Week 9, thing 20. You tube. I tube. We all tube...

As part of this Thing's discovery exercises I've been exploring YouTube. It isn't my first time I must say. I mostly look for music videos ( the originals and fan ones). I was rocking out to "Major Tom" just the other day. Oh, and "glory of Love". But there is also things of a more educational nature too!

This is a cool video I found about Banned Book Week at a particular school. I've always wanted to celebrate Banned Book Week and I think my system should! Also, we should have cool buttons like that...

I like the Way YouTube is organised. You can either search for something specific or browse by categories. If there is a particular source of videos you think are interesting you can subscribe to them. Videos have "tags" like I discovered before. I love tags. :) And you can rate videos. The site displays recent favorites on the front page. I will say... That caution is indicated for YouTube. There is a reason many videos have not Not Safe For Work on them...

I think that library catalogs should also have different ways to search for materials. We should have the traditional search functions, but we could also have categories. If people could rate books on our catalog we could have a page of favorites! Our system is going to get AquaBrowser soon which should be interesting. it features a "word cloud" kind of a model which can be very useful to provoke new trains of thought. Here is the Baltimore County Public Library catalog. Is not that cool?! And if you prefer the old view, it still has that. I think it's going to be awesome having that in my system.

Week 8, thing 19. Yelp!!!

Hello! This time my assignment ( which I chose to accept) was to pick one of the Web 2.0 Awards nominees and explore it. Then I am to write a post and describe this site.

I chose Yelp . Yelp is an online community city guide that lets people review businesses such as restaurants, bookstores, dance clubs and pretty much everything else. It contains As soon as I clicked on it it knew where I was, which was both convenient and a little scary. ( remember a few weeks ago , where my mind was blown? There is no such thing as privacy anymore!) Fortunately, it's a review site, so instead of hunter killer droids being sent to my location it just assumed I was interested in the closest big city. There are plenty of locations! I think Maryland has about 7 locations listed.

The premise of yelp is that everyone trusts their friends ( and sometimes random strangers) opinions over advertising. So yelp lets real people give reviews. Now I am not so naive that I do not think that some "shills" aren't out there trying to steer people their way but Yelp apparently makes an effort to keep that kind of thing to a minimum. They even have a guide to business owners to tell them the DOs and DON'Ts of using the site such as don't review your own business anonymously but do review your own place openly, be sure to thank people who review even negative ones, things like that. Apparently Yelp users have been known to punish stores that use "viral advertising" by circling the horses so to speak so this seems like good advice.

There is a strong social networking element to the site. You can message members, talk on a forum, and have friends, as well as invite people to join and be your friend.

I've been checking the site out for about 30 minutes but they took it down for maintenance. :(

I liked it! I found it pleasant to look at, easy to use, and the whole concept appeals to me. I can see a lot of use to this in a library at least as a place on our recommended sites list. I've noticed people often ask my personal opinion a lot. Not because they think I'm especially knowledgeable perhaps, but just because I am a real live human being. Taking the whole notion with a small grain of salt, I thought that Yelp was extremely appealing.

Week 8, thing 18. Witness my Zoho Mojo!

I am now writing using Zoho Writer. It feels just like Word. In fact, it looks like it has more option readily available . ( Oddly enough, the spell check did not recognize Zoho as a word. And I'm IN Zoho!)

I can see why this is nifty . You can access ( and save!) information, on the web, without ever putting it on a disk, or hardrive. I'm sure there is a downside somewhere but it looks pretty nifty to me!

I then exported this to my blog from Mojo. That was nifty. If I didn't have a disk to save something I could write it up in Zoho writer and then save it there! That's really cool. I wonder how much space you get?

Week 7, thing 17

Hello!



I just went to the Maryland Libraries Sandbox and added an entry! This is actually my first time adding something to a wiki. It was kind of cool!

Look for Nepalman. :)

Week 7 thing 16. Wiki madness!

First I have got to say a few things about wikipedia, http://wikipedia.org/ perhaps the most famous wiki in the world. I have serious mixed feeling about wikipedia. On the hand, students should never, ever site wikipedia or get substantial information from Wikipedia. On the other hand, I use WIkipedia nearly evry day both personally and professionally. The difference is in how I use it. I use Wikipedia to point me in the right direction. For instance, the Wiki articles often cite other sites, sources, or books which may be much more definitive then Wikipedia is by itself. Also, Wikipedia is great for things like movie descriptions, and looking up comic book characters who I have forgotten. Things that are not life and death. Wikipedia is certainly a useful tool but it is has to be used in the right way.



Now, one of the wiki I checked out for this discovery exercise really excited me to the possibility of doing one in my system. http://booklovers.pbwiki.com/ is really cool! Patrons write book reviews and e-mail them to staff who then send them a password to put them on the wiki. So it isn't completely unfettered access. I really like the concept of patrons being able to share their opinions of a book with other patrons! This has been done in my system before , but not on line. Patrons really like it when they can be part of the process and sharing your views is always popular. It makes it more personal somehow. for instance, "staff recommends" is always one of our most popular displays. because the patrons know us and it then becomes more personal.



I really liked Library Success: A best practices wiki because it allows librarians from across the country ( and perhaps the world?) to share great ideas,both successes and those valuable learning experiences known as failures.

Looking at these wikis makes me really want one for my system. Also, I find myself wanting a way for patrons to review books accessible directly from out catalog. Perhaps we could could put it behind a hyperlink to make it unobtrusive. This would really increase patron interest in our less trendy books. Sometimes the most interesting things are in the aisle less travelled.

Week 6, thing 15. My mind has just been blown.

Okay. Maybe it's just the coffee but my thoughts are racing like mad after what I've just seen. First I watched http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g which completely rocked my world. I loved it! At first it was a little confusing. But it was liberating. And a little scary. ( also I immediately thought of the Internet achieving sentience. Now, ... um, that is a little scary. Mostly because I think the Internet as a sentient being would be obsessed with sex. Frankly.) It really reminded me of that commercial with the business man in a suit going into an old fashioned diner. He asks about the old fashioned looking juke box. Obviously being sarcastic, he enquires about any classical music "on that thing." He is informed that this jukebox plays every piece of music, ever recorded, anywhere. he is in a state of shock.

This is kind of how I felt after looking at this video and reading some of the library 2.0 perspectives. The future is not coming. The future is here. And we have to adapt.
I liked all of them, But "Away from the “icebergs” http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/2.htm , and "To a temporary place in time..." http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/6.htm were my favorites. Mostly because they were a little more ... user friendly then the others. I liked the first because it broke down the issues in a really simple way that speaks to the libraries issues. But at the same time that I appreciated Mr. Anderson's points, I also had counter points. We can't afford to have everything in physical form anymore. We just can't. Libraries are relying increasingly on databases and e. texts. But... power outages happen. Connection problems happened. My branches computers were down 4 hours yesterday. people came into the branch and literally walked right out again when they saw the Internet is down. I felt powerless. Without our handy Dewie decimal cheats I would not even have known where anything was.
His point about user education also rang true. We DO need to make our systems easier and more intuitive. BUT... making the interface more user friendly is not the end of even the beginning. It's the middle. Education is necessary. I have patrons come in all the time that think ever terminal has its own e- mail address that they can uses. More and more people are getting back into the job market and trying to apply for job applications. Which absolutely So, my position is... We need easier technology AND education . Which means more money assigned to that and perhaps a staff position whose only job is that. We actually have that at one of our branches. A computer lab and a full time instructor. We need more of that. His last point, I have no reservations about. We have to go to the patron . Because we must help them to understand. Everyone can use the Internet. it's how you use the Internet that matters. And also, books. Books are awesome.

"to a temporary place in time" is so cool because it discusses the transitory nature of ... all things really. Library 2.0? The Internet is buzzing about web 3.0! The next step. And the next step. And another. We need to be flexible, adaptive, attentive, and ... CAUTIOUS. Because as I said in a discussion of hypothetical voice activated computers technology VOX , we need to understand one thing. New technology is beneficial ( potentially at least) but we must adopt it with disowning our current technology. I picked up a book. This, I said, is 100 % EMP protected. it requires no power source. It cannot be hacked. It can be altered but is readily apparent. We must never abandon this!!! For that day will sound the death knell of knowledge.

Week 6, Thing 14. Technorati !

Hello!



I have been exploring Technorati, the blog searching site ( http://technorati.com/) and it is quite, quite interesting. I looked at the top favorited blogs, the top searches on Technorati ( Harry Potter is at the top of the list.) and the top blogs as measured by number of links the blogs have to them. I found a really cool blog called Boing Boing. http://www.boingboing.net/

I added it to my feed list. I also "claimed " my blog. Now I know that doing this puts me more on the radar but I find the language interesting. If I hadn't what would have happened? One day would gold be discovered on my blog and because I hadn't claimed it I would be evicted?!

... most likely, not. But a man can dream can't he?!?!



I also did a few searches for "learning 2.0 " in a few different ways. There were 3, 949 blog posts featuring learning 2.0. There were 25, 379 posts that had been tagged learning 2.0 . And there were 488 blogs that were devoted to learning 2.0.


The entire thing is fascinating. I'm going to play with it for a while. :)

[mdlearn2]

Week 6, thing 13. D-licious!

Wow. I got an account with http://del.icio.us/ a social bookmarking site. The whole notion of being able to acce4ss your favorites from any computer is revolutionary. Then when you add the concept of sharing them , thats just fantastic!

Here are some I've done so far.

http://del.icio.us/ninjabook

It's interesting. I've seen "tags" around a lot of places, including on live journal, but I never entirely understood them. I think they make a nifty organizational tool. It's kind of similar to a concept I heard about a long time ago. You're reading a text on line and you can click on nearly anything if you want more information about it.

Using tags somebody can bounce around from link to link and get more information that way. My problem is that I might be like a kid in a candy store and just bounce from place to place without fully absorbing one thing but I thing that risk goes along with the Internet in general.

I definitely see the promise in something like this as a research tool certainly. It's a differant kind of organization, that doesn't have to replace older forms but can complement it.

Week 5, thing 11. Presenting, some of my books.

I have signed up for Library Thing! Which is this really nifty way to keep track of what books I own/ have read. And you can also see what other people have read. Here is my library * a small sample of it rather. I need to make time and add everything.)

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Nepalman

I tried using Suggester and Unsuggester, but they were loading a long time and I suspect they may be broken.

Me as pencil sketch

Me as pencil sketch
Originally uploaded by buffyatemydingos

This is awesome! I did this with a photo to pencil sketch looking generator which is here...

http://www.dumpr.net/sketch.php

Week 4, thing 9.

I used various engines to search for feeds!


I didn't like any of them really. Now, this isn't a sweeping indictment. I think the technology is just new new to me.

On a funny aside, the other day I explained cut and paste to a patron and he regarded me as his techno savior. I told him , sir, six months ago, I did not properly understand this myself! Yes, take heart technophobes of the world, if I can do it, anyone can.

So, yes. I used bloglines searcher, and technorati, as well as a few others. My main difficulty was telling the difference between a blog or feed, that just had my subject term in it incidentally to a blog that had my subject term as its main subject. I will continue playing with it. And as for playing... onward to week 5, the fun week!!! :)

Week 4, thing 8.

Greetings!

Well, I have done it! I have set up a Bloglines account.

It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. I had looked at the help videos and they were very helpful.

It took me somewhat longer to find out how to make my ffeds public but I think I've figured it out. Here is the list.

http://www.bloglines.com/public/Nepalman