I read the first two articles: Michael Stephens "Into a new world of librarianship" and Rick Anderson's "Away from the 'icebergs'" from the OCLC New Space newsletter. I agree with Stephens that it Web 2.0 is a new age for librarians and information institutions and time to upgrade your train of thought, retrain employees, basically do what you can to continue serving quality service to users in accessing information.
Changes within the library profession have happened before and this should be considered no different. I think libraries will be busy for the next few years in upgrading library equipment, and public areas, training staff, to name a few. Our profession will include constant upkeep in the latest computer technology and how to apply it to our job. The role of the library and its function has been going under a transformation. It will be more of a place where the librarian collaborates with the client as per Stephens in creating online tools custom crafted for the individual user.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Felled victim to the Malibu fire
On Labor Day, my first day of vacation and Catalina my final destination, I was stuck for two hours on PCH. Traffic was insane. Bumper to bumper. You could see hoards of people on the beaches. It was like the famous Weegee photo of a crowded Coney Island beach. The castle was pointed out to me and I wished a camera was at hand so I could take a photo. It was a truly fascinating structure standing on top of the hill. A multi-level castle complete with turrets and walls of stone standing out among the other houses in the area. Something you would not ordinarily think of nestled in the Malibu hills overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Then came the Santa Ana winds and the fire. It burned down two days ago.
Malibu Fire October 2007
The fire is trailing down to PCH and Carbon Canyon on Sunday, Oct. 21. Pretty amazing shot.
Technorati
Using advanced search will vary your results byoffering a choice to narrow or broaden your results by posts or by subject relevancy within the blogs. With Blog Directory Search there are three search settings to choose from : relevance results in 431 blogs, authority gives 454 blogs, and freshness results in 452. If I use tag search my results come out to be zilch.
Keyword search results let you also choose the level of authority you want to access. For the highest authority level library 2.0 found 1.030 results and the lowest (any) authority level found 7,503 pertaining to library 2.0. Tags with highest authority found 107 results, and lowest found 2,056.
Technorati lets you manipulate your search results and this I find to be very helpful. Sometimes you want to find blogs on a topic that will have relevance to them. Listing authority levels helps your decision-making.
Keyword search results let you also choose the level of authority you want to access. For the highest authority level library 2.0 found 1.030 results and the lowest (any) authority level found 7,503 pertaining to library 2.0. Tags with highest authority found 107 results, and lowest found 2,056.
Technorati lets you manipulate your search results and this I find to be very helpful. Sometimes you want to find blogs on a topic that will have relevance to them. Listing authority levels helps your decision-making.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
More thoughts on Rollyo
I am having a fun time working with Rollyo and learning how to use it. There are some instructions I find rather difficult to comprehend and have yet to discover a "help" feature but with perseverance, I will figure it out. One thing I truly appreciate is the "dashboard" feature. I am the kind of person who goes back and will edit or rework something until I am satisfied with the results. A perfectionist. My Rollyo searchrolls have undergone changes since my last blog post and sites have been added and deleted. For now, it is just quicker to do it that way for now until another idea of rearranging and categorizing crops in my mind. My main goal here is to gather useful search tools that can be applied for my professional librarian use.
I have yet to read through any of the set sites provided by Rollyo mainly because I think they may be too "commercial" than what I am looking for as a professional librarian. I shall though browse through them and see if anything catches my eye and may be of use to me.
I have yet to read through any of the set sites provided by Rollyo mainly because I think they may be too "commercial" than what I am looking for as a professional librarian. I shall though browse through them and see if anything catches my eye and may be of use to me.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Week #5 & #6 -Rollyo own
Here is something I can really sink my teeth (& bookmarks) into. How can you get all of the reliable online resources at your fingertips?
You can make your own search engine or searchroll with Rollyo. Rollyo has starter kits of sites by subject category or you can manually add your own choice of sites from the Internet. All you need to do is select sites for your searchroll. You can create as many searchrolls as you want. I have created two searchrolls so far.
Yes, I can already see how useful this tool can be for a librarian! I think it would be such a help to be able to access your personal search list from any computer. Easy access can lead to quicker search results.
How about a searchroll set up for library users to access. I can see how this could be incorporated as a homework tool for students to use along with electronic resources we already provide.
You can make your own search engine or searchroll with Rollyo. Rollyo has starter kits of sites by subject category or you can manually add your own choice of sites from the Internet. All you need to do is select sites for your searchroll. You can create as many searchrolls as you want. I have created two searchrolls so far.
Yes, I can already see how useful this tool can be for a librarian! I think it would be such a help to be able to access your personal search list from any computer. Easy access can lead to quicker search results.
How about a searchroll set up for library users to access. I can see how this could be incorporated as a homework tool for students to use along with electronic resources we already provide.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Week #5&6-ST:TNG(enerator)!
Examing the generators under The Generator Blog, I found some not worth using because they ask for you to sign in. I do not feel comfortable doing that so opted out in playing with those.
Perusing through FD Toys, I found Hockneyizer and since I am an art lover, I had to try it out. The image is of the artist, David Hockney. Yep, Hockney got Hockneyed by the Hockneyizer. You can select to reshuffle the polaroids, enter in a background color, download to Flickr if you chose, and edit the image. Pretty fun.
Another art-related generator I found was under The Generator Blog. It is a Warhol generator. You can download an image and it getsl morphed into a "Warhol" painting. Now THAT is something Mr. Warhol would have used in a split second! He would have loved it.
Next Gen blog: who knows?
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Week #4 RSS part deux
Using the search settings for feeds on bloglines was easy and the drop down window. The only part I have a gripe about is after selecting a particular feed, I am not sent back to the previous page but to the MY Feed page. I use the backspace key to get back to the previous page. So far I have not found an easier way to return to my last page. Anyone know a better way?
There is so much to choose from and I decided to select for now reliable feeds from sources I am familiar with and know will have useful information for librarians: Library Journal news & features, LJ book reviews, RUSA blog, School Library Journal gadgets news (since I am working in YP for now),LII, and Library jobs listings. I may add Office of Intellectual Freedom or the IF from ALA because it is informative to know the challenges other libraries are facing and how they deal with these issues. There is so much at your fingertips and you can spend a lot of time deciding what to select. Unfortunately, there was no RSS subscription to a complete journal like I discovered with Library Journal and School Library Journal. You have to select by different by categories within the journal.
I tried out the 200 recommended feeds by Bloglines, used keywords for various library-related topics and many blogs are from libraries or personal blogs by librarians. Discovered the advanced search with parameters so you can search for particular blogs.
News-wise I selected BBC world news because they will give a more balanced view of what the US is doing in Iraq. JMHO. CNN because I should get an American POV too.
ttfn!
There is so much to choose from and I decided to select for now reliable feeds from sources I am familiar with and know will have useful information for librarians: Library Journal news & features, LJ book reviews, RUSA blog, School Library Journal gadgets news (since I am working in YP for now),LII, and Library jobs listings. I may add Office of Intellectual Freedom or the IF from ALA because it is informative to know the challenges other libraries are facing and how they deal with these issues. There is so much at your fingertips and you can spend a lot of time deciding what to select. Unfortunately, there was no RSS subscription to a complete journal like I discovered with Library Journal and School Library Journal. You have to select by different by categories within the journal.
I tried out the 200 recommended feeds by Bloglines, used keywords for various library-related topics and many blogs are from libraries or personal blogs by librarians. Discovered the advanced search with parameters so you can search for particular blogs.
News-wise I selected BBC world news because they will give a more balanced view of what the US is doing in Iraq. JMHO. CNN because I should get an American POV too.
ttfn!
Monday, October 1, 2007
RSS-it's alive!!
DOH! Now I know the links on my Google homepage are RSS feeds! I wondered what the B button that sat atop DOCS and Gmail settings was under my Google account page. "B" for Blogger. Doh! Simply addictive this! I've created a monster. So far there are eight feeds on my blogline account. Eight? Doh! I'll name this monster Homer.
Doh!
Doh!
Merry Maidens
Week #3-
This blog is supposed to talk about something technology related. Well...my first thought was find a photo of an English countryside and this one caught my eye. Just a pleasing photo to look at; no necessary connection to the subject matter at hand. Ancient stones in England have always interested me. Come to think of it...this photo DOES have a connection to technology.
Ponder this. The Merry Maidens could have represented a technology from the ancient era. There is some computation to them I'm sure. An early type of blog possibly? Were the Merry Maidens a stone log (journal) in fact ...a "stog"? Did they tell of the star patterns for each season? From stog to blog. We have come a long way...or have we?
This blog is supposed to talk about something technology related. Well...my first thought was find a photo of an English countryside and this one caught my eye. Just a pleasing photo to look at; no necessary connection to the subject matter at hand. Ancient stones in England have always interested me. Come to think of it...this photo DOES have a connection to technology.
Ponder this. The Merry Maidens could have represented a technology from the ancient era. There is some computation to them I'm sure. An early type of blog possibly? Were the Merry Maidens a stone log (journal) in fact ...a "stog"? Did they tell of the star patterns for each season? From stog to blog. We have come a long way...or have we?
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