Now this would be a fascinating way to teach IL - and might even make students aware that not all library staff are ancient fuddy-duddys.
Virtual World Librarianship – Your SecondLife
I've downloaded Second Life but have not yet had a chance to explore it. A lot of people (including librarians) are talking about it and it seems like a fun idea - and SOOO.. Library 2.0.
4/23/2007
Virtual World Librarianship
4/20/2007
When will we be 2.0?
Why isn't our library 2.0 yet? We talk endlessly about the things we want in both the current scene and in the new building planned for the Central TAFE Library, meanwhile other people are out there doing things. See this article from
Library 2.0: It's All Happening at the Gottesman
Published: 4/12/2007
From book talks to collaborative project management to software development, it's all happening at TC's Gottesman Libraries
4/16/2007
New York to Paris
Marsha Bennett sent me this:
1. Go to Google http://google.com/
2. Click on Maps (click on more >>) to get to Maps
3. Click on Get Directions.
4. From: New York, New York.
5. To: Paris, France.
6. Then, read line #24.
7. Laugh
8. Repost.
4/03/2007
Great article about academic libraries
Libraries at the Cutting Edge. Not only is this a stimulating article but the comments are well-considered and, on the whole, favourable to libraries and librarians. Isn't it odd though that some people still have the idea that Librarians are the people who spend most of their time saying "Shhh!" or putting books back on the shelves.
4/02/2007
A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto
Kathryn Greenhill in her blog Librarians Matter referred to a video on YouTube - "A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto" that she showed at a presentation about YouTube and Libraries. For me this epitomises everything that I am trying to do as a librarian. Sometimes we have great ideas and they may be greeted with skepticism and the powers-that-be pour cold water on them or enthusiasm but the technological framework within which we have to work won't support anything non-standard. Sometimes, however, we have an amazingly supportive group of colleagues and supervisors who try to smooth the way as we try to implement new ideas. I'm blessed/cursed with both of these scenarios and wish I had the persuasive powers and technological skills that are needed to bring these ideas to fruition.
Revish is here
Revish has just been launched. It is an alternative to LibraryThing. I've just registered and will need a bit of time to compare them. In its FAQs Revish claims that it is more about in depth book reviews that cataloguing and, unlike LT it does not have provision for tagging. It provides very readable guidelines for reviewers and, if people abide by these, the results should be worthwhile.
In Revish you can find books (from the Amazon catalogue), add them to your favourites, currently reading or other lists, review and rate them. You can also find out what like-minded readers are reading or have in their favourite lists. Categories appear to be in LCCRA format or may be taken directly from Amazon.
3/29/2007
Information Literacy blog
Librarians, particularly in educational institutions, are always concerned with improving their clients' information literacy skills. Here is a blog that might help us by sharing ideas.
Information Literacy meets Web 2.0
Information Literacy meets Web 2.0
How does Web 2.0 affect our delivery of Information Literacy? How do librarians cope with the Google generation and what does this mean for Information Literacy? This site will be a sounding board for us to exchange our views and good practice!
3/28/2007
More Web2.0 stuff
In ResourceShelf I saw this post: 2.0 Worth A Look #3: Timeline, Nowsy, Calcoolate and particularly like the look of Nowsy. This appears to be a combination of aggregator and search engine., ie. you search for terms that appear within your chosen feed.
You can customise the look of the aggregator and some links are already displayed so you can see how it looks. One of them is YouTube and the first clip on the list was Evolution of Dance. Although I became a bit lost after Greased Lightning (it's a long time since I last went dancing) I really enjoyed this comedian's antics.
3/19/2007
Things to do with Library 2.0
Among the articles added recently to Maeve's Shared Items is this one from The Shifted Librarian:- 23 Library 2.0 Things in 15 Minutes a Day
3/16/2007
Google Reader
I recently changed aggregators from Bloglines to Google Reader. GR has many cool features, one of which I've included as "Maeve's shared items" in this blog. It means that anything that takes my interest in GR can be added to my shared list without the hassle of saving it to del.icio.us and then pasting into a new post.
On the downside, once you've scrolled past an article in GR it is marked as read and can't be seen again. I'd sometimes like to be able to backtrack or reread articles that I may not have starred.
Wiki recognised at last
Seen on Library Stuff:
"If you think "wiki" doesn’t sound like English, you are right. But it’s English now. This word born on the Pacific Island of Hawaii finally got an entry into the latest edition of the online Oxford English Dictionary (OED) along with 287 other new words."
3/08/2007
Referencing Tool
I haven't used this but it could be a useful tool for Information Literacy classes.
clipped from www.google.com1:34 PM (seconds ago)Citation formats on WorldCat.org
New to Worldcat.org They now provide citations for numerous formats directly from any book display. I use this tool everyday, and this is pretty useful.
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3/02/2007
Now I've seen (almost) everything
I started blogging perhaps because I just wanted to investigate something new in the online scene. It is now such a widespread phenomenon that this month there is even an International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media with the following areas of interest:
The conference aims to bring together researchers from different subject areas (e.g., computer science, linguistics, psychology, statistics, sociology, multimedia and semantic web technologies) and foster discussions about ongoing research in the following areas:
- AI methods for ethnographic analysis through social media.
- Blogosphere vs. mediasphere; measuring the influence of blogs on the media.
- Centrality/influence of bloggers/blogs; ranking/relevance of blogs; web pages ranking based on blogs.
- Crawling/spidering and indexing.
- Human Computer Interaction; social media tools; navigation.
- Multimedia; audio/visual processing; aggregating information from different modalities.
- Semantic analysis; cross-system and cross-media name tracking; named relations and fact extraction; discourse analysis; summarization.
- Semantic Web; unstructured knowledge management.
- Sentiment analysis; polarity/opinion identification and extraction.
- Social Network Analysis; communities identification; expertise discovery; collaborative filtering.
- Text categorization; gender/age identification; spam filtering.
- Time Series Forecasting; measuring predictability of phenomena based on social media.
- Trend identification/tracking.
- Visualization, aggregation and filtering.
3/01/2007
Will it make me famous?
In Roddy McLeod's latest Internet Resources Newsletter (one of my regular feeds) he kindly mentions this blog. Thanks Roddy. Now I hope for more feedback from all the readers that this will hopefully drive to my site. In the months that I have been intermittently blogging only two people have written anything in the comments boxes - except for one comment that was obviously spam.
Talking of spam, I had difficulty publishing the previous post while using Firefox earlier this morning (I'm now on IE) as the word verification characters didn't appear and when I tried to investigate the cause of this was told that Blogger though it might be a spam blog. Heaven forbid!
My latest tagged sites
I've tagged several articles in del.icio.us recently but not had the time (or motivation) to comment on them. Here are ten sites that are well worth a second look.
- » Vista Hands On #4: Clean install with an upgrade key Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report ZDNet.com"It's a perfectly legal workaround for an amazingly stupid technical restriction that Microsoft imposes on upgraders."
- BlinkLife Never Lose Touch with Your family and Friends Again" BlinkLife is the next-generation Email - designed to help you keep in touch with your mom, your classmates, your lover and other people who mean a lot to you."
- Vidipedia - The web's first video enclyclopedia - Web 2.0 ExplanationThis video would make a great introduction or finale to any presentation about Web 2.0
- mediaconverter.org - the free online file converter I haven't yet tried this as I already use Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/, however the comment "You don't need any special software. Just upload the file and convert it" means that you are not limited to any particular computer
- Colour Order Systems in Art and Science (English, Français, German) "We present you with a total of 59 easy-to-understand, richly illustrated colour theories from the Antiquity to modern times: in short, a complete cultural history of colour"
- Top 25 Web 2.0 Search Engines OEDb"new search engines that may stand the best chance to become the next Google all share one common element — the use of Web 2.0 technology that they hope will increase search result relevance.Here are 25 such engines. Some offer functionality that's slowly making its way into traditional search engines. Others further the attempt to traverse the invisible Web and index other previously unsearchable research sources.
- How to Best Use Page Monitors For Online ResearchFrom the book "Information Trapping: Real -Time Research on the Web" by Tara Calishain
- Widgipedia: A Widgets Supersite"Widgipedia.com lets you search and browse for web and desktop-based mini-applications across a number of different platforms."
- Will Tagging Replace The Dewey Decimal System?"tagging is clearly not a fad, and it may even eventually replace hierarchical indexing systems used by most libraries, according to new research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project."
- ResourceShelf » SplashCast Goes Live!"SplashCast, a free service, makes it easy to syndicate and share content from disparate sources across the web on your site, blog, just about anywhere. Another plus is that SplashCast can offer a great deal of content in a small amount of space."
2/21/2007
Great Blog Jenisfamous
I'm not sure how I came across this blog http://www.jenisfamous.com/blog.html but I'm finding it fascinating reading. It has nothing to do with libraries or the Internet but is just plain fun. Jenisfamous is a comedienne who also has considerable writing experience. Many bloggers try to get messages across or just ramble through their thoughts but this blog has something about it that makes it different.
2/19/2007
Web 2.0 Search
I've been having fun with Web 2.0 but didn't realise that it had spawned so many new search engines. How is a gal supposed to keep up? This list of the Top 25 Web 2.0 Search Engines published by OEDB is an eye-opener. The names, the applications, are all quite delicious (now where have I seen that word before?) and range through mashups, picture search, video search, tag clouds, social networks - and that only in the top 25!
Just Google it
Looking at last weekend's Dilbert comic strip I was reminded of a minor furore caused by a comment by West Australia's Education Minister last year Don’t learn it, just Google it: Ravlich.
Before emigrating to Australia I taught geography, English and art in schools in South Africa's Transvaal and Natal and, in order to get a post here, had also to teach history (with no previous knowledge of Australian history whatsoever), politics (ditto), law (ditto) and other social sciences. One thing my crash course in those subjects did achieve was give me a better background knowledge about my new country than many Australians. When I decided to leave teaching and obtain my Librarian's diploma some of that knowledge stood me in good stead as my first position was in a law library. I doubt if I could have swung that by a reliance on Google.
2/12/2007
Lapse in fundamental Google product
Laughed myself silly over this comment on the latest Google flatline.
2/05/2007
Open Source Software
Recently I had to clean up my old laptop and reload all the programmes. I do actually have legal copies of everything but get annoyed that, after uploading from a legal disc, I still have register various Windows programmes. I'm seriously considering ditching the Microsoft Office Suite altogether and switching to free, open-source software. Zoho has been well recommended in many blogs and I want to try that. The only problem is that my computer-challenged husband wouldn't trust anything that that he doesn't already use. When I downloaded Firefox to his snazzy, up-to-date laptop his comment was that he didn't need Firefox, all he wanted was Google!!
Open Source Teaching and Learning
OER Commons is a teaching and learning network offering a broad selection of materials that are free and open to use.
Subject areas currently covered are Arts, Business, Humanities, Mathematics and Statistics, Science and Technology and Social Sciences and the resources are divided into Primary, Secondary and Post-secondary levels. When I looked the top sites were:
Evolution 101,Case Studies in Terrorism Response, Masses & Springs, Introduction to Music Theory and Causal Reasoning.
1/25/2007
Library TV
Library TV is a blog for exploring video as a training and promotional tool for libraries, on the web and in television. It is much more specific than this blog in which I sometimes ramble on about unrelated subjects with the excuse that this is really a place for me to communicate stuff that I think might interest friends and colleagues, though it did start with a specific purpose.
Internet Resources Newsletter
I love Roddy McLeod's Internet Resources Newsletter. It comes out regularly once a month and contains a good variety of interesting items; so much that I'm not going to pick any in particular but urge you to read it for yourself.
Articles from Research Buzz
Research Buzz points the reader to articles about a metasearch engine Zuula (Metasearch Engine Zuula Searches Useful Sites) and some new blog search engines (The State of Blog Search Engines: Depressing)
Feeling Cranky
I can't really say what my feelings were when I came across this search engine specially for folks over 50, http://www.cranky.com. Are we all cranky? Are we so illiterate computer-wise that we need to have things made easier? Are references to things that interest us not available on the major search engines? The top items of interest listed were
I'm back
After 5 weeks summer holiday I am back at work. I didn't go away but made the most of Perth's gorgeous beaches only a few minutes drive from my home. The only time I touched a computer was to play Morrowind which I am finding quite addictive.
My Bloglines feed box was full and I am slowly sifting through it to add useful things to this blog. Firefox makes it so easy to open several tabs at once that it's only when my screen becomes too full or I have to leave the PC to do something else that I have been saving to Deli.cio.us.
12/04/2006
Flow Charts on Gliffy
“Whether you’re creating flow charts, floor plans, or pretty much anything you’d consider a diagram, Gliffy actually looks like it can handle it.”
“This is really cool if you’re looking to share flowcharts"
http://www.gliffy.com
11/30/2006
Library & Medical Blog Search Tools
LibWorm: An RSS based search tool searching library blogs and feeds & MedWorm for health and medical feeds. Thanks to ResourceShelf for noting this.
LibWorm is an RSS search engine specifically for library sites. They have over 1000 RSS feeds that they index. It is a really handy way to quickly look for a subject and find out if the biblioblogosphere has been discussing it. You can also browse by categories or specific subjects, handily each category and subject has its own feed. This means that you can subscribe to a subject like library 2.0 and have all those posts delivered directly to you!
11/28/2006
More about RSS Feeds
Found two good entries about RSS in Marshall's Web Tool Blog; they are My intro to RSS and Teaching RSS: A Discussion. RSS is a difficult concept to explain but
11/22/2006
LRSN Forum presentation
"Blogs, Wickis and Other Stuff"
Getting started with RSS http://frl.bluehighways.com/frlarchives/000123.html
Blogs
Library Stuff http://www.librarystuff.net
LISNews http://www.lisnews.com
Resourceshelf http://www.resourceshelf.com
The Shifted Librarian http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com
Librarian.net http://www.librarian.net
Swan TAFE http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=30672805
http://www.icvet.tafensw.edu.au/resources/blogs.htm Updated by Steven Parker, TAFE NSW Illawarra Institute
How to Start a Blog
http://www.windley.com/essays/2004/how_to_start_a_blog.shtml
Blog Software Breakdown --
http://www.asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm
Why and How to Use Blogs to Promote Your Library’s Services --
http://www.infotoday.com/mls/nov03/fichter.shtml
Overview of the Weblog Tools Market -- http://tinyurl.com/67bpn
Weblogs: Do They Belong in Libraries? --
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/area-dna-155ue40/public-libraries/
Time to Check: Are You Using the Right Blogging Tool? --
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050714gardner/
Blogs for Libraries --
http://webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=767
Dr. L. Anne Clyde’s Internet Courses: Weblogs --
http://www.hi.is/~anne/weblogs.html
Blog Glossary -- http://www.samizdata.net/blog/glossary.html
BlogBib -- http://blog-bib.blogspot.com/
Blog search
Searching weblog content.
Blogdigger http://www.blogdigger.com
Blogstreet – http://www.blogsteet.com
Waypath http://www.waypath.com
Daypop http://www.daypop.com
Web 2.0 websites http://2.0websites.com/
Meebo Instant Messenger http://www18.meebo.com/index-en.html
Wikis
Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
The Shifted Librarian Wiki http://theshiftedlibrarian.pbwiki.com/
WikiMatrix allows you to put wikis against each other and get side by side comparisons. Plus, there are forums and articles that will help in the decision making process as well as assistance throughout the early stages of your "wiki-ing".
http://www.wikimatrix.org/
Social Networking
Deli.cio.us http://del.icio.us/
Wink http://wink.com/
LibraryThing http://www.librarything.com/
Stumbleupon http://www.stumbleupon.com/
From The Shifted Librarian blog
Flickr Explained for Librarians
By Jenny
If you're doing a Learning 2.0 initiative, implementing an emerging technologies committee, or just trying to help your colleagues keep up, check out this article by Connie Crosby about Flickr, which includes this excerpt from an interview with Michael Porter.
Flickr is the Web Photo Tool Preferred by Superheroes and Librarians
"The ability to easily comment on and discuss images, put them in subject specific groups and have discussion threads within those groups makes Flickr much, much more than simply photo sharing. It actually helps deliver some of that 'promise of the Internet' we’ve always wanted more of. Understanding Flickr and all of its features (like groups, mapping, commenting, setting friends, tagging, etc) is also one of the very best ways to get a grasp on all of the “2.0” business that seems to be all the rage in library (and other) circles now. There is a reason you hear that '2.0' term all the time at conferences and in professional publications and 'getting' Flickr can be an amazingly fun, practical, engaging and psychologically rewarding 'Library 2.0' learning experience."[LLRX.com]
11/20/2006
Information Literacy
Like most librarians I am preoccupied with the information literacy skills (or lack of them) of our clients. We conduct classes and have online tutorials but I'm always looking for something new. Here's an idea from the University of North Carolina Greensboro Libraries - The Information Literacy Game. I have tried it briefly and think it would be a fun addition to our training.
11/15/2006
New Tags
Over the past few weeks I've tagged several interesting sites on Deli.cio.us but have been very remiss in not blogging about them.
I have StumbleUpon installed on my PC at home (it is too time-wasting to play with it at work) and one of the preferences I've ticked is iPod.
The Seven Phases of Owning an iPod - An Illustrated Journey is amusing and oh so true.
Are you frustrated with having a lot of tunes on your iPod but not being able to transfer them to your computer or share them with others? Try How to get songs off your iPod w/ iTunes or SharePod
More on music; if you use Pandora but sometimes find that you inadvertently close your browser and lost your current selections then you may want to try CFDan.com - Wrapper Application For Pandora Running In Task Tray.
A new search engine TWERQ featuring tabbed based results directly within the website and ton of other practical time saving features is still in beta but I'll be testing it to see if its features live up to their promise. Search results are based on your choice of Yahoo! or Google.
Internet Trends Workshop
Sylvie Huveneers and I presented two workshops for staff and students at Central TAFE last week to educate them in the use of blogs, wikis and RSS and to bring them up to date with some of the new, fun social networking sites. We had a few hiccups in the first presentation but learned from our mistakes and the second one ran smoothly. We are hoping to add it to the College staff professional development programme next year and tailor it specifically for lecturers, administration or support staff.
Next week I'll be doing something similar at the LRSN Forum and the full presentation will be posted on the Forum website. I'll also be posting a page of links on my blog as an alternative to providing handouts - that's one way of driving traffic to this site!
11/01/2006
SEOmoz's Web 2.0 Awards
I will never be able to keep up with all available Web 2.0 applications. The best thing about them is their interactivity and pure fun. SEOmoz's Web 2.0 Awards uncovers the most useful and popular Web 2.0 sites and recognizes the top three in each category for their innovation. Some of those at the top surprised me and others that I thought should have been in the top three didn't make the grade.
Who has time to validate what is best in each group from Blog Guides to Wikis? I know the public is asked to nominate favourite sites and I hope the final choice doesn't work in the same way as some of the reality shows on TV (eg Australian Idol or dancing with the Stars) where popular vote overrides evaluation by well qualified judges.
Firefox 2.0 is here
Complete with bells and whistles, the new Firefox browser was launched within days of IE7. I've been a big fan of Firefox for over a year but unfortunately some web developers are slow to catch up and I still have to use IE to do any administration on the College's website. That is, however, the only time I do use it. Here is an excellent review by Percy Cabello Firefox 2 Review
Although Firefox now has some of the old extensions built in there are still people out there who love creating add-ons to give it even more functionality. There are currently 491 Firefox extensions! They can be found at The Extensions Mirror.
In Cybernet Technology News I read "Two of Firefox’s slogans are “the browser you can trust” and “safer, faster, better” but maybe we can beef up the security a little more with the help of Firefox extensions. You can do everything else with extensions so why should adding more security and a little privacy be any different?" See the article and Security and Privacy extensions here
10/18/2006
Web 2.0 Directory
http://www.go2web20.net/
I was blown away by the number of sites depicted here. Click on an image and a link and a description of the site appears. Chat sites, photo sharing, gaming; it seems that every site that considers itself to be of the new breed of social networking is here.
10/16/2006
Useful tips from Library Stuff
Average Library Use Calculator
"Have you ever thought about the monetary value of your own library use? The Maine State Library offers an interesting take on this. Go to www.maine.gov/msl/services/calculator.htm and take a look at how your average library use is valued." (Holmen Courier - 10/12/06)
More about Web 2.0 (and of course Library 2.0) is discussed in this paper. An alternative term is Participatory Network - less confusing than Library 2.0Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation
"This document describes the conversational model of libraries, provides an overview of current Web 2.0 technologies, and a brief discussion of Library 2.0. Specific challenges and opportunities of participatory networking are reviewed. Finally, the authors recommend the creation of a shared participatory network of libraries. This network would not only experiment with new collaborative web technologies, but work with library organizations and vendors to speed innovation in traditional library systems. Finally the network test bed would provide shared infrastructure to provide participatory technologies, such as Wikis, blogs and RSS feeds to libraries for inclusions in their day to day services." - "American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy Information Institute of Syracuse - Syracuse University’s school of Information Studies - Sept 2006) - via It's All Good
10/11/2006
Library 2.0
I have done a lot of reading while preparing for my presentation on Blogs and Wikis at the LRSN forum next month. Nearly everything leads me to find out more about the catchphrase “Library 2.0”.
It was only recently that I first heard about this phenomenon so I brought it up at our monthly Librarians’ Forum at
I’ve cobbled together some links to further reading that I have found worthwhile. If we want to be seen as being on top of new ideas then constant awareness of what’s being posted on the web is important and we should all monitor our RSS feeds regularly.
Library 2.0 Links
http://mchabib.blogspot.com/2006/08/academic-library-20-concept-models.html
Academic Library 2.0 Concept Models (Basic v2 and Detailed)
posted by Michael C. Habib @
http://wiki.library2.net/index.php/Main_Page
Library 2.0 Wiki (not much in it)
Library 2.0 Sarah Houghton’s (LiB) definition of L2
“Library 2.0 simply means making your library’s space (virtual and physical) more interactive, collaborative, and driven by community needs. Examples of where to start include blogs, gaming nights for teens, and collaborative photo sites. The basic drive is to get people back into the library by making the library relevant to what they want and need in their daily lives…to make the library a destination and not an afterthought.”
Key principles
- Browser + Web 2.0 Applications + Connectivity = Full-featured OPAC
- Harness the library user in both design and implementation of services
- Library users should be able to craft and modify library provided services
- Companies wanting to do business with public or academic libraries should not be creating proprietary software; Library 2.0 is not a closed concept.
- Constant change is replacing the older model of upgrade cycles
- Beta is forever
- Harvest and integrate ideas and products from peripheral fields into library service models
- Continue to examine and improve services and be willing to replace them at any time with newer and better services.
- Library 2.0 is a disruptive idea
- Rigidity breeds failure
- Harness The Long Tail
http://del.icio.us/tag/library2.0
All items tagged Library 2.0 in del.icio.us
Better Library Services for More People
One thing, however, is crystal clear—our discussion of Library 2.0 and the debate that's followed has but one goal and that is: better library services for more people.
What we do want is to discuss and search for ways to reach that goal; to improve library services and reach more users—without leaving any existing users behind. This is not an easy goal, but one that should be discussed. It would be great if we can do this in a constructive and productive manner.
Eli at AADL sums it up very well in a blog post:
Because Web 2.0 is the product of increasingly smarter software development tools and progressively more robust open-source code libraries, inventing and implementing a new Library 2.0-style service requires more creativity than it does cash. Furthermore, the ideas of Web 2.0 are based around sharing code, access, and services; the stuff that the bigger libraries do over the next few years are likely to become available to smaller libraries much faster than the Internet achieved its current ubiquity.
11 Reasons Why Library 2.0 Exists and Matters
Online Community and Libraries, Parts I & II
Online Community and Libraries, Parts
Library 2.0 Theory: Web 2.0 and Its Implications for Libraries
http://www.webology.ir/2006/v3n2/a25.html
9/25/2006
Bringing Information Skills Training Up To Date
There are some great ideas here. I haven’t been able to download the audio files but the slides blew me away.
"Delivering Top-Notch Technology Training for Your Patrons" presented on
Archive of Previous OPAL Events about
Library and Information Science Topics and Trends
- Streaming audio, text chat, and presentation slides about Tech Training (playback time of 56 minutes)
- Original WMA audio recording about Tech Training (8.4 MB file; playback time of 56 minutes)
- Converted MP3 audio recording about Tech Training (22.4 MB file; playback time of 56 minutes)
- Presentation slides about Tech Training.
Text Chat log of the session about Tech Training.
Citation Data
Scholar for Firefox is now ZOTERO, currently in beta. It works with most library catalogues, some popular dot-coms such as Amazon, and many gated databases.
It captures citation information you want from a web page automatically, without typing or cutting and pasting on your part, and saves this information directly into the correct fields (e.g., author, title, etc.) of your Zotero library
This looks interesting but I haven’t been able to test it yet. It could become a very useful tool.
To Google or not to Google
When teaching web search skills I try to impress on my students the need to use more than one search engine for the best results. That's why I was impressed to see this entry from a blog by the Librarian in Black:
Ten Reasons Librarians Should Use Ask.com Instead of Google
http://digbig.com/4nbfm
ClickO6
Last week the ALIA Conference, ClickO6, was held in
9/14/2006
ResourceShelf
Designing Usable, Self-Paced e-Learning Courses: A Practical Guide
By Michael Feldstein, SUNY Learning Network, and Lisa Neal, eLearn Magazine
This guide was primarily designed to help teams of instructional designers and content experts create effective, self-paced e-learning. It teaches best practices for improving usability that can be applied by any instructional designers or content experts and was created so that no prior knowledge of usability is required to use the techniques. (Great article, precisely summarises key approaches and useable processes!)
Source: eLearn Magazine
In July, The World eBook Fair took place offering more than 330,000
From a news release:
5,000 new eBooks for cellphones are being added this week and this is only 1% of the hoped for 500,000 eBooks being targeted for release on the first day of October in honor of International Book Fair Month. Up from the 1/3 million eBook files offered for download, all free of charge, on July 4, in response to requests of eBook readers around the world, more eBooks were added to include more modern selections via commercial sources and a wider variety of formats, which could total 1/2 million eBooks in October. If all goes perfectly well there will be 1/2 million free eBooks,
9/08/2006
Earth Science Sites of the week
I was pleased to receive Mark Francek's weekly newsletter again this week after a long break for the USA summer holidays. I regularly forward this to the lecturers in Mining & Geoscience, Environmental Science and Surveying at Central TAFE and many of them have remarked on its usefulness. The website is http://webs.cmich.edu/resgi. Mark is Professor of Geography at Central Michigan University.
Why not recreate this as a blog with an RSS feed Mark?
9/01/2006
Feeding the OPAC
Some time this summer, the TOCRoSS project will release open source software that will be capable of delivering an RSS service to push publisher and e-journal table of contents data directly into library catalogs, allowing users to find journal articles just like they find books. The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the UK is developing the service with publisher Emerald and library supplier Talis.
From LibraryJournal.com Journals in the Time of Google
By Lee C. Van Orsdel & Kathleen Born — April 15, 2006
8/28/2006
What is Pandora?
Pandora is a music discovery service designed to help you find and enjoy music that you'll love. It's powered by the Music Genome Project, the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Just tell it one of your favorite songs or artists and it will launch a streaming station of music in a similar vein.
You can vote for songs that you like or dislike, bookmark songs to hear again any time or buy them from iTunes or Amazon.com with just a few clicks. Great to use as background music any time or create playlists (from your bookmarked songs) for parties.
8/25/2006
Honey, honey
Our dear friend, David, visited us at home last Sunday bearing gifts of pure Jarrah honey and honey and sandalwood. He's a firm believer in alternative medicines and had read a newspaper article proclaiming the benefits of honey as an antibiotic - particularly against Staphylococcus aureus. It sounded ludicrous but he advised Tim to rub it on his feet and let it soak in to let the benefits permeate his whote system. Feeling a bit of a nana Tim followed his instructions that evening and covered his feet with plastic supermarket bags to keep the stickiness off the furniture while he watched TV.
Next day he was on his feet all day presenting an OH&S training course. This usually leaves him with very sore ankles (arthritis has affected them, he has collapsed arches and doctors have recommended surgery to correct the problem) and he is almost unable to walk. He walked in the door that night without a stick and proclaimed that he was pain-free! His knee wound was also less angry-looking and puffy. Each evening this week he's followed the same procedure, except for last night. Today he is using his stick again so plans to use the honey treatment every night and see whether he can maintain the improvement to his mobility. He will be in Melbourne training all next week and the following week will be on an oil rig in the Timor Sea.
Intute is a free online service providing you with access to the very best Web resources for education and research. Subject specialists select and evaluate the websites in their database and write high quality descriptions of the resources. Good directories are hard to find and require a lot of maintenance by their creators. This one shows promise.
Does anyone out there use Moodle? Moodle is a course management system (
The Library 2.0 Reading List from Squidoo has dozens of links to thoughts and ideas for using Web 2.0 in the Library. Web 2.0 is about finding new ways to interact and collaborate on the internet. An example is 5 Suggestions for Upgrading to Library 2.0 (or Some Easy Steps to Get Started...Really) from an article in Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology A Weblog by Michael Stephens
Mary Ellen Bates Search Tip of the Month doesn't necessarily come out every month. The latest edition is for July and August 2006. She always provides insightful comments and it's worth signing up for her newsletter or adding her site to your RSS feeds.
8/21/2006
Surprising Search Patterns
A new study questions the common assumption that search engines control the hierarchy of the Internet.
By Kate Greene in Technology Review
Writely is a web-based service that allows for the creation and sharing of documents in a sophisticated word-processor-like interface. I love the idea of being able to access documents at home that I have started at work (or vice versa). Sign-up is free and once you have logged in you can start a new document or upload one from your computer.
8/16/2006
After another week off I'm back at work again. This time it was all pleasure. Tom (my son) and his wife, Nessie were on a visit to
My iP0d continues to give me pleasure and I read all I can find about its uses. I can't imagine wanting to watch videos on the tiny screen so I'll probably stick with my 2G Nano - until eye attachments are available enabling large screen viewing. I've come across several mentions of the use of iPods as educational tools but can't imagine that they'd be of much value in a library. See iPod has new role as educational tool from Engadget.
A Wiki symposium - what next? I know that wikis are hot news and I look forward to reading the papers available from WikiSym 2006: Papers and Presentations. Some are already online and others, I hope, will be available after the end of August. I'd love to attend but
Free web-based tools can be very useful - particularly if you don't want to be tied to Microsoft products. ResourceShelf has posted a link to a growing list of Zoho tools including word processing, spreadsheet and presentation tools. The full list is awesome.
A report in one of my favourite RSS fees,
My husband Tim now takes his antibiotics orally and his infection site shows marked improvement. Sue Benson, his microbiologist, must be a miracle worker. Not many years ago he wouldn't have survived golden staph. Thank goodness all that is behind us and we can get back to a normal life again.
8/04/2006
Two weeks leave is never enough. I spent the first week running around for my mother to doctors and immigration interviews and the second trying to recharge my batteries.
Tim (my husband) is home though for 2 weeks he had daily intravenous doses of antibiotics administered by a series of charming nurses. The drugs would have cost us over $250 per day - thank goodness for private health insurance. His knee is looking much better. The swelling has gone down and the redness receded and he manages to get around quite well - sometimes even without crutches.
Because of the treatment we couldn't go away on a much needed holiday but were able to take a break of one night at a lovely B&B in the Perth Hills, Falls Retreat, run by our friends Jenette and Peter. We spent the night in a delightful self-contained suite that was snug and warm despite the winter temperatures and rain outside. Peter cooked dinner - a simply delicious curry made with fresh, authentic ingredients, not just the bottled curry sauces that we usually use - and they treated us to a slap-up breakfast served in the suite next morning, as they do with all their paying guests. Thanks guys, we had a great time.
On my return to the library I found an email from Ralph Mattner, librarian at Swan TAFE, advising me about Swan's Community Services Blog http://swantafecs.blogspot.com/. He also pointed me to these two sites http://jokay.wikispaces.com and http://jstuffed.blogspot.com , great for anyone interested in the Learning Community.
ResourceShelf this week contains links to searchable databases from some of the major art museums around the world at http://digbig.com/4mfck.
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