino effect of viewing so many del.icio.us networks of mutual interest (and subsequently RSSing them) has made this my new guilty pleasure. It's so easy (the new Firefox toolbar install sure beats IE) and so fun to navigate around del.icio.us that I almost feel like a really nosy neighbor...
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Blogging about Technology
Real writers say you should write about what you know - and as the mother of two sons and two stepsons, what I know is waaaaaaay too much about video games. What I've always hated about them is that they are basically all alike, no matter what guise they are sold under. From Pacman to Grand Theft Auto, it's all about one thing: point and shoot. Some are less violent, some are more violent - but basically, all I see my sons doing during this television and/or computer screen time is pointing and shooting, with more or less blood per game.
However, all that changed when Guitar Hero came along! This is the best $100 bucks I ever spent. Now my sons are learning songs I danced to in high school and college; you just gotta love it. There is a swell article about this wonderful revolution in several national newspapers this month, but columnist Cynthia Wahl says it alot better than I can.
Also check out this ALA tech blog on the very same subject. If we don't want to get left in the dust, BCL definitely needs more of what Deerfield Beach is doing right. My sons are waiting for ALL of our branches to stock good games like Guitar Hero! Maybe by the time Rock Band comes out later this month, we can actually put a HOLD upon it...
http://www.techsource.ala.org/blog/2007/10/coming-up-for-air-guitar.html
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Library Blogs
Mashups
Flickr: Halloween angst
Halloween cliché: existential angst meets pumpkin positivism head on
Originally uploaded by Barbara Rich