My New Blogging Technique Is Unstoppable

Thing # 23 Is this really the end?

2008-12-02T18:37:00.004-05:00

Reflections on the 23 Things…

Try as I might it often takes more than 15 minutes (from start to finish) to put together a quality blog.

If no one is actually reading the blog perhaps I shouldn’t worry too much about quality.

At first, I thought this was geared toward those of us who hadn’t already discovered Flickr, RSS feeds, YouTube, etc. But after dropping a little bit of cynicism it was fun to jump in and get with the program.

By trying to make some blog cartoons I learned some extra stuff about downloading programs to convert images to different file formats (ex: pdf to jpg).

If we did something similar again, it would be fun to see how in depth we could go. Rather than skimming the surface by “discovering” elements of 2.0 perhaps we take more time to work toward how we can creatively apply things to our work.

I liked how the “Things” weren’t really assignments so much as discovering what you want within a certain framework.

If you take a good idea (43 Things You or I Might Want to Do This Year), refine it (boil it down to 23 Things and create learning activities), then allow others to copy and use your idea for free you end up with a very popular program. Seriously, try Googling “23 Things” and you’ll see how many libraries jumped in. Seth Godin would be proud.

Thing # 22 MOLDI

2008-12-02T17:20:00.003-05:00

When the Mid-Ohio Library Digital Initiative started there was no compatibility with iPod. So the novelty of this initiative was pretty much lost on me. I know this is Apple’s fault due to the proprietary rights they maintain on their system of digital formatting etc. I’m not laying any blame on MOLDI, but without titles for iPods there’s little incentive for me to dig deep into this system. However, a few months ago I did participate in the online tutorial so I could better help customers with questions. It turns out that there are now some titles available for download with the iPod (199 to be exact).

Trivia:

Most popular iPod compatible MOLDI download? The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card.

Least popular? The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

Thing #21 Video Killed the Radio Star

2008-12-02T15:41:00.001-05:00

Podcast - named “word of the year” in 2005 and then crushed by YouTube. Do people still podcast? Of course they do, but the idea seems quaint now. That’s not a slam on podcasts. As Triumph the Insult Comic Dog would say, “I kid…I kid…I love the podcasting.” Best podcast directory? There are sites which are designed better, but Emergency Podcast System gets my vote for the name alone.

Thing # 20 YouTube

2008-12-02T15:12:00.005-05:00

A few years ago I received a CRAZY message on my voicemail. I have had plenty of random messages from people, who just had the wrong number, but this was a phone conversation between two people I don't know and somehow my voicemail recorded the whole thing. It was such a random audio event that I saved it. After Hillary Clinton came out with her 3:00 a.m. campaign commercial last spring I found a fun way to put this voicemail to use by mashing the audio with some pictures of her and Barack Obama. It has had over 10,000 views. Not exactly a viral sensation, but not bad. If you Google “white house phone call” it’s the second link.

Thing # 19 CML’s tool box

2008-12-02T13:18:00.002-05:00

So far I have hesitated putting the CML toolbar on my browser. It’s just a personal preference about not wanting all that extra stuff in the field of view. But I’ll admit it is handy. The RSS feed that gives updates on new CML items is pretty cool. Right now it does not have any listings for DVDs. Do we not update this?

Firefox & Gmail are here. I like both of them. Gmail is especially great for saving articles that I want to keep and read later. Scan or send them to yourself with keywords in the subject line. Then later you can just do a keyword search within your Gmail box. E-mail can also be a sweet Lo-Fi database.

BoingBoing looked pretty whimsical so I took a peek. There’s an interesting article on Candy Land that begins by comparing the game to a Markov chain. Not knowing that mathematical term I had to Wiki it.

Thing #18 Web 2.0 Awards List

2008-12-02T09:58:00.003-05:00

Thing #18 Web 2.0 Awards List

The SEOmoz 2.0 awards feature one of my favorite websites: Zillow! I’ve been a Zillow addict for about a year. While looking for a house to buy, I became obsessed with local real estate. Zillow is a fun tool to compare prices and listings. Similar to Google Maps you can zoom in on and rotate satellite images.

After perusing the list some more I found a site that I’ve heard about, but hadn’t yet looked at: Backpack. Filed in the Organization category, Backpack lets you create pages of notes, lists, files, pictures, etc.

How could I use something like this?

-I’m working on a tactical plan item and there is currently a blog that was set up for sharing. The simple layout of Backpack could be a little less cumbersome than a blog.

-A coworker and I now collaborate on volunteer coordinator duties at our branch. We keep work in a shared PC file. Backpack pages are visual and you can embed different file formats (excel, word, pdf, etc.) to a page. This would be so handy!

What’s the huge drawback with this tool? It’s not FREE.

Thing #17: Web-based apps

2008-12-01T21:44:00.003-05:00

Thing #17: Web-based apps

September of 2007 was my first experience with Google Documents. They have a spreadsheet document and I played around with to see if it could be used for our branch schedule. Ultimately it didn't get used. L&P has pushed me to check out Google Docs again and they have added quite a few functions since my last visit.

One potentially useful thing will be the document templates they have on file. Just the other day I was looking for an invitation template on the microsoft website. Just about everything I found required Word 2007 and we have Word 2003 at CML. Downloading updates to make the template compatible was a big hassle so I just made a document from scratch. Next time I'll search Google Docs.

You can also post blogs via Google Docs. To experiment I typed my Thing #17 blog in Google just to see how it works. Here goes...

Things 15 & 16 Wikis

2008-12-01T20:27:00.003-05:00

Librarians are sometimes skeptical of Wikipedia (the mother of all Wikis). I have met teachers that seem to view Wikipedia with the same skepticism as many librarians. They have asked me, "What do you think of Wikipedia?" I love Wikipedia, therefore I could be convinced to be pretty fond of wikis in general. This occurred. A coworker pitched our circulation staff on the idea of using and contributing to a circulation wiki. As a sign of solidarity I made an information wiki. We used pbwiki.

For quite some time I have kept a file in our G: drive (now a V: drive for some reason) called the Information Desk Rolodex. This was an attempt to ween our staff off the practice of keeping EVERYTHING in a printed file at the desk. Having a wiki made this file better. I dumped most of these saved items in the wiki. Now my file is searchable by keyword.

Years ago I suggested that our branch obtain a scanner and software that allowed for scanning documents and tagging them with keywords to create a searchable database. Since our copiers can scan items allowing us to store things digitally we can now keep them in the wiki too. In this case a wiki can replace that database idea.

So yeah, I love wikis.

P.S. I have played in the wiki sandbox.

Thing #14 Library 2.0

2008-12-01T00:41:00.007-05:00

How 2.0 are we really?

Web 2.0 begat the concept of Library 2.0 and now I have managed to read a few articles on the topic for L&P (sources roughly cited below). Having seen Stephen Abram speak at OLC a few years ago, I figured his article would be a good place to start. He views Web 2.0 as being “about the more human aspects of interactivity…conversations, interpersonal networking, personalization, and individualism.” Michael Casey states that services must successfully reach users, be evaluated frequently, and make use of customer input to be considered Library 2.0. So if we keep these elements in mind it makes me wonder: How 2.0 are we really?

Right now I’m primarily considering our own webpage. I love how we got away from trying to be a web portal (eliminating weather and news updates which seemed to be an attempt to have the CML page replace yahoo as a one stop page for our customers). Our page is vibrant and pretty focused. Could it be more 2.0-ish? I think it could, while also admitting that I don’t know all of the technical constraints involved in changing our page. To be a little more 2.0-ish it seems like we could go further to foster interactive conversations/input from our customers and evaluate ourselves more frequently. Here are some “What If” thoughts about Library 2.0 and CML.

WHAT IF we increased the profile of our “Power Users?” We privately identity this group behind the scenes at CML. Perhaps we could pull back the curtain and allow them to make their presence public. Allow them to help shape what we are. Maybe they are self-identified. Maybe they earn a power user rating by submitting reviews to our website that are deemed helpful by others. If ebay buyers trust power sellers more, would our CML users trust reviews from our Power Users?

Speaking of reviews, WHAT IF we allowed public review and comment on titles featured on our page rather than just a star rating?

Patrons have long asked for a way to record and keep track of the books they have previously checked out and returned. LibraryThing & Shelfari have beaten us to that task. But WHAT IF we developed a widget that allowed our customers to upload the books from their CML account to their LibraryThing or Shelfari shelf? (Incidentally, I found something called LibraryThing for Libraries, but it seems to work in the opposite direction by populating library catalogs with reviews.)

WHAT IF the book of the day on our front page was actually 3 to 5 books? If the featured book doesn’t look like your cup of tea, click it to cycle through several more.

WHAT IF we had a similar featured book that was up for a whole month rather than one day? And WHAT IF we allowed users to submit potential discussion group questions? And WHAT IF we hosted several discussion groups based on customer input?

Having solid functional database sources are good. Allowing customer reviews of sources could be better. But WHAT IF we allowed customers to share their stories of how they have actually used our sources? For example, Reference USA happens to be pretty boring. One of our customers has used this for the past couple years to find old friends from his military days. After his wife passed away he used it send thank you letters to her friends that had sent flowers of condolence. WHAT IF he chose to share this and turned a boring source into a story about what we have to offer?

WHAT IF we opened up some of our organizational challenges to public suggestion? For example, a few years back a problem was posed to staff. Our online catalog was working too well. Improvements made it easier to use the catalog and place loan requests. We were being overwhelmed with incoming materials on hold. Putting books into the hands of our users was a good thing, but what about the books that were requested and never checked out? This had a negative impact on our transportation costs. The question was posed to staff: How can we encourage the public to reserve what they need but also make sure they aren’t reserving so much that it goes unused without being checked out? Why weren’t we posing this question to the public too? WHAT IF we packaged some of our tactical plan items in an online “think tank” allowing the public to submit ideas? Would we be obligated to use every idea? No. But we might find useful ideas that were overlooked by our staff.

Perhaps not all of these ideas to open up interactivity with our customers will be viable. That’s where Michael Casey’s Library 2.0 element of evaluating frequently would come in. It seems to be even more 2.0 we need to try more ideas, more often, from more sources, and evaluate these ideas often. Throw out the things that don’t work and allow the ones that do to grow.

articles read:

Web 2.0 - Huh?! Library 2.0, Librarian 2.0Stephen Abram, Information Outlook, Dec 2005

Library 2.0
Michael E. Casey & Laura C. Savastinuk, Library Journal, Sept 2006

Library 2.0: The Consumer as Producer
Beth Evans, Information Today, Oct 2008

which then led to reading:

The Long Tail
Chris Anderson, Wired, Oct 2004

The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Jeff Howe, Wired, June 2006

Thing #13 Tagging & del.icio.us

2008-11-23T22:35:00.008-05:00

I set up a del.icio.us account. Now I can keep track of all my bookmarks. The bookmark file in my computer was working fine, but that ability to tag sites and access them remotely, admittedly, is an advantage. Right now I'd rather discuss tagging and how it could be used to our advantage with our own CML catalog.

The other night I was watching PBS and caught the tail end of an interview with Magic Johnson about a new business book he has coming out (1). Since I habitually look up books and music I hear about and since it sounds like a book CML should own, I get on our website.

Doing a quick catalog search for "Magic Johnson" yielded plenty of results. Now I narrow things down to books, then non-fiction, then items from the last 3 years. Result: nothing BY Magic Johnson.

Off to amazon...Since CML seemingly does not own the book, perhaps I should get the info and make a suggestion for purchase. Amazon lists the book as, "32 Ways to Be a Champion In Business." I try the catalog a couple more times. Magic Johnson 32 ways. Nope. Magic Johnson business. Nada. So far I have been searching like most of our customers probably do, using keywords that make the most sense. Finally I try searching like a librarian. Author: Johnson, Earvin. Limit by publication year and sure enough there's the book in our catalog listings.

What is my point in describing this? Simple. The functionality of our catalog could be improved by allowing customers to create tags in our catalog. Here are the keywords that are included with the title: Success in business, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Work ethic, Social values and Earvin Johnson. Our catalogers did not include the author's nickname "Magic" in the MARC record. Like it or not, customers search our catalog in the same way they search the Internet: with prominent keywords that make the most sense to them. Before AquaBrowser I would find abandoned webpac searches all the time. "Your search did not produce any results." Something to that effect. AquaBrowser is a means of adapting to how people conduct their searches.

Wouldn't it be interesting to go one step further? Let customers add to the effectiveness of our catalog (2). What if I had been a customer at home that eventually found the catalog listing for the new book by Earvin Johnson but had the ability to tag the search record with his nickname Magic? Perhaps the next search by a customer would go smoother.

1) After his career as a basketball player Magic Johnson flirted with a career as a talkshow host. He sucked at this. However, he is a pretty savvy entrepreneur. He has thriving businesses in Los Angeles neighborhoods where others have been hesitant to invest. Movie theaters and coffee houses stand out as some of the things I've read about.

2) This has reminded me of a title I have run across at work: The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. Perhaps I'll mark this down as 'plan to read' on Shelfari.

Thing #12 Twitter

2008-11-18T15:08:00.008-05:00

My Twitter was briefly useful in documenting the incredibly stylish outfits of a man we will refer to as "Al." Al is an impeccable dresser and has been witnessed in as many as three different outfits in one day (see footnote 1). He is well known among Whetstoners and it is my hope that he will one day achieve the level of minor local celebrity (see footnote 2). Twitter's usefulness was brief due to Al being banished from the land for a total of four months (click on the above cartoon for a dramatized version of this event). The eviction was warranted. His behavior should not be encouraged. His wardrobe should.

1) The only more impressive example of such frequent wardrobe changes I have witnessed would be Prince in concert. Larry Graham & Graham Central Station opened the show and Prince sat in for most of their set which lasted about 1 1/2 hours. Then Prince performed his own headlining set for 2 1/2 hours. During his time on stage he had no less than three different outfits. Could this show have been any better? Only if he challenged me to a pick-up game of basketball and then offered to make pancakes.

2) Like Zach Allan Starkey, but different. Obviously.

Thing #11 LibraryThing/Shelfari

2008-11-14T17:30:00.019-05:00

For Thing #11 I explored LibraryThing and Shelfari. When researching these sites I found that both had received investment from online book dealers -- one from an online bookseller that specializes in used, rare and out of print books and the other from an online bookseller that offers books and pretty much everything else (see footnote 1). If you compare the composition and design of both LibraryThing and Shelfari it is easy to guess who initially backed them financially (see footnote 2).

I liked the idea of using LibraryThing, but balked at the idea of paying for the service if I cataloged over 200 books. Some co-workers use Shelfari, now I do too. Shelfari even had an option to customize my "bookshelf" with rosewood, my favorite of all woods (see footnote 3).

1) Amazon's original investment in Shelfari was $1 million and recently purchased them outright. AbeBooks was an investor in LibraryThing. The developer of LibraryThing, Tim Spalding, has been quite critical of Shelfari. (Perhaps rightly so, but to me he comes across as snarky.) Here's where the world of LibraryThing/Shelfari gets interesting. Amazon, in addition to having recently purchased Shefari, has now purchased AbeBooks. Since AbeBooks owns a 40% share of LibraryThing and Amazon just bought AbeBooks it's almost as if Amazon owns both of these competing book networks.

2) LibraryThing is quirky and esoteric. The design isn't too flashy, but they are high on substance. It's not too surprising that they found venture capital from a business specializing in used and rare books. On the other hand Shelfari is visually appealing. The layout and design contributes to its ease of use. Again, not surprising that Amazon (a retailer skilled at making things easy to find) controls Shelfari.

3) Rosewood is useful in the making of musical instruments, especially guitars. My favorite guitars, Fender Stratocasters, feature necks made of solid maple or maple with rosewood fretboards. Maple has a brighter, punchier tone. Rosewood produces a slightly warmer, more mellow tone. Emphasis is added because if you recorded two different guitars and listened back to them you might not be able to tell the difference. Rosewood fretboards feel better to me and perhaps the difference is as much psychological as it is sonic. On a side note, I have noticed that the overall quality of wood from guitars made today differs from those made even ten years ago. There is often a visible difference in the grain and darkness of materials such as rosewood. A quick ProQuest search led me to an interesting article on the topic of timber used for guitars and how manufacturers are trying to reduce their environmental impact. See: "The Future of Tonewood." Acoustic Guitar, February 1, 2008, 80-86.

Thing #10 Image Generators

2008-11-03T16:39:00.004-05:00

This was supposed to be the year for the Cubs. For the most part it was, then it wasn’t. I was at Wrigley late in the season to witness an incredible game where they came from behind in the 9th to tie, then won in the 12th. The post season was another story entirely. Oh well, like the sign says, I’ll be back for more next spring.

Things 8 & 9 RSS feeds

2008-10-31T16:50:00.007-04:00

The cartoon pretty much sums it up. After spending a little time with Bloglines it seemed too cumbersome and clunky. After hearing me complain outloud, coworker Sarah suggested Google Reader. It performs the same function as Bloglines and it’s already a part of my Gmail account. (I just hadn’t paid attention before.)

I set up a few RSS feeds on Google Reader. Currently I’m getting updates from the Chicago Cubs and two of my favorite radio programs, MarketPlace and the World Café. A story that popped up in the reader feed alerted me to a new CD out by Buddy Guy, so now I’ve got my request in.

Tribute to the Best Blog in the World (Today for Lunch...)

2008-10-07T10:25:00.008-04:00

My new blogging technique is unstoppable. However, Todd has the best blog in the world. This is just a tribute...

Thing #7 Something technology related…

2008-09-22T13:27:00.000-04:00

Technology, how we handle information, how we pass it along…it has changed quite a bit since starting this job. So I’ll share a transaction I had with a customer the other day.

Customer: Hey can you help me download a book?

Now as many of us have experienced while working with the public, oftentimes the way a customer phrases a request can be off the mark. Is he really downloading a book? Is he simply trying to place a loan request? Perhaps he found the OverDrive link from our website and really is downloading a book. What the heck, let’s jump in and see what he’s doing.

Me: I can certainly try. Are you on one of our computers? Can you show me what you’re working on?

Customer: I’m doing this for my wife. On Oprah I’m supposed to be able to download this guy’s book.

Our customer has several windows open on his desktop including Yahoo Instant Messenger and the Oprah Winfrey website.

To make a long story short, it turns out that our customer received an IM from his wife about a guest just featured on the Oprah show. Her IM states that the guest’s new book is temporarily available for download on the Oprah website. So we poke around for a minute and find the portion of the page devoted to today’s episode. Sure enough there is a link to download the featured book.

Customer: Can we save this so I can take it with me?

Me: It’s an entire book so I don’t know if the whole file can be saved to a disk.

I find an online tool to convert the file size listed in Kilobytes to Megabytes listed on the floppy disks we sell. It looks like it will work so for $1.00 he is in business. We download the book and I explain that the file is in PDF format. He’s not quite sure what that is, but assures me his wife will know and returns to his IM window to give her the details.

I remember the days of our Library Channel computers which were to be used for “information NOT communication.” Customers were to use the PCs for research and information gathering while we were somehow supposed to curtail their use of email and chat. At some point CML figured out that, for better or worse, people use computers beyond our narrow intention of having them for subject based information gathering.

We have gone from telling customers not to “chat” on our computers to having a customer responding to a real time request from his wife via IM about a book he can download and save just 5 minutes after her favorite show has gone off the air.

It used to be that our middle age to older customers needed help figuring out how to work a mouse or open an internet browser window. Now they are busy downloading books…

Thing # 6 3rd party Flickr sites

2008-09-10T10:17:00.000-04:00

Here is a fun mapping site via Flickr.
I made two maps. (Hopefully there's extra credit.)

States where I have lived:

States I have visited:

Discover Flickr -- McLovin sighting

2008-08-29T16:02:00.000-04:00

I have caught people snapping pics of my license place several times. This can be awkward if I happen to be IN the car when this occurs. Or it can be funny, like the time I came out of the bagel shop to find several guys gathered behind my car with their cell phone cameras out. "Dude...that is the funniest F#&*ing license plate!"

So I was curious if any of these pictures turned up on Flickr. I don't know Craftiestminx, but according to her post this pic made her fiance jealous.

7 1/2 Things

2008-08-26T13:23:00.000-04:00

My Learn & Play is getting off to a late start, but I'll get caught up. My impressions of the 7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learning presentation...

The narrator's voice reminded me of Paula Gloria. Awesome!
Easiest of the 7 1/2 -- Viewing Problems as Challenges -- I love a good challenge. Step back, take a deep breath, try to deconstruct the problem and find a creative solution.
Most difficult of the 7 1/2 -- Create Your Own Learning Toolbox -- To me, this involves networking and involving others in your learning. I tend to be independent to a fault. Incorporating others into my learning toolbox and asking for help is a skill I could develop.