Category: Web 2.0

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). 

New Wiki

Last week I got an introduction to wikis. I’d visited wikis before but had never even considered contributing to one or starting one. I really like the editing features for group/team projects. I can see this working really well with documents that go through many changes before arriving at the finished product. I imagine that this would get more mileage than a blog–at least in the libraries where I’ve worked. For some reason, a blog seems more personal and more driven by the blog author. Wikis seem more communal.

Using Wet Paint was a little more frustrating since editing for me didn’t work well in Safari. I was able to do what I wanted when I switched to Firefox. That’s definitely a minus for me. I think I may try PB Wiki to see how it functions and whether it’s more Safari-friendly.

I will say that I definitely like the template choices for WordPress blogs better than the Wet Paint wiki templates.

The Value of Blogs in Medical Librarianship

I’ve been taking advantage of blogs in my work as a medical librarian for a while. I subscribe to quite a few and read them daily (sometimes twice daily) to keep up with what’s happening in the medical librarianship field as well as in technology advances, health policy and health reform. In the organization where I work now, there is no intranet, so a blog may not be doable unless we added one to our web site. Whether visitors to our web site would participate (or whether our own staff would participate) is another matter. Since many in the org tend to be technophobic, I know that I have to move very slowly to implement new things.