RobinsBlog

Paper Girl

2007-04-17T06:34:00.001-07:00

IMG_6529
Originally uploaded by rogue2408.

Bobbi's got the greatest photos, doesn't she?

Dewey after the Linn Christmas Parade 2006

2007-04-17T06:33:00.001-07:00

Dewey after the Linn Christmas Parade 2006
Originally uploaded by MRRL.

Dewey Rocks!

Web 2.0 Search Engines

2007-03-01T06:34:00.000-08:00

The Online Education Database has an article up on the top 25 Web 2.0 Search Engines. For those of you who haven't done your search engine lesson yet, you may want to take a look at some of these in addition to (or instead of) the ones that we list on the lesson's post. For those of you who have finished that lesson, you may want to check them out too - you never know when you will find a new gem of a search engine that you will want to use on a regular basis!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

New set of posts!

2007-02-07T08:45:00.000-08:00

Yeah, that final post? That was the final post for my Learning 2.0 project. I'm going to continue to post cool new Web 2.0ish stuff I find for you all to peruse, though. Keep me in your bloglines account, please!!

This is a quick 4 1/2 minute video that explains Web 2.0 perfectly! Enjoy it!!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

Week 11 Final Post

2007-02-06T08:44:00.000-08:00

Summarize my thoughts on the program, huh? Well, to start off with, I'll have to say that I've been impressed, surprised and delighted by the amount of learning that has gone on due to this program. Everyone who has been participating has been posting like crazy and learning new concepts all the time. That is just plain exciting! I've also been surprised at how many people have jumped in and started working on this thing - we are at over 40% of the staff currently signed up and with blogs. That's pretty cool, too!
I'm always learning new stuff about the Web 2.0 landscape. Just today, I found out about a program called "IMified" that lets you add reminders to your Google Calendar, make notes and todo lists and do a whole bunch more from you Instant Messaging client. This is a fairly cool application, especially for those who have their IM clients open all the time. This is just an example of the sort of thing that is released nearly every day in the Web 2.0 world.
As for what I'd like to see the staff learn... I'm currently reviewing various state lists of "core competencies" for library staff members. I'd like to see a series of training initiatives that cover those competencies - and so, that's what I'm working on next! I hope that we will be able to do many different kinds of training sessions, blog-based tutorials and, possibly, flash and/or video based teaching "modules" for the staff in the future!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

26. Podcasts

2007-02-05T09:28:00.000-08:00

Create a blog post about your discovery process. Did you find anything useful here?

Using the Yahoo! podcast search and the search term of "library", (after I had looked for "books" and found pretty much nothing in the first few pages that interested me - lots of comic book podcasts, though!), I found LibVox, a roundup of library news and a link to the OPAL podcasts. I read the LISNews RSS feed pretty much every day for a comprehensive check of the days news about libraries (and I've added it to our staffweb's collection of feeds on the staff web site), but this would be a nice way to catch up on the news while driving to and from work or while doing other things at my desk. The OPAL podcasts were something I'd run across before and not signed up for, but should have. OPAL is a learning initiative from a collective of libraries in Ohio. They offer a lot of great classes as well as quite a few book discussions and interviews.

I currently use iTunes to manage the few podcasts I listen to - namely Science Friday from NPR and Al Franken's show that airs on Air America. I'm pretty bad at taking in information by just listening to it - I'm a VERY visual learner, so podcasts are interesting, but not my favorite way of learning new things... But that's me and others may find podcasts to be the perfect way to help alleviate the information overload that can easily happen when you start discovering way more RSS feeds than you have time to read!
--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

25 - YouTube

2007-01-29T08:19:00.000-08:00

Rita Starnes, a local small business woman, created some videos of her speaking so that I could post them on her website for her. She wanted people who were considering hiring her as a speaker to be able to see her in action. I chose to use YouTube to host and serve the videos for a couple of different reasons. I wanted to be able to use the statistics YouTube offers for their videos to keep track of the number of views she is getting and I wanted to be able to host these rather large files on a server other than her own - since she has limited space to play with!

The video clip above is of Rita giving a speech on gender communications - it's her first try at videography, and I think she did a rather nice job!

I've seen other uses for YouTube that are more specific to the library. St. Joseph public library posted a video that they created for their staff day on YouTube and inspired a LOT of other librarians to use this new tool. Now Denver's public library is having a contest for people to submit videos, via YouTube, to the library where they are encouraging teens to tell the world about how they have fun at the library. These are both great library advertising - and it's getting the word out to people who may be hard to reach in more traditional ways!
--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

24 - Web 2.0 awards

2007-01-29T07:50:00.000-08:00

I went to the "short list" of winners - just to cut down on the number of sites I had to choose from! I chose to check out Newsvine - a "peer news production" site. I took the 60 second tour and discovered that Newsvine has "digg-like" qualities. You can vote a news story up or down to indicate how important you feel the story is (digg allows you to do that to websites) and then see what other Newsvine users feel are the most important stories of the day. Commenting and conversation are also encouraged by the Newsvine setup. That gives you even more information on how people feel about the various stories that are submitted. I can see that a determined group of activists could "game" this system into presenting stories that are one-sided, but - like Wikipedia - I would hope that there are enough users to prevent any one group from taking over the service like that!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

23 - Google Labs

2007-01-22T13:11:00.000-08:00

I've been hearing amazing things about the new Google RSS reader (similar to the Bloglines application that we've introduced you all to and that I use right now), so I decided to give it a try. After importing my feeds, I clicked around and I think I may like it a lot. One of the big benefits is the same as Gmail - no folders, just tags (though Google Reader calls them folders, but they act like tags - just like the labels in Gmail). This way I can put a librarian blog that is written by a friend (such as Librarian By Day) into both my library blogs folder and my friends folder. That rocks!!
The other tool I decided to write about is the Google Notebook tool. That puts a little notebook on your browser's extension bar (if you are using a good browser - ie. Firefox) and lets you add selected text to a note page in the notebook application. Now, if only they would link up the Notebook and Google Docs & Spreadsheets so I can import my notes into a Google Doc, I'd be in heaven!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

22 - online applications

2007-01-22T12:55:00.000-08:00

I have to say that I am a HUGE fan of the online office applications. Michael Howard and I were collaborating on a bit of writing for the River Journal the other day and, despite the fact that we sit 2 feet from one another, we both had the document open on our computers and were making changes to the document while discussing it. That is efficient collaboration! The blog post about this week's lesson has a lot of cool uses for this kind of thing, be sure to read it carefully! One of the coolest (in my opinion) is the multitude of file formats you can save in. To create a PDF using MS Word, you have to buy the Acrobat program ($200+ dollars) and install it. To create a PDF in Docs & Spreadsheets, you just go to File --> Save As PDF and it's done.
Finally, before I go (and according to File --> Count Words I'm just at 153 words, so I'm ready to stop typing...), this application allows you to create spreadsheets that are fully compatible with Excel and can be saved in PDF format as well. That's just cool!!

Update: My title for my document didn't come through!! That could be an issue at times, but this time I just edited this post and added it...

21 - Search Engines

2007-01-22T12:35:00.000-08:00

My computer at home is beeping at me and not starting up. I've been meaning to search out the BIOS error codes that correspond to those beeps all day, and I'd forgotten until I started working on this post. I searched for dell bios post codes - no quotes - in Exalead first. I really liked the "refine search" window that popped up, because they aren't really post codes, they are beep codes - and Exalead let me know that! I found the answer (I tried to install more RAM the other day and apparently didn't reseat my original RAM stick properly - the computer has to be opened once again...), but I'm going to keep trying on the other search engines - just to see if something new comes up for future reference!
When I tried the same search on Gravee, I got the same result for the first "hit" (with the exception of Exalead's "sponsored search" result which was on top of that result set), but the rest seemed to be different. I think I like the idea of tagging search results, but it seems like a lot of work unless everybody is doing it...
Last, but not least, I tried Kartoo. I have to say that I really didn't like that one at all. Not only because I couldn't tell what the "top results" were to compare them to the last couple of result sets, but because I had no way to tell which results were going to get me what I wanted. Most search engines give you a snippet of content, the full URL and possibly a date to use for checking the "freshness" of the information. All of these clues are useful when evaluating search results - Kartoo doesn't provide any of that!!
With the exception of Kartoo, none of the search engines were particularly more difficult to use. I like the idea behind Gravee, but Exalead seemed pretty comprehensive and easy to use, too!
--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

20. Library 2.0 perspectives

2007-01-16T08:34:00.000-08:00

I, of course, read all of that while helping Bobbi put this program together. I went back and re-read them this morning, though, and caught some things that I'd forgotten about but think are pretty important. In the "Away From The Icebergs" article, there were two comments that struck me as I was reading them. The first deals with training:

"But if our services can’t be used without training, then it’s the services that need to be fixed—not our patrons. One-button commands, such as Flickr’s “Blog This,” and easy-to-use programs like Google Page Creator, offer promising models for this kind of user-centric service."

The second is more along the lines of what we are doing here - making our services available to people who may not be able to physically visit the library via RSS feeds, MySpace pages and the like.

"At a minimum, this means placing library services and content in the user’s preferred environment (i.e., the Web); even better, it means integrating our services into their daily patterns of work, study and play."

In "To Better Bibliographic Services", the author gives some good advice to libraries looking to fit into the 2.0 world,

"Adopt Web features The features of Amazon and Google of interest to students and scholars ought to be incorporated into the services libraries make available. Libraries should welcome the submission of reviews, assignment of keywords (“tagging”), addition of scholarly commentary, and other forms of user participation."

and I agree completely! Web 2.0 is all about user-created content. We should be encouraging that content. We also, however, have to worry about policing that content. These are issues the library should be discussing, though!!

In the Wikipedia article - Library 2.0, the definition of Library 2.0 has a couple of lines in it that go back to the idea of participation from our users:

"an increased flow of information from the user back to the library."
and
"the need for libraries to adopt a strategy for constant change while promoting a participatory role for library users."

These ideas really resonate with me - I love the idea of letting our users become content creators - even if it's just to rate books in our catalog (already available!). I'd like to see us offer reviews, comments or tagging abilities to books - but that's a ways in the future, probably...

In the WEB 2.0 and Its Technologies for Collaborative Library Communication article, I really liked the "cheerleading" tone of the following sentence:

"I think that if librarians everywhere would just get up to speed on some of these little-known and newer techniques, tools, and thinking on the crucial topic of Web 2.0 within libraries, they (and this includes you) will find that many other libraries and librarians are already using social software tools and offering best practices suggestions for all of us-then, you will get excited as well and become a denizen of Web 2.0 sites!"

That is what we are doing here, and I've been seeing, in your blog posts, that you are becoming denizens of Web 2.0 sites already. That can only benefit our patrons and help them become users of these new sites, too!!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

18 My visited states map

2007-01-08T07:39:00.000-08:00

The map below is for states in which I've spent at least one night. I've driven through more of them, but I decided to make a night spent in the state a requirement for this map. I've got some traveling to do, don't I?

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

17. My online images

2007-01-08T07:35:00.000-08:00

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

16 - RSS Feeds

2007-01-08T06:55:00.000-08:00

Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing? What kind of unuseful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?

I generally find plenty of feeds just while trolling through the web, but when I'm looking for specific feeds, I like to use the "blogrolls" of sites I already read. I've found that especially helpful with library-related feeds! Most blogs have a list of some sort that contains at least some of the blogs that the blogger reads on a regular basis. I consider those to be pre-selected good reading!! When I have to search for a particluar topic, Technorati is the engine I use most these days. I've used Syndic8 in the past, but it seemed to be more confusing to use - not quite as useful as Technorati's social aspects - knowing how many other bloggers subscribe to a particular feed, how many consider a feed their "favorite" and so on. I've found LOTS of unuseful feeds in my travels - mostly feeds that were started with the best of intentions, then left to wither on the 'net due to lack of posts. I have to go through my bloglines account occasionally and get rid of feeds that haven't posted anything for a while. Firefox (the alternative browser) has been really helpful in finding feeds that I might have missed. If there is a feed on a site, the browser gives me a little hint that it is subscribable. That comes in handy to grab feeds I wouldn't have realized are available!!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

15 - RSS Feeds

2007-01-05T07:19:00.000-08:00

Now we are getting into my favorite part of the whole Web 2.0 field - RSS. The benefits of having information come to you - as opposed to you having to go out to find that information on different websites scattered throughout the 'net - are immense! However, the ease of subscribing to RSS feeds and the possibility of finding yourself following 160 different feeds (the number I currently have in my Bloglines account...) means that you have to be careful of information overload.
Be sure to check out the Bloglines buttons, too - just click on the "Add" link above your subscriptions on the left side of the page, then click on the "Easy Subscribe Button" link on the right side of the page. The directions are pretty simple - pick the browser you are using, drag the appropriate button to your toolbar and start subscribing whenever you see that a site you like has a RSS feed.
I generally use Bloglines to keep up with both my librarian blogs and my web design blogs - as well as the blogs you all are creating for this program. Without Bloglines to let me know when you all post to your blogs, I would be very hard-pressed to respond in a timely manner to your posts!! Other people use Bloglines to create temporary "research" folders, adding in sites that publish information on their topic so that they can get the latest info that they need for their particular research needs. You all will find your own uses for Bloglines, I'm sure - I can't wait to read your posts to find out how you are using it!!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

14. Flickr Mashups

2007-01-02T09:07:00.000-08:00

My choice for the Flickr mashup was the trading card. I pulled a picture from Flickr of me relaxing near the New River in Ft. Lauderdale. The icons I chose are pretty much meaningless - except that I liked them...

The Librarian Trading Cards group was pretty fun. It's interesting to see faces to go with the names that pop up on librarians' blogs!!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

13. Flickr

2007-01-02T08:20:00.000-08:00

I've been using Flickr for a while now, it's a great way to store my pictures and give others a chance to view them! What I really like about Flickr, though, is the ability to create a community around photos. Each image can be commented on by any other Flickr user - it's really a great way to meet new folks who may be interested in the same things you are and to share bits and pieces of your life with your friends and family!
I posted a selection of photos from my recent vacation in Florida to Flickr as soon as I got back. The one that sums up my experience the most is the one of the alligator checking out our boat in the Everglades! There are a couple of different ways to upload pics to a blog, but the way I used was to go to the "all sizes" button on the top of the photo's page, pick the medium size, then use the image's URL to enter into the photo upload tool at blogger. There are easier ways to do it - trust me - but this one works in a pinch!!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

Extra Reading

2006-12-13T06:29:00.000-08:00

A new article has just come out describing the "Web 2.0" concept and libraries. It's a nice introduction to everything we are discussing here, so I thought I'd make it available here and I'll probably make it required reading later on in the lessons! If you want to get a head start, though - head over to RedOrbit to read the article now!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

11. Technorati

2006-12-12T07:01:00.000-08:00

I have used Technorati in the past, mostly to claim my blog and check on specifically tagged blogs (such as the ones for the conference I attended last week - most tagged with xml2006), but I've never played with the "popular" books, movies and news features. I can see those being *really* helpful when trying to find a new book to read or movie to watch. Sort of a meta-review collection from real people, rather than professional reviewers. I think that is a pretty cool application of Technorati's technology! "The Prestige" was one of the popular movies listed when I visited, and I thought that the ability to scan through the blog posts and get people's opinions was helpful - I'd seen the movie already, but if I hadn't, I definitely would have found the almost universal approval of the movie very helpful in making my decision!
I also added a couple of blogs to my favorites list (something I'd never done before) and was having fun looking at all of the cool things I can do with my favorite blogs! I'm definitely coming back to this when I have more time!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

10 - Del.icio.us

2006-12-11T12:50:00.000-08:00

While we were setting up this program, I didn't have a chance to really absorb all of the information in the links we were finding for you all. This means, of course, that I had the chance to be wowed by the 12 minute del.icio.us movie that we linked to because I was able to sit and listen to/watch it and really concentrate on what she was saying this time. She had some great ideas for using del.icio.us as a reading list. I tend to stick stuff that I don't have time to read right now in there quite often! I used to blog about them, but that takes almost as much time as reading the article/web site/news story does. Now, with the addition of the del.icio.us bookmark (or - for those of you using Firefox, the del.icio.us plugin), I can quickly add stuff to my reading list! Another use I came up with this year was as a Christmas list holder. I have tagged stuff I want for Christmas with a "christmasgiftwish" tag and anyone who is interested in knowing what I want for Christmas can take a look at it.
I created an account with del.icio.us (name of rhastings - feel free to add me to your network if you have an account yourself) and find it to be INCREDIBLY useful - especially with the browser buttons and links that they provide. This doesn't even take into account the benefits that putting our (MRRL's) reference links in del.icio.us (user name mrrl) has created!

Update: I'm a dork, I just realized I posted twice for this lesson, but I wanted to keep both posts, up, so I'm just going to advertise my dorkiness to everyone... Enjoy both posts!!
--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

In Boston

2006-12-06T04:12:00.000-08:00

I probably won't be posting anything really "project" related this week, since I'm in Boston and keeping pretty busy with the conference I'm attending. I did want to make a note about what we are doing here, though! When I sent in my "blurb" for the conference track moderator to use when introducing me (before my presentation), I said something about "playing" on the web for the last 12 years. He commented on that during my introduction, saying that he believed that the only way to get a really deep understanding of web "stuff", you have to play with it and approach it like you are ready to have fun. Karen's latest post on her project blog mentions the fact wikis are - like the rest of this web 2.0 stuff - limited to people who have access to the web and who are comfortable with it. As a library, we are providing services that offer access to the web to people who might not be able to afford it themselves. As participants in this project, you all are becoming people who are comfortable with these technologies and concepts because you are playing with them. I'm so proud of all of you who are taking the time to do this! Playing is important when it comes to really getting computers and I truly hope you all have fun and approach these lessons as "play time" as much as "learning time"!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

Tip!

2006-11-29T13:32:00.000-08:00

For those of you who may be wondering how to figure out if you have 150 words in a given post, I've got a tip. On the top left corner of your Gmail account screen (where you read your email), there is a link to "Docs & Spreadsheets". We'll be playing with these later in the lesson, but if you want to write your blog posts in this tool, follow along with the instructions below.

1. Click on the "Docs & Spreadsheets" link
2. Click on the "New Document" link at the upper left
3. Start typing out your blog post

You can check your word count by clicking on the "file" menu at the top left of your page. The second to the last menu item is "Count Words". The pop-up box that appears will tell you your word count for that document.
You can also post directly to your blog from this interface.
1. Click on the "Publish" tab at the top right of your screen (while editing a document)
2. Click to set up a blog to post too.
3. Choose "Blogger (beta)" from the drop down list at the top and enter your gmail account address (including the @gmail.com) and password.
4. Enter the title of your blog (mine is RobinsBlog, Bobbi's is Bobbi Blogs, etc.)
5. Choose to use the title of the document as the title of your post.
6. Click the "Test" button to make sure you can post (you should get a confirmation message that says you can begin posting) - if you have problems, let me know!!
7. Click on the "Edit" link at the left to get back to your document

This is pretty advanced stuff - if you don't feel like doing it, don't stress, but if you are looking for a challenge... have fun with it!!

Lesson 10: Tagging

2006-11-29T13:11:00.000-08:00

Can you see the potential of this tool for research assistance? Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere?

Again, I can definitely see the potential for del.icio.us to be useful for reference work - since I set up the original MRRL del.icio.us account for us to use in managing the reference staff's bookmarks. If you go to our Reference Links page (http://www.mrrl.org/services/refer/links/index.php) you can see the tags that I've used to categorize the reference links listed. Click on the tag and see the reference links for that "category". All of these links are actually managed by the del.icio.us tool! One of the benefits of this is that, as reference staff become familiar with del.icio.us (from this set of lessons, perhaps?), they can add new links to those pages just by adding a link to MRRL's del.icio.us account (contact me for username/password information if you are in the reference department and this sounds like fun to you). One of the great advantages of using the del.icio.us service is that you can put a button on your browser's toolbar to post new sites to your account with a single click. That's helpful for reference staff or for anyone who may want to keep track of all of their bookmarks on more than one computer (personal desk computer, service desk computer, home computer) without having to manually move bookmarks or favorites around!
--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

Lesson 7

2006-11-28T07:12:00.000-08:00

After reading through these articles, blog postings and lists, what do you think about libraries using Myspace?

I think it's a grand idea - of course, I've been managing MRRL's MySpace presence for a while now, so I would think that, wouldn't I. The Librarian in Black and Nicole (of What I Learned Today) both have great points when it comes to using MySpace for libraries. I posted in my "professional" blog a while back about a bill that would ban MySpace in libraries altogether - I don't believe that it's MySpace that is the culprit. Kids will be kids and if we ban one social networking site, they will just find another to use. We need to be educated about the pros/cons of the sites (which is what you all are doing now) and know how to protect the kids that come into the library. I've gotta say that I'm very proud of each and every one of you for going through this program! You are learning about these social networking sites so that you can be on the front lines protecting and informing our patrons!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

Wiki Week

2006-11-01T09:35:00.000-08:00

This week I learned about a number of cool things that libraries are doing with wikis. I was already familiar with the concept of wikis, but some of the very creative ideas and projects that other librarians are creating with wikis was an eye-opener. I really liked the idea of the subject guide as a wiki - that seemed to be the best way to allow multiple people to stay on top of frequently changing information like web links.

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

Lesson 5 - Wikis

2006-11-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

What did you find interesting?
I found the fact that all these libraries and librarians are really working hard to figure out how wikis can be used in all sorts of ways in the library pretty interesting. The SJCPL subject guides really knocked my socks off - the idea that any librarian can add content and any user can comment with more information or to clarify/correct information was pretty cool!

What types of applications within libraries might work well with a wiki?
Obviously, the subject guides seem to work well, and I've heard of entire library websites being built with a wiki, but I think smaller projects will work best. The concept of the staff or internal website being wiki-ized (did I just coin a word?) is pretty cool - seeing as how I set one up for us... The more people who feel empowered to add content, the better, in my opinion!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com

First Post

2006-10-24T08:35:00.000-07:00

I've created my first blog post! I'm now officially entered into the MRRL learning project!

--
Robin Hastings
robin.hastings@gmail.com