To the Cloud!

I use Google Docs all the time. Unfortunately, I have had the bad experience of having my hard-drive crash too many times or not being able to find a flash drive to save a document. Using Google Docs I can create my document and edit it on any computer. I have had trouble exporting to a .doc file, so usually I cut and paste into a new Word document when I need to send the file somewhere. The formating is usually a little off, but it is very easy to fix.

Cloud computing is wonderful. I use Delicious for my bookmarks and Google Docs for my papers and I have everything at my fingertips only a few clicks away from any computer. My favorite part about Google Docs? Well, Ms Susan, you can probably guess what is coming next. Pages is a $10 download form the app store (I am cheap, remember?), but I can use Google Docs for free. ;)

There's an app..err...gadget for that!

Personalized homepages are not something new. I used to have one through yahoo.com. The only thing I really liked about it was the daily comic box that let me read Luann and Garfield.

I customized my iGoogle account with news, cooking, and entertainment boxes as well as translators, maps, calculators, and a nice little animated Nemo theme at the top. Will I use this past creation?

Probably not. None of these are things that I will need right at my fingertips and to be honest it is just as quick to bring up mapquest as it is to bring up googlemaps. What was interesting was that as I was customizing I noticed that some of the gadget names seemed familiar. Well, guess what, there is an app for that? A lot of the gadgets I was looking at not only had the same appearance, but were also the same apps that I can download for free on my iPad. So is there a coincidence with the names iPad and iGoogle?

With a Tap of the Page

I will admit that I was against e-book readers. Nothing to me could replace the experience of reading a paperback that I could take anywhere.

Well, that was last month...

Last November I read an review for a series by Meg Cabot called The Mediator. Think of it like a teenage version of the Ghost Whisper with a little Buffy thrown in. I immediate put the first book on a suspended hold to come in when I was done with my final papers and exams. Well, when the book finally came in, I wasn't too excited to read it anymore. I let it sit on my pile of books waiting to be read. The day before a trip to my mother-in-laws for the Christmas, I read the book since I had nothing else to do that day. I was immediately hooked and super excited to read the rest of the series. I went to work the next day with the intention of grabbing the other books in the series. Yes, you see the problem coming, don't you?

My library only had the last two books in the series. It was Sunday. We were leaving for Jersey as soon as I was done with work.

Thankfully, my mother-in-law let me borrow her Kindle and purchase the next book from her Amazon account. I discovered that I am an even faster reader on an electronic device. My husband asked if I would like one for Christmas. My answer was no since being tech savvy (and cheap!), I already investigated to discover that not all of the e-books will be available in all formats from lending programs like Overdrive. I would hate to have a kindle or nook and the book I want to download not be available for that device.

Well, my husband is a tricky sort. All week he kept asking me if I was sure I didn't want a Kindle, cause it just seemed like something I would really enjoy. Christmas day, he handed me a box with the unsure comment "I really hope you like it and use it." I thought he had gone ahead and bought the Kindle anyway. Nope, it wasn't a Kindle and it wasn't a Nook.

As a Christmas/Graduation/10th Wedding Anniversary present I had just received an iPad (Let's just say I am owing for all the upcoming gift-giving holidays). Immediately, I downloaded the Kindle, Nook, and iBooks apps. I have not tested out the Kindle app, but I have downloaded free apps for the Nook and iBooks. (*note* Nook requires a credit card be on file even for the free downloads, iBooks doesn't.) I downloaded Last of the Mohicans to both. Nook had a copy from google e-books. The formatting was awful and I could barely make my way through even the first few pages. iBooks was much, much better. It even had the original illustrations that were part of our Picturing America Grant. I am not sure where they found their copy, but I was really happy with that one.

Okay, so I like instant gratification. But I still can't justify to my cheap self buying the book when I can get it for free from the library. Oh, well, at least it still fits in my purse. Now if only I could get it to connect to the free wi-fi...

;)

Pod People

One of the best things that I took out of my Digital Media class was how to make a podcast. I learned how to use a free program called Audacity. It was easy to use once I figured out what all the little buttons were. I started my graduate school experience with a fear of microphones (this Jersey Girl's voice is loud enough not to need one). Using Audacity helped me get over my fear since I had to take so many takes to get it just right. I admit I love making Podcasts...even though I haven't done one since that class.

Listening to them is a completely different story. I have tried the Podcasts from Podcast.com, but didn't really enjoy the experience because there was so much buffering that needed to be done to get the audio to play smoothly. I am also a visual person and prefer to have an image in front of me corresponding to what is being talked about. About the only ones that I enjoy are the ones that have the most impact for libraries- Storytelling. It would be great to have a link on the library website of librarians telling stories that young patrons can click on and listen. Of course, there is a catch. These stories must be in the public domain i.e Brother's Grimm, Aesop's Fables. Sorry, but as much as we might enjoy all those new and exciting stories out there, I can't see this falling under the Fair Use/Educator Copyright Law exceptions.

Graduation...now what to write about?

Ack! I now officially have my MLIS. Great! Good!

*....*

But that means...what can I use to fill the void of all these "thing" postings? No more homework assignments to scour for little related tidbits to post.

I am actually going to have to start thinking.

*brain hurts*

Digital Booktalks via YouTube

YouTube Booktrailer for Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book

Welcome to the new age of booktalks where Web 2.0 technologies are being utilized to make the booktalk experience a new and exciting one for librarians, teachers, and students. Lights! Cameras! Read! It’s time for booktalks to go digital.

Clark (2009) states that “Unlike many other reading incentive programs in public and school libraries, booktalking does not cost a penny” (p. 504). Digital Booktalks are another great free programming concept that can be utilized by many libraries. Some possibilities on how to extend the use of Digital Booktalks beyond the Librarian using them as promotion would be to allow young patrons to create their own videos. This can be done either as a library workshop or faced with a library with limited hours, it can also be incorporated as a contest-type program where patrons produce the videos on their own and hand them in to the librarian for posting.

Libraries can also use the idea of the Digital Booktalk as an additional source of a volunteer credit opportunity. Teen Advisory Groups can create these videos for volunteer credit and have the videos place on either the library website or the TAG Facebook Fan Page.

Belben (2007) gives a link to what looks to be a now extinct website that used to review book trailers using a “trailer park” theme. This hilarious take on website reviews can be incorporated in the library setting as well. Have teens create their own themed reviews. See how many trailers or booktalks can be found on the same book and then rate the best ones. Use some form of rating system like Sherlock Holmes’s pipe for mysteries or vampire fangs for supernatural genres.

There are many different websites out there that can explain how to make a Digital Booktalk. Valenza (2007) sums it up perfectly by saying “These videos are not all that hard to produce. Simply show some of the following examples to student readers who also know how to use such free or inexpensive production tools as: iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, GarageBand, VoiceThread, or Final Cut. Remind those students to use copyright-friendly images, sound, and video” (par. 5). Many digital cameras and cell phones now have features that allow them to take short video clips that can be uploaded to the computer. Also, while maybe not a preferred method of creating a Digital Booktalk, still photos may be used to introduce the concept to a beginner.

Digital Booktalks can be a great resource for inspiring reluctant readers to branch out and try new books. It bridges the gap for student’s understanding of the differences between a book and its movie counterpart. Production of a Digital Booktalk is simple enough that it can serve as a standalone program done outside of the library. It is also an enjoyable enterprise that gets students motivated to read as well as building upon their comprehension of the story by helping them make inferences and interpretations of what they read.  It can also be a valuable programming tool in the face of declining budgets and the trend towards incorporating Web 2.0 technologies to best serve new learning styles.

Belben, C. (2007 October). There are no booktalking police: alternatives to stand-and-deliver presentations. ''Library Media Connection, 26(2)'', 28-9.
Clark, R.C. (2009 February).  Listening to teens talk back. ''Voice of Youth Advocates, 31(6)'', 501-04.
Valenza, J. (2007 August). Booktalking 2.0 (2.0). ''School Library Journal''. Retrieved from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/.

Thing #11

Hmm...the animation seems to be broken, but this anagram should change to read "Learned We This" cause as we all know the dealer always wins.

The anagram was created using http://wordsmith.org/anagram/.

These picture generators can benefit libraries because they make things more interesting and appealing. They are also helpful because they save time for the person using them. Why re-invent the wheel when it can be only a click away? 

Crafting Program Idea: 5-minute Collage Journal

Journal page 10-25-10
Originally uploaded by cheerytomato

Come the new year, it will be time to weed out the old outdated magazines, but these old magazines can inspire new use.
Here is an idea from cheerytomato's Flickr collection on using magazine headlnes and pictures to create a "5-minute Collage Journal". These Journal entries are quite beautiful and fun to make. Great project for all ages.
Check out the Cheery Tomato Productions Blog for even more wonderful crafting ideas. This woman is very creative.

METATAGS & LIBRARIES

The posting below is an excerpt from a paper written by the blogger for a graduate level MLIS class.

Searches using metatags work similar to how a web search is done on the Internet. Tools called "crawlers" scourer the indexes for hundreds of records and complie a list of the relevant results. What they find is called a metatag, a keyword that is not visible in the document itself, but that can be picked up by these search engines within the record’s index. Schatz (2005) states in his article that "anyone who has tried to find useful information via search engines knows the frustration of information overload" (p70). He recommends that designers include metatags in their records to make searching easier for users. Sometimes, however, there just aren’t the resources to include all of this information in the record for one reason or another. Sometimes it comes down to a judgment call by the cataloger because there must be uniformity in how the descriptors are worded in a record.

Unified Descriptors
A downside to use of metatags is that there can be hundreds of descriptors for the same term. The more tags, the less uniform the record becomes. The Dublin Core schema is the only tag set that has been adopted as a standard. They are simplified tags, less than 20 in actuality. It is meant to be a universal tag set with a broader application appeal. However, in one word, they are generic.

Some groups have created tags specifically for their own organizations uses, but again not all tags fit all situations. Library catalog systems that allow their patrons to tag records may end up with a very detailed if not extensive collection of tags for those records. This would result in more specific search results, but in a way this is also information overload for the organization. If the organization does allow for open tagging, then there must be someone tasked with the role of sifting through the metatags to weed out the redundant or unrelated. This might, however, result in more difficulty for metasearching across the different databases and institutions but more usability from within. (Woodley, 2008)

CONCLUSION
Allowing users to create their own metadata on a local level can allow for a more user specific searching experience. Rather than trying to guess which words a user is most likely to use, the system can learn from the searches and results that have been generated by previous users. Integrating a system that allows for a unified metadata schema would allow for more institutional usability, but allowing for user defined metadata would best serve library users.

Schatz, S. (2005). Unique metadata schemas: A model for user-centric design of a performance support system. Educational Technology Research & Development , 53 (4), 69-84.

Woodley, M. (2008). Crosswalks, Metadata Harvesting, Federated Searching, Metasearching. In T. Gill, A. Gilliland, M. Whalen, & M. & Woodley, Introduction to Metadata, Online Edition, Version 3.0. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Publications.Educational Technology Research & Development , 53 (4), 69-84.


>>>>>Tagging is a great way to search for things. In Delicious, you can click on your TAGs to see a list of everything that you assigned that TAG. You can also click on other users who also bookmarked the site and check out the TAGs they have listed for things.

Check out my Delicious links on the right ;)

Thing #7

I use Facebook in my personal life, but it is also the social networking site that I use for the library. We have two pages. One for the library and one for our TAG. We have tried MySpace in the past and Facebook just seems to be a much more user friendly service. It doesn't have all the clutter that the Myspace pages seem to have (except for all those stupid Farmville postings). However, as I say this Facebook has just launched an option to create your own page layout which is one of the things I did not like about the MySpace pages because a lot of the pages seemed to have eye burning graphics that were more irritating than appealing. Though it does foster that web 2.0 feeling that I like. *sigh*

Thing #4

This blog is part of a project called 23 things. The 4th thing is to create a blog about the project.

A little about myself...I am a Youth Services Librarian. I worked in libraries during high school and bookstores during college. I am most at home when I am reading books or writing about them.

I am a big believer in Library 2.0. Interaction is a great way for both patrons and staff to keep current on technologies and trends. Library 2.0 allows for a more user-centric experience which best helps serve the information needs of the library user.