Ups and downs on the staff elevator

The penultimate post!

2008-05-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

I'm down to the last two activities, yay! Today's activity: Netlibrary.

I realize that the signing in from a library computer has to do with licensing issues, but that meant I had to wait until I was back at work to work to do so. Aside from that it was quick and painless!

It looks like they have a pretty good selection available, although the search function seemed to lack "oomph." It works, and I've got a few books earmarked for download to my MP3 player at some future date. Right now I don't seem to have the time for listening to anything, much less audio books. But as they say, there's a first time for everything and now that I know where to find them, I'll certainly be giving them a try.

Podcasts

2008-05-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

Argh, Again with the not being on the cutting edge of technology.

I have no iPod, nor iTunes. I am a relatively unambitious listener of music, so all of these new releases and hot hot tunes on podcastalley.com mean little to me. Same for audiobooks.

Yes, I know it's "teh future", maybe, but I like reading. books.

I did manage to find an interesting physics podcast, something 'twixt an interview and a lecture here. On the winds from black holes, of all things. Ooooh, science. But otherwise... I know there are podcasts for all sorts of things, music, videos, personal trainers, etc. but I don't really see the point. I guess if you've always got your earbuds in, you need to listen to something.

Week the 10!

2008-05-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

Counting down the final stretch now! Today's activity: Youtube.

The biggest, bestest waste of bandwith ever, yay!

No, really. I don't visit Youtube very much, mostly because it doesn't play well with dialup. But I also waste enough of my time without having to watch poorly copied movies and TV shows, or "hey look at me I have a video camera!" There are a few useful how-to videos, but I'm the sort of person that learns by doing.

But I did find this gem, from "The National Clean up - Paint Up - Fix Up Bureau"

THE HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE. dun dun dun.

Basically, why your house should be clean, OR ELSE!
Suddenly, I understand the 50's cleanliness mania.

It might save you from "teh bomz!"

A thing, most useful!

2008-05-09T02:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.cocktailbuilder.com/

This was the most useful thing I could find on the 2.0 awards site. No really! Most of the winners were so specialized in areas that had absolutely no appeal to me. The ones that did, I already use. That's probably why they're winners.

But this, this is useful. No more trying to find the bar book and figure out what you can make with what you've got. There's also no danger of getting wrinkly or stuck pages if you spill something either!

Huzzah!

See what's on the slab...

2008-05-09T01:46:00.000-07:00

...Down in Google labs.

A whole lot of, shiny crap. Really. Mars maps? ...Why?
All the really useful things have made it out of the labs already, although most of the city specific widgets lack my city. The few things that actually look interesting take more bandwidth than I've got at the moment. Google accelerator, for example.
"Optimized for Cable and DSL" Of which I have neither.

On the other hand, some of the tools might be handy. If very, very specialized. The computer code search, the accessible search for the visually impaired. That one could actually be useful at the library, if it could be implemented on an institutional level.

I did play with Google trends, and sets.

Frankly, I didn't see the point. Why would I care about what people are looking for? I'm not in advertising, or the news. (not that celebrities making fools of themselves is news, but it sure was popular today) And really, what is the point of the sets? It's like the tag clouds from flickr, or clustering, only crappy. The search I tried didn't work in the small set, and was full of completely irrelevant terms in the large set. I don't see any of these making their way onto the main site anytime soon.

Again, just another example of my fuddy-duddyness. Now in my day computers were hand-cranked! and built from scraps...!

2008-05-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

Well, Here goes.

Using GoogleDocs, and trying to post to my blog. Simultaneously!

While the concept of online applications is truly interesting, I really don't see myself using any of them. Ever. The idea of being able to access my documents from anywhere is nice, but not applicable. At least, not for me. Greater than 95% of the time I spend on the computer is one my personal machine, which is where I do all my word processing, spreadsheets, and the like. The slim margin of time spent on other machines is for nothing more intensive than checking email. For me, the ability to access my documents from anywhere is a non-issue. All of my documents are in one place, true, but that place is the only place I ever need to access them from.

I can see how it might be more useful for calender and scheduling applications, but again, you need access to a computer to, well, access them. My own personal calender consists of a pad of paper. In my pocket. It's always with me, it has no turn-on lag, and the battery never dies, because there isn't one. I'm just a big fuddy-duddy, but I've already blogged about the fact that I am not always aligned with my hyper-connected information-hungry generation.

Return the blog triumphant

2008-04-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

Finally getting around to finishing week eight... Wow, that was a very long week!
Search engines used;

Yahoo-very commercial
Mooter-Interesting way of clustering by relevance/popularity
Clusty-Funny name? Plain vanilla search engine.

Search: Canon rangefinder lenses (Because I like old cameras)

I found it surprising that the top five results were so very different. There were several that were in two of the three lists, but none on all three. If I'd paid attention in math class I'd be able to tell you how many combinations that would be, but I didn't so I can't.

I really didn't like the auto-complete suggestion thing on yahoo. Too big brother-y for my taste, especially now that MS is trying to eat them up. Blergh!

On to Step... 22! (week the 9)

hee hee

2008-03-22T16:05:00.000-07:00

Found this call number while shelving in AV today

GO LONG...

Wiki me!

2008-03-20T10:49:00.001-07:00

The SLCPL wiki is now up and running, and I have graciously added my own two bits. (adjusted for inflation) This was actually quite hard, as I'm one of the newest people on staff, and am still building my knowledge of how things are done. But there is one area that I've received plenty of experience in; The Patron Question.

So's thats what I did.

I get the same questions in AV every day, so I put a few under the FAQs section. Yay me! *gold star*
I'm still working on the rest of the excercises, I'm so close to the end I can smell it! (now that I can smell again)

part 1 and a half

2008-02-27T23:54:00.000-08:00

Firstly: Yes I am aware of what time it is. Insomnia
Second: I can't stop thinking about Dr. Wendy Schultz talking about "Library 3D." Will libraries move into SecondLife? I really hope not.

Being part of the digital generation (supposedly) I know I'm supposed to love "synergistic seamless integration of digtal throughput with the analog world" or some similar nonesense. I have no Ipod, Iphone, blackberry, or any other PDA/MP3 player. I don't listen to podcasts, I don't watch Youtube. I did play with SecondLife, for a day. That's all I could stand, because it's just as boring as real life, only badly rendered. And people spend 40 hours a week at this? What would happen if they spent that time interacting with the real world?

I might as well hitch up my pants and call myself grandpa. eh eh? speak up sonny!

Week the 8th, part 1

2008-02-27T15:42:00.000-08:00

I read every one of those perspectives on library two-point-oh. As far as I can tell, everyone is really excited about 2.0 and beyond, but nobody knows what it is! Lots of buzzwords, lots of verbose ramblings about how cool it is.

But little else.

I found the ideas of library 3.0 and 4.0 to be interesting, but to me a library is about information, and books. If library 4.0 is about having a retreat from the rest of the word to read a good book.
Then I'll skip the rest and meet you there!

Week the seventh

2008-02-19T14:43:00.000-08:00

I used to travel quite a bit, but haven't for a few years. So it was interesting to see how much of the country I've been to, or through as the case may be. (I once rode greyhound from SLC to Boston, and back.)

My Visited US States

Get your own Visited US States Map from Travel Blog

If you count them up, I've hit 27 of 50. It might be fun to hit the rest, can you say "Roadtrip"? The visited countries is less impressive, as I've rarely left the states.
But here it is anyway...

create your own visited country map
or check our Venice travel guide

Only 1% of the globe, according to TravelBlog, hopefully I'll be able to change that as well.

P.S. - I didn't realize that my library trading card qualified as part of week seven. If you'd like to see it scroll down, or click here.

Library Trading Card

2008-02-15T16:19:00.001-08:00

Library Trading Card
Originally uploaded by projectbluebird

I almost forgot. I made a librarian trading card the other eve.
Here it be!

RSS madness

2008-02-15T16:02:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, I got started with RSS when firefox started bundling the BBC news. At first that's all I had, and life was good. Then I added a few webcomics that only updated occasionally.
Then came the blogs, and the bundled feeds and now I need to get rid of some, there's too many!

I can only imagine how much time I would be wasting without RSS, I use quite a bit of it already!

Week the 5th.

2008-02-12T19:12:00.001-08:00

Library
Originally uploaded by projectbluebird

Indeed, though it's been only seven days, it certainly has felt like five weeks. Now, however, we are entering a corner of cyberspace I am more than a little familiar with. Prepare to be amazed by my flickr skillz, a challenge? I laugh at challenge. Ha.

This happens to be one of my favorite photos of library square. Taken about a year ago, down in the amphitheater. I could tell you all sorts of other things about it because, not to toot my own horn or anything, heh:

I took it.

If you'd like take a look at my other flicker bits and baubles here. It's all scanned from black and white film at the moment, "'cause I don't hold no truck with this new-fangled 'digital' nonsense."
Mostly because I can't afford the digital camera I want... yet. I am always open for donations.

keep an eye out, mashups are up next on the menu that is library two point oh.

Week the fourth, redux.

2008-02-12T15:39:00.000-08:00

Finally got around to the last step, LibraryThing. This is an interesting site, and should prove fun to track what I read, because I read a LOT. Perhaps I read too much?

Impossible!

I was surprised to see that one of my favorite authors had only been added by 40 other people. Or maybe not, Richard Stark is beyond hardboiled.

Week the fourth.

2008-02-11T19:10:00.000-08:00

Glitterati>Technorati>Illuminati?

It's interesting, that even among the denizens of the blogosphere (where did that come from anyway, another folksonomy?) searching for specific information is much like using the library catalog. The same words, entered in different fields will give you very different results.
This might make searching for things difficult, unless you think just like everyone else.

On the other hand, it opens a whole new field of reasons to spend time in front of the computer.

Now for some advanced geek cred:
I claim this blog in the name of... me. Technorati Profile
...As part of my continuing mastery of library 2.0! SLCPL2.0

Even though I'm part of it now, this shirt captures my sentiments exactly.
you can get it here. You'll have to scroll down past a bunch of other delightful designs.

Myspace

2008-02-08T16:17:00.000-08:00

The deed's been done. I'm now a presence on the largest social network.

Check it out, I need friends... will you be my friend?

Week the Second

2008-02-06T15:34:00.000-08:00

Yes that's right, 2 weeks in as many days. Because Library 2.0 travels through time! Or something. We have surpassed the course though, there is no wiki to be added to. Instead, wiki-learning, with wikis! I have to admit that I've dabbled with some esoteric topics on wikipedia, but I didn't know what a wiki really was until today. It seems to me that wikis have the potential to be a double edged sword for libraries. There are some things that patrons shouldn't have, like the ability to change the catalog.
On the other hand, having a wiki dealing with library programs and events could be a very useful thing. Cest la Vie.

Our next mission, if we choose to accept it: Myspace.
Personaly, this is probably the least palatable segment of web 2.0. But I see that library 2.0 will drag me kicking and screaming to my rank amongst the cool people. whether I like it or not.

Stay tuned!

Library 2.0: Week the first.

2008-02-04T19:05:00.000-08:00

I'm a confirmed neo-luddite, so I'm having to play catch-up for Library 2.0, and it's going better than I expected. Already have a Gmail account, so I'm already halfway there! Never used blogger before, but it seems pretty self explanatory. Look ma, I'm bloggin'!

Now, on to step two!