I originally created this site as a class assignment and made a few posts on topics provide by the instructor. I no longer create posts but have kept the domain. I just used it today to test how verification works on my Mastodon profile. It works! But other than that, move along. Nothing to see here.
How Hard Can It Be?
A few weeks ago a guy in the ticket line at the Spy Museum related his librarian saga to me when he found out what I did for a living. He was absolutely amazed that he didn’t meet the minimum qualifications for any of the librarian positions he had applied for because he didn’t have a MLS.
“How hard can it be?” he asked me. Right then and there, I knew exactly where he was going and decided to head off the inevitable. “You know” I said, “the people checking out the materials for you at your local library probably aren’t librarians.” “Really?” he asked. And then I launched into my usual spiel about what librarians do. Then, of course, his eyes started to glaze over….
I started to wonder just how often I’d have to repeat this conversation with people who still think that librarians only check out books.
But the other day, my son gave me reason to hope.
He’d been researching information on the Internet about which types of injuries soccer players get most often; and being a diligent librarian, I tried to give him some tips on evaluating information on the Internet. I don’t know what possessed me to ask him what I did. I think it was because he was starting to get the “here she goes again” look on his face. So I just blurted out: “Do you know what I do—what librarians do?” “Sure.” he said. “Librarians categorize books so that people can find them.”
Wow! I just knew that I was going to have to repeat my “Librarians don’t just check out books” speech. Now, I know to some librarians, his answer was woefully incomplete. But I was ecstatic that I didn’t have to give my usual spiel and subject myself to his 1000-yard stare.
All is not lost!
I made homemade cinnamon rolls for him the next morning.
Starting Over
I started this blog as a class assignment and quickly abandoned it after the class ended. Writing those few posts for was more painful than childbirth. A few short paragraphs took me hours to write.
So … now it’s two years later, and I’ve decided to give it another go. We’ll see how far I get. Can I keep it up? I don’t know; but I’m going to try.
Librarians and Privacy
Whew! I finally made it to the last post for MLA’s Web 2.0 course. It really has been a learning experience to actually play with some of the tools I’d heard about but not really used. This post is a little different in that I’ll be commenting on several posts about privacy–a topic that is especially appropriate given the news in Wired and the Washington Post about the FBI’s attempt to gain user information from the Internet Archive using a National Security Letter. The librarian blog posts about privacy are actually older posts but very much related. Jessamyn West’s blog librarian.net discusses the subject in several posts. One discusses the organization StopBadware and how it keeps Internet users informed about the badware out there that could compromise users’ privacy. I personally found out about this organization through a Google search that marked the site I was looking for as risky in some way. It was a legitimate site but must have been compromised in some way. It’s pretty scary to think that people or organizations can trace my web travels without me having any idea what’s happening. She also mentions security risks with RFID tags that are improperly deployed. Librarians really have to think through any privacy issues that could come up BEFORE introducing RFID or any new technology in the library. I agree with her that libraries should consider privacy and security as essential components of designing technology for library services.
The Annoyed Librarian makes the case that the right to publish anonymously is protected by the First Amendment. Having this provision allows the people to voice dissent without fear of retaliation. I gather from the post that Annoyed Librarian has caught a lot of flack for using a pseudonym. While I don’t agree with everything that Annoyed Librarian posts, I don’t have a problem with the pseudonym and the decision not to reveal his/her real name. And I respect the right to voice one’s opinions even if I happen to disagree.
Mashups
Today I found the most wonderful mashup through a quick search on Programmable Web. I found it by browsing the reference category. I suppose the word, FREE, caught my eye. The site is called Librarian Chick; and it’s site where you can search for free audiobooks, eBooks, and educational resources using the Google Ajax Search. I was very excited to find out about this resource, which has an incredible number of links to web sites that I’d never even heard of. I could have used this when I was subbing at my local public library branch yesterday. Someone came in looking for an audiobook of Midsummer’s Night Dream, but it was checked out. I did a search on Librarian Chick’s site and found various versions of this play for FREE! I even saw some medical library resources while I was browsing. This a a wonderful way to use this technology. And I like the fact that it seems pretty easy to be able to create a mashup. On another note, I think it’s great that people are creating mashups of PubMed/MEDLINE data. These mashups are a good way that the users themselves can get in on the action to create a tool that brings them the information they want in the way they want it.
Podcasting and YouTube
This past week I played around with podcasting and YouTube. It was really fun picking out podcasts to listen to. I subscribed to a few. I can easily see health sciences students listening to podcasted lectures or tutorials. The University of Virginia’s History of Medicine podcasts are a wonderful way to introduce listeners to the historical/cultural aspects of health and medicine. I liked the very short helpful podcasts created by the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Library as they’re good for quick reference.
YouTube was interesting to explore; but I’m not so sure if I would choose this medium over others for delivering library information or instructional-type content. I found a tutorial demonstrating searching in the Cochrane database but I found the video quality not as clear as I would like, which got worse when I enlarged the video to full screen. But I did see an old National Library of Medicine video that actually looked pretty good. And that video introduced me to a source that I’d never heard of–public.resource.org. It’s an Internet archive of government-created videos (e.g. training, history, etc.). Check it out.
Online Photo Sharing Services
This week I played around with photo sharing services. I already had accounts with Flickr and Photobucket; and since I had used Photobucket most recently to share pictures I had taken at the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, I decided to use those to upload to my Facebook account. This was a piece of cake. Uploading to this blog was a little trickier because I wanted to upload an avatar I had created to the sidebar area–not to a blog post or separate photo section of my blog. I read the help FAQs and figured out how to upload the avatar but had trouble with the alignment. I finally centered it but I’m not all that satisfied with it. But it’ll do for now.
Having photo albums online to share is a great marketing tool for libraries. In fact, a lot of libraries have photos on Flickr. It’s a wonderful way to present your library staff to current users or introduce them to potential users. The public library where I work as a part-time substitute placed a link to its Flickr account on the home page and explained that different library staff would be profiled regularly. It’s fun to get to know the people working at the library. Plus it’s a good way to show folks what the library is up to. Why not put up photos of library programs and events? It’s a very inexpensive way to market services. A friend of mine put up pictures of her library on her Facebook page. Very cool! And at one library where I worked, Facebook is a very popular site among the residents. I wonder how they would react to seeing their hospital librarians on Facebook!!
Online Web Office Applications
This past week I tried Google Apps and Zoho. I had already tried both. In Google Apps, I had used the word processing and spreadsheet programs and liked them. I tried Zoho when I was looking for an online database application, so this time I tried its presentation application. I really like the design templates that Zoho offers; however, I had a difficult time with Zoho. Using Safari, I received a warning that Zoho wasn’t compatible with my browser; but I decided to try it anyway. The templates didn’t display as shown and getting all of the tool bars to show up was impossible–even after resizing the window, the objects palette was still cut off the right side. Using Zoho in Firefox was a lot better, and I was able to view the objects palette. But the display still did some unexpected things. I liked Zoho’s look but it was frustrating to use. That was surprising to me since I had no such issues when I used Zoho’s database application.
Web-based office applications are definitely very useful for collaborating on documents, and I’ve used them to work on documents and share them with other staff. Having offline access to these documents is something that would be useful for those times that Internet access isn’t available. I’m glad that Google made this improvement.
Tagging and del.icio.us
I love this service! I’m adding links like crazy. I had heard of it before but had never used it. But it’s just what I need since my bookmarks aren’t tied to any one computer. I also have learned about other web resources by looking at other’s tags. I can see this service being used within the library among staff. But this would also be a great service for a group of people with like interests–maybe getting a group account to add links and tags for whatever topic the group is interested in.
Social Networking Sites
This past week I played with social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn). I must say, I didn’t think that I would enjoy this as much as I did. It was a lot of fun; and I even connected with friends and colleagues that I didn’t even know were using these sites!I absolutely love the library sites I visited on MySpace. If I were a teen in Denver, I would think I had the coolest public library around. Plus, I was really impressed by the number of teens who interacted with the site. The Brooklyn College Library site is cool as well.Having previously worked in a hospital library, I know that the residents use Facebook and MySpace a lot when they’re on a break. I know that there are some worries about privacy, but IT does doesn’t block those sites in the medical library. However, they are blocked in the community library (patients and visitors use this library). The medical library there has no plans to use these sites as far as I know.Where I am now, the library uses an internal wiki and has an application on Facebook that members can “subscribe” to search their database without having to leave Facebook. They really have been exploring ways to reach their users, which is great. I also like the way my professional association (Medical Library Association) has used Facebook for its annual meeting. Although I can’t go, I really liked being able to see who was going. Some people who responded also had their pictures, so I could actually put a face to names I’ve been seeing for a long time. I really liked it as a networking tool.I didn’t do much with LinkedIn. I think because I had spent so much time on Facebook and MySpace, I just got a little tired! I signed up but haven’t done much else. Overall, I’d say that it was great playing with these sites. I’m still using MySpace (I already had an account) and Facebook (I just created a photo album).
WONDERLUST 